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diff --git a/1482-0.txt b/1482-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abeb3d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/1482-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10066 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1482 *** + +MODESTE MIGNON + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley + + + + DEDICATION + + To a Polish Lady. + + Daughter of an enslaved land, angel through love, witch through + fancy, child by faith, aged by experience, man in brain, woman in + heart, giant by hope, mother through sorrows, poet in thy dreams, + --to _thee_ belongs this book, in which thy love, thy fancy, thy + experience, thy sorrow, thy hope, thy dreams, are the warp through + which is shot a woof less brilliant than the poesy of thy soul, + whose expression, when it shines upon thy countenance, is, to + those who love thee, what the characters of a lost language are to + scholars. + + De Balzac. + + + + + +MODESTE MIGNON + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE CHALET + + +At the beginning of October, 1829, Monsieur Simon Babylas Latournelle, +notary, was walking up from Havre to Ingouville, arm in arm with his +son and accompanied by his wife, at whose side the head clerk of the +lawyer’s office, a little hunchback named Jean Butscha, trotted along +like a page. When these four personages (two of whom came the same way +every evening) reached the elbow of the road where it turns back upon +itself like those called in Italy “cornice,” the notary looked about to +see if any one could overhear him either from the terrace above or +the path beneath, and when he spoke he lowered his voice as a further +precaution. + +“Exupere,” he said to his son, “you must try to carry out intelligently +a little manoeuvre which I shall explain to you, but you are not to ask +the meaning of it; and if you guess the meaning I command you to toss +it into that Styx which every lawyer and every man who expects to have +a hand in the government of his country is bound to keep within him for +the secrets of others. After you have paid your respects and compliments +to Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon, to Monsieur and Madame Dumay, and +to Monsieur Gobenheim if he is at the Chalet, and as soon as quiet +is restored, Monsieur Dumay will take you aside; you are then to look +attentively at Mademoiselle Modeste (yes, I am willing to allow it) +during the whole time he is speaking to you. My worthy friend will ask +you to go out and take a walk; at the end of an hour, that is, about +nine o’clock, you are to come back in a great hurry; try to puff as if +you were out of breath, and whisper in Monsieur Dumay’s ear, quite low, +but so that Mademoiselle Modeste is sure to overhear you, these words: +‘The young man has come.’” + +Exupere was to start the next morning for Paris to begin the study of +law. This impending departure had induced Latournelle to propose him +to his friend Dumay as an accomplice in the important conspiracy which +these directions indicate. + +“Is Mademoiselle Modeste suspected of having a lover?” asked Butscha in +a timid voice of Madame Latournelle. + +“Hush, Butscha,” she replied, taking her husband’s arm. + +Madame Latournelle, the daughter of a clerk of the supreme court, +feels that her birth authorizes her to claim issue from a parliamentary +family. This conviction explains why the lady, who is somewhat blotched +as to complexion, endeavors to assume in her own person the majesty of +a court whose decrees are recorded in her father’s pothooks. She +takes snuff, holds herself as stiff as a ramrod, poses for a person +of consideration, and resembles nothing so much as a mummy brought +momentarily to life by galvanism. She tries to give high-bred tones to +her sharp voice, and succeeds no better in doing that than in hiding +her general lack of breeding. Her social usefulness seems, however, +incontestable when we glance at the flower-bedecked cap she wears, +at the false front frizzling around her forehead, at the gowns of her +choice; for how could shopkeepers dispose of those products if there +were no Madame Latournelle? All these absurdities of the worthy woman, +who is truly pious and charitable, might have passed unnoticed, if +nature, amusing herself as she often does by turning out these ludicrous +creations, had not endowed her with the height of a drum-major, and thus +held up to view the comicalities of her provincial nature. She has +never been out of Havre; she believes in the infallibility of Havre; she +proclaims herself Norman to the very tips of her fingers; she venerates +her father, and adores her husband. + +Little Latournelle was bold enough to marry this lady after she had +attained the anti-matrimonial age of thirty-three, and what is more, he +had a son by her. As he could have got the sixty thousand francs of +her “dot” in several other ways, the public assigned his uncommon +intrepidity to a desire to escape an invasion of the Minotaur, against +whom his personal qualifications would have insufficiently protected him +had he rashly dared his fate by bringing home a young and pretty wife. +The fact was, however, that the notary recognized the really fine +qualities of Mademoiselle Agnes (she was called Agnes) and reflected to +himself that a woman’s beauty is soon past and gone to a husband. As +to the insignificant youth on whom the clerk of the court bestowed in +baptism his Norman name of “Exupere,” Madame Latournelle is still so +surprised at becoming his mother, at the age of thirty-five years and +seven months, that she would still provide him, if it were necessary, +with her breast and her milk,--an hyperbole which alone can fully +express her impassioned maternity. “How handsome he is, that son of +mine!” she says to her little friend Modeste, as they walk to church, +with the beautiful Exupere in front of them. “He is like you,” Modeste +Mignon answers, very much as she might have said, “What horrid +weather!” This silhouette of Madame Latournelle is quite important as an +accessory, inasmuch as for three years she has been the chaperone of the +young girl against whom the notary and his friend Dumay are now plotting +to set up what we have called, in the “Physiologie du Mariage,” a +“mouse-trap.” + +As for Latournelle, imagine a worthy little fellow as sly as the purest +honor and uprightness would allow him to be,--a man whom any stranger +would take for a rascal at sight of his queer physiognomy, to which, +however, the inhabitants of Havre were well accustomed. His eyesight, +said to be weak, obliged the worthy man to wear green goggles for the +protection of his eyes, which were constantly inflamed. The arch of each +eyebrow, defined by a thin down of hair, surrounded the tortoise-shell +rim of the glasses and made a couple of circles as it were, slightly +apart. If you have never observed on the human face the effect produced +by these circumferences placed one within the other, and separated by a +hollow space or line, you can hardly imagine how perplexing such a face +will be to you, especially if pale, hollow-cheeked, and terminating in a +pointed chin like that of Mephistopheles,--a type which painters give +to cats. This double resemblance was observable on the face of Babylas +Latournelle. Above the atrocious green spectacles rose a bald crown, +all the more crafty in expression because a wig, seemingly endowed with +motion, let the white hairs show on all sides of it as it meandered +crookedly across the forehead. An observer taking note of this excellent +Norman, clothed in black and mounted on his two legs like a beetle on +a couple of pins, and knowing him to be one of the most trustworthy +of men, would have sought, without finding it, for the reason of such +physical misrepresentation. + +Jean Butscha, a natural son abandoned by his parents and taken care of +by the clerk of the court and his daughter, and now, through sheer hard +work, head-clerk to the notary, fed and lodged by his master, who +gave him a salary of nine hundred francs, almost a dwarf, and with +no semblance of youth,--Jean Butscha made Modeste his idol, and would +willingly have given his life for hers. The poor fellow, whose eyes +were hollowed beneath their heavy lids like the touch-holes of a cannon, +whose head overweighted his body, with its shock of crisp hair, and +whose face was pock-marked, had lived under pitying eyes from the time +he was seven years of age. Is not that enough to explain his whole +being? Silent, self-contained, pious, exemplary in conduct, he went +his way over that vast tract of country named on the map of the heart +Love-without-Hope, the sublime and arid steppes of Desire. Modeste had +christened this grotesque little being her “Black Dwarf.” The nickname +sent him to the pages of Walter Scott’s novel, and he one day said +to Modeste: “Will you accept a rose against the evil day from your +mysterious dwarf?” Modeste instantly sent the soul of her adorer to its +humble mud-cabin with a terrible glance, such as young girls bestow +on the men who cannot please them. Butscha’s conception of himself was +lowly, and, like the wife of his master, he had never been out of Havre. + +Perhaps it will be well, for the sake of those who have never seen +that city, to say a few words as to the present destination of the +Latournelle family,--the head clerk being included in the latter term. +Ingouville is to Havre what Montmartre is to Paris,--a high hill at the +foot of which the city lies; with this difference, that the hill and the +city are surrounded by the sea and the Seine, that Havre is helplessly +circumscribed by enclosing fortifications, and, in short, that the mouth +of the river, the harbor, and the docks present a very different aspect +from the fifty thousand houses of Paris. At the foot of Montmartre an +ocean of slate roofs lies in motionless blue billows; at Ingouville the +sea is like the same roofs stirred by the wind. This eminence, or line +of hills, which coasts the Seine from Rouen to the seashore, leaving a +margin of valley land more or less narrow between itself and the river, +and containing in its cities, its ravines, its vales, its meadows, +veritable treasures of the picturesque, became of enormous value in +and about Ingouville, after the year 1816, the period at which the +prosperity of Havre began. This township has become since that time +the Auteuil, the Ville-d’Avray, the Montmorency, in short, the suburban +residence of the merchants of Havre. Here they build their houses on +terraces around its ampitheatre of hills, and breathe the sea air +laden with the fragrance of their splendid gardens. Here these bold +speculators cast off the burden of their counting-rooms and the +atmosphere of their city houses, which are built closely together +without open spaces, often without court-yards,--a vice of construction +with the increasing population of Havre, the inflexible line of the +fortifications, and the enlargement of the docks has forced upon them. +The result is, weariness of heart in Havre, cheerfulness and joy at +Ingouville. The law of social development has forced up the suburb of +Graville like a mushroom. It is to-day more extensive than Havre itself, +which lies at the foot of its slopes like a serpent. + +At the crest of the hill Ingouville has but one street, and (as in all +such situations) the houses which overlook the river have an immense +advantage over those on the other side of the road, whose view they +obstruct, and which present the effect of standing on tip-toe to look +over the opposing roofs. However, there exist here, as elsewhere, +certain servitudes. Some houses standing at the summit have a finer +position or possess legal rights of view which compel their opposite +neighbors to keep their buildings down to a required height. Moreover, +the openings cut in the capricious rock by roads which follow its +declensions and make the ampitheatre habitable, give vistas through +which some estates can see the city, or the river, or the sea. Instead +of rising to an actual peak, the hill ends abruptly in a cliff. At the +end of the street which follows the line of the summit, ravines appear +in which a few villages are clustered (Sainte-Adresse and two or three +other Saint-somethings) together with several creeks which murmur and +flow with the tides of the sea. These half-deserted slopes of Ingouville +form a striking contrast to the terraces of fine villas which overlook +the valley of the Seine. Is the wind on this side too strong for +vegetation? Do the merchants shrink from the cost of terracing it? +However this may be, the traveller approaching Havre on a steamer is +surprised to find a barren coast and tangled gorges to the west of +Ingouville, like a beggar in rags beside a perfumed and sumptuously +apparelled rich man. + +In 1829 one of the last houses looking toward the sea, and which in +all probability stands about the centre of the Ingouville to-day, was +called, and perhaps is still called, “the Chalet.” Originally it was a +porter’s lodge with a trim little garden in front of it. The owner of +the villa to which it belonged,--a mansion with park, gardens, aviaries, +hot-houses, and lawns--took a fancy to put the little dwelling more in +keeping with the splendor of his own abode, and he reconstructed it on +the model of an ornamental cottage. He divided this cottage from his own +lawn, which was bordered and set with flower-beds and formed the terrace +of his villa, by a low wall along which he planted a concealing hedge. +Behind the cottage (called, in spite of all his efforts to prevent it, +the Chalet) were the orchards and kitchen gardens of the villa. The +Chalet, without cows or dairy, is separated from the roadway by a wooden +fence whose palings are hidden under a luxuriant hedge. On the other +side of the road the opposite house, subject to a legal privilege, has +a similar hedge and paling, so as to leave an unobstructed view of Havre +to the Chalet. + +This little dwelling was the torment of the present proprietor of the +villa, Monsieur Vilquin; and here is the why and the wherefore. The +original creator of the villa, whose sumptuous details cry aloud, +“Behold our millions!” extended his park far into the country for the +purpose, as he averred, of getting his gardeners out of his pockets; and +so, when the Chalet was finished, none but a friend could be allowed to +inhabit it. Monsieur Mignon, the next owner of the property, was very +much attached to his cashier, Dumay, and the following history will +prove that the attachment was mutual; to him therefore he offered +the little dwelling. Dumay, a stickler for legal methods, insisted on +signing a lease for three hundred francs for twelve years, and Monsieur +Mignon willingly agreed, remarking,-- + +“My dear Dumay, remember, you have now bound yourself to live with me +for twelve years.” + +In consequence of certain events which will presently be related, the +estates of Monsieur Mignon, formerly the richest merchant in Havre, were +sold to Vilquin, one of his business competitors. In his joy at getting +possession of the celebrated villa Mignon, the latter forgot to demand +the cancelling of the lease. Dumay, anxious not to hinder the sale, +would have signed anything Vilquin required, but the sale once made, he +held to his lease like a vengeance. And there he remained, in Vilquin’s +pocket as it were; at the heart of Vilquin’s family life, observing +Vilquin, irritating Vilquin,--in short, the gadfly of all the Vilquins. +Every morning, when he looked out of his window, Vilquin felt a violent +shock of annoyance as his eye lighted on the little gem of a building, +the Chalet, which had cost sixty thousand francs and sparkled like a +ruby in the sun. That comparison is very nearly exact. The architect has +constructed the cottage of brilliant red brick pointed with white. +The window-frames are painted of a lively green, the woodwork is brown +verging on yellow. The roof overhangs by several feet. A pretty gallery, +with open-worked balustrade, surmounts the lower floor and projects +at the centre of the facade into a veranda with glass sides. The +ground-floor has a charming salon and a dining-room, separated from +each other by the landing of a staircase built of wood, designed +and decorated with elegant simplicity. The kitchen is behind the +dining-room, and the corresponding room back of the salon, formerly a +study, is now the bedroom of Monsieur and Madame Dumay. On the upper +floor the architect has managed to get two large bedrooms, each with a +dressing-room, to which the veranda serves as a salon; and above this +floor, under the eaves, which are tipped together like a couple of +cards, are two servants’ rooms with mansard roofs, each lighted by a +circular window and tolerably spacious. + +Vilquin has been petty enough to build a high wall on the side toward +the orchard and kitchen garden; and in consequence of this piece +of spite, the few square feet which the lease secured to the Chalet +resembled a Parisian garden. The out-buildings, painted in keeping +with the cottage, stood with their backs to the wall of the adjoining +property. + +The interior of this charming dwelling harmonized with its exterior. +The salon, floored entirely with iron-wood, was painted in a style that +suggested the beauties of Chinese lacquer. On black panels edged with +gold, birds of every color, foliage of impossible greens, and fantastic +oriental designs glowed and shimmered. The dining-room was entirely +sheathed in Northern woods carved and cut in open-work like the +beautiful Russian chalets. The little antechamber formed by the landing +and the well of the staircase was painted in old oak to represent Gothic +ornament. The bedrooms, hung with chintz, were charming in their costly +simplicity. The study, where the cashier and his wife now slept, was +panelled from top to bottom, on the walls and ceiling, like the cabin of +a steamboat. These luxuries of his predecessor excited Vilquin’s wrath. +He would fain have lodged his daughter and her husband in the cottage. +This desire, well known to Dumay, will presently serve to illustrate the +Breton obstinacy of the latter. + +The entrance to the Chalet is by a little trellised iron door, the +uprights of which, ending in lance-heads, show for a few inches above +the fence and its hedge. The little garden, about as wide as the more +pretentious lawn, was just now filled with flowers, roses, and dahlias +of the choicest kind, and many rare products of the hot-houses, for +(another Vilquinard grievance) the elegant little hot-house, a very whim +of a hot-house, a hot-house representing dignity and style, belonged +to the Chalet, and separated, or if you prefer, united it to the villa +Vilquin. Dumay consoled himself for the toils of business in taking care +of this hot-house, whose exotic treasures were one of Modeste’s joys. +The billiard-room of the villa Vilquin, a species of gallery, formerly +communicated through an immense aviary with this hot-house. But after +the building of the wall which deprived him of a view into the orchards, +Dumay bricked up the door of communication. “Wall for wall!” he said. + +In 1827 Vilquin offered Dumay a salary of six thousand francs, and ten +thousand more as indemnity, if he would give up the lease. The cashier +refused; though he had but three thousand francs from Gobenheim, a +former clerk of his master. Dumay was a Breton transplanted by fate into +Normandy. Imagine therefore the hatred conceived for the tenants of the +Chalet by the Norman Vilquin, a man worth three millions! What criminal +leze-million on the part of a cashier, to hold up to the eyes of such +a man the impotence of his wealth! Vilquin, whose desperation in the +matter made him the talk of Havre, had just proposed to give Dumay a +pretty house of his own, and had again been refused. Havre itself began +to grow uneasy at the man’s obstinacy, and a good many persons explained +it by the phrase, “Dumay is a Breton.” As for the cashier, he thought +Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon would be ill-lodged elsewhere. His +two idols now inhabited a temple worthy of them; the sumptuous little +cottage gave them a home, where these dethroned royalties could keep the +semblance of majesty about them,--a species of dignity usually denied to +those who have seen better days. + +Perhaps as the story goes on, the reader will not regret having learned +in advance a few particulars as to the home and the habitual companions +of Modeste Mignon, for, at her age, people and things have as much +influence upon the future life as a person’s own character,--indeed, +character often receives ineffaceable impressions from its surroundings. + + + + +CHAPTER II. A PORTRAIT FROM LIFE + + +From the manner with which the Latournelles entered the Chalet a +stranger would readily have guessed that they came there every evening. + +“Ah, you are here already,” said the notary, perceiving the young banker +Gobenheim, a connection of Gobenheim-Keller, the head of the great +banking house in Paris. + +This young man with a livid face--a blonde of the type with black eyes, +whose immovable glance has an indescribable fascination, sober in speech +as in conduct, dressed in black, lean as a consumptive, but nevertheless +vigorously framed--visited the family of his former master and the house +of his cashier less from affection than from self-interest. Here they +played whist at two sous a point; a dress-coat was not required; he +accepted no refreshment except “eau sucree,” and consequently had +no civilities to return. This apparent devotion to the Mignon family +allowed it to be supposed that Gobenheim had a heart; it also released +him from the necessity of going into the society of Havre and incurring +useless expenses, thus upsetting the orderly economy of his domestic +life. This disciple of the golden calf went to bed at half-past ten +o’clock and got up at five in the morning. Moreover, being perfectly +sure of Latournelle’s and Butscha’s discretion, he could talk over +difficult business matters, obtain the advice of the notary gratis, +and get an inkling of the real truth of the gossip of the street. This +stolid gold-glutton (the epithet is Butscha’s) belonged by nature to +the class of substances which chemistry terms absorbents. Ever since the +catastrophe of the house of Mignon, where the Kellers had placed him to +learn the principles of maritime commerce, no one at the Chalet had ever +asked him to do the smallest thing, no matter what; his reply was too +well known. The young fellow looked at Modeste precisely as he would +have looked at a cheap lithograph. + +“He’s one of the pistons of the big engine called ‘Commerce,’” said poor +Butscha, whose clever mind made itself felt occasionally by such little +sayings timidly jerked out. + +The four Latournelles bowed with the most respectful deference to an +old lady dressed in black velvet, who did not rise from the armchair in +which she was seated, for the reason that both eyes were covered with +the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon may be sketched in +one sentence. Her august countenance of the mother of a family attracted +instant notice as that of one whose irreproachable life defies the +assaults of destiny, which nevertheless makes her the target of its +arrows and a member of the unnumbered tribe of Niobes. Her blonde wig, +carefully curled and well arranged upon her head, became the cold white +face which resembled that of some burgomaster’s wife painted by Hals or +Mirevelt. The extreme neatness of her dress, the velvet boots, the lace +collar, the shawl evenly folded and put on, all bore testimony to the +solicitous care which Modeste bestowed upon her mother. + +When silence was, as the notary had predicted, restored in the pretty +salon, Modeste, sitting beside her mother, for whom she was embroidering +a kerchief, became for an instant the centre of observation. This +curiosity, barely veiled by the commonplace salutations and inquiries +of the visitors, would have revealed even to an indifferent person the +existence of the domestic plot to which Modeste was expected to fall +a victim; but Gobenheim, more than indifferent, noticed nothing, and +proceeded to light the candles on the card-table. The behavior of Dumay +made the whole scene terrifying to Butscha, to the Latournelles, and +above all to Madame Dumay, who knew her husband to be capable of firing +a pistol at Modeste’s lover as coolly as though he were a mad dog. + +After dinner that day the cashier had gone to walk followed by two +magnificent Pyrenees hounds, whom he suspected of betraying him, and +therefore left in charge of a farmer, a former tenant of Monsieur +Mignon. On his return, just before the arrival of the Latournelles, +he had taken his pistols from his bed’s head and placed them on the +chimney-piece, concealing this action from Modeste. The young girl took +no notice whatever of these preparations, singular as they were. + +Though short, thick-set, pockmarked, and speaking always in a low voice +as if listening to himself, this Breton, a former lieutenant in the +Guard, showed the evidence of such resolution, such sang-froid on his +face that throughout life, even in the army, no one had ever ventured +to trifle with him. His little eyes, of a calm blue, were like bits of +steel. His ways, the look on his face, his speech, his carriage, were +all in keeping with the short name of Dumay. His physical strength, +well-known to every one, put him above all danger of attack. He was able +to kill a man with a blow of his fist, and had performed that feat at +Bautzen, where he found himself, unarmed, face to face with a Saxon +at the rear of his company. At the present moment the usually firm +yet gentle expression of the man’s face had risen to a sort of tragic +sublimity; his lips were pale as the rest of his face, indicating a +tumult within him mastered by his Breton will; a slight sweat, which +every one noticed and guessed to be cold, moistened his brow. The notary +knew but too well that these signs might result in a drama before the +criminal courts. In fact the cashier was playing a part in connection +with Modeste Mignon, which involved to his mind sentiments of honor and +loyalty of far greater importance than mere social laws; and his present +conduct proceeded from one of those compacts which, in case disaster +came of it, could be judged only in a higher court than one of earth. +The majority of dramas lie really in the ideas which we make to +ourselves about things. Events which seem to us dramatic are nothing +more than subjects which our souls convert into tragedy or comedy +according to the bent of our characters. + +Madame Latournelle and Madame Dumay, who were appointed to watch +Modeste, had a certain assumed stiffness of demeanor and a quiver in +their voices, which the suspected party did not notice, so absorbed +was she in her embroidery. Modeste laid each thread of cotton with a +precision that would have made an ordinary workwoman desperate. Her face +expressed the pleasure she took in the smooth petals of the flower +she was working. The dwarf, seated between his mistress and Gobenheim, +restrained his emotion, trying to find means to approach Modeste and +whisper a word of warning in her ear. + +By taking a position in front of Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, with +the diabolical intelligence of conscientious duty, had isolated Modeste. +Madame Mignon, whose blindness always made her silent, was even paler +than usual, showing plainly that she was aware of the test to which +her daughter was about to be subjected. Perhaps at the last moment she +revolted from the stratagem, necessary as it might seem to her. Hence +her silence; she was weeping inwardly. Exupere, the spring of the +trap, was wholly ignorant of the piece in which he was to play a +part. Gobenheim, by reason of his character, remained in a state of +indifference equal to that displayed by Modeste. To a spectator who +understood the situation, this contrast between the ignorance of some +and the palpitating interest of others would have seemed quite poetic. +Nowadays romance-writers arrange such effects; and it is quite within +their province to do so, for nature in all ages takes the liberty to be +stronger than they. In this instance, as you will see, nature, social +nature, which is a second nature within nature, amused herself by making +truth more interesting than fiction; just as mountain torrents describe +curves which are beyond the skill of painters to convey, and accomplish +giant deeds in displacing or smoothing stones which are the wonder of +architects and sculptors. + +It was eight o’clock. At that season twilight was still shedding its +last gleams; there was not a cloud in the sky; the balmy air caressed +the earth, the flowers gave forth their fragrance, the steps of +pedestrians turning homeward sounded along the gravelly road, the sea +shone like a mirror, and there was so little wind that the wax candles +upon the card-tables sent up a steady flame, although the windows were +wide open. This salon, this evening, this dwelling--what a frame for the +portrait of the young girl whom these persons were now studying with the +profound attention of a painter in presence of the Margharita Doni, one +of the glories of the Pitti palace. Modeste,--blossom enclosed, like +that of Catullus,--was she worth all these precautions? + +You have seen the cage; behold the bird! Just twenty years of age, +slender and delicate as the sirens which English designers invent for +their “Books of Beauty,” Modeste was, like her mother before her, the +captivating embodiment of a grace too little understood in France, where +we choose to call it sentimentality, but which among German women is +the poetry of the heart coming to the surface of the being and spending +itself--in affectations if the owner is silly, in divine charms of +manner if she is “spirituelle” and intelligent. Remarkable for her pale +golden hair, Modeste belonged to the type of woman called, perhaps in +memory of Eve, the celestial blonde; whose satiny skin is like a silk +paper applied to the flesh, shuddering at the winter of a cold look, +expanding in the sunshine of a loving glance,--teaching the hand to be +jealous of the eye. Beneath her hair, which was soft and feathery and +worn in many curls, the brow, which might have been traced by a compass +so pure was its modelling, shone forth discreet, calm to placidity, +and yet luminous with thought: when and where could another be found so +transparently clear or more exquisitely smooth? It seemed, like a pearl, +to have its orient. The eyes, of a blue verging on gray and limpid +as the eyes of a child, had all the mischief, all the innocence of +childhood, and they harmonized well with the arch of the eyebrows, +faintly indicated by lines like those made with a brush on Chinese +faces. This candor of the soul was still further evidenced around the +eyes, in their corners, and about the temples, by pearly tints threaded +with blue, the special privilege of these delicate complexions. The +face, whose oval Raphael so often gave to his Madonnas, was remarkable +for the sober and virginal tone of the cheeks, soft as a Bengal rose, +upon which the long lashes of the diaphanous eyelids cast shadows that +were mingled with light. The throat, bending as she worked, too delicate +perhaps, and of milky whiteness, recalled those vanishing lines that +Leonardo loved. A few little blemishes here and there, like the patches +of the eighteenth century, proved that Modeste was indeed a child of +earth, and not a creation dreamed of in Italy by the angelic school. Her +lips, delicate yet full, were slightly mocking and somewhat sensuous; +the waist, which was supple and yet not fragile, had no terrors for +maternity, like those of girls who seek beauty by the fatal pressure of +a corset. Steel and dimity and lacings defined but did not create the +serpentine lines of the elegant figure, graceful as that of a young +poplar swaying in the wind. + +A pearl-gray dress with crimson trimmings, made with a long waist, +modestly outlined the bust and covered the shoulders, still rather thin, +with a chemisette which left nothing to view but the first curves of +the throat where it joined the shoulders. From the aspect of the young +girl’s face, at once ethereal and intelligent, where the delicacy of a +Greek nose with its rosy nostrils and firm modelling marked something +positive and defined; where the poetry enthroned upon an almost mystic +brow seemed belied at times by the pleasure-loving expression of the +mouth; where candor claimed the depths profound and varied of the +eye, and disputed them with a spirit of irony that was trained and +educated,--from all these signs an observer would have felt that this +young girl, with the keen, alert ear that waked at every sound, with +a nostril open to catch the fragrance of the celestial flower of the +Ideal, was destined to be the battle-ground of a struggle between +the poesies of the dawn and the labors of the day; between fancy +and reality, the spirit and the life. Modeste was a pure young girl, +inquisitive after knowledge, understanding her destiny, and filled with +chastity,--the Virgin of Spain rather than the Madonna of Raphael. + +She raised her head when she heard Dumay say to Exupere, “Come here, +young man.” Seeing them together in the corner of the salon she supposed +they were talking of some commission in Paris. Then she looked at +the friends who surrounded her, as if surprised by their silence, and +exclaimed in her natural manner, “Why are you not playing?”--with a +glance at the green table which the imposing Madame Latournelle called +the “altar.” + +“Yes, let us play,” said Dumay, having sent off Exupere. + +“Sit there, Butscha,” said Madame Latournelle, separating the head-clerk +from the group around Madame Mignon and her daughter by the whole width +of the table. + +“And you, come over here,” said Dumay to his wife, making her sit close +by him. + +Madame Dumay, a little American about thirty-six years of age, wiped her +eyes furtively; she adored Modeste, and feared a catastrophe. + +“You are not very lively this evening,” remarked Modeste. + +“We are playing,” said Gobenheim, sorting his cards. + +No matter how interesting this situation may appear, it can be made +still more so by explaining Dumay’s position towards Modeste. If the +brevity of this explanation makes it seem rather dry, the reader must +pardon its dryness in view of our desire to get through with these +preliminaries as speedily as possible, and the necessity of relating the +main circumstances which govern all dramas. + + + + +CHAPTER III. PRELIMINARIES + + +Jean Francois Bernard Dumay, born at Vannes, started as a soldier for +the army of Italy in 1799. His father, president of the revolutionary +tribunal of that town, had displayed so much energy in his office +that the place had become too hot to hold the son when the parent, a +pettifogging lawyer, perished on the scaffold after the ninth Thermidor. +On the death of his mother, who died of the grief this catastrophe +occasioned, Jean sold all that he possessed and rushed to Italy at the +age of twenty-two, at the very moment when our armies were beginning to +yield. On the way he met a young man in the department of Var, who +for reasons analogous to his own was in search of glory, believing a +battle-field less perilous than his own Provence. Charles Mignon, the +last scion of an ancient family, which gave its name to a street in +Paris and to a mansion built by Cardinal Mignon, had a shrewd and +calculating father, whose one idea was to save his feudal estate of La +Bastie in the Comtat from the claws of the Revolution. Like all timid +folk of that day, the Comte de La Bastie, now citizen Mignon, found it +more wholesome to cut off other people’s heads than to let his own be +cut off. The sham terrorist disappeared after the 9th Thermidor, and was +then inscribed on the list of emigres. The estate of La Bastie was sold; +the towers and bastions of the old castle were pulled down, and citizen +Mignon was soon after discovered at Orleans and put to death with his +wife and all his children except Charles, whom he had sent to find a +refuge for the family in the Upper Alps. + +Horrorstruck at the news, Charles waited for better times in a valley of +Mont Genevra; and there he remained till 1799, subsisting on a few +louis which his father had put into his hand at starting. Finally, +when twenty-three years of age, and without other fortune than his fine +presence and that southern beauty which, when it reaches perfection, +may be called sublime (of which Antinous, the favorite of Adrian, is the +type), Charles resolved to wager his Provencal audacity--taking it, like +many another youth, for a vocation--on the red cloth of war. On his +way to the base of the army at Nice he met the Breton. The pair became +intimate, partly from the contrasts in their characters; they drank from +the same cup at the wayside torrents, broke the same biscuit, and were +both made sergeants at the peace which followed the battle of Marengo. + +When the war recommenced, Charles Mignon was promoted into the cavalry +and lost sight of his comrade. In 1812 the last of the Mignon de La +Bastie was an officer of the Legion of honor and major of a regiment +of cavalry. Taken prisoner by the Russians he was sent, like so +many others, to Siberia. He made the journey in company with another +prisoner, a poor lieutenant, in whom he recognized his old friend Jean +Dumay, brave, neglected, undecorated, unhappy, like a million of other +woollen epaulets, rank and file--that canvas of men on which +Napoleon painted the picture of the Empire. While in Siberia, the +lieutenant-colonel, to kill time, taught writing and arithmetic to the +Breton, whose early education had seemed a useless waste of time to Pere +Scevola. Charles found in the old comrade of his marching days one of +those rare hearts into which a man can pour his griefs while telling his +joys. + +The young Provencal had met the fate which attends all handsome +bachelors. In 1804, at Frankfort on the Main, he was adored by Bettina +Wallenrod, only daughter of a banker, and he married her with all the +more enthusiasm because she was rich and a noted beauty, while he was +only a lieutenant with no prospects but the extremely problematical +future of a soldier of fortune of that day. Old Wallenrod, a decayed +German baron (there is always a baron in a German bank) delighted to +know that the handsome lieutenant was the sole representative of the +Mignon de La Bastie, approved the love of the blonde Bettina, whose +beauty an artist (at that time there really was one in Frankfort) had +lately painted as an ideal head of Germany. Wallenrod invested enough +money in the French funds to give his daughter thirty thousand francs a +year, and settled it on his anticipated grandsons, naming them counts of +La Bastie-Wallenrod. This “dot” made only a small hole in his cash-box, +the value of money being then very low. But the Empire, pursuing a +policy often attempted by other debtors, rarely paid its dividends; and +Charles was rather alarmed at this investment, having less faith than +his father-in-law in the imperial eagle. The phenomenon of belief, or of +admiration which is ephemeral belief, is not so easily maintained when +in close quarters with the idol. The mechanic distrusts the machine +which the traveller admires; and the officers of the army might be +called the stokers of the Napoleonic engine,--if, indeed, they were not +its fuel. + +However, the Baron Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild promised to come if +necessary to the help of the household. Charles loved Bettina Wallenrod +as much as she loved him, and that is saying a good deal; but when a +Provencal is moved to enthusiasm all his feelings and attachments are +genuine and natural. And how could he fail to adore that blonde beauty, +escaping, as it were, from the canvas of Durer, gifted with an angelic +nature and endowed with Frankfort wealth? The pair had four children, of +whom only two daughters survived at the time when he poured his griefs +into the Breton’s heart. Dumay loved these little ones without having +seen them, solely through the sympathy so well described by Charlet, +which makes a soldier the father of every child. The eldest, named +Bettina Caroline, was born in 1805; the other, Marie Modeste, in 1808. +The unfortunate lieutenant-colonel, long without tidings of these +cherished darlings, was sent, at the peace of 1814, across Russia +and Prussia on foot, accompanied by the lieutenant. No difference of +epaulets could count between the two friends, who reached Frankfort just +as Napoleon was disembarking at Cannes. + +Charles found his wife in Frankfort, in mourning for her father, who had +always idolized her and tried to keep a smile upon her lips, even by +his dying bed. Old Wallenrod was unable to survive the disasters of the +Empire. At seventy years of age he speculated in cottons, relying on the +genius of Napoleon without comprehending that genius is quite as often +beyond as at the bottom of current events. The old man had purchased +nearly as many bales of cotton as the Emperor had lost men during his +magnificent campaign in France. “I tie in goddon,” said the father to +the daughter, a father of the Goriot type, striving to quiet a grief +which distressed him. “I owe no mann anything--” and he died, still +trying to speak to his daughter in the language that she loved. + +Thankful to have saved his wife and daughters from the general +wreck, Charles Mignon returned to Paris, where the Emperor made him +lieutenant-colonel in the cuirassiers of the Guard and commander of the +Legion of honor. The colonel dreamed of being count and general +after the first victory. Alas! that hope was quenched in the blood of +Waterloo. The colonel, slightly wounded, retired to the Loire, and left +Tours before the disbandment of the army. + +In the spring of 1816 Charles sold his wife’s property out of the funds +to the amount of nearly four hundred thousand francs, intending to seek +his fortune in America, and abandon his own country where persecution +was beginning to lay a heavy hand on the soldiers of Napoleon. He went +to Havre accompanied by Dumay, whose life he had saved at Waterloo +by taking him on the crupper of his saddle in the hurly-burly of the +retreat. Dumay shared the opinions and the anxieties of his colonel; the +poor fellow idolized the two little girls and followed Charles like +a spaniel. The latter, confident that the habit of obedience, the +discipline of subordination, and the honesty and affection of the +lieutenant would make him a useful as well as a faithful retainer, +proposed to take him with him in a civil capacity. Dumay was only too +happy to be adopted into the family, to which he resolved to cling like +the mistletoe to an oak. + +While waiting for an opportunity to embark, at the same time making +choice of a ship and reflecting on the chances offered by the various +ports for which they sailed, the colonel heard much talk about the +brilliant future which the peace seemed to promise to Havre. As he +listened to these conversations among the merchants, he foresaw the +means of fortune, and without loss of time he set about making himself +the owner of landed property, a banker, and a shipping-merchant. He +bought land and houses in the town, and despatched a vessel to New York +freighted with silks purchased in Lyons at reduced prices. He sent Dumay +on the ship as his agent; and when the latter returned, after making a +double profit by the sale of the silks and the purchase of cottons at +a low valuation, he found the colonel installed with his family in +the handsomest house in the rue Royale, and studying the principles of +banking with the prodigious activity and intelligence of a native of +Provence. + +This double operation of Dumay’s was worth a fortune to the house of +Mignon. The colonel purchased the villa at Ingouville and rewarded his +agent with the gift of a modest little house in the rue Royale. The +poor toiler had brought back from New York, together with his cottons, +a pretty little wife, attracted it would seem by his French nature. Miss +Grummer was worth about four thousand dollars (twenty thousand francs), +which sum Dumay placed with his colonel, to whom he now became an alter +ego. In a short time he learned to keep his patron’s books, a science +which, to use his own expression, pertains to the sergeant-majors of +commerce. The simple-hearted soldier, whom fortune had forgotten for +twenty years, thought himself the happiest man in the world as the owner +of the little house (which his master’s liberality had furnished), with +twelve hundred francs a year from money in the funds, and a salary of +three thousand six hundred. Never in his dreams had Lieutenant Dumay +hoped for a situation so good as this; but greater still was the +satisfaction he derived from the knowledge that his lucky enterprise had +been the pivot of good fortune to the richest commercial house in Havre. + +Madame Dumay, a rather pretty little American, had the misfortune to +lose all her children at their birth; and her last confinement was so +disastrous as to deprive her of the hope of any other. She therefore +attached herself to the two little Mignons, whom Dumay himself loved, +or would have loved, even better than his own children had they lived. +Madame Dumay, whose parents were farmers accustomed to a life of +economy, was quite satisfied to receive only two thousand four hundred +francs of her own and her household expenses; so that every year Dumay +laid by two thousand and some extra hundreds with the house of Mignon. +When the yearly accounts were made up the colonel always added something +to this little store by way of acknowledging the cashier’s services, +until in 1824 the latter had a credit of fifty-eight thousand francs. In +was then that Charles Mignon, Comte de La Bastie, a title he never used, +crowned his cashier with the final happiness of residing at the Chalet, +where at the time when this story begins Madame Mignon and her daughter +were living in obscurity. + +The deplorable state of Madame Mignon’s health was caused in part by the +catastrophe to which the absence of her husband was due. Grief had taken +three years to break down the docile German woman; but it was a grief +that gnawed at her heart like a worm at the core of a sound fruit. It +is easy to reckon up its obvious causes. Two children, dying in infancy, +had a double grave in a soul that could never forget. The exile of her +husband to Siberia was to such a woman a daily death. The failure of +the rich house of Wallenrod, and the death of her father, leaving his +coffers empty, was to Bettina, then uncertain about the fate of her +husband, a terrible blow. The joy of Charles’s return came near killing +the tender German flower. After that the second fall of the Empire and +the proposed expatriation acted on her feelings like a renewed attack +of the same fever. At last, however, after ten years of continual +prosperity, the comforts of her house, which was the finest in Havre, +the dinners, balls, and fetes of a prosperous merchant, the splendors of +the villa Mignon, the unbounded respect and consideration enjoyed by her +husband, his absolute affection, giving her an unrivalled love in return +for her single-minded love for him,--all these things brought the woman +back to life. At the moment when her doubts and fears at last left her, +when she could look forward to the bright evening of her stormy life, a +hidden catastrophe, buried in the heart of the family, and of which we +shall presently make mention, came as the precursor of renewed trials. + +In January, 1826, on the day when Havre had unanimously chosen Charles +Mignon as its deputy, three letters, arriving from New York, Paris, and +London, fell with the destruction of a hammer upon the crystal palace +of his prosperity. In an instant ruin like a vulture swooped down upon +their happiness, just as the cold fell in 1812 upon the grand army in +Russia. One night sufficed Charles Mignon to decide upon his course, +and he spent it in settling his accounts with Dumay. All he owned, not +excepting his furniture, would just suffice to pay his creditors. + +“Havre shall never see me doing nothing,” said the colonel to the +lieutenant. “Dumay, I take your sixty thousand francs at six per cent.” + +“Three, my colonel.” + +“At nothing, then,” cried Mignon, peremptorily; “you shall have your +share in the profits of what I now undertake. The ‘Modeste,’ which is no +longer mine, sails to-morrow, and I sail in her. I commit to you my wife +and daughter. I shall not write. No news must be taken as good news.” + +Dumay, always subordinate, asked no questions of his colonel. “I think,” + he said to Latournelle with a knowing little glance, “that my colonel +has a plan laid out.” + +The following day at dawn he accompanied his master on board the +“Modeste” bound for Constantinople. There, on the poop of the vessel, +the Breton said to the Provencal,-- + +“What are your last commands, my colonel?” + +“That no man shall enter the Chalet,” cried the father with strong +emotion. “Dumay, guard my last child as though you were a bull-dog. +Death to the man who seduces another daughter! Fear nothing, not even +the scaffold--I will be with you.” + +“My colonel, go in peace. I understand you. You shall find Mademoiselle +Mignon on your return such as you now give her to me, or I shall be +dead. You know me, and you know your Pyrenees hounds. No man shall reach +your daughter. Forgive me for troubling you with words.” + +The two soldiers clasped arms like men who had learned to understand +each other in the solitudes of Siberia. + +On the same day the Havre “Courier” published the following terrible, +simple, energetic, and honorable notice:-- + + “The house of Charles Mignon suspends payment. But the + undersigned, assignees of the estate, undertake to pay all + liabilities. On and after this date, holders of notes may obtain + the usual discount. The sale of the landed estates will fully + cover all current indebtedness. + + “This notice is issued for the honor of the house, and to prevent + any disturbance in the money-market of this town. + + “Monsieur Charles Mignon sailed this morning on the ‘Modeste’ for + Asia Minor, leaving full powers with the undersigned to sell his + whole property, both landed and personal. + + “DUMAY, assignee of the Bank accounts, + LATOURNELLE, notary, assignee of the city and villa property, + GOBENHEIM, assignee of the commercial property.” + +Latournelle owed his prosperity to the kindness of Monsieur Mignon, +who lent him one hundred thousand francs in 1817 to buy the finest law +practice in Havre. The poor man, who had no pecuniary means, was nearly +forty years of age and saw no prospect of being other than head-clerk +for the rest of his days. He was the only man in Havre whose devotion +could be compared with Dumay’s. As for Gobenheim, he profited by the +liquidation to get a part of Monsieur Mignon’s business, which lifted +his own little bank into prominence. + +While unanimous regrets for the disaster were expressed in +counting-rooms, on the wharves, and in private houses, where praises of +a man so irreproachable, honorable, and beneficent filled every mouth, +Latournelle and Dumay, silent and active as ants, sold land, turned +property into money, paid the debts, and settled up everything. +Vilquin showed a good deal of generosity in purchasing the villa, the +town-house, and a farm; and Latournelle made the most of his liberality +by getting a good price out of him. Society wished to show civilities to +Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon; but they had already obeyed the father’s +last wishes and taken refuge in the Chalet, where they went on the very +morning of his departure, the exact hour of which had been concealed +from them. Not to be shaken in his resolution by his grief at parting, +the brave man said farewell to his wife and daughter while they slept. +Three hundred visiting cards were left at the house. A fortnight later, +just as Charles had predicted, complete forgetfulness settled down upon +the Chalet, and proved to these women the wisdom and dignity of his +command. + +Dumay sent agents to represent his master in New York, Paris, and +London, and followed up the assignments of the three banking-houses +whose failure had caused the ruin of the Havre house, thus realizing +five hundred thousand francs between 1826 and 1828, an eighth of +Charles’s whole fortune; then, according to the latter’s directions +given on the night of his departure, he sent that sum to New York +through the house of Mongenod to the credit of Monsieur Charles Mignon. +All this was done with military obedience, except in a matter of +withholding thirty thousand francs for the personal expenses of Madame +and Mademoiselle Mignon as the colonel had ordered him to do, but +which Dumay did not do. The Breton sold his own little house for twenty +thousand francs, which sum he gave to Madame Mignon, believing that the +more capital he sent to his colonel the sooner the latter would return. + +“He might perish for the want of thirty thousand francs,” Dumay remarked +to Latournelle, who bought the little house at its full value, where an +apartment was always kept ready for the inhabitants of the Chalet. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. A SIMPLE STORY + + +Such was the result to the celebrated house of Mignon at Havre of +the crisis of 1825-26, which convulsed many of the principal business +centres in Europe and caused the ruin of several Parisian bankers, among +them (as those who remember that crisis will recall) the president of +the chamber of commerce. + +We can now understand how this great disaster, coming suddenly at the +close of ten years of domestic happiness, might well have been the death +of Bettina Mignon, again separated from her husband and ignorant of his +fate,--to her as adventurous and perilous as the exile to Siberia. But +the grief which was dragging her to the grave was far other than these +visible sorrows. The caustic that was slowly eating into her heart lay +beneath a stone in the little graveyard of Ingouville, on which was +inscribed:-- + + BETTINA CAROLINE MIGNON + + Died aged twenty-two. + + Pray for her. + +This inscription is to the young girl whom it covered what many another +epitaph has been for the dead lying beneath them,--a table of contents +to a hidden book. Here is the book, in its dreadful brevity; and it will +explain the oath exacted and taken when the colonel and the lieutenant +bade each other farewell. + +A young man of charming appearance, named Charles d’Estourny, came to +Havre for the commonplace purpose of being near the sea, and there he +saw Bettina Mignon. A “soi-disant” fashionable Parisian is never without +introductions, and he was invited at the instance of a friend of the +Mignons to a fete given at Ingouville. He fell in love with Bettina and +with her fortune, and in three months he had done the work of seduction +and enticed her away. The father of a family of daughters should no more +allow a young man whom he does not know to enter his home than he should +leave books and papers lying about which he has not read. A young girl’s +innocence is like milk, which a small matter turns sour,--a clap of +thunder, an evil odor, a hot day, a mere breath. + +When Charles Mignon read his daughter’s letter of farewell he instantly +despatched Madame Dumay to Paris. The family gave out that a journey +to another climate had suddenly been advised for Caroline by their +physician; and the physician himself sustained the excuse, though unable +to prevent some gossip in the society of Havre. “Such a vigorous young +girl! with the complexion of a Spaniard, and that black hair!--she +consumptive!” “Yes, they say she committed some imprudence.” “Ah, ah!” + cried a Vilquin. “I am told she came back bathed in perspiration after +riding on horseback, and drank iced water; at least, that is what Dr. +Troussenard says.” + +By the time Madame Dumay returned to Havre the catastrophe of the +failure had taken place, and society paid no further attention to the +absence of Bettina or the return of the cashier’s wife. At the beginning +of 1827 the newspapers rang with the trial of Charles d’Estourny, who +was found guilty of cheating at cards. The young corsair escaped into +foreign parts without taking thought of Mademoiselle Mignon, who was of +little value to him since the failure of the bank. Bettina heard of his +infamous desertion and of her father’s ruin almost at the same time. She +returned home struck by death, and wasted away in a short time at the +Chalet. Her death at least protected her reputation. The illness that +Monsieur Mignon alleged to be the cause of her absence, and the doctor’s +order which sent her to Nice were now generally believed. Up to the last +moment the mother hoped to save her daughter’s life. Bettina was her +darling and Modeste was the father’s. There was something touching in +the two preferences. Bettina was the image of Charles, just as Modeste +was the reproduction of her mother. Both parents continued their love +for each other in their children. Bettina, a daughter of Provence, +inherited from her father the beautiful hair, black as a raven’s wing, +which distinguishes the women of the South, the brown eye, almond-shaped +and brilliant as a star, the olive tint, the velvet skin as of some +golden fruit, the arched instep, and the Spanish waist from which the +short basque skirt fell crisply. Both mother and father were proud of +the charming contrast between the sisters. “A devil and an angel!” they +said to each other, laughing, little thinking it prophetic. + +After weeping for a month in the solitude of her chamber, where she +admitted no one, the mother came forth at last with injured eyes. Before +losing her sight altogether she persisted, against the wishes of her +friends, in visiting her daughter’s grave, on which she riveted her gaze +in contemplation. That image remained vivid in the darkness which now +fell upon her, just as the red spectrum of an object shines in our eyes +when we close them in full daylight. This terrible and double misfortune +made Dumay, not less devoted, but more anxious about Modeste, now the +only daughter of the father who was unaware of his loss. Madame Dumay, +idolizing Modeste, like other women deprived of their children, cast her +motherliness about the girl,--yet without disregarding the commands +of her husband, who distrusted female intimacies. Those commands were +brief. “If any man, of any age, or any rank,” Dumay said, “speaks to +Modeste, ogles her, makes love to her, he is a dead man. I’ll blow his +brains out and give myself to the authorities; my death may save her. If +you don’t wish to see my head cut off, do you take my place in watching +her when I am obliged to go out.” + +For the last three years Dumay had examined his pistols every night. He +seemed to have put half the burden of his oath upon the Pyrenean hounds, +two animals of uncommon sagacity. One slept inside the Chalet, the +other was stationed in a kennel which he never left, and where he never +barked; but terrible would have been the moment had the pair made their +teeth meet in some unknown adventurer. + +We can now imagine the sort of life led by mother and daughter at the +Chalet. Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, often accompanied by Gobenheim, +came to call and play whist with Dumay nearly every evening. The +conversation turned on the gossip of Havre and the petty events of +provincial life. The little company separated between nine and ten +o’clock. Modeste put her mother to bed, and together they said their +prayers, kept up each other’s courage, and talked of the dear absent +one, the husband and father. After kissing her mother for good-night, +the girl went to her own room about ten o’clock. The next morning she +prepared her mother for the day with the same care, the same prayers, +the same prattle. To her praise be it said that from the day when the +terrible infirmity deprived her mother of a sense, Modeste had been like +a servant to her, displaying at all times the same solicitude; never +wearying of the duty, never thinking it monotonous. Such constant +devotion, combined with a tenderness rare among young girls, was +thoroughly appreciated by those who witnessed it. To the Latournelle +family, and to Monsieur and Madame Dumay, Modeste was, in soul, the +pearl of price. + +On sunny days, between breakfast and dinner, Madame Mignon and Madame +Dumay took a little walk toward the sea. Modeste accompanied them, for +two arms were needed to support the blind mother. About a month before +the scene to which this explanation is a parenthesis, Madame Mignon +had taken counsel with her friends, Madame Latournelle, the notary, and +Dumay, while Madame Dumay carried Modeste in another direction for a +longer walk. + +“Listen to what I have to say,” said the blind woman. “My daughter is in +love. I feel it; I see it. A singular change has taken place within her, +and I do not see how it is that none of you have perceived it.” + +“In the name of all that’s honorable--” cried the lieutenant. + +“Don’t interrupt me, Dumay. For the last two months Modeste has taken as +much care of her personal appearance as if she expected to meet a lover. +She has grown extremely fastidious about her shoes; she wants to set off +her pretty feet; she scolds Madame Gobet, the shoemaker. It is the +same thing with her milliner. Some days my poor darling is absorbed in +thought, evidently expectant, as if waiting for some one. Her voice has +curt tones when she answers a question, as though she were interrupted +in the current of her thoughts and secret expectations. Then, if this +awaited lover has come--” + +“Good heavens!” + +“Sit down, Dumay,” said the blind woman. “Well, then Modeste is gay. Oh! +she is not gay to your sight; you cannot catch these gradations; they +are too delicate for eyes that see only the outside of nature. Her +gaiety is betrayed to me by the tones of her voice, by certain accents +which I alone can catch and understand. Modeste then, instead of sitting +still and thoughtful, gives vent to a wild, inward activity by impulsive +movements,--in short, she is happy. There is a grace, a charm in the +very ideas she utters. Ah, my friends, I know happiness as well as I +know sorrow; I know its signs. By the kiss my Modeste gives me I can +guess what is passing within her. I know whether she has received what +she was looking for, or whether she is uneasy or expectant. There are +many gradations in a kiss, even in that of an innocent young girl, and +Modeste is innocence itself; but hers is the innocence of knowledge, +not of ignorance. I may be blind, but my tenderness is all-seeing, and I +charge you to watch over my daughter.” + +Dumay, now actually ferocious, the notary, in the character of a +man bound to ferret out a mystery, Madame Latournelle, the deceived +chaperone, and Madame Dumay, alarmed for her husband’s safety, became +at once a set of spies, and Modeste from this day forth was never left +alone for an instant. Dumay passed nights under her window wrapped in +his cloak like a jealous Spaniard; but with all his military sagacity +he was unable to detect the least suspicious sign. Unless she loved the +nightingales in the villa park, or some fairy prince, Modeste could have +seen no one, and had neither given nor received a signal. Madame Dumay, +who never went to bed till she knew Modeste was asleep, watched the +road from the upper windows of the Chalet with a vigilance equal to her +husband’s. Under these eight Argus eyes the blameless child, whose +every motion was studied and analyzed, came out of the ordeal so fully +acquitted of all criminal conversation that the four friends declared +to each other privately that Madame Mignon was foolishly over-anxious. +Madame Latournelle, who always took Modeste to church and brought her +back again, was commissioned to tell the mother that she was mistaken +about her daughter. + +“Modeste,” she said, “is a young girl of very exalted ideas; she works +herself into enthusiasm for the poetry of one writer or the prose of +another. You have only to judge by the impression made upon her by +that scaffold symphony, ‘The Last Hours of a Convict’” (the saying was +Butscha’s, who supplied wit to his benefactress with a lavish hand); +“she seemed to me all but crazy with admiration for that Monsieur Hugo. +I’m sure I don’t know where such people” (Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Byron +being _such people_ to the Madame Latournelles of the bourgeoisie) “get +their ideas. Modeste kept talking to me of Childe Harold, and as I did +not wish to get the worst of the argument I was silly enough to try +to read the thing. Perhaps it was the fault of the translator, but it +actually turned my stomach; I was dazed; I couldn’t possibly finish it. +Why, the man talks about comparisons that howl, rocks that faint, and +waves of war! However, he is only a travelling Englishman, and we must +expect absurdities,--though his are really inexcusable. He takes you to +Spain, and sets you in the clouds above the Alps, and makes the torrents +talk, and the stars; and he says there are too many virgins! Did you +ever hear the like? Then, after Napoleon’s campaigns, the lines are full +of sonorous brass and flaming cannon-balls, rolling along from page to +page. Modeste tells me that all that bathos is put in by the translator, +and that I ought to read the book in English. But I certainly sha’n’t +learn English to read Lord Byron when I didn’t learn it to teach +Exupere. I much prefer the novels of Ducray-Dumenil to all these +English romances. I’m too good a Norman to fall in love with foreign +things,--above all when they come from England.” + +Madame Mignon, notwithstanding her melancholy, could not help smiling at +the idea of Madame Latournelle reading Childe Harold. The stern scion of +a parliamentary house accepted the smile as an approval of her doctrine. + +“And, therefore, my dear Madame Mignon,” she went on, “you have taken +Modeste’s fancies, which are nothing but the results of her reading, +for a love-affair. Remember, she is just twenty. Girls fall in love with +themselves at that age; they dress to see themselves well-dressed. I +remember I used to make my little sister, now dead, put on a man’s hat +and pretend we were monsieur and madame. You see, you had a very happy +youth in Frankfort; but let us be just,--Modeste is living here without +the slightest amusement. Although, to be sure, her every wish is +attended to, still she knows she is shut up and watched, and the life +she leads would give her no pleasure at all if it were not for the +amusement she gets out of her books. Come, don’t worry yourself; she +loves nobody but you. You ought to be very glad that she goes into these +enthusiasms for the corsairs of Byron and the heroes of Walter Scott and +your own Germans, Egmont, Goethe, Werther, Schiller, and all the other +‘ers.’” + +“Well, madame, what do you say to that?” asked Dumay, respectfully, +alarmed at Madame Mignon’s silence. + +“Modeste is not only inclined to love, but she loves some man,” answered +the mother, obstinately. + +“Madame, my life is at stake, and you must allow me--not for my sake, +but for my wife, my colonel, for all of us--to probe this matter to the +bottom, and find out whether it is the mother or the watch-dog who is +deceived.” + +“It is you who are deceived, Dumay. Ah! if I could but see my daughter!” + cried the poor woman. + +“But whom is it possible for her to love?” asked the notary. “I’ll +answer for my Exupere.” + +“It can’t be Gobenheim,” said Dumay, “for since the colonel’s departure +he has not spent nine hours a week in this house. Besides, he doesn’t +even notice Modeste--that five-franc piece of a man! His uncle +Gobenheim-Keller is all the time writing him, ‘Get rich enough to marry +a Keller.’ With that idea in his mind you may be sure he doesn’t know +which sex Modeste belongs to. No other men ever come here,--for of +course I don’t count Butscha, poor little fellow; I love him! He is your +Dumay, madame,” said the cashier to Madame Latournelle. “Butscha knows +very well that a mere glance at Modeste would cost him a Breton ducking. +Not a soul has any communication with this house. Madame Latournelle who +takes Modeste to church ever since your--your misfortune, madame, has +carefully watched her on the way and all through the service, and has +seen nothing suspicious. In short, if I must confess the truth, I have +myself raked all the paths about the house every evening for the last +month, and found no trace of footsteps in the morning.” + +“Rakes are neither costly nor difficult to handle,” remarked the +daughter of Germany. + +“But the dogs?” cried Dumay. + +“Lovers have philters even for dogs,” answered Madame Mignon. + +“If you are right, my honor is lost! I may as well blow my brains out,” + exclaimed Dumay. + +“Why so, Dumay?” said the blind woman. + +“Ah, madame, I could never meet my colonel’s eye if he did not find his +daughter--now his only daughter--as pure and virtuous as she was when +he said to me on the vessel, ‘Let no fear of the scaffold hinder you, +Dumay, if the honor of my Modeste is at stake.’” + +“Ah! I recognize you both,” said Madame Mignon in a voice of strong +emotion. + +“I’ll wager my salvation that Modeste is as pure as she was in her +cradle,” exclaimed Madame Dumay. + +“Well, I shall make certain of it,” replied her husband, “if Madame +la Comtesse will allow me to employ certain means; for old troopers +understand strategy.” + +“I will allow you to do anything that shall enlighten us, provided it +does no injury to my last child.” + +“What are you going to do, Jean?” asked Madame Dumay; “how can you +discover a young girl’s secret if she means to hide it?” + +“Obey me, all!” cried the lieutenant, “I shall need every one of you.” + +If this rapid sketch were clearly developed it would give a whole +picture of manners and customs in which many a family could recognize +the events of their own history; but it must suffice as it is to explain +the importance of the few details heretofore given about persons and +things on the memorable evening when the old soldier had made ready his +plot against the young girl, intending to wrench from the recesses of +her heart the secret of a love and a lover seen only by a blind mother. + + + + +CHAPTER V. THE PROBLEM STILL UNSOLVED + + +An hour went by in solemn stillness broken only by the cabalistic +phrases of the whist-players: “Spades!” “Trumped!” “Cut!” “How are +honors?” “Two to four.” “Whose deal?”--phrases which represent in these +days the higher emotions of the European aristocracy. Modeste continued +to work, without seeming to be surprised at her mother’s silence. +Madame Mignon’s handkerchief slipped from her lap to the floor; Butscha +precipitated himself upon it, picked it up, and as he returned it +whispered in Modeste’s ear, “Take care!” Modeste raised a pair of +wondering eyes, whose puzzled glance filled the poor cripple with joy +unspeakable. “She is not in love!” he whispered to himself, rubbing his +hands till the skin was nearly peeled off. At this moment Exupere +tore through the garden and the house, plunged into the salon like an +avalanche, and said to Dumay in an audible whisper, “The young man is +here!” Dumay sprang for his pistols and rushed out. + +“Good God! suppose he kills him!” cried Madame Dumay, bursting into +tears. + +“What is the matter?” asked Modeste, looking innocently at her friends +and not betraying the slightest fear. + +“It is all about a young man who is hanging round the house,” cried +Madame Latournelle. + +“Well!” said Modeste, “why should Dumay kill him?” + +“Sancta simplicita!” ejaculated Butscha, looking at his master as +proudly as Alexander is made to contemplate Babylon in Lebrun’s great +picture. + +“Where are you going, Modeste?” asked the mother as her daughter rose to +leave the room. + +“To get ready for your bedtime, mamma,” answered Modeste, in a voice as +pure as the tones of an instrument. + +“You haven’t paid your expenses,” said the dwarf to Dumay when he +returned. + +“Modeste is as pure as the Virgin on our altar,” cried Madame +Latournelle. + +“Good God! such excitements wear me out,” said Dumay; “and yet I’m a +strong man.” + +“May I lose that twenty-five sous if I have the slightest idea what you +are about,” remarked Gobenheim. “You seem to me to be crazy.” + +“And yet it is all about a treasure,” said Butscha, standing on tiptoe +to whisper in Gobenheim’s ear. + +“Dumay, I am sorry to say that I am still almost certain of what I told +you,” persisted Madame Mignon. + +“The burden of proof is now on you, madame,” said Dumay, calmly; “it is +for you to prove that we are mistaken.” + +Discovering that the matter in question was only Modeste’s honor, +Gobenheim took his hat, made his bow, and walked off, carrying his ten +sous with him,--there being evidently no hope of another rubber. + +“Exupere, and you too, Butscha, may leave us,” said Madame Latournelle. +“Go back to Havre; you will get there in time for the last piece at the +theatre. I’ll pay for your tickets.” + +When the four friends were alone with Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, +after looking at Dumay, who being a Breton understood the mother’s +obstinacy, and at her husband who was fingering the cards, felt herself +authorized to speak up. + +“Madame Mignon, come now, tell us what decisive thing has struck your +mind.” + +“Ah, my good friend, if you were a musician you would have heard, as I +have, the language of love that Modeste speaks.” + +The piano of the demoiselles Mignon was among the few articles of +furniture which had been moved from the town-house to the Chalet. +Modeste often conjured away her troubles by practising, without a +master. Born a musician, she played to enliven her mother. She sang +by nature, and loved the German airs which her mother taught her. From +these lessons and these attempts at self-instruction came a phenomenon +not uncommon to natures with a musical vocation; Modeste composed, as +far as a person ignorant of the laws of harmony can be said to compose, +tender little lyric melodies. Melody is to music what imagery and +sentiment are to poetry, a flower that blossoms spontaneously. +Consequently, nations have had melodies before harmony,--botany comes +later than the flower. In like manner, Modeste, who knew nothing of +the painter’s art except what she had seen her sister do in the way of +water-color, would have stood subdued and fascinated before the +pictures of Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Murillo, Rembrandt, Albert Durer, +Holbein,--in other words, before the great ideals of many lands. Lately, +for at least a month, Modeste had warbled the songs of nightingales, +musical rhapsodies whose poetry and meaning had roused the attention of +her mother, already surprised by her sudden eagerness for composition +and her fancy for putting airs into certain verses. + +“If your suspicions have no other foundation,” said Latournelle to +Madame Mignon, “I pity your susceptibilities.” + +“When a Breton girl sings,” said Dumay gloomily, “the lover is not far +off.” + +“I will let you hear Modeste when she is improvising,” said the mother, +“and you shall judge for yourselves--” + +“Poor girl!” said Madame Dumay, “If she only knew our anxiety she would +be deeply distressed; she would tell us the truth,--especially if she +thought it would save Dumay.” + +“My friends, I will question my daughter to-morrow,” said Madame Mignon; +“perhaps I shall obtain more by tenderness than you have discovered by +trickery.” + +Was the comedy of the “Fille mal Gardee” being played here,--as it is +everywhere and forever,--under the noses of these faithful spies, these +honest Bartholos, these Pyrenean hounds, without their being able to +ferret out, detect, nor even surmise the lover, the love-affair, or +the smoke of the fire? At any rate it was certainly not the result of a +struggle between the jailers and the prisoner, between the despotism of +a dungeon and the liberty of a victim,--it was simply the never-ending +repetition of the first scene played by man when the curtain of the +Creation rose; it was Eve in Paradise. + +And now, which of the two, the mother or the watch-dog, had the right of +it? + +None of the persons who were about Modeste could understand that maiden +heart--for the soul and the face we have described were in harmony. The +girl had transported her existence into another world, as much denied +and disbelieved in in these days of ours as the new world of Christopher +Columbus in the sixteenth century. Happily, she kept her own counsel, +or they would have thought her crazy. But first we must explain the +influence of the past upon her nature. + +Two events had formed the soul and developed the mind of this young +girl. Monsieur and Madame Mignon, warned by the fate that overtook +Bettina, had resolved, just before the failure, to marry Modeste. They +chose the son of a rich banker, formerly of Hamburg, but established in +Havre since 1815,--a man, moreover, who was under obligations to them. +The young man, whose name was Francois Althor, the dandy of Havre, +blessed with a certain vulgar beauty in which the middle classes +delight, well-made, well-fleshed, and with a fine complexion, abandoned +his betrothed so hastily on the day of her father’s failure that neither +Modeste nor her mother nor either of the Dumays had seen him since. +Latournelle ventured a question on the subject to Jacob Althor, the +father; but he only shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I really don’t +know what you mean.” + +This answer, told to Modeste to give her some experience of life, was +a lesson which she learned all the more readily because Latournelle +and Dumay made many and long comments on the cowardly desertion. The +daughters of Charles Mignon, like spoiled children, had all their wishes +gratified; they rode on horseback, kept their own horses and grooms, and +otherwise enjoyed a perilous liberty. Seeing herself in possession of +an official lover, Modeste had allowed Francisque to kiss her hand, and +take her by the waist to mount her. She accepted his flowers and all the +little proofs of tenderness with which it is proper to surround the +lady of our choice; she even worked him a purse, believing in such +ties,--strong indeed to noble souls, but cobwebs for the Gobenheims, the +Vilquins, and the Althors. + +Some time during the spring which followed the removal of Madame Mignon +and her daughter to the Chalet, Francisque Althor came to dine with +the Vilquins. Happening to see Modeste over the wall at the foot of the +lawn, he turned away his head. Six weeks later he married the eldest +Mademoiselle Vilquin. In this way Modeste, young, beautiful, and of high +birth, learned the lesson that for three whole months of her engagement +she had been nothing more than Mademoiselle Million. Her poverty, well +known to all, became a sentinel defending the approaches to the Chalet +fully as well as the prudence of the Latournelles or the vigilance of +Dumay. The talk of the town ran for a time on Mademoiselle Mignon’s +position only to insult her. + +“Poor girl! what will become of her?--an old maid, of course.” + +“What a fate! to have had the world at her feet; to have had the chance +to marry Francisque Althor,--and now, nobody willing to take her!” + +“After a life of luxury, to come down to such poverty--” + +And these insults were not uttered in secret or left to Modeste’s +imagination; she heard them spoken more than once by the young men and +the young women of Havre as they walked to Ingouville, and, knowing that +Madame Mignon and her daughter lived at the Chalet, talked of them as +they passed the house. Friends of the Vilquins expressed surprise that +the mother and daughter were willing to live on among the scenes of +their former splendor. From her open window behind the closed blinds +Modeste sometimes heard such insolence as this:-- + +“I am sure I can’t think how they can live there,” some one would say +as he paced the villa lawn,--perhaps to assist Vilquin in getting rid of +his tenant. + +“What do you suppose they live on? they haven’t any means of earning +money.” + +“I am told the old woman has gone blind.” + +“Is Mademoiselle Mignon still pretty? Dear me, how dashing she used to +be! Well, she hasn’t any horses now.” + +Most young girls on hearing these spiteful and silly speeches, born of +an envy that now rushed, peevish and drivelling, to avenge the past, +would have felt the blood mount to their foreheads; others would have +wept; some would have undergone spasms of anger; but Modeste smiled, as +we smile at the theatre while watching the actors. Her pride could not +descend so low as the level of such speeches. + +The other event was more serious than these mercenary meannesses. +Bettina Caroline died in the arms of her younger sister, who had nursed +her with the devotion of girlhood, and the curiosity of an untainted +imagination. In the silence of long nights the sisters exchanged many a +confidence. With what dramatic interest was poor Bettina invested in the +eyes of the innocent Modeste? Bettina knew love through sorrow only, and +she was dying of it. Among young girls every man, scoundrel though he +be, is still a lover. Passion is the one thing absolutely real in the +things of life, and it insists on its supremacy. Charles d’Estourny, +gambler, criminal, and debauchee, remained in the memory of the +sisters, the elegant Parisian of the fetes of Havre, the admired of the +womenkind. Bettina believed she had carried him off from the coquettish +Madame Vilquin, and to Modeste he was her sister’s happy lover. Such +adoration in young girls is stronger than all social condemnations. To +Bettina’s thinking, justice had been deceived; if not, how could it +have sentenced a man who had loved her for six months?--loved her to +distraction in the hidden retreat to which he had taken her,--that he +might, we may add, be at liberty to go his own way. Thus the dying girl +inoculated her sister with love. Together they talked of the great drama +which imagination enhances; and Bettina carried with her to the grave +her sister’s ignorance, leaving her, if not informed, at least thirsting +for information. + +Nevertheless, remorse had set its fangs too sharply in Bettina’s heart +not to force her to warn her sister. In the midst of her own confessions +she had preached duty and implicit obedience to Modeste. On the evening +of her death she implored her to remember the tears that soaked her +pillow, and not to imitate a conduct which even suffering could not +expiate. Bettina accused herself of bringing a curse upon the family, +and died in despair at being unable to obtain her father’s pardon. +Notwithstanding the consolations which the ministers of religion, +touched by her repentance, freely gave her, she cried in heartrending +tones with her latest breath: “Oh father! father!” “Never give your +heart without your hand,” she said to Modeste an hour before she died; +“and above all, accept no attentions from any man without telling +everything to papa and mamma.” + +These words, so earnest in their practical meaning, uttered in the hour +of death, had more effect upon Modeste than if Bettina had exacted a +solemn oath. The dying girl, farseeing as prophet, drew from beneath her +pillow a ring which she had sent by her faithful maid, Francoise Cochet, +to be engraved in Havre with these words, “Think of Bettina, 1827,” and +placed it on her sister’s finger, begging her to keep it there until +she married. Thus there had been between these two young girls a strange +commingling of bitter remorse and the artless visions of a fleeting +spring-time too early blighted by the keen north wind of desertion; yet +all their tears, regrets and memories were always subordinate to their +horror of evil. + +Nevertheless, this drama of a poor seduced sister returning to die under +a roof of elegant poverty, the failure of her father, the baseness of +her betrothed, the blindness of her mother caused by grief, had touched +the surface only of Modeste’s life, by which alone the Dumays and the +Latournelles judged her; for no devotion of friends can take the place +of a mother’s eye. The monotonous life in the dainty little Chalet, +surrounded by the choice flowers which Dumay cultivated; the family +customs, as regular as clock-work, the provincial decorum, the games +at whist while the mother knitted and the daughter sewed, the silence, +broken only by the roar of the sea in the equinoctial storms,--all this +monastic tranquillity did in fact hide an inner and tumultuous life, the +life of ideas, the life of the spiritual being. We sometimes wonder how +it is possible for young girls to do wrong; but such as do so have no +blind mother to send her plummet line of intuition to the depths of the +subterranean fancies of a virgin heart. The Dumays slept when Modeste +opened her window, as it were to watch for the passing of a man,--the +man of her dreams, the expected knight who was to mount her behind him +and ride away under the fire of Dumay’s pistols. + +During the depression caused by her sister’s death Modeste flung herself +into the practice of reading, until her mind became sodden in it. Born +to the use of two languages, she could speak and read German quite as +well as French; she had also, together with her sister, learned English +from Madame Dumay. Being very little overlooked in the matter of reading +by the people about her, who had no literary knowledge, Modeste fed her +soul on the modern masterpieces of three literatures, English, French, +and German. Lord Byron, Goethe, Schiller, Walter Scott, Hugo, Lamartine, +Crabbe, Moore, the great works of the 17th and 18th centuries, history, +drama, and fiction, from Astraea to Manon Lescaut, from Montaigne’s +Essays to Diderot, from the Fabliaux to the Nouvelle Heloise,--in short, +the thought of three lands crowded with confused images that girlish +head, august in its cold guilelessness, its native chastity, but from +which there sprang full-armed, brilliant, sincere, and strong, an +overwhelming admiration for genius. To Modeste a new book was an event; +a masterpiece that would have horrified Madame Latournelle made her +happy,--equally unhappy if the great work did not play havoc with her +heart. A lyric instinct bubbled in that girlish soul, so full of the +beautiful illusions of its youth. But of this radiant existence not a +gleam reached the surface of daily life; it escaped the ken of Dumay and +his wife and the Latournelles; the ears of the blind mother alone caught +the crackling of its flame. + +The profound disdain which Modeste now conceived for ordinary men gave +to her face a look of pride, an inexpressible untamed shyness, which +tempered her Teutonic simplicity, and accorded well with a peculiarity +of her head. The hair growing in a point above the forehead seemed the +continuation of a slight line which thought had already furrowed between +the eyebrows, and made the expression of untameability perhaps a +shade too strong. The voice of this charming child, whom her father, +delighting in her wit, was wont to call his “little proverb of Solomon,” + had acquired a precious flexibility of organ through the practice of +three languages. This advantage was still further enhanced by a +natural bell-like tone both sweet and fresh, which touched the heart as +delightfully as it did the ear. If the mother could no longer see the +signs of a noble destiny upon her daughter’s brow, she could study +the transitions of her soul’s development in the accents of that voice +attuned to love. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. A MAIDEN’S FIRST ROMANCE + + +To this period of Modeste’s eager rage for reading succeeded the +exercise of a strange faculty given to vigorous imaginations,--the +power, namely, of making herself an actor in a dream-existence; of +representing to her own mind the things desired, with so vivid a +conception that they seemed actually to attain reality; in short, to +enjoy by thought,--to live out her years within her mind; to marry; +to grow old; to attend her own funeral like Charles V.; to play within +herself the comedy of life and, if need be, that of death. Modeste was +indeed playing, but all alone, the comedy of Love. She fancied herself +adored to the summit of her wishes in many an imagined phase of +social life. Sometimes as the heroine of a dark romance, she loved the +executioner, or the wretch who ended her days upon the scaffold, or, +like her sister, some Parisian youth without a penny, whose struggles +were all beneath a garret-roof. Sometimes she was Ninon, scorning men +amid continual fetes; or some applauded actress, or gay adventuress, +exhausting in her own behalf the luck of Gil Blas, or the triumphs +of Pasta, Malibran, and Florine. Then, weary of the horrors and +excitements, she returned to actual life. She married a notary, she ate +the plain brown bread of honest everyday life, she saw herself a Madame +Latournelle; she accepted a painful existence, she bore all the trials +of a struggle with fortune. After that she went back to the romances: +she was loved for her beauty; a son of a peer of France, an eccentric, +artistic young man, divined her heart, recognized the star which the +genius of a De Stael had planted on her brow. Her father returned, +possessing millions. With his permission, she put her various lovers +to certain tests (always carefully guarding her own independence); she +owned a magnificent estate and castle, servants, horses, carriages, the +choicest of everything that luxury could bestow, and kept her suitors +uncertain until she was forty years old, at which age she made her +choice. + +This edition of the Arabian Nights in a single copy lasted nearly a +year, and taught Modeste the sense of satiety through thought. She held +her life too often in her hand, she said to herself philosophically and +with too real a bitterness, too seriously, and too often, “Well, what +is it, after all?” not to have plunged to her waist in the deep disgust +which all men of genius feel when they try to complete by intense toil +the work to which they have devoted themselves. Her youth and her rich +nature alone kept Modeste at this period of her life from seeking to +enter a cloister. But this sense of satiety cast her, saturated as +she still was with Catholic spirituality, into the love of Good, the +infinite of heaven. She conceived of charity, service to others, as the +true occupation of life; but she cowered in the gloomy dreariness of +finding in it no food for the fancy that lay crouching in her heart like +an insect at the bottom of a calyx. Meanwhile she sat tranquilly sewing +garments for the children of the poor, and listening abstractedly to the +grumblings of Monsieur Latournelle when Dumay held the thirteenth card +or drew out his last trump. + +Her religious faith drove Modeste for a time into a singular track +of thought. She imagined that if she became sinless (speaking +ecclesiastically) she would attain to such a condition of sanctity that +God would hear her and accomplish her desires. “Faith,” she thought, +“can move mountains; Christ has said so. The Saviour led his apostle +upon the waters of the lake Tiberias; and I, all I ask of God is a +husband to love me; that is easier than walking upon the sea.” She +fasted through the next Lent, and did not commit a single sin; then she +said to herself that on a certain day coming out of church she should +meet a handsome young man who was worthy of her, whom her mother would +accept, and who would fall madly in love with her. When the day came on +which she had, as it were, summoned God to send her an angel, she was +persistently followed by a rather disgusting beggar; moreover, it rained +heavily, and not a single young man was in the streets. On another +occasion she went to walk on the jetty to see the English travellers +land; but each Englishman had an Englishwoman, nearly as handsome as +Modeste herself, who saw no one at all resembling a wandering Childe +Harold. Tears overcame her, as she sat down like Marius on the ruins of +her imagination. But on the day when she subpoenaed God for the third +time she firmly believed that the Elect of her dreams was within the +church, hiding, perhaps out of delicacy, behind one of the pillars, +round all of which she dragged Madame Latournelle on a tour of +inspection. After this failure, she deposed the Deity from omnipotence. +Many were her conversations with the imaginary lover, for whom she +invented questions and answers, bestowing upon him a great deal of wit +and intelligence. + +The high ambitions of her heart hidden within these romances were +the real explanation of the prudent conduct which the good people who +watched over Modeste so much admired; they might have brought her any +number of young Althors or Vilquins, and she would never have stooped to +such clowns. She wanted, purely and simply, a man of genius,--talent she +cared little for; just as a lawyer is of no account to a girl who aims +for an ambassador. Her only desire for wealth was to cast it at the feet +of her idol. Indeed, the golden background of these visions was far less +rich than the treasury of her own heart, filled with womanly delicacy; +for its dominant desire was to make some Tasso, some Milton, a +Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Murat, a Christopher Columbus happy. + +Commonplace miseries did not seriously touch this youthful soul, who +longed to extinguish the fires of the martyrs ignored and rejected in +their own day. Sometimes she imagined balms of Gilead, soothing melodies +which might have allayed the savage misanthropy of Rousseau. Or she +fancied herself the wife of Lord Byron; guessing intuitively his +contempt for the real, she made herself as fantastic as the poetry +of Manfred, and provided for his scepticism by making him a Catholic. +Modeste attributed Moliere’s melancholy to the women of the seventeenth +century. “Why is there not some one woman,” she asked herself, “loving, +beautiful, and rich, ready to stand beside each man of genius and be +his slave, like Lara, the mysterious page?” She had, as the reader +perceives, fully understood “il pianto,” which the English poet chanted +by the mouth of his Gulmare. Modeste greatly admired the behavior of +the young Englishwoman who offered herself to Crebillon, the son, who +married her. The story of Sterne and Eliza Draper was her life and her +happiness for several months. She made herself ideally the heroine of a +like romance, and many a time she rehearsed in imagination the +sublime role of Eliza. The sensibility so charmingly expressed in that +delightful correspondence filled her eyes with tears which, it is said, +were lacking in those of the wittiest of English writers. + +Modeste existed for some time on a comprehension, not only of the works, +but of the characters of her favorite authors,--Goldsmith, the author +of Obermann, Charles Nodier, Maturin. The poorest and the most suffering +among them were her deities; she guessed their trials, initiated herself +into a destitution where the thoughts of genius brooded, and poured upon +it the treasures of her heart; she fancied herself the giver of material +comfort to these great men, martyrs to their own faculty. This noble +compassion, this intuition of the struggles of toilers, this worship +of genius, are among the choicest perceptions that flutter through the +souls of women. They are, in the first place, a secret between the woman +and God, for they are hidden; in them there is nothing striking, nothing +that gratifies the vanity,--that powerful auxiliary to all action among +the French. + +Out of this third period of the development of her ideas, there came to +Modeste a passionate desire to penetrate to the heart of one of these +abnormal beings; to understand the working of the thoughts and the +hidden griefs of genius,--to know not only what it wanted but what it +was. At the period when this story begins, these vagaries of fancy, +these excursions of her soul into the void, these feelers put forth into +the darkness of the future, the impatience of an ungiven love to find +its goal, the nobility of all her thoughts of life, the decision of her +mind to suffer in a sphere of higher things rather than flounder in the +marshes of provincial life like her mother, the pledge she had made to +herself never to fail in conduct, but to respect her father’s hearth and +bring it happiness,--all this world of feeling and sentiment had lately +come to a climax and taken shape. Modeste wished to be the friend and +companion of a poet, an artist, a man in some way superior to the crowd +of men. But she intended to choose him,--not to give him her heart, her +life, her infinite tenderness freed from the trammels of passion, until +she had carefully and deeply studied him. + +She began this pretty romance by simply enjoying it. Profound +tranquillity settled down upon her soul. Her cheeks took on a soft +color; and she became the beautiful and noble image of Germany, such as +we have lately seen her, the glory of the Chalet, the pride of Madame +Latournelle and the Dumays. Modeste was living a double existence. She +performed with humble, loving care all the minute duties of the homely +life at the Chalet, using them as a rein to guide the poetry of her +ideal life, like the Carthusian monks who labor methodically on material +things to leave their souls the freer to develop in prayer. All great +minds have bound themselves to some form of mechanical toil to obtain +greater mastery of thought. Spinosa ground glasses for spectacles; Bayle +counted the tiles on the roof; Montesquieu gardened. The body being thus +subdued, the soul could spread its wings in all security. + +Madame Mignon, reading her daughter’s soul, was therefore right. Modeste +loved; she loved with that rare platonic love, so little understood, the +first illusion of a young girl, the most delicate of all sentiments, a +very dainty of the heart. She drank deep draughts from the chalice of +the unknown, the vague, the visionary. She admired the blue plumage of +the bird that sings afar in the paradise of young girls, which no hand +can touch, no gun can cover, as it flits across the sight; she loved +those magic colors, like sparkling jewels dazzling to the eye, which +youth can see, and never sees again when Reality, the hideous hag, +appears with witnesses accompanied by the mayor. To live the very poetry +of love and not to see the lover--ah, what sweet intoxication! what +visionary rapture! a chimera with flowing man and outspread wings! + +The following is the puerile and even silly event which decided the +future life of this young girl. + +Modeste happened to see in a bookseller’s window a lithographic portrait +of one of her favorites, Canalis. We all know what lies such pictures +tell,--being as they are the result of a shameless speculation, which +seizes upon the personality of celebrated individuals as if their faces +were public property. + +In this instance Canalis, sketched in a Byronic pose, was offering to +public admiration his dark locks floating in the breeze, a bare throat, +and the unfathomable brow which every bard ought to possess. Victor +Hugo’s forehead will make more persons shave their heads than the +number of incipient marshals ever killed by the glory of Napoleon. +This portrait of Canalis (poetic through mercantile necessity) caught +Modeste’s eye. The day on which it caught her eye one of Arthez’s best +books happened to be published. We are compelled to admit, though it may +be to Modeste’s injury, that she hesitated long between the illustrious +poet and the illustrious prose-writer. Which of these celebrated men was +free?--that was the question. + +Modeste began by securing the co-operation of Francoise Cochet, a maid +taken from Havre and brought back again by poor Bettina, whom Madame +Mignon and Madame Dumay now employed by the day, and who lived in Havre. +Modeste took her to her own room and assured her that she would never +cause her parents any grief, never pass the bounds of a young girl’s +propriety, and that as to Francoise herself she would be well provided +for after the return of Monsieur Mignon, on condition that she would do +a certain service and keep it an inviolable secret. What was it? Why, a +nothing--perfectly innocent. All that Modeste wanted of her accomplice +was to put certain letters into the post at Havre and to bring some +back which would be directed to herself, Francoise Cochet. The treaty +concluded, Modeste wrote a polite note to Dauriat, publisher of the +poems of Canalis, asking, in the interest of that great poet, for some +particulars about him, among others if he were married. She requested +the publisher to address his answer to Mademoiselle Francoise, “poste +restante,” Havre. + +Dauriat, incapable of taking the epistle seriously, wrote a reply in +presence of four or five journalists who happened to be in his office +at the time, each of whom added his particular stroke of wit to the +production. + + Mademoiselle,--Canalis (Baron of), Constant Cys Melchior, member + of the French Academy, born in 1800, at Canalis (Correze), five + feet four inches in height, of good standing, vaccinated, spotless + birth, has given a substitute to the conscription, enjoys perfect + health, owns a small patrimonial estate in the Correze, and wishes + to marry, but the lady must be rich. + + He beareth per pale, gules an axe or, sable three escallops + argent, surmounted by a baron’s coronet; supporters, two larches, + vert. Motto: “Or et fer” (no allusion to Ophir or auriferous). + + The original Canalis, who went to the Holy Land with the First + Crusade, is cited in the chronicles of Auvergne as being armed + with an axe on account of the family indigence, which to this day + weighs heavily on the race. This noble baron, famous for + discomfiting a vast number of infidels, died, without “or” or + “fer,” as naked as a worm, near Jerusalem, on the plains of + Ascalon, ambulances not being then invented. + + The chateau of Canalis (the domain yields a few chestnuts) + consists of two dismantled towers, united by a piece of wall + covered by a fine ivy, and is taxed at twenty-two francs. + + The undersigned (publisher) calls attention to the fact that he + pays ten thousand francs for every volume of poetry written by + Monsieur de Canalis, who does not give his shells, or his nuts + either, for nothing. + + The chanticler of the Correze lives in the rue de + Paradis-Poissoniere, number 29, which is a highly suitable + location for a poet of the angelic school. Letters must be + _post-paid_. + + Noble dames of the faubourg Saint-Germain are said to take the + path to Paradise and protect its god. The king, Charles X., thinks + so highly of this great poet as to believe him capable of + governing the country; he has lately made him officer of the + Legion of honor, and (what pays him better) president of the court + of Claims at the foreign office. These functions do not hinder + this great genius from drawing an annuity out of the fund for the + encouragement of the arts and belles letters. + + The last edition of the works of Canalis, printed on vellum, royal + 8vo, from the press of Didot, with illustrations by Bixiou, Joseph + Bridau, Schinner, Sommervieux, etc., is in five volumes, price, + nine francs post-paid. + +This letter fell like a cobble-stone on a tulip. A poet, secretary +of claims, getting a stipend in a public office, drawing an +annuity, seeking a decoration, adored by the women of the faubourg +Saint-Germain--was that the muddy minstrel lingering along the quays, +sad, dreamy, worn with toil, and re-entering his garret fraught with +poetry? However, Modeste perceived the irony of the envious bookseller, +who dared to say, “I invented Canalis; I made Nathan!” Besides, she +re-read her hero’s poems,--verses extremely seductive, insincere, and +hypocritical, which require a word of analysis, were it only to explain +her infatuation. + +Canalis may be distinguished from Lamartine, chief of the angelic +school, by a wheedling tone like that of a sick-nurse, a treacherous +sweetness, and a delightful correctness of diction. If the chief with +his strident cry is an eagle, Canalis, rose and white, is a flamingo. +In him women find the friend they seek, their interpreter, a being who +understands them, who explains them to themselves, and a safe confidant. +The wide margins given by Didot to the last edition were crowded with +Modeste’s pencilled sentiments, expressing her sympathy with this tender +and dreamy spirit. Canalis does not possess the gift of life; he cannot +breathe existence into his creations; but he knows how to calm vague +sufferings like those which assailed Modeste. He speaks to young girls +in their own language; he can allay the anguish of a bleeding wound +and lull the moans, even the sobs of woe. His gift lies not in stirring +words, nor in the remedy of strong emotions, he contents himself with +saying in harmonious tones which compel belief, “I suffer with you; I +understand you; come with me; let us weep together beside the brook, +beneath the willows.” And they follow him! They listen to his empty and +sonorous poetry like infants to a nurse’s lullaby. Canalis, like Nodier, +enchants the reader by an artlessness which is genuine in the prose +writer and artificial in the poet, by his tact, his smile, the shedding +of his rose-leaves, in short by his infantile philosophy. He imitates +so well the language of our early youth that he leads us back to +the prairie-land of our illusions. We can be pitiless to the eagles, +requiring from them the quality of the diamond, incorruptible +perfection; but as for Canalis, we take him for what he is and let the +rest go. He seems a good fellow; the affectations of the angelic school +have answered his purpose and succeeded, just as a woman succeeds when +she plays the ingenue cleverly, and simulates surprise, youth, innocence +betrayed, in short, the wounded angel. + +Modeste, recovering her first impression, renewed her confidence in +that soul, in that countenance as ravishing as the face of Bernardin de +Saint-Pierre. She paid no further attention to the publisher. And so, +about the beginning of the month of August she wrote the following +letter to this Dorat of the sacristy, who still ranks as a star of the +modern Pleiades. + + To Monsieur de Canalis,--Many a time, monsieur, I have wished to + write to you; and why? Surely you guess why,--to tell you how much + I admire your genius. Yes, I feel the need of expressing to you + the admiration of a poor country girl, lonely in her little + corner, whose only happiness is to read your thoughts. I have read + Rene, and I come to you. Sadness leads to reverie. How many other + women are sending you the homage of their secret thoughts? What + chance have I for notice among so many? This paper, filled with my + soul,--can it be more to you than the perfumed letters which + already beset you. I come to you with less grace than others, for + I wish to remain unknown and yet to receive your entire confidence + --as though you had long known me. + + Answer my letter and be friendly with me. I cannot promise to make + myself known to you, though I do not positively say I will not + some day do so. + + What shall I add? Read between the lines of this letter, monsieur, + the great effort which I am making: permit me to offer you my + hand,--that of a friend, ah! a true friend. + + Your servant, O. d’Este M. + + + P.S.--If you do me the favor to answer this letter address your + reply, if you please, to Mademoiselle F. Cochet, “poste restante,” + Havre. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. A POET OF THE ANGELIC SCHOOL + + +All young girls, romantic or otherwise, can imagine the impatience in +which Modeste lived for the next few days. The air was full of tongues +of fire. The trees were like a plumage. She was not conscious of a body; +she hovered in space, the earth melted away under her feet. Full of +admiration for the post-office, she followed her little sheet of paper +on its way; she was happy, as we all are happy at twenty years of age, +in the first exercise of our will. She was possessed, as in the middle +ages. She made pictures in her mind of the poet’s abode, of his +study; she saw him unsealing her letter; and then followed myriads of +suppositions. + +After sketching the poetry we cannot do less than give the profile of +the poet. Canalis is a short, spare man, with an air of good-breeding, a +dark-complexioned, moon-shaped face, and a rather mean head like that +of a man who has more vanity than pride. He loves luxury, rank, and +splendor. Money is of more importance to him than to most men. Proud of +his birth, even more than of his talent, he destroys the value of his +ancestors by making too much of them in the present day,--after all, +the Canalis are not Navarreins, nor Cadignans, nor Grandlieus. Nature, +however, helps him out in his pretensions. He has those eyes of Eastern +effulgence which we demand in a poet, a delicate charm of manner, and a +vibrant voice; yet a taint of natural charlatanism destroys the effect +of nearly all these advantages; he is a born comedian. If he puts +forward his well-shaped foot, it is because the attitude has become +a habit; if he uses exclamatory terms they are part of himself; if he +poses with high dramatic action he has made that deportment his second +nature. Such defects as these are not incompatible with a general +benevolence and a certain quality of errant and purely ideal chivalry, +which distinguishes the paladin from the knight. Canalis has not +devotion enough for a Don Quixote, but he has too much elevation of +thought not to put himself on the nobler side of questions and things. +His poetry, which takes the town by storm on all profitable occasions, +really injures the man as a poet; for he is not without mind, but +his talent prevents him from developing it; he is overweighted by his +reputation, and is always aiming to make himself appear greater than he +has the credit of being. Thus, as often happens, the man is entirely out +of keeping with the products of his thought. The author of these naive, +caressing, tender little lyrics, these calm idylls pure and cold as the +surface of a lake, these verses so essentially feminine, is an ambitious +little creature in a tightly buttoned frock-coat, with the air of +a diplomat seeking political influence, smelling of the musk of +aristocracy, full of pretension, thirsting for money, already spoiled by +success in two directions, and wearing the double wreath of myrtle and +of laurel. A government situation worth eight thousand francs, three +thousand francs’ annuity from the literary fund, two thousand from the +Academy, three thousand more from the paternal estate (less the taxes +and the cost of keeping it in order),--a total fixed income of fifteen +thousand francs, plus the ten thousand bought in, one year with another, +by his poetry; in all twenty-five thousand francs,--this for Modeste’s +hero was so precarious and insufficient an income that he usually spent +five or six thousand francs more every year; but the king’s privy purse +and the secret funds of the foreign office had hitherto supplied the +deficit. He wrote a hymn for the king’s coronation which earned him a +whole silver service,--having refused a sum of money on the ground that +a Canalis owed his duty to his sovereign. + +But about this time Canalis had, as the journalists say, exhausted his +budget. He felt himself unable to invent any new form of poetry; his +lyre did not have seven strings, it had one; and having played on that +one string so long, the public allowed him no other alternative but to +hang himself with it, or to hold his tongue. De Marsay, who did not +like Canalis, made a remark whose poisoned shaft touched the poet to +the quick of his vanity. “Canalis,” he said, “always reminds me of that +brave man whom Frederic the Great called up and commended after a battle +because his trumpet had never ceased tooting its one little tune.” + Canalis’s ambition was to enter political life, and he made capital of a +journey he had taken to Madrid as secretary to the embassy of the Duc +de Chaulieu, though it was really made, according to Parisian gossip, in +the capacity of “attache to the duchess.” How many times a sarcasm or a +single speech has decided the whole course of a man’s life. Colla, +the late president of the Cisalpine republic, and the best lawyer in +Piedmont, was told by a friend when he was forty years of age that +he knew nothing of botany. He was piqued, became a second Jussieu, +cultivated flowers, and compiled and published “The Flora of Piedmont,” + in Latin, a labor of ten years. “I’ll master De Marsay some of these +days!” thought the crushed poet; “after all, Canning and Chateaubriand +are both in politics.” + +Canalis would gladly have brought forth some great political poem, but +he was afraid of the French press, whose criticisms are savage upon any +writer who takes four alexandrines to express one idea. Of all the poets +of our day only three, Hugo, Theophile Gautier, and De Vigny, have been +able to win the double glory of poet and prose-writer, like Racine and +Voltaire, Moliere, and Rabelais,--a rare distinction in the literature +of France, which ought to give a man a right to the crowning title of +poet. + +So then, the bard of the faubourg Saint-Germain was doing a wise thing +in trying to house his little chariot under the protecting roof of the +present government. When he became president of the court of Claims at +the foreign office, he stood in need of a secretary,--a friend who could +take his place in various ways; cook up his interests with publishers, +see to his glory in the newspapers, help him if need be in politics,--in +short, a cat’s paw and satellite. In Paris many men of celebrity in art, +science, and literature have one or more train-bearers, captains of +the guard, chamberlains as it were, who live in the sunshine of their +presence,--aides-de-camp entrusted with delicate missions, allowing +themselves to be compromised if necessary; workers round the pedestal +of the idol; not exactly his servants, nor yet his equals; bold in +his defence, first in the breach, covering all retreats, busy with his +business, and devoted to him just so long as their illusions last, +or until the moment when they have got all they wanted. Some of these +satellites perceive the ingratitude of their great man; others feel that +they are simply made tools of; many weary of the life; very few remain +contented with that sweet equality of feeling and sentiment which is +the only reward that should be looked for in an intimacy with a superior +man,--a reward that contented Ali when Mohammed raised him to himself. + +Many of these men, misled by vanity, think themselves quite as capable +as their patron. Pure devotion, such as Modeste conceived it, without +money and without price, and more especially without hope, is rare. +Nevertheless there are Mennevals to be found, more perhaps in Paris +than elsewhere, men who value a life in the background with its peaceful +toil; these are the wandering Benedictines of our social world, which +offers them no other monastery. These brave, meek hearts live, by their +actions and in their hidden lives, the poetry that poets utter. They +are poets themselves in soul, in tenderness, in their lonely vigils and +meditations,--as truly poets as others of the name on paper, who fatten +in the fields of literature at so much a verse; like Lord Byron, like +all who live, alas, by ink, the Hippocrene water of to-day, for want of +a better. + +Attracted by the fame of Canalis, also by the prospect of political +interest, and advised thereto by Madame d’Espard, who acted in the +matter for the Duchesse de Chaulieu, a young lawyer of the court +of Claims became secretary and confidential friend of the poet, who +welcomed and petted him very much as a broker caresses his first dabbler +in the funds. The beginning of this companionship bore a very fair +resemblance to friendship. The young man had already held the same +relation to a minister, who went out of office in 1827, taking care +before he did so to appoint his young secretary to a place in the +foreign office. Ernest de La Briere, then about twenty-seven years of +age, was decorated with the Legion of honor but was without other means +than his salary; he was accustomed to the management of business and +had learned a good deal of life during his four years in a minister’s +cabinet. Kindly, amiable, and over-modest, with a heart full of pure and +sound feelings, he was averse to putting himself in the foreground. He +loved his country, and wished to serve her, but notoriety abashed him. +To him the place of secretary to a Napoleon was far more desirable +than that of the minister himself. As soon as he became the friend and +secretary of Canalis he did a great amount of labor for him, but by the +end of eighteen months he had learned to understand the barrenness of +a nature that was poetic through literary expression only. The truth of +the old proverb, “The cowl doesn’t make the monk,” is eminently shown in +literature. It is extremely rare to find among literary men a nature +and a talent that are in perfect accord. The faculties are not the man +himself. This disconnection, whose phenomena are amazing, proceeds +from an unexplored, possibly an unexplorable mystery. The brain and its +products of all kinds (for in art the hand of man is a continuation of +his brain) are a world apart, which flourishes beneath the cranium in +absolute independence of sentiments, feelings, and all that is called +virtue, the virtue of citizens, fathers, and private life. This, however +true, is not absolutely so; nothing is absolutely true of man. It is +certain that a debauched man will dissipate his talent, that a drunkard +will waste it in libations; while, on the other hand, no man can give +himself talent by wholesome living: nevertheless, it is all but proved +that Virgil, the painter of love, never loved a Dido, and that +Rousseau, the model citizen, had enough pride to had furnished forth an +aristocracy. On the other hand Raphael and Michael Angelo do present the +glorious conjunction of genius with the lines of character. Talent +in men is therefore, in all moral points, very much what beauty is in +women,--simply a promise. Let us, therefore, doubly admire the man in +whom both heart and character equal the perfection of his genius. + +When Ernest discovered within his poet an ambitious egoist, the worst +species of egoist (for there are some amiable forms of the vice), he +felt a delicacy in leaving him. Honest natures cannot easily break the +ties that bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily. The +secretary was therefore still living in domestic relations with the +poet when Modeste’s letter arrived,--in such relations, be it said, as +involved a perpetual sacrifice of his feelings. La Briere admitted the +frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before him. Moreover, +the defects of the man, who will always be considered a great poet +during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was flattered, were only +the wrong side of his brilliant qualities. Without his vanity and his +magniloquence it is possible that he might never have acquired the +sonorous elocution which is so useful and even necessary an instrument +in political life. His cold-bloodedness touched at certain points on +rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation had a lining of generosity. +Results, we must remember, are to the profit of society; motives concern +God. + +But after the arrival of Modeste’s letter Ernest deceived himself no +longer as to Canalis. The pair had just finished breakfast and were +talking together in the poet’s study, which was on the ground-floor of a +house standing back in a court-yard, and looked into a garden. + +“There!” exclaimed Canalis, “I was telling Madame de Chaulieu the +other day that I ought to bring out another poem; I knew admiration was +running short, for I have had no anonymous letters for a long time.” + +“Is it from an unknown woman?” + +“Unknown? yes!--a D’Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name.” + +Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little poem, with all its +hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste’s heart, was disdainfully +handed over, with the gesture of a spoiled dandy. + +“It is a fine thing,” said the lawyer, “to have the power to attract +such feelings; to force a poor woman to step out of the habits which +nature, education, and the world dictate to her, to break through +conventions. What privileges genius wins! A letter such as this, written +by a young girl--a genuine young girl--without hidden meanings, with +real enthusiasm--” + +“Well, what?” said Canalis. + +“Why, a man might suffer as much as Tasso and yet feel recompensed,” + cried La Briere. + +“So he might, my dear fellow, by a first letter of that kind, and even a +second; but how about the thirtieth? And suppose you find out that these +young enthusiasts are little jades? Or imagine a poet rushing along the +brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end of it an old +Englishwoman sitting on a mile-stone and offering you her hand! Or +suppose this post-office angel should really be a rather ugly girl in +quest of a husband? Ah, my boy! the effervescence then goes down.” + +“I begin to perceive,” said La Briere, smiling, “that there is something +poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling flowers.” + +“And then,” resumed Canalis, “all these women, even when they are +simple-minded, have ideals, and you can’t satisfy them. They never say +to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being; they +can’t conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a feverish +excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they want him +always grand, noble; it never occurs to them that genius is a disease, +or that Nathan lives with Florine; that D’Arthez is too fat, and Joseph +Bridau is too thin; that Beranger limps, and that their own particular +deity may have the snuffles! A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and cupid, is a +phoenix. And why should I go in search of compliments only to pull the +string of a shower-bath of horrid looks from some disillusioned female?” + +“Then the true poet,” said La Briere, “ought to remain hidden, like God, +in the centre of his worlds, and be only seen in his own creations.” + +“Glory would cost too dear in that case,” answered Canalis. “There is +some good in life. As for that letter,” he added, taking a cup of tea, +“I assure you that when a noble and beautiful woman loves a poet she +does not hide in the corner boxes, like a duchess in love with an actor; +she feels that her beauty, her fortune, her name are protection enough, +and she dares to say openly, like an epic poem: ‘I am the nymph Calypso, +enamored of Telemachus.’ Mystery and feigned names are the resources of +little minds. For my part I no longer answer masks--” + +“I should love a woman who came to seek me,” cried La Briere. “To all +you say I reply, my dear Canalis, that it cannot be an ordinary girl who +aspires to a distinguished man; such a girl has too little trust, too +much vanity; she is too faint-hearted. Only a star, a--” + +“--princess!” cried Canalis, bursting into a shout of laughter; “only a +princess can descend to him. My dear fellow, that doesn’t happen once +in a hundred years. Such a love is like that flower that blossoms every +century. Princesses, let me tell you, if they are young, rich, and +beautiful, have something else to think of; they are surrounded +like rare plants by a hedge of fools, well-bred idiots as hollow as +elder-bushes! My dream, alas! the crystal of my dream, garlanded from +hence to the Correze with roses--ah! I cannot speak of it--it is in +fragments at my feet, and has long been so. No, no, all anonymous +letters are begging letters; and what sort of begging? Write yourself to +that young woman, if you suppose her young and pretty, and you’ll find +out. There is nothing like experience. As for me, I can’t reasonably be +expected to love every woman; Apollo, at any rate he of Belvedere, is a +delicate consumptive who must take care of his health.” + +“But when a woman writes to you in this way her excuse must certainly +be in her consciousness that she is able to eclipse in tenderness and +beauty every other woman,” said Ernest, “and I should think you might +feel some curiosity--” + +“Ah,” said Canalis, “permit me, my juvenile friend, to abide by the +beautiful duchess who is all my joy.” + +“You are right, you are right!” cried Ernest. However, the young +secretary read and re-read Modeste’s letter, striving to guess the mind +of its hidden writer. + +“There is not the least fine-writing here,” he said, “she does not even +talk of your genius; she speaks to your heart. In your place I should +feel tempted by this fragrance of modesty,--this proposed agreement--” + +“Then, sign it!” cried Canalis, laughing; “answer the letter and go to +the end of the adventure yourself. You shall tell me the results three +months hence--if the affair lasts so long.” + +Four days later Modeste received the following letter, written on +extremely fine paper, protected by two envelopes, and sealed with the +arms of Canalis. + + Mademoiselle,--The admiration for fine works (allowing that my + books are such) implies something so lofty and sincere as to + protect you from all light jesting, and to justify before the + sternest judge the step you have taken in writing to me. + + But first I must thank you for the pleasure which such proofs of + sympathy afford, even though we may not merit them,--for the maker + of verses and the true poet are equally certain of the intrinsic + worth of their writings,--so readily does self-esteem lend itself + to praise. The best proof of friendship that I can give to an + unknown lady in exchange for a faith which allays the sting of + criticism, is to share with her the harvest of my own experience, + even at the risk of dispelling her most vivid illusions. + + Mademoiselle, the noblest adornment of a young girl is the flower + of a pure and saintly and irreproachable life. Are you alone in + the world? If you are, there is no need to say more. But if you + have a family, a father or a mother, think of all the sorrow that + might come to them from such a letter as yours addressed to a poet + of whom you know nothing personally. All writers are not angels; + they have many defects. Some are frivolous, heedless, foppish, + ambitious, dissipated; and, believe me, no matter how imposing + innocence may be, how chivalrous a poet is, you will meet with + many a degenerate troubadour in Paris ready to cultivate your + affection only to betray it. By such a man your letter would be + interpreted otherwise than it is by me. He would see a thought + that is not in it, which you, in your innocence, have not + suspected. There are as many natures as there are writers. I am + deeply flattered that you have judged me capable of understanding + you; but had you, perchance, fallen upon a hypocrite, a scoffer, + one whose books may be melancholy but whose life is a perpetual + carnival, you would have found as the result of your generous + imprudence an evil-minded man, the frequenter of green-rooms, + perhaps a hero of some gay resort. In the bower of clematis where + you dream of poets, can you smell the odor of the cigar which + drives all poetry from the manuscript? + + But let us look still further. How could the dreamy, solitary life + you lead, doubtless by the sea-shore, interest a poet, whose + mission it is to imagine all, and to paint all? What reality can + equal imagination? The young girls of the poets are so ideal that + no living daughter of Eve can compete with them. And now tell me, + what will you gain,--you, a young girl, brought up to be the + virtuous mother of a family,--if you learn to comprehend the + terrible agitations of a poet’s life in this dreadful capital, + which may be defined by one sentence,--the hell in which men love. + + If the desire to brighten the monotonous existence of a young girl + thirsting for knowledge has led you to take your pen in hand and + write to me, has not the step itself the appearance of + degradation? What meaning am I to give to your letter? Are you one + of a rejected caste, and do you seek a friend far away from you? + Or, are you afflicted with personal ugliness, yet feeling within + you a noble soul which can give and receive a confidence? Alas, + alas, the conclusion to be drawn is grievous. You have said too + much, or too little; you have gone too far, or not far enough. + Either let us drop this correspondence, or, if you continue it, + tell me more than in the letter you have now written me. + + But, mademoiselle, if you are young, if you are beautiful, if you + have a home, a family, if in your heart you have the precious + ointment, the spikenard, to pour out, as did Magdalene on the feet + of Jesus, let yourself be won by a man worthy of you; become what + every pure young girl should be,--a good woman, the virtuous + mother of a family. A poet is the saddest conquest that a girl can + make; he is full of vanity, full of angles that will sharply wound + a woman’s proper pride, and kill a tenderness which has no + experience of life. The wife of a poet should love him long before + she marries him; she must train herself to the charity of angels, + to their forbearance, to all the virtues of motherhood. Such + qualities, mademoiselle, are but germs in a young girl. + + Hear the whole truth,--do I not owe it to you in return for your + intoxicating flattery? If it is a glorious thing to marry a great + renown, remember also that you must soon discover a superior man + to be, in all that makes a man, like other men. He therefore + poorly realizes the hopes that attach to him as a phoenix. He + becomes like a woman whose beauty is over-praised, and of whom we + say: “I thought her far more lovely.” She has not warranted the + portrait painted by the fairy to whom I owe your letter,--the + fairy whose name is Imagination. + + Believe me, the qualities of the mind live and thrive only in a + sphere invisible, not in daily life; the wife of a poet bears the + burden; she sees the jewels manufactured, but she never wears + them. If the glory of the position fascinates you, hear me now + when I tell you that its pleasures are soon at an end. You will + suffer when you find so many asperities in a nature which, from a + distance, you thought equable, and such coldness at the shining + summit. Moreover, as women never set their feet within the world + of real difficulties, they cease to appreciate what they once + admired as soon as they think they see the inner mechanism of it. + + I close with a last thought, in which there is no disguised + entreaty; it is the counsel of a friend. The exchange of souls can + take place only between persons who are resolved to hide nothing + from each other. Would you show yourself for such as you are to an + unknown man? I dare not follow out the consequences of that idea. + + Deign to accept, mademoiselle, the homage which we owe to all + women, even those who are disguised and masked. + +So this was the letter she had worn between her flesh and her corset +above her palpitating heart throughout one whole day! For this she had +postponed the reading until the midnight hour when the household slept, +waiting for the solemn silence with the eager anxiety of an imagination +on fire! For this she had blessed the poet by anticipation, reading a +thousand letters ere she opened one,--fancying all things, except this +drop of cold water falling upon the vaporous forms of her illusion, and +dissolving them as prussic acid dissolves life. What could she do but +hide herself in her bed, blow out her candle, bury her face in the +sheets and weep? + +All this happened during the first days of July. But Modeste presently +got up, walked across the room and opened the window. She wanted air. +The fragrance of the flowers came to her with the peculiar freshness of +the odors of the night. The sea, lighted by the moon, sparkled like a +mirror. A nightingale was singing in a tree. “Ah, there is the poet!” + thought Modeste, whose anger subsided at once. Bitter reflections chased +each other through her mind. She was cut to the quick; she wished to +re-read the letter, and lit a candle; she studied the sentences so +carefully studied when written; and ended by hearing the wheezing voice +of the outer world. + +“He is right, and I am wrong,” she said to herself. “But who could ever +believe that under the starry mantle of a poet I should find nothing but +one of Moliere’s old men?” + +When a woman or young girl is taken in the act, “flagrante delicto,” she +conceives a deadly hatred to the witness, the author, or the object of +her fault. And so the true, the single-minded, the untamed and untamable +Modeste conceived within her soul an unquenchable desire to get +the better of that righteous spirit, to drive him into some fatal +inconsistency, and so return him blow for blow. This girl, this +child, as we may call her, so pure, whose head alone had been +misguided,--partly by her reading, partly by her sister’s sorrows, and +more perhaps by the dangerous meditations of her solitary life,--was +suddenly caught by a ray of sunshine flickering across her face. She had +been standing for three hours on the shores of the vast sea of Doubt. +Nights like these are never forgotten. Modeste walked straight to +her little Chinese table, a gift from her father, and wrote a letter +dictated by the infernal spirit of vengeance which palpitates in the +hearts of young girls. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. BLADE TO BLADE + + To Monsieur de Canalis: + + Monsieur,--You are certainly a great poet, and you are something + more,--an honest man. After showing such loyal frankness to a + young girl who was stepping to the verge of an abyss, have you + enough left to answer without hypocrisy or evasion the following + question? + + Would you have written the letter I now hold in answer to mine, + --would your ideas, your language have been the same,--had some + one whispered in your ear (what may prove true), Mademoiselle O. + d’Este M. has six millions and does intend to have a dunce for a + master? + + Admit the supposition for a moment. Be with me what you are with + yourself; fear nothing. I am wiser than my twenty years; nothing + that is frank can hurt you in my mind. When I have read your + confidence, if you deign to make it, you shall receive from me an + answer to your first letter. + + Having admired your talent, often so sublime, permit me to do + homage to your delicacy and your integrity, which force me to + remain always, + +Your humble servant, O. d’Este M. + + +When Ernest de La Briere had held this letter in his hands for some +little time he went to walk along the boulevards, tossed in mind like a +tiny vessel by a tempest when the wind is blowing from all points of the +compass. Most young men, specially true Parisians, would have settled +the matter in a single phrase, “The girl is a little hussy.” But for +a youth whose soul was noble and true, this attempt to put him, as it +were, upon his oath, this appeal to truth, had the power to awaken the +three judges hidden in the conscience of every man. Honor, Truth, +and Justice, getting on their feet, cried out in their several ways +energetically. + +“Ah, my dear Ernest,” said Truth, “you never would have read that lesson +to a rich heiress. No, my boy; you would have gone in hot haste to Havre +to find out if the girl were handsome, and you would have been very +unhappy indeed at her preference for genius; and if you could +have tripped up your friend and supplanted him in her affections, +Mademoiselle d’Este would have been a divinity.” + +“What?” cried Justice, “are you not always bemoaning yourselves, you +penniless men of wit and capacity, that rich girls marry beings whom you +wouldn’t take as your servants? You rail against the materialism of the +century which hastens to join wealth to wealth, and never marries some +fine young man with brains and no money to a rich girl. What an outcry +you make about it; and yet here is a young woman who revolts against +that very spirit of the age, and behold! the poet replies with a blow at +her heart!” + +“Rich or poor, young or old, ugly or handsome, the girl is right; she +has sense and judgment, she has tripped you over into the slough of +self-interest and lets you know it,” cried Honor. “She deserves an +answer, a sincere and loyal and frank answer, and, above all, the honest +expression of your thought. Examine yourself! sound your heart and purge +it of its meannesses. What would Moliere’s Alceste say?” + +And La Briere, having started from the boulevard Poissoniere, walked so +slowly, absorbed in these reflections, that he was more than an hour in +reaching the boulevard des Capucines. Then he followed the quays, which +led him to the Cour des Comptes, situated in that time close to the +Saint-Chapelle. Instead of beginning on the accounts as he should have +done, he remained at the mercy of his perplexities. + +“One thing is evident,” he said to himself; “she hasn’t six millions; +but that’s not the point--” + +Six days later, Modeste received the following letter: + + Mademoiselle,--You are not a D’Este. The name is a feigned one to + conceal your own. Do I owe the revelations which you solicit to a + person who is untruthful about herself? Question for question: Are + you of an illustrious family? or a noble family? or a middle-class + family? Undoubtedly ethics and morality cannot change; they are + one: but obligations vary in the different states of life. Just as + the sun lights up a scene diversely and produces differences which + we admire, so morality conforms social duty to rank, to position. + The peccadillo of a soldier is a crime in a general, and + vice-versa. Observances are not alike in all cases. They are not + the same for the gleaner in the field, for the girl who sews at + fifteen sous a day, for the daughter of a petty shopkeeper, for + the young bourgoise, for the child of a rich merchant, for the + heiress of a noble family, for a daughter of the house of Este. A + king must not stoop to pick up a piece of gold, but a laborer + ought to retrace his steps to find ten sous; though both are + equally bound to obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who + is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad-brimmed hat + and plume, to flourish her whip, press the flanks of her barb, and + ride like an amazon decked in gold lace, with a lackey behind her, + into the presence of a poet and say: “I love poetry; and I would + fain expiate Leonora’s cruelty to Tasso!” but a daughter of the + people would cover herself with ridicule by imitating her. To what + class do you belong? Answer sincerely, and I will answer the + question you have put to me. + + As I have not the honor of knowing you personally, and yet am + bound to you, in a measure, by the ties of poetic communion, I am + unwilling to offer any commonplace compliments. Perhaps you have + already won a malicious victory by thus embarrassing a maker of + books. + +The young man was certainly not wanting in the sort of shrewdness which +is permissible to a man of honor. By return courier he received an +answer:-- + + To Monsieur de Canalis,--You grow more and more sensible, my dear + poet. My father is a count. The chief glory of our house was a + cardinal, in the days when cardinals walked the earth by the side + of kings. I am the last of our family, which ends in me; but I + have the necessary quarterings to make my entry into any court or + chapter-house in Europe. We are quite the equals of the Canalis. + You will be so kind as to excuse me from sending you our arms. + + Endeavor to answer me as truthfully as I have now answered you. I + await your response to know if I can then sign myself as I do now, + + Your servant, O. d’Este M. + + +“The little mischief! how she abuses her privileges,” cried La Briere; +“but isn’t she frank!” + +No young man can be four years private secretary to a cabinet minister, +and live in Paris and observe the carrying on of many intrigues, with +perfect impunity; in fact, the purest soul is more or less intoxicated +by the heady atmosphere of the imperial city. Happy in the thought +that he was not Canalis, our young secretary engaged a place in the +mail-coach for Havre, after writing a letter in which he announced that +the promised answer would be sent a few days later,--excusing the delay +on the ground of the importance of the confession and the pressure of +his duties at the ministry. + +He took care to get from the director-general of the post-office a note +to the postmaster at Havre, requesting secrecy and attention to his +wishes. Ernest was thus enabled to see Francoise Cochet when she came +for the letters, and to follow her without exciting observation. Guided +by her, he reached Ingouville and saw Modeste Mignon at the window of +the Chalet. + +“Well, Francoise?” he heard the young girl say, to which the maid +responded,-- + +“Yes, mademoiselle, I have one.” + +Struck by the girl’s great beauty, Ernest retraced his steps and asked a +man on the street the name of the owner of that magnificent estate. + +“That?” said the man, nodding to the villa. + +“Yes, my friend.” + +“Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest shipping merchant in +Havre, so rich he doesn’t know what he is worth.” + +“There is no Cardinal Vilquin that I know of in history,” thought +Ernest, as he walked back to Havre for the night mail to Paris. +Naturally he questioned the postmaster about the Vilquin family, and +learned that it possessed an enormous fortune. Monsieur Vilquin had +a son and two daughters, one of whom was married to Monsieur Althor, +junior. Prudence kept La Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins; +the postmaster was already looking at him slyly. + +“Is there there any one staying with them at the present moment,” he +asked, “besides the family?” + +“The d’Herouville family is there just now. They do talk of a marriage +between the young duke and the remaining Mademoiselle Vilquin.” + +“Ha!” thought Ernest; “there was a celebrated Cardinal d’Herouville +under the Valois, and a terrible marshal whom they made a duke in the +time of Henri IV.” + +Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of Modeste to dream of her, +and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were poor, if +she had a noble soul he would like to make her Madame de La Briere; and +so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence. + +Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try +to weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of +a civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the +coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them +twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes, and +next with that of their delivery; which numbers the houses, prints the +tax of every tenant on a metal register at the doors (after verifying +its particulars), and will soon possess one vast register of every +inch of its territory down to the smallest parcel of land, and the most +insignificant features of it,--a giant work ordained by a giant. Try, +imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the police, but +the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town about the +veriest trifles,--how many dishes the prefect has at his dessert, +how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small +householder,--which strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a +thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the incomes +of the village and the town and the department. It was mere chance +that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest’s reconnoitring +expedition,--a step which he already regretted; but what Parisian can +allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl? Incapable of +being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all noble sentiments +in man. + +We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest young +fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited, in which +every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will be found to +have left its trace. + +This is what Modeste read a few days later, as she sat by her window on +a fine summer’s day:-- + + Mademoiselle,--Without hypocrisy or evasion, _yes_, if I had been + certain that you possessed an immense fortune I should have acted + differently. Why? I have searched for the reason; here it is. We + have within us an inborn feeling, inordinately developed by social + life, which drives us to the pursuit and to the possession of + happiness. Most men confound happiness with the means that lead to + it; money in their eyes is the chief element of happiness. I + should, therefore, have endeavored to win you, prompted by that + social sentiment which has in all ages made wealth a religion. At + least, I think I should. It is not to be expected of a man still + young that he can have the wisdom to substitute sound sense for + the pleasure of the senses; within sight of a prey the brutal + instincts hidden in the heart of man drive him on. Instead of that + lesson, I should have sent you compliments and flatteries. Should + I have kept my own esteem in so doing? I doubt it. Mademoiselle, + in such a case success brings absolution; but happiness? That is + another thing. Should I have distrusted my wife had I won her in + that way? Most assuredly I should. Your advance on me would sooner + or later have come between us. Your husband, however grand your + fancy may make him, would have ended by reproaching you for having + abased him. You, yourself, might have come, sooner or later, to + despise him. The strong man forgives, but the poet whines. Such, + mademoiselle, is the answer which my honesty compels me to make to + you. + + And now, listen to me. You have the triumph of forcing me to + reflect deeply,--first on you, whom I do not sufficiently know; + next, on myself, of whom I knew too little. You have had the power + to stir up many of the evil thoughts which crouched in my heart, + as in all hearts; but from them something good and generous has + come forth, and I salute you with my most fervent benedictions, + just as at sea we salute the lighthouse which shows the rocks on + which we were about to perish. Here is my confession, for I would + not lose your esteem nor my own for all the treasures of earth. + + I wished to know who you are. I have just returned from Havre, + where I saw Francoise Cochet, and followed her to Ingouville. You + are as beautiful as the woman of a poet’s dream; but I do not know + if you are Mademoiselle Vilquin concealed under Mademoiselle + d’Herouville, or Mademoiselle d’Herouville hidden under + Mademoiselle Vilquin. Though all is fair in war, I blushed at such + spying and stopped short in my inquiries. You have roused my + curiosity; forgive me for being somewhat of a woman; it is, I + believe, the privilege of a poet. + + Now that I have laid bare my heart and allowed you to read it, you + will believe in the sincerity of what I am about to add. Though + the glimpse I had of you was all too rapid, it has sufficed to + modify my opinion of your conduct. You are a poet and a poem, even + more than you are a woman. Yes, there is in you something more + precious than beauty; you are the beautiful Ideal of art, of + fancy. The step you took, blamable as it would be in an ordinary + young girl, allotted to an every-day destiny, has another aspect + if endowed with the nature which I now attribute to you. Among the + crowd of beings flung by fate into the social life of this planet + to make up a generation there are exceptional souls. If your + letter is the outcome of long poetic reveries on the fate which + conventions bring to women, if, constrained by the impulse of a + lofty and intelligent mind, you have wished to understand the life + of a man to whom you attribute the gift of genius, to the end that + you may create a friendship withdrawn from the ordinary relations + of life, with a soul in communion with your own, disregarding thus + the ordinary trammels of your sex,--then, assuredly, you are an + exception. The law which rightly limits the actions of the crowd + is too limited for you. But in that case, the remark in my first + letter returns in greater force,--you have done too much or not + enough. + + Accept once more my thanks for the service you have rendered me, + that of compelling me to sound my heart. You have corrected in me + the false idea, only too common in France, that marriage should be + a means of fortune. While I struggled with my conscience a sacred + voice spoke to me. I swore solemnly to make my fortune myself, and + not be led by motives of cupidity in choosing the companion of my + life. I have also reproached myself for the blamable curiosity you + have excited in me. You have not six millions. There is no + concealment possible in Havre for a young lady who possesses such + a fortune; you would be discovered at once by the pack of hounds + of great families whom I see in Paris on the hunt after heiresses, + and who have already sent one, the grand equerry, the young duke, + among the Vilquins. Therefore, believe me, the sentiments I have + now expressed are fixed in my mind as a rule of life, from which I + have abstracted all influences of romance or of actual fact. Prove + to me, therefore, that you have one of those souls which may be + forgiven for its disobedience to the common law, by perceiving and + comprehending the spirit of this letter as you did that of my + first letter. If you are destined to a middle-class life, obey the + iron law which holds society together. Lifted in mind above other + women, I admire you; but if you seek to obey an impulse which you + ought to repress, I pity you. The all-wise moral of that great + domestic epic “Clarissa Harlowe” is that legitimate and honorable + love led the poor victim to her ruin because it was conceived, + developed, and pursued beyond the boundaries of family restraint. + The family, however cruel and even foolish it may be, is in the + right against the Lovelaces. The family is Society. Believe me, + the glory of a young girl, of a woman, must always be that of + repressing her most ardent impulses within the narrow sphere of + conventions. If I had a daughter able to become a Madame de Stael + I should wish her dead at fifteen. Can you imagine a daughter of + yours flaunting on the stage of fame, exhibiting herself to win + the plaudits of a crowd, and not suffer anguish at the thought? No + matter to what heights a woman can rise by the inward poetry of + her soul, she must sacrifice the outer signs of superiority on the + altar of her home. Her impulse, her genius, her aspirations toward + Good, the whole poem of a young girl’s being, should belong to the + man she accepts and the children whom she brings into the world. I + think I perceive in you a secret desire to widen the narrow circle + of the life to which all women are condemned, and to put love and + passion into marriage. Ah! it is a lovely dream! it is not + impossible; it is difficult, but if realized, may it not be to the + despair of souls--forgive me the hackneyed word--“incompris”? + + If you seek a platonic friendship it will be to your sorrow in + after years. If your letter was a jest, discontinue it. Perhaps + this little romance is to end here--is it? It has not been without + fruit. My sense of duty is aroused, and you, on your side, will + have learned something of Society. Turn your thoughts to real + life; throw the enthusiasms you have culled from literature into + the virtues of your sex. + + Adieu, mademoiselle. Do me the honor to grant me your esteem. + Having seen you, or one whom I believe to be you, I have known + that your letter was simply natural; a flower so lovely turns to + the sun--of poetry. Yes, love poetry as you love flowers, music, + the grandeur of the sea, the beauties of nature; love them as an + adornment of the soul, but remember what I have had the honor of + telling you as to the nature of poets. Be cautious not to marry, + as you say, a dunce, but seek the partner whom God has made for + you. There are souls, believe me, who are fit to appreciate you, + and to make you happy. If I were rich, if you were poor, I would + lay my heart and my fortunes at your feet; for I believe your soul + to be full of riches and of loyalty; to you I could confide my + life and my honor in absolute security. + + Once more, adieu, adieu, fairest daughter of Eve the fair. + +The reading of this letter, swallowed like a drop of water in the +desert, lifted the mountain which weighed heavily on Modeste’s heart: +then she saw the mistake she had made in arranging her plan, and +repaired it by giving Francoise some envelopes directed to herself, in +which the maid could put the letters which came from Paris and drop them +again into the box. Modeste resolved to receive the postman herself on +the steps of the Chalet at the hour when he made his delivery. + +As to the feelings that this reply, in which the noble heart of poor +La Briere beat beneath the brilliant phantom of Canalis, excited in +Modeste, they were as multifarious and confused as the waves which +rushed to die along the shore while with her eyes fixed on the wide +ocean she gave herself up to the joy of having (if we dare say so) +harpooned an angelic soul in the Parisian Gulf, of having divined that +hearts of price might still be found in harmony with genius, and, above +all, for having followed the magic voice of intuition. + +A vast interest was now about to animate her life. The wires of her cage +were broken: the bolts and bars of the pretty Chalet--where were they? +Her thoughts took wings. + +“Oh, father!” she cried, looking out to the horizon. “Come back and make +us rich and happy.” + +The answer which Ernest de La Briere received some five days later will +tell the reader more than any elaborate disquisition of ours. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE POWER OF THE UNSEEN + + To Monsieur de Canalis: + + My friend,--Suffer me to give you that name,--you have delighted + me; I would not have you other than you are in this letter, the + first--oh, may it not be the last! Who but a poet could have + excused and understood a young girl so delicately? + + I wish to speak with the sincerity that dictated the first lines + of your letter. And first, let me say that most fortunately you do + not know me. I can joyfully assure you than I am neither that + hideous Mademoiselle Vilquin nor the very noble and withered + Mademoiselle d’Herouville who floats between twenty and forty + years of age, unable to decide on a satisfactory date. The + Cardinal d’Herouville flourished in the history of the Church at + least a century before the cardinal of whom we boast as our only + family glory,--for I take no account of lieutenant-generals, and + abbes who write trumpery little verses. + + Moreover, I do not live in the magnificent villa Vilquin; there is + not in my veins, thank God, the ten-millionth of a drop of that + chilly blood which flows behind a counter. I come on one side from + Germany, on the other from the south of France; my mind has a + Teutonic love of reverie, my blood the vivacity of Provence. I am + noble on my father’s and on my mother’s side. On my mother’s I + derive from every page of the Almanach de Gotha. In short, my + precautions are well taken. It is not in any man’s power, nor even + in the power of the law, to unmask my incognito. I shall remain + veiled, unknown. + + As to my person and as to my “belongings,” as the Normans say, + make yourself easy. I am at least as handsome as the little girl + (ignorantly happy) on whom your eyes chanced to light during your + visit to Havre; and I do not call myself poverty-stricken, + although ten sons of peers may not accompany me on my walks. I + have seen the humiliating comedy of the heiress sought for her + millions played on my account. In short, make no attempt, even on + a wager, to reach me. Alas! though free as air, I am watched and + guarded,--by myself, in the first place, and secondly, by people + of nerve and courage who would not hesitate to put a knife in your + heart if you tried to penetrate my retreat. I do not say this to + excite your courage or stimulate your curiosity; I believe I have + no need of such incentives to interest you and attach you to me. + + I will now reply to the second edition, considerably enlarged, of + your first sermon. + + Will you have a confession? I said to myself when I saw you so + distrustful, and mistaking me for Corinne (whose improvisations + bore me dreadfully), that in all probability dozes of Muses had + already led you, rashly curious, into their valleys, and begged + you to taste the fruits of their boarding-school Parnassus. Oh! + you are perfectly safe with me, my friend; I may love poetry, but + I have no little verses in my pocket-book, and my stockings are, + and will remain, immaculately white. You shall not be pestered + with the “Flowers of my Heart” in one or more volumes. And, + finally, should it ever happen that I say to you the word “Come!” + you will not find--you know it now--an old maid, no, nor a poor + and ugly one. + + Ah! my friend, if you only knew how I regret that you came to + Havre! You have lowered the charm of what you call my romance. God + alone knew the treasure I was reserving for the man noble enough, + and trusting enough, and perspicacious enough to come--having + faith in my letters, having penetrated step by step into the + depths of my heart--to come to our first meeting with the + simplicity of a child: for that was what I dreamed to be the + innocence of a man of genius. And now you have spoiled my + treasure! But I forgive you; you live in Paris and, as you say, + there is always a man within a poet. + + Because I tell you this will you think me some little girl who + cultivates a garden-full of illusions? You, who are witty and + wise, have you not guessed that when Mademoiselle d’Este received + your pedantic lesson she said to herself: “No, dear poet, my first + letter was not the pebble which a vagabond child flings about the + highway to frighten the owner of the adjacent fruit-trees, but a + net carefully and prudently thrown by a fisherman seated on a rock + above the sea, hoping and expecting a miraculous draught.” + + All that you say so beautifully about the family has my approval. + The man who is able to please me, and of whom I believe myself + worthy, will have my heart and my life,--with the consent of my + parents, for I will neither grieve them, nor take them unawares: + happily, I am certain of reigning over them; and, besides, they + are wholly without prejudice. Indeed, in every way, I feel myself + protected against any delusions in my dream. I have built the + fortress with my own hands, and I have let it be fortified by the + boundless devotion of those who watch over me as if I were a + treasure,--not that I am unable to defend myself in the open, if + need be; for, let me say, circumstances have furnished me with + armor of proof on which is engraved the word “Disdain.” I have the + deepest horror of all that is calculating,--of all that is not + pure, disinterested, and wholly noble. I worship the beautiful, + the ideal, without being romantic; though I HAVE been, in my heart + of hearts, in my dreams. But I recognize the truth of the various + things, just even to vulgarity, which you have written me about + Society and social life. + + For the time being we are, and we can only be, two friends. Why + seek an unseen friend? you ask. Your person may be unknown to me, + but your mind, your heart I _know_; they please me, and I feel an + infinitude of thoughts within my soul which need a man of genius + for their confidant. I do not wish the poem of my heart to be + wasted; I would have it known to you as it is to God. What a + precious thing is a true comrade, one to whom we can tell all! You + will surely not reject the unpublished leaflets of a young girl’s + thoughts when they fly to you like the pretty insects fluttering + to the sun? I am sure you have never before met with this good + fortune of the soul,--the honest confidences of an honest girl. + Listen to her prattle; accept the music that she sings to you in + her own heart. Later, if our souls are sisters, if our characters + warrant the attempt, a white-haired old serving-man shall await + you by the wayside and lead you to the cottage, the villa, the + castle, the palace--I don’t know yet what sort of bower it will + be, nor what its color, nor whether this conclusion will ever be + possible; but you will admit, will you not? that it is poetic, and + that Mademoiselle d’Este has a complying disposition. Has she not + left you free? Has she gone with jealous feet to watch you in the + salons of Paris? Has she imposed upon you the labors of some high + emprise, such as paladins sought voluntarily in the olden time? + No, she asks a perfectly spiritual and mystic alliance. Come to me + when you are unhappy, wounded, weary. Tell me all, hide nothing; I + have balms for all your ills. I am twenty years of age, dear + friend, but I have the sense of fifty, and unfortunately I have + known through the experience of another all the horrors and the + delights of love. I know what baseness the human heart can + contain, what infamy; yet I myself am an honest girl. No, I have + no illusions; but I have something better, something real,--I have + beliefs and a religion. See! I open the ball of our confidences. + + Whoever I marry--provided I choose him for myself--may sleep in + peace or go to the East Indies sure that he will find me on his + return working at the tapestry which I began before he left me; + and in every stitch he shall read a verse of the poem of which he + has been the hero. Yes, I have resolved within my heart never to + follow my husband where he does not wish me to go. I will be the + divinity of his hearth. That is my religion of humanity. But why + should I not test and choose the man to whom I am to be like the + life to the body? Is a man ever impeded by life? What can that + woman be who thwarts the man she loves?--an illness, a disease, + not life. By life, I mean that joyous health which makes each hour + a pleasure. + + But to return to your letter, which will always be precious to me. + Yes, jesting apart, it contains that which I desired, an + expression of prosaic sentiments which are as necessary to family + life as air to the lungs; and without which no happiness is + possible. To act as an honest man, to think as a poet, to love as + women love, that is what I longed for in my friend, and it is now + no longer a chimera. + + Adieu, my friend. I am poor at this moment. That is one of the + reasons why I cling to my concealment, my mask, my impregnable + fortress. I have read your last verses in the “Revue,”--ah! with + what delight, now that I am initiated in the austere loftiness of + your secret soul. + + Will it make you unhappy to know that a young girl prays for you; + that you are her solitary thought,--without a rival except in her + father and mother? Can there be any reason why you should reject + these pages full of you, written for you, seen by no eye but + yours? Send me their counterpart. I am so little of a woman yet + that your confidences--provided they are full and true--will + suffice for the happiness of your + +O. d’Este M. + + +“Good heavens! can I be in love already?” cried the young secretary, +when he perceived that he had held the above letter in his hands more +than an hour after reading it. “What shall I do? She thinks she is +writing to the great poet! Can I continue the deception? Is she a woman +of forty, or a girl of twenty?” + +Ernest was now fascinated by the great gulf of the unseen. The unseen +is the obscurity of infinitude, and nothing is more alluring. In that +sombre vastness fires flash, and furrow and color the abyss with fancies +like those of Martin. For a busy man like Canalis, an adventure of this +kind is swept away like a harebell by a mountain torrent, but in the +more unoccupied life of the young secretary, this charming girl, whom +his imagination persistently connected with the blonde beauty at +the window, fastened upon his heart, and did as much mischief in his +regulated life as a fox in a poultry-yard. La Briere allowed himself +to be preoccupied by this mysterious correspondent; and he answered her +last letter with another, a pretentious and carefully studied epistle, +in which, however, passion begins to reveal itself through pique. + + Mademoiselle,--Is it quite loyal in you to enthrone yourself in + the heart of a poor poet with a latent intention of abandoning him + if he is not exactly what you wish, leaving him to endless + regrets,--showing him for a moment an image of perfection, were it + only assumed, and at any rate giving him a foretaste of happiness? + I was very short-sighted in soliciting this letter, in which you + have begun to unfold the elegant fabric of your thoughts. A man + can easily become enamored with a mysterious unknown who combines + such fearlessness with such originality, so much imagination with + so much feeling. Who would not wish to know you after reading your + first confidence? It requires a strong effort on my part to retain + my senses in thinking of you, for you combine all that can trouble + the head or the heart of man. I therefore make the most of the + little self-possession you have left me to offer you my humble + remonstrances. + + Do you really believe, mademoiselle, that letters, more or less + true in relation to the life of the writers, more or less + insincere,--for those which we write to each other are the + expressions of the moment at which we pen them, and not of the + general tenor of our lives,--do you believe, I say, that beautiful + as they may be, they can at all replace the representation that we + could make of ourselves to each other by the revelations of daily + intercourse? Man is dual. There is a life invisible, that of the + heart, to which letters may suffice; and there is a life material, + to which more importance is, alas, attached than you are aware of + at your age. These two existences must, however, be made to + harmonize in the ideal which you cherish; and this, I may remark + in passing, is very rare. + + The pure, spontaneous, disinterested homage of a solitary soul + which is both educated and chaste, is one of those celestial + flowers whose color and fragrance console for every grief, for + every wound, for every betrayal which makes up the life of a + literary man; and I thank you with an impulse equal to your own. + But after this poetical exchange of my griefs for the pearls of + your charity, what next? what do you expect? I have neither the + genius nor the splendid position of Lord Byron; above all, I have + not the halo of his fictitious damnation and his false social + woes. But what could you have hoped from him in like + circumstances? His friendship? Well, he who ought to have felt + only pride was eaten up by vanity of every kind,--sickly, + irritable vanity which discouraged friendship. I, a thousand-fold + more insignificant than he, may I not have discordances of + character, and make friendship a burden heavy indeed to bear? In + exchange for your reveries, what will you gain? The + dissatisfaction of a life which will not be wholly yours. The + compact is madness. Let me tell you why. In the first place, your + projected poem is a plagiarism. A young German girl, who was not, + like you, semi-German, but altogether so, adored Goethe with the + rash intoxication of girlhood. She made him her friend, her + religion, her god, knowing at the same time that he was married. + Madame Goethe, a worthy German woman, lent herself to this worship + with a sly good-nature which did not cure Bettina. But what was + the end of it all? The young ecstatic married a man who was + younger and handsomer than Goethe. Now, between ourselves, let us + admit that a young girl who should make herself the handmaid of a + man of genius, his equal through comprehension, and should piously + worship him till death, like one of those divine figures sketched + by the masters on the shutters of their mystic shrines, and who, + when Germany lost him, should have retired to some solitude away + from men, like the friend of Lord Bolingbroke,--let us admit, I + say, that the young girl would have lived forever, inlaid in the + glory of the poet as Mary Magdalene in the cross and triumph of + our Lord. If that is sublime, what say you to the reverse of the + picture? As I am neither Goethe nor Lord Byron, the colossi of + poetry and egotism, but simply the author of a few esteemed + verses, I cannot expect the honors of a cult. Neither am I + disposed to be a martyr. I have ambition, and I have a heart; I am + still young and I have my career to make. See me for what I am. + The bounty of the king and the protection of his ministers give me + sufficient means of living. I have the outward bearing of a very + ordinary man. I go to the soirees in Paris like any other + empty-headed fop; and if I drive, the wheels of my carriage do not + roll on the solid ground, absolutely indispensable in these days, + of property invested in the funds. But if I am not rich, neither do + I have the reliefs and consolations of life in a garret, the toil + uncomprehended, the fame in penury, which belong to men who are + worth far more than I,--D’Arthez, for instance. + + Ah! what prosaic conclusions will your young enthusiasm find to + these enchanting visions. Let us stop here. If I have had the + happiness of seeming to you a terrestrial paragon, you have been + to me a thing of light and a beacon, like those stars that shine + for a moment and disappear. May nothing ever tarnish this episode + of our lives. Were we to continue it I might love you; I might + conceive one of those mad passions which rend all obstacles, which + light fires in the heart whose violence is greater than their + duration. And suppose I succeeded in pleasing you? we should end + our tale in the common vulgar way,--marriage, a household, + children, Belise and Henriette Chrysale together!--could it be? + Therefore, adieu. + + + + +CHAPTER X. THE MARRIAGE OF SOULS + + To Monsieur de Canalis: + + My Friend,--Your letter gives me as much pain as pleasure. But + perhaps some day we shall find nothing but pleasure in writing to + each other. Understand me thoroughly. The soul speaks to God and + asks him for many things; he is mute. I seek to obtain in you the + answers that God does not make to me. Cannot the friendship of + Mademoiselle de Gournay and Montaigne be revived in us? Do you not + remember the household of Sismonde de Sismondi in Geneva? The most + lovely home ever known, as I have been told; something like that + of the Marquis de Pescaire and his wife,--happy to old age. Ah! + friend, is it impossible that two hearts, two harps, should exist + as in a symphony, answering each other from a distance, vibrating + with delicious melody in unison? Man alone of all creation is in + himself the harp, the musician, and the listener. Do you think to + find me uneasy and jealous like ordinary women? I know that you go + into the world and meet the handsomest and the wittiest women in + Paris. May I not suppose that some one of those mermaids has + deigned to clasp you in her cold and scaly arms, and that she has + inspired the answer whose prosaic opinions sadden me? There is + something in life more beautiful than the garlands of Parisian + coquetry; there grows a flower far up those Alpine peaks called + men of genius, the glory of humanity, which they fertilize with + the dews their lofty heads draw from the skies. I seek to + cultivate that flower and make it bloom; for its wild yet gentle + fragrance can never fail,--it is eternal. + + Do me the honor to believe that there is nothing low or + commonplace in me. Were I Bettina, for I know to whom you allude, + I should never have become Madame von Arnim; and had I been one of + Lord Byron’s many loves, I should be at this moment in a cloister. + You have touched me to the quick. You do not know me, but you + shall know me. I feel within me something that is sublime, of + which I dare speak without vanity. God has put into my soul the + roots of that Alpine flower born on the summits of which I speak, + and I cannot plant it in an earthen pot upon my window-sill and + see it die. No, that glorious flower-cup, single in its beauty, + intoxicating in its fragrance, shall not be dragged through the + vulgarities of life! it is yours--yours, before any eye has + blighted it, yours forever! Yes, my poet, to you belong my + thoughts,--all, those that are secret, those that are gayest; my + heart is yours without reserve and with its infinite affection. If + you should personally not please me, I shall never marry. I can + live in the life of the heart, I can exist on your mind, your + sentiments; they please me, and I will always be what I am, your + friend. Yours is a noble moral nature; I have recognized it, I + have appreciated it, and that suffices me. In that is all my + future. Do not laugh at a young and pretty handmaiden who shrinks + not from the thought of being some day the old companion of a + poet,--a sort of mother perhaps, or a housekeeper; the guide of + his judgment and a source of his wealth. This handmaiden--so + devoted, so precious to the lives of such as you--is Friendship, + pure, disinterested friendship, to whom you will tell all, who + listens and sometimes shakes her head; who knits by the light of + the lamp and waits to be present when the poet returns home soaked + with rain, or vexed in mind. Such shall be my destiny if I do not + find that of a happy wife attached forever to her husband; I smile + alike at the thought of either fate. Do you believe France will be + any the worse if Mademoiselle d’Este does not give it two or three + sons, and never becomes a Madame Vilquin-something-or-other? As + for me, I shall never be an old maid. I shall make myself a + mother, by taking care of others and by my secret co-operation in + the existence of a great man, to whom also I shall carry all my + thoughts and all my earthly efforts. + + I have the deepest horror of commonplaceness. If I am free, if I + am rich (and I know that I am young and pretty), I will never + belong to any ninny just because he is the son of a peer of + France, nor to a merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day, + nor to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman in the + household, nor to a man of any kind who would make me blush twenty + times a day for being his. Make yourself easy on that point. My + father adores my wishes; he will never oppose them. If I please my + poet, and he pleases me, the glorious structure of our love shall + be built so high as to be inaccessible to any kind of misfortune. + I am an eaglet; and you will see it in my eyes. + + I shall not repeat what I have already said, but I will put its + substance in the least possible number of words, and confess to + you that I should be the happiest of women if I were imprisoned by + love as I am now imprisoned by the wish and will of a father. Ah! + my friend, may we bring to a real end the romance that has come to + us through the first exercise of my will: listen to its + argument:-- + + A young girl with a lively imagination, locked up in a tower, is + weary with longing to run loose in the park where her eyes only + are allowed to rove. She invents a way to loosen her bars; she + jumps from the casement; she scales the park wall; she frolics + along the neighbor’s sward--it is the Everlasting comedy. Well, + that young girl is my soul, the neighbor’s park is your genius. Is + it not all very natural? Was there ever a neighbor that did not + complain that unknown feet broke down his trellises? I leave it to + my poet to answer. + + But does the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Moliere want + still better reasons? Well, here they are. My dear Geronte, + marriages are usually made in defiance of common-sense. Parents + make inquiries about a young man. If the Leander--who is supplied + by some friend, or caught in a ball-room--is not a thief, and has + no visible rent in his reputation, if he has the necessary + fortune, if he comes from a college or a law-school and so fulfils + the popular ideas of education, and if he wears his clothes with a + gentlemanly air, he is allowed to meet the young lady, whose + mother has ordered her to guard her tongue, to let no sign of her + heart or soul appear on her face, which must wear the smile of a + danseuse finishing a pirouette. These commands are coupled with + instructions as to the danger of revealing her real character, and + the additional advice of not seeming alarmingly well educated. If + the settlements have all been agreed upon, the parents are + good-natured enough to let the pair see each other for a few + moments; they are allowed to talk or walk together, but always + without the slightest freedom, and knowing that they are bound by + rigid rules. The man is as much dressed up in soul as he is in body, + and so is the young girl. This pitiable comedy, mixed with bouquets, + jewels, and theatre-parties is called “paying your addresses.” It + revolts me: I desire that actual marriage shall be the result of a + previous and long marriage of souls. A young girl, a woman, has + throughout her life only this one moment when reflection, second + sight, and experience are necessary to her. She plays her liberty, + her happiness, and she is not allowed to throw the dice; she risks + her all, and is forced to be a mere spectator. I have the right, + the will, the power to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as + did my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, married the + most generous, the most liberal, the most loving of men. I know + that you are free, a poet, and noble-looking. Be sure that I + should not have chosen one of your brothers in Apollo who was + already married. If my mother was won by beauty, which is perhaps + the spirit of form, why should I not be attracted by the spirit + and the form united? Shall I not know you better by studying you + in this correspondence than I could through the vulgar experience + of “receiving your addresses”? This is the question, as Hamlet + says. + + But my proceedings, dear Chrysale, have at least the merit of not + binding us personally. I know that love has its illusions, and + every illusion its to-morrow. That is why there are so many + partings among lovers vowed to each other for life. The proof of + love lies in two things,--suffering and happiness. When, after + passing through these double trials of life two beings have shown + each other their defects as well as their good qualities, when + they have really observed each other’s character, then they may go + to their grave hand in hand. My dear Argante, who told you that + our little drama thus begun was to have no future? In any case + shall we not have enjoyed the pleasures of our correspondence? + + I await your orders, monseigneur, and I am with all my heart, + + Your handmaiden, + + O. d’Este M. + + + To Mademoiselle O. d’Este M.,--You are a witch, a spirit, and I + love you! Is that what you desire of me, most original of girls? + Perhaps you are only seeking to amuse your provincial leisure with + the follies which are you able to make a poet commit. If so, you + have done a bad deed. Your two letters have enough of the spirit + of mischief in them to force this doubt into the mind of a + Parisian. But I am no longer master of myself; my life, my future + depend on the answer you will make me. Tell me if the certainty of + an unbounded affection, oblivious of all social conventions, will + touch you,--if you will suffer me to seek you. There is anxiety + enough and uncertainty enough in the question as to whether I can + personally please you. If your reply is favorable I change my + life, I bid adieu to all the irksome pleasures which we have the + folly to call happiness. Happiness, my dear and beautiful unknown, + is what you dream it to be,--a fusion of feelings, a perfect + accordance of souls, the imprint of a noble ideal (such as God + does permit us to form in this low world) upon the trivial round + of daily life whose habits we must needs obey, a constancy of + heart more precious far than what we call fidelity. Can we say + that we make sacrifices when the end in view is our eternal good, + the dream of poets, the dream of maidens, the poem which, at the + entrance of life when thought essays its wings, each noble + intellect has pondered and caressed only to see it shivered to + fragments on some stone of stumbling as hard as it is vulgar?--for + to the great majority of men, the foot of reality steps instantly + on that mysterious egg so seldom hatched. + + I cannot speak to you any more of myself; not of my past life, nor + of my character, nor of an affection almost maternal on one side, + filial on mine, which you have already seriously changed--an + effect upon my life which must explain my use of the word + “sacrifice.” You have already rendered me forgetful, if not + ungrateful; does that satisfy you? Oh, speak! Say to me one word, + and I will love you till my eyes close in death, as the Marquis de + Pescaire loved his wife, as Romeo loved Juliet, and faithfully. + Our life will be, for me at least, that “felicity untroubled” + which Dante made the very element of his Paradiso,--a poem far + superior to his Inferno. Strange, it is not myself that I doubt in + the long reverie through which, like you, I follow the windings of + a dreamed existence; it is you. Yes, dear, I feel within me the + power to love, and to love endlessly,--to march to the grave with + gentle slowness and a smiling eye, with my beloved on my arm, and + with never a cloud upon the sunshine of our souls. Yes, I dare to + face our mutual old age, to see ourselves with whitening heads, + like the venerable historian of Italy, inspired always with the + same affection but transformed in soul by our life’s seasons. Hear + me, I can no longer be your friend only. Though Chrysale, Geronte, + and Argante re-live, you say, in me, I am not yet old enough to + drink from the cup held to my lips by the sweet hands of a veiled + woman without a passionate desire to tear off the domino and the + mask and see the face. Either write me no more, or give me hope. + Let me see you, or let me go. Must I bid you adieu? Will you + permit me to sign myself, + + Your Friend? + + + To Monsieur de Canalis,--What flattery! with what rapidity is the + grave Anselme transformed into a handsome Leander! To what must I + attribute such a change? to this black which I put upon this + white? to these ideas which are to the flowers of my soul what a + rose drawn in charcoal is to the roses in the garden? Or is it to + a recollection of the young girl whom you took for me, and who is + personally as like me as a waiting-woman is like her mistress? + Have we changed roles? Have I the sense? have you the fancy? But a + truce with jesting. + + Your letter has made me know the elating pleasures of the soul; + the first that I have known outside of my family affections. What, + says a poet, are the ties of blood which are so strong in ordinary + minds, compared to those divinely forged within us by mysterious + sympathies? Let me thank you--no, we must not thank each other for + such things--but God bless you for the happiness you have given + me; be happy in the joy you have shed into my soul. You explain to + me some of the apparent injustices in social life. There is + something, I know not what, so dazzling, so virile in glory, that + it belongs only to man; God forbids us women to wear its halo, but + he makes love our portion, giving us the tenderness which soothes + the brow scorched by his lightnings. I have felt my mission, and + you have now confirmed it. + + Sometimes, my friend, I rise in the morning in a state of + inexpressible sweetness; a sort of peace, tender and divine, gives + me an idea of heaven. My first thought is then like a benediction. + I call these mornings my little German wakings, in opposition to + my Southern sunsets, full of heroic deeds, battles, Roman fetes + and ardent poems. Well, after reading your letter, so full of + feverish impatience, I felt in my heart all the freshness of my + celestial wakings, when I love the air about me and all nature, + and fancy that I am destined to die for one I love. One of your + poems, “The Maiden’s Song,” paints these delicious moments, when + gaiety is tender, when aspiration is a need; it is one of my + favorites. Do you want me to put all my flatteries into one?--well + then, I think you worthy to be _me_! + + Your letter, though short, enables me to read within you. Yes, I + have guessed your tumultuous struggles, your piqued curiosity, + your projects; but I do not yet know you well enough to satisfy + your wishes. Hear me, dear; the mystery in which I am shrouded + allows me to use that word, which lets you see to the bottom of my + heart. Hear me: if we once meet, adieu to our mutual + comprehension! Will you make a compact with me? Was the first + disadvantageous to you? But remember it won you my esteem, and it + is a great deal, my friend, to gain an admiration lined throughout + with esteem. Here is the compact: write me your life in a few + words; then tell me what you do in Paris, day by day, with no + reservations, and as if you were talking to some old friend. Well, + having done that, I will take a step myself--I will see you, I + promise you that. And it is a great deal. + + This, dear, is no intrigue, no adventure; no gallantry, as you men + say, can come of it, I warn you frankly. It involves my life, and + more than that,--something that causes me remorse for the many + thoughts that fly to you in flocks--it involves my father’s and my + mother’s life. I adore them, and my choice must please them; they + must find a son in you. + + Tell me, to what extent can the superb spirits of your kind, to + whom God has given the wings of his angels, without always adding + their amiability,--how far can they bend under a family yoke, and + put up with its little miseries? That is a text I have meditated + upon. Ah! though I said to my heart before I came to you, Forward! + Onward! it did not tremble and palpitate any the less on the way; + and I did not conceal from myself the stoniness of the path nor + the Alpine difficulties I had to encounter. I thought of all in my + long, long meditations. Do I not know that eminent men like you + have known the love they have inspired quite as well as that which + they themselves have felt; that they have had many romances in + their lives,--you particularly, who send forth those airy visions + of your soul that women rush to buy? Yet still I cried to myself, + “Onward!” because I have studied, more than you give me credit + for, the geography of the great summits of humanity, which you + tell me are so cold. Did you not say that Goethe and Byron were + the colossi of egoism and poetry? Ah, my friend, there you shared + a mistake into which superficial minds are apt to fall; but in you + perhaps it came from generosity, false modesty, or the desire to + escape from me. Vulgar minds may mistake the effect of toil for + the development of personal character, but you must not. Neither + Lord Byron, nor Goethe, nor Walter Scott, nor Cuvier, nor any + inventor, belongs to himself, he is the slave of his idea. And + this mysterious power is more jealous than a woman; it sucks their + blood, it makes them live, it makes them die for its sake. The + visible developments of their hidden existence do seem, in their + results, like egotism; but who shall dare to say that the man who + has abnegated self to give pleasure, instruction, or grandeur to + his epoch, is an egoist? Is a mother selfish when she immolates + all things to her child? Well, the detractors of genius do not + perceive its fecund maternity, that is all. The life of a poet is + so perpetual a sacrifice that he needs a gigantic organization to + bear even the ordinary pleasures of life. Therefore, into what + sorrows may he not fall when, like Moliere, he wishes to live the + life of feeling in its most poignant crises; to me, remembering + his personal life, Moliere’s comedy is horrible. + + The generosity of genius seems to me half divine; and I place you + in this noble family of alleged egoists. Ah! if I had found + self-interest, ambition, a seared nature where I now can see my + best loved flowers of the soul, you know not what long anguish I + should have had to bear. I met with disappointment before I was + sixteen. What would have become of me had I learned at twenty that + fame is a lie, that he whose books express the feelings hidden in + my heart was incapable of feeling them himself? Oh! my friend, do + you know what would have become of me? Shall I take you into the + recesses of my soul? I should have gone to my father and said, + “Bring me the son-in-law whom you desire; my will abdicates,--marry + me to whom you please.” And the man might have been a notary, + banker, miser, fool, dullard, wearisome as a rainy day, common as + the usher of a school, a manufacturer, or some brave soldier without + two ideas,--he would have had a resigned and attentive servant in + me. But what an awful suicide! never could my soul have expanded + in the life-giving rays of a beloved sun. No murmur should have + revealed to my father, or my mother, or my children the suicide of + the creature who at this instant is shaking her fetters, casting + lightnings from her eyes, and flying towards you with eager wing. + See, she is there, at the angle of your desk, like Polyhymnia, + breathing the air of your presence, and glancing about her with a + curious eye. Sometimes in the fields where my husband would have + taken me to walk, I should have wept, apart and secretly, at sight + of a glorious morning; and in my heart, or hidden in a + bureau-drawer, I might have kept some treasure, the comfort of poor + girls ill-used by love, sad, poetic souls,--but ah! I have _you_, I + believe in _you_, my friend. That belief straightens all my thoughts + and fancies, even the most fantastic, and sometimes--see how far + my frankness leads me--I wish I were in the middle of the book we + are just beginning; such persistency do I feel in my sentiments, + such strength in my heart to love, such constancy sustained by + reason, such heroism for the duties for which I was created,--if + indeed love can ever be transmuted into duty. + + If you were able to follow me to the exquisite retreat where I + fancy ourselves happy, if you knew my plans and projects, the + dreadful word “folly!” might escape you, and I should be cruelly + punished for sending poetry to a poet. Yes, I wish to be a spring + of waters inexhaustible as a fertile land for the twenty years + that nature allows me to shine. I want to drive away satiety by + charm. I mean to be courageous for my friend as most women are for + the world. I wish to vary happiness. I wish to put intelligence + into tenderness, and to give piquancy to fidelity. I am filled + with ambition to kill the rivals of the past, to conjure away all + outside griefs by a wife’s gentleness, by her proud abnegation, to + take a lifelong care of the nest,--such as birds can only take for + a few weeks. + + Tell me, do you now think me to blame for my first letter? The + mysterious wind of will drove me to you, as the tempest brings the + little rose-tree to the pollard window. In your letter, which I + hold here upon my heart, you cried out, like your ancestor when he + departed for the Crusades, “God wills it.” + + Ah! but you will cry out, “What a chatterbox!” All the people + round me say, on the contrary, “Mademoiselle is very taciturn.” + +O. d’Este M. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. WHAT COMES OF CORRESPONDENCE + +The foregoing letters seemed very original to the persons from whom the +author of the “Comedy of Human Life” obtained them; but their interest +in this duel, this crossing of pens between two minds, may not be +shared. For every hundred readers, eighty might weary of the battle. +The respect due to the majority in every nation under a constitutional +government, leads us, therefore, to suppress eleven other letters +exchanged between Ernest and Modeste during the month of September. If, +later on, some flattering majority should arise to claim them, let us +hope that we can then find means to insert them in their proper place. + +Urged by a mind that seemed as aggressive as the heart was lovable, the +truly chivalrous feelings of the poor secretary gave themselves free +play in these suppressed letters, which seem, perhaps, more beautiful +than they really are, because the imagination is charmed by a sense of +the communion of two free souls. Ernest’s whole life was now wrapped up +in these sweet scraps of paper; they were to him what banknotes are to a +miser; while in Modeste’s soul a deep love took the place of her delight +in agitating a glorious life, and being, in spite of distance, its +mainspring. Ernest’s heart was the complement of Canalis’s glory. Alas! +it often takes two men to make a perfect lover, just as in literature +we compose a type by collecting the peculiarities of several similar +characters. How many a time a woman has been heard to say in her own +salon after close and intimate conversations:-- + +“Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the other who is only a +dream of the senses.” + +The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, gives us +a glimpse of the enchanted isle to which the meanderings of this +correspondence had led the two lovers. + + To Monsieur de Canalis,--Be at Havre next Sunday; go to church; + after the morning service, walk once or twice round the nave, and + go out without speaking to any one; but wear a white rose in your + button-hole. Then return to Paris, where you shall receive an + answer. I warn you that this answer will not be what you wish; + for, as I told you, the future is not yet mine. But should I not + indeed be mad and foolish to say yes without having seen you? When + I have seen you I can say no without wounding you; I can make sure + that you shall not see me. + +This letter had been sent off the evening before the day when the +abortive struggle between Dumay and Modeste had taken place. The happy +girl was impatiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindicate or +condemn her heart and her actions,--a solemn moment in the life of any +woman, and which three months of close communion of souls now rendered +as romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have wished. Every one, +except the mother, had taken this torpor of expectation for the calm of +innocence. No matter how firmly family laws and religious precepts may +bind, there will always be the Clarissas and the Julies, whose souls +like flowing cups o’erlap the brim under some spiritual pressure. +Modeste was glorious in the savage energy with which she repressed her +exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely quiet. Let us say +frankly that the memory of her sister was more potent upon her than any +social conventions; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no grief +upon her father and her mother. But what tumultuous heavings were within +her breast! no wonder that a mother guessed them. + +On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay took Madame Mignon about +mid-day to a seat in the sun among the flowers. The blind woman turned +her wan and blighted face toward the ocean; she inhaled the odors of +the sea and took the hand of her daughter who remained beside her. The +mother hesitated between forgiveness and remonstrance ere she put the +important question; for she comprehended the girl’s love and recognized, +as the pretended Canalis had done, that Modeste was exceptional in +nature. + +“God grant that your father return in time! If he delays much longer he +will find none but you to love him. Modeste, promise me once more never +to leave him,” she said in a fond maternal tone. + +Modeste lifted her mother’s hands to her lips and kissed them gently, +replying: “Need I say it again?” + +“Ah, my child! I did this thing myself. I left my father to follow my +husband; and yet my father was all alone; I was all the child he had. Is +that why God has so punished me? What I ask of you is to marry as your +father wishes, to cherish him in your heart, not to sacrifice him to +your own happiness, but to make him the centre of your home. Before +losing my sight, I wrote him all my wishes, and I know he will execute +them. I enjoined him to keep his property intact and in his own hands; +not that I distrust you, my Modeste, for a moment, but who can be sure +of a son-in-law? Ah! my daughter, look at me; was I reasonable? One +glance of the eye decided my life. Beauty, so often deceitful, in my +case spoke true; but even were it the same with you, my poor child, +swear to me that you will let your father inquire into the character, +the habits, the heart, and the previous life of the man you distinguish +with your love--if, by chance, there is such a man.” + +“I will never marry without the consent of my father,” answered Modeste. + +“You see, my darling,” said Madame Mignon after a long pause, “that if I +am dying by inches through Bettina’s wrong-doing, your father would not +survive yours, no, not for a moment. I know him; he would put a pistol +to his head,--there could be no life, no happiness on earth for him.” + +Modeste walked a few steps away from her mother, but immediately came +back. + +“Why did you leave me?” demanded Madame Mignon. + +“You made me cry, mamma,” answered Modeste. + +“Ah, my little darling, kiss me. You love no one here? you have no +lover, have you?” she asked, holding Modeste on her lap, heart to heart. + +“No, my dear mamma,” said the little Jesuit. + +“Can you swear it?” + +“Oh, yes!” cried Modeste. + +Madame Mignon said no more; but she still doubted. + +“At least, if you do choose your husband, you will tell your father?” + she resumed. + +“I promised that to my sister, and to you, mother. What evil do you +think I could commit while I wear that ring upon my finger and read +those words: ‘Think of Bettina?’ Poor sister!” + +At these words a truce of silence came between the pair; the mother’s +blighted eyes rained tears which Modeste could not check, though she +threw herself upon her knees, and cried: “Forgive me! oh, forgive me, +mother!” + +At this instant the excellent Dumay was coming up the hill of Ingouville +on the double-quick,--a fact quite abnormal in the present life of the +cashier. + +Three letters had brought ruin to the Mignons; a single letter now +restored their fortunes. Dumay had received from a sea-captain just +arrived from the China Seas the following letter containing the first +news of his patron and friend, Charles Mignon:-- + + To Monsieur Jean Dumay: + + My Dear Dumay,--I shall quickly follow, barring the chances of the + voyage, the vessel which carries this letter. In fact, I should + have taken it, but I did not wish to leave my own ship to which I + am accustomed. + + I told you that no new was to be good news. But the first words of + this letter ought to make you a happy man. I have made seven + millions at the least. I am bringing back a large part of it in + indigo, one third in safe London securities, and another third in + good solid gold. Your remittances helped me to make the sum I had + settled in my own mind much sooner than I expected. I wanted two + millions for my daughters and a competence for myself. + + I have been engaged in the opium trade with the largest houses in + Canton, all ten times richer than ever I was. You have no idea, in + Europe, what these rich East India merchants are. I went to Asia + Minor and purchased opium at low prices, and from thence to Canton + where I delivered my cargoes to the companies who control the + trade. My last expedition was to the Philippine Islands where I + exchanged opium for indigo of the first quality. In fact, I may + have half a million more than I stated, for I reckoned the indigo + at what it cost me. I have always been well in health; not the + slightest illness. That is the result of working for one’s + children. Since the second year I have owned a pretty little brig + of seven hundred tons, called the “Mignon.” She is built of oak, + double-planked, and copper-fastened; and all the interior fittings + were done to suit me. She is, in fact, an additional piece of + property. + + A sea-life and the active habits required by my business have kept + me in good health. To tell you all this is the same as telling it + to my two daughters and my dear wife. I trust that the wretched + man who took away my Bettina deserted her when he heard of my + ruin; and that I shall find the poor lost lamb at the Chalet. My + three dear women and my Dumay! All four of you have been ever + present in my thoughts for the last three years. You are a rich + man, now, Dumay. Your share, outside of my own fortune, amounts to + five hundred and sixty thousand francs, for which I send you + herewith a check, which can only be paid to you in person by the + Mongenods, who have been duly advised from New York. + + A few short months, and I shall see you all again, and all well, I + trust. My dear Dumay, if I write this letter to you it is because + I am anxious to keep my fortune a secret for the present. I + therefore leave to you the happiness of preparing my dear angels + for my return. I have had enough of commerce; and I am resolved to + leave Havre. My intention is to buy back the estate of La Bastie, + and to entail it, so as to establish an estate yielding at least a + hundred thousand francs a year, and then to ask the king to grant + that one of my sons-in-law may succeed to my name and title. You + know, my poor Dumay, what a terrible misfortune overtook us + through the fatal reputation of a large fortune,--my daughter’s + honor was lost. I have therefore resolved that the amount of my + present fortune shall not be known. I shall not disembark at + Havre, but at Marseilles. I shall sell my indigo, and negotiate + for the purchase of La Bastie through the house of Mongenod in + Paris. I shall put my funds in the Bank of France and return to + the Chalet giving out that I have a considerable fortune in + merchandise. My daughters will be supposed to have two or three + hundred thousand francs. To choose which of my sons-in-law is + worthy to succeed to my title and estates and to live with us, is + now the object of my life; but both of them must be, like you and + me, honest, loyal, and firm men, and absolutely honorable. + + My dear old fellow, I have never doubted you for a moment. We have + gone through wars and commerce together and now we will undertake + agriculture; you shall be my bailiff. You will like that, will you + not? And so, old friend, I leave it to your discretion to tell + what you think best to my wife and daughters; I rely upon your + prudence. In four years great changes may have taken place in + their characters. + + Adieu, my old Dumay. Say to my daughters and to my wife that I + have never failed to kiss them in my thoughts morning and evening + since I left them. The second check for forty thousand francs + herewith enclosed is for my wife and children. + + Till we meet.--Your colonel and friend, + + Charles Mignon. + + +“Your father is coming,” said Madame Mignon to her daughter. + +“What makes you think so, mamma?” asked Modeste. + +“Nothing else could make Dumay hurry himself.” + +“Victory! victory!” cried the lieutenant as soon as he reached the +garden gate. “Madame, the colonel has not been ill a moment; he is +coming back--coming back on the ‘Mignon,’ a fine ship of his own, which +together with its cargo is worth, he tells me, eight or nine hundred +thousand francs. But he requires secrecy from all of us; his heart is +still wrung by the misfortunes of our dear departed girl.” + +“He has still to learn her death,” said Madame Mignon. + +“He attributes her disaster, and I think he is right, to the rapacity of +young men after great fortunes. My poor colonel expects to find the lost +sheep here. Let us be happy among ourselves but say nothing to any +one, not even to Latournelle, if that is possible. Mademoiselle,” he +whispered in Modeste’s ear, “write to your father and tell him of his +loss and also the terrible results on your mother’s health and eyesight; +prepare him for the shock he has to meet. I will engage to get the +letter into his hands before he reaches Havre, for he will have to pass +through Paris on his way. Write him a long letter; you have plenty of +time. I will take the letter on Monday; Monday I shall probably go to +Paris.” + +Modeste was so afraid that Canalis and Dumay would meet that she started +hastily for the house to write to her poet and put off the rendezvous. + +“Mademoiselle,” said Dumay, in a very humble manner and barring +Modeste’s way, “may your father find his daughter with no other feelings +in her heart than those she had for him and for her mother before he was +obliged to leave her.” + +“I have sworn to myself, to my sister, and to my mother to be the +joy, the consolation, and the glory of my father, and _I shall keep my +oath_!” replied Modeste with a haughty and disdainful glance at Dumay. +“Do not trouble my delight in the thought of my father’s return +with insulting suspicions. You cannot prevent a girl’s heart from +beating--you don’t want me to be a mummy, do you?” she said. “My hand +belongs to my family, but my heart is my own. If I love any one, my +father and my mother will know it. Does that satisfy you, monsieur?” + +“Thank you, mademoiselle; you restore me to life,” said Dumay, “but you +might still call me Dumay, even when you box my ears!” + +“Swear to me,” said her mother, “that you have not engaged a word or a +look with any young man.” + +“I can swear that, my dear mother,” said Modeste, laughing, and looking +at Dumay who was watching her and smiling to himself like a mischievous +girl. + +“She must be false indeed if you are right,” cried Dumay, when Modeste +had left them and gone into the house. + +“My daughter Modeste may have faults,” said her mother, “but falsehood +is not one of them; she is incapable of saying what is not true.” + +“Well! then let us feel easy,” continued Dumay, “and believe that +misfortune has closed his account with us.” + +“God grant it!” answered Madame Mignon. “You will see _him_, Dumay; but +I shall only hear him. There is much of sadness in my joy.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. A DECLARATION OF LOVE,--SET TO MUSIC + +At this moment Modeste, happy as she was in the return of her father, +was, nevertheless, pacing her room disconsolate as Perrette on seeing +her eggs broken. She had hoped her father would bring back a much larger +fortune than Dumay had mentioned. Nothing could satisfy her new-found +ambition on behalf of her poet less than at least half the six millions +she had talked of in her second letter. Trebly agitated by her two joys +and the grief caused by her comparative poverty, she seated herself at +the piano, that confidant of so many young girls, who tell out their +wishes and provocations on the keys, expressing them by the notes and +tones of their music. Dumay was talking with his wife in the garden +under the windows, telling her the secret of their own wealth, and +questioning her as to her desires and her intentions. Madame Dumay had, +like her husband, no other family than the Mignons. Husband and wife +agreed, therefore, to go and live in Provence, if the Comte de La Bastie +really meant to live in Provence, and to leave their money to whichever +of Modeste’s children might need it most. + +“Listen to Modeste,” said Madame Mignon, addressing them. “None but a +girl in love can compose such airs without having studied music.” + +Houses may burn, fortunes be engulfed, fathers return from distant +lands, empires may crumble away, the cholera may ravage cities, but a +maiden’s love wings its way as nature pursues hers, or that alarming +acid which chemistry has lately discovered, and which will presently eat +through the globe, if nothing stops it. + +Modeste, under the inspiration of her present situation, was putting to +music certain stanzas which we are compelled to quote here--albeit +they are printed in the second volume of the edition Dauriat had +mentioned--because, in order to adapt them to her music, which had the +inexpressible charm of sentiment so admired in great singers, Modeste +had taken liberties with the lines in a manner that may astonish the +admirers of a poet so famous for the correctness, sometimes too precise, +of his measures. + + THE MAIDEN’S SONG + + Hear, arise! the lark is shaking + Sunlit wings that heavenward rise; + Sleep no more; the violet, waking, + Wafts her incense to the skies. + + Flowers revived, their eyes unclosing, + See themselves in drops of dew + In each calyx-cup reposing, + Pearls of a day their mirror true. + + Breeze divine, the god of roses, + Passed by night to bless their bloom; + See! for him each bud uncloses, + Glows, and yields its rich perfume. + + Then arise! the lark is shaking + Sunlit wings that heavenward rise; + Nought is sleeping--Heart, awaking, + Lift thine incense to the skies. + +“It is very pretty,” said Madame Dumay. “Modeste is a musician, and +that’s the whole of it.” + +“The devil is in her!” cried the cashier, into whose heart the suspicion +of the mother forced its way and made him shiver. + +“She loves,” persisted Madame Mignon. + +By succeeding, through the undeniable testimony of the song, in making +the cashier a sharer in her belief as to the state of Modeste’s heart, +Madame Mignon destroyed the happiness the return and the prosperity of +his master had brought him. The poor Breton went down the hill to Havre +and to his desk in Gobenheim’s counting-room with a heavy heart; then, +before returning to dinner, he went to see Latournelle, to tell his +fears, and beg once more for the notary’s advice and assistance. + +“Yes, my dear friend,” said Dumay, when they parted on the steps of the +notary’s door, “I now agree with madame; she loves,--yes, I am sure of +it; and the devil knows the rest. I am dishonored.” + +“Don’t make yourself unhappy, Dumay,” answered the little notary. “Among +us all we can surely get the better of the little puss; sooner or later, +every girl in love betrays herself,--you may be sure of that. But we +will talk about it this evening.” + +Thus it happened that all those devoted to the Mignon family were fully +as disquieted and uncertain as they were before the old soldier tried +the experiment which he expected would be so decisive. The ill-success +of his past efforts so stimulated Dumay’s sense of duty, that he +determined not to go to Paris to see after his own fortune as announced +by his patron, until he had guessed the riddle of Modeste’s heart. These +friends, to whom feelings were more precious than interests, well knew +that unless the daughter were pure and innocent, the father would die of +grief when he came to know the death of Bettina and the blindness of +his wife. The distress of poor Dumay made such an impression on the +Latournelles that they even forgot their parting with Exupere, whom they +had sent off that morning to Paris. During dinner, while the three were +alone, Monsieur and Madame Latournelle and Butscha turned the problem +over and over in their minds, and discussed every aspect of it. + +“If Modeste loved any one in Havre she would have shown some fear +yesterday,” said Madame Latournelle; “her lover, therefore, lives +somewhere else.” + +“She swore to her mother this morning,” said the notary, “in presence +of Dumay, that she had not exchanged a look or a word with any living +soul.” + +“Then she loves after my fashion!” exclaimed Butscha. + +“And how is that, my poor lad?” asked Madame Latournelle. + +“Madame,” said the little cripple, “I love alone and afar--oh! as far as +from here to the stars.” + +“How do you manage it, you silly fellow?” said Madame Latournelle, +laughing. + +“Ah, madame!” said Butscha, “what you call my hump is the socket of my +wings.” + +“So that is the explanation of your seal, is it?” cried the notary. + +Butscha’s seal was a star, and under it the words “Fulgens, +sequar,”--“Shining One, I follow thee,”--the motto of the house of +Chastillonest. + +“A beautiful woman may feel as distrustful as the ugliest,” said +Butscha, as if speaking to himself; “Modeste is clever enough to fear +she may be loved only for her beauty.” + +Hunchbacks are extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for, +according to Nature’s plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish. +The curvature or distortion of the spinal column creates in these +outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where +the nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal +conditions,--where they develop, and whence they are emitted, so to say, +in lightning flashes, to energize the interior being. From this, forces +result which are sometimes brought to light by magnetism, though they +are far more frequently lost in the vague spaces of the spiritual world. +It is rare to find a deformed person who is not gifted with some special +faculty,--a whimsical or sparkling gaiety perhaps, an utter malignity, +or an almost sublime goodness. Like instruments which the hand of art +can never fully waken, these beings, highly privileged though they know +it not, live within themselves, as Butscha lived, provided their natural +forces so magnificently concentrated have not been spent in the struggle +they have been forced to maintain, against tremendous odds, to keep +alive. This explains many superstitions, the popular legends of gnomes, +frightful dwarfs, deformed fairies,--all that race of bottles, as +Rabelais called them, containing elixirs and precious balms. + +Butscha, therefore, had very nearly found the key to the puzzle. With +all the anxious solicitude of a hopeless lover, a vassal ever ready to +die,--like the soldiers alone and abandoned in the snows of Russia, who +still cried out, “Long live the Emperor,”--he meditated how to capture +Modeste’s secret for his own private knowledge. So thinking, he followed +his patrons to the Chalet that evening, with a cloud of care upon his +brow: for he knew it was most important to hide from all these watchful +eyes and ears the net, whatever it might be, in which he should entrap +his lady. It would have to be, he thought, by some intercepted glance, +some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon lays his finger on a +hidden sore. That evening Gobenheim did not appear, and Butscha was +Dumay’s partner against Monsieur and Madame Latournelle. During the few +moment’s of Modeste’s absence, about nine o’clock, to prepare for her +mother’s bedtime, Madame Mignon and her friends spoke openly to one +another; but the poor clerk, depressed by the conviction of Modeste’s +love, which had now seized upon him as upon the rest, seemed as remote +from the discussion as Gobenheim had been the night before. + +“Well, what’s the matter with you, Butscha?” cried Madame Latournelle; +“one would really think you hadn’t a friend in the world.” + +Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was the son of a Swedish +sailor, and whose mother was dead. + +“I have no one in the world but you,” he answered with a troubled voice; +“and your compassion is so much a part of your religion that I can never +lose it--and I will never deserve to lose it.” + +This answer struck the sensitive chord of true delicacy in the minds of +all present. + +“We love you, Monsieur Butscha,” said Madame Mignon, with much feeling +in her voice. + +“I’ve six hundred thousand francs of my own, this day,” cried Dumay, +“and you shall be a notary and the successor of Latournelle.” + +The American wife took the hand of the poor hunchback and pressed it. + +“What! you have six hundred thousand francs!” exclaimed Latournelle, +pricking up his ears as Dumay let fall the words; “and you allow these +ladies to live as they do! Modeste ought to have a fine horse; and why +doesn’t she continue to take lessons in music, and painting, and--” + +“Why, he has only had the money a few hours!” cried the little wife. + +“Hush!” murmured Madame Mignon. + +While these words were exchanged, Butscha’s august mistress turned +towards him, preparing to make a speech:-- + +“My son,” she said, “you are so surrounded by true affection that I +never thought how my thoughtless use of that familiar phrase might be +construed; but you must thank me for my little blunder, because it has +served to show you what friends your noble qualities have won.” + +“Then you must have news from Monsieur Mignon,” resumed the notary. + +“He is on his way home,” said Madame Mignon; “but let us keep the secret +to ourselves. When my husband learns how faithful Butscha has been +to us, how he has shown us the warmest and the most disinterested +friendship when others have given us the cold shoulder, he will not let +you alone provide for him, Dumay. And so, my friend,” she added, turning +her blind face toward Butscha; “you can begin at once to negotiate with +Latournelle.” + +“He’s of legal age, twenty-five and a half years. As for me, it will +be paying a debt, my boy, to make the purchase easy for you,” said the +notary. + +Butscha was kissing Madame Mignon’s hand, and his face was wet with +tears as Modeste opened the door of the salon. + +“What are you doing to my Black Dwarf?” she demanded. “Who is making him +unhappy?” + +“Ah! Mademoiselle Mignon, do we luckless fellows, cradled in misfortune, +ever weep for grief? They have just shown me as much affection as I +could feel for them if they were indeed my own relations. I’m to be a +notary; I shall be rich. Ha! ha! the poor Butscha may become the rich +Butscha. You don’t know what audacity there is in this abortion,” he +cried. + +With that he gave himself a resounding blow on the cavity of his chest +and took up a position before the fireplace, after casting a glance at +Modeste, which slipped like a ray of light between his heavy half-closed +eyelids. He perceived, in this unexpected incident, a chance of +interrogating the heart of his sovereign. Dumay thought for a moment +that the clerk dared to aspire to Modeste, and he exchanged a rapid +glance with the others, who understood him, and began to eye the little +man with a species of terror mingled with curiosity. + +“I, too, have my dreams,” said Butscha, not taking his eyes from +Modeste. + +The young girl lowered her eyelids with a movement that was a revelation +to the young man. + +“You love romance,” he said, addressing her. “Let me, in this moment of +happiness, tell you mine; and you shall tell me in return whether the +conclusion of the tale I have invented for my life is possible. To me +wealth would bring greater happiness than to other men; for the highest +happiness I can imagine would be to enrich the one I loved. You, +mademoiselle, who know so many things, tell me if it is possible for a +man to make himself beloved independently of his person, be it handsome +or ugly, and for his spirit only?” + +Modeste raised her eyes and looked at Butscha. It was a piercing and +questioning glance; for she shared Dumay’s suspicion of Butscha’s +motive. + +“Let me be rich, and I will seek some beautiful poor girl, abandoned +like myself, who has suffered, who knows what misery is. I will write +to her and console her, and be her guardian spirit; she shall read my +heart, my soul; she shall possess by double wealth, my two wealths,--my +gold, delicately offered, and my thought robed in all the splendor which +the accident of birth has denied to my grotesque body. But I myself +shall remain hidden like the cause that science seeks. God himself may +not be glorious to the eye. Well, naturally, the maiden will be curious; +she will wish to see me; but I shall tell her that I am a monster of +ugliness; I shall picture myself hideous.” + +At these words Modeste gave Butscha a glance that looked him through and +through. If she had said aloud, “What do you know of my love?” she could +not have been more explicit. + +“If I have the honor of being loved for the poem of my heart, if some +day such love may make a woman think me only slightly deformed, I +ask you, mademoiselle, shall I not be happier than the handsomest of +men,--as happy as a man of genius beloved by some celestial being like +yourself.” + +The color which suffused the young girl’s face told the cripple nearly +all he sought to know. + +“Well, if that be so,” he went on, “if we enrich the one we love, if +we please the spirit and withdraw the body, is not that the way to make +one’s self beloved? At any rate it is the dream of your poor dwarf,--a +dream of yesterday; for to-day your mother gives me the key to future +wealth by promising me the means of buying a practice. But before I +become another Gobenheim, I seek to know whether this dream could be +really carried out. What do you say, mademoiselle, _you_?” + +Modeste was so astonished that she did not notice the question. The trap +of the lover was much better baited than that of the soldier, for the +poor girl was rendered speechless. + +“Poor Butscha!” whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband. “Do you +think he is going mad?” + +“You want to realize the story of Beauty and the Beast,” said Modeste at +length; “but you forget that the Beast turned into Prince Charming.” + +“Do you think so?” said the dwarf. “Now I have always thought that +that transformation meant the phenomenon of the soul made visible, +obliterating the form under the light of the spirit. If I were not loved +I should stay hidden, that is all. You and yours, madame,” he continued, +addressing his mistress, “instead of having a dwarf at your service, +will now have a life and a fortune.” + +So saying, Butscha resumed his seat, remarking to the three +whist-players with an assumption of calmness, “Whose deal is it?” but +within his soul he whispered sadly to himself: “She wants to be loved +for herself; she corresponds with some pretended great man; how far has +it gone?” + +“Dear mamma, it is nearly ten o’clock,” said Modeste. + +Madame Mignon said good-night to her friends, and went to bed. + +They who wish to love in secret may have Pyrenean hounds, mothers, +Dumays, and Latournelles to spy upon them, and yet not be in any danger; +but when it comes to a lover!--ah! that is diamond cut diamond, flame +against flame, mind to mind, an equation whose terms are mutual. + +On Sunday morning Butscha arrived at the Chalet before Madame +Latournelle, who always came to take Modeste to church, and he proceeded +to blockade the house in expectation of the postman. + +“Have you a letter for Mademoiselle Mignon?” he said to that humble +functionary when he appeared. + +“No, monsieur, none.” + +“This house has been a good customer to the post of late,” remarked the +clerk. + +“You may well say that,” replied the man. + +Modeste both heard and saw the little colloquy from her chamber window, +where she always posted herself behind the blinds at this particular +hour to watch for the postman. She ran downstairs, went into the little +garden, and called in an imperative voice:-- + +“Monsieur Butscha!” + +“Here am I, mademoiselle,” said the cripple, reaching the gate as +Modeste herself opened it. + +“Will you be good enough to tell me whether among your various titles to +a woman’s affection you count that of the shameless spying in which you +are now engaged?” demanded the girl, endeavoring to crush her slave with +the glance and gesture of a queen. + +“Yes, mademoiselle,” he answered proudly. “Ah! I never expected,” + he continued in a low tone, “that the grub could be of service to a +star,--but so it is. Would you rather that your mother and Monsieur +Dumay and Madame Latournelle had guessed your secret than one, excluded +as it were from life, who seeks to be to you one of those flowers that +you cut and wear for a moment? They all know you love; but I, I alone, +_know how_. Use me as you would a vigilant watch-dog; I will obey you, +protect you, and never bark; neither will I condemn you. I ask only +to be of service to you. Your father has made Dumay keeper of the +hen-roost, take Butscha to watch outside,--poor Butscha, who doesn’t ask +for anything, not so much as a bone.” + +“Well, I’ve give you a trial,” said Modeste, whose strongest desire was +to get rid of so clever a watcher. “Please go at once to all the hotels +in Graville and in Havre, and ask if a gentleman has arrived from +England named Monsieur Arthur--” + +“Listen to me, mademoiselle,” said Butscha, interrupting Modeste +respectfully. “I will go and take a walk on the seashore, for you don’t +want me to go to church to-day; that’s what it is.” + +Modeste looked at her dwarf with a perfectly stupid astonishment. + +“Mademoiselle, you have wrapped your face in cotton-wool and a silk +handkerchief, but there’s nothing the matter with you; and you have put +that thick veil on your bonnet to see some one yourself without being +seen.” + +“Where did you acquire all that perspicacity?” cried Modeste, blushing. + +“Moreover, mademoiselle, you have not put on your corset; a cold in the +head wouldn’t oblige you to disfigure your waist and wear half a dozen +petticoats, nor hide your hands in these old gloves, and your pretty +feet in those hideous shoes, nor dress yourself like a beggar-woman, +nor--” + +“That’s enough,” she said. “How am I to be certain that you will obey +me?” + +“My master is obliged to go to Sainte-Adresse. He does not like it, but +he is so truly good he won’t deprive me of my Sunday; I will offer to go +for him.” + +“Go, and I will trust you.” + +“You are sure I can do nothing for you in Havre?” + +“Nothing. Hear me, mysterious dwarf,--look,” she continued, pointing to +the cloudless sky; “can you see a single trace of that bird that flew +by just now? No; well then, my actions are pure as the air is pure, and +leave no stain behind them. You may reassure Dumay and the Latournelles, +and my mother. That hand,” she said, holding up a pretty delicate hand, +with the points of the rosy fingers, through which the light shone, +slightly turning back, “will never be given, it will never even be +kissed by what people call a lover until my father has returned.” + +“Why don’t you want me in the church to-day?” + +“Do you venture to question me after all I have done you the honor to +say, and to ask of you?” + +Butscha bowed without another word, and departed to find his master, in +all the rapture of being taken into the service of his goddess. + +Half an hour later, Monsieur and Madame Latournelle came to fetch +Modeste, who complained of a horrible toothache. + +“I really have not had the courage to dress myself,” she said. + +“Well then,” replied the worthy chaperone, “stay at home.” + +“Oh, no!” said Modeste. “I would rather not. I have bundled myself up, +and I don’t think it will do me any harm to go out.” + +And Mademoiselle Mignon marched off beside Latournelle, refusing to take +his arm lest she should be questioned about the outward trembling which +betrayed her inward agitation at the thought of at last seeing her great +poet. One look, the first,--was it not about to decide her fate? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. A FULL-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF MONSIEUR DE LA BRIERE + +Is there in the life of man a more delightful moment than that of a +first rendezvous? Are the sensations then hidden at the bottom of our +hearts and finding their first expression ever renewed? Can we feel +again the nameless pleasures that we felt when, like Ernest de +La Briere, we looked up our sharpest razors, our finest shirt, an +irreproachable collar, and our best clothes? We deify the garments +associated with that all-supreme moment. We weave within us poetic +fancies quite equal to those of the woman; and the day when either party +guesses them they take wings to themselves and fly away. Are not such +things like the flower of wild fruits, bitter-sweet, grown in the heart +of a forest, the joy of the scant sun-rays, the joy, as Canalis says in +the “Maiden’s Song,” of the plant itself whose eyes unclosing see its +own image within its breast? + +Such emotions, now taking place in La Briere, tend to show that, like +other poor fellows for whom life begins in toil and care, he had never +yet been loved. Arriving at Havre overnight, he had gone to bed at once, +like a true coquette, to obliterate all traces of fatigue; and now, +after taking his bath, he had put himself into a costume carefully +adapted to show him off to the best advantage. This is, perhaps, the +right moment to exhibit a full-length portrait of him, if only to +justify the last letter that Modeste was still to write to him. + +Born of a good family in Toulouse, and allied by marriage to the +minister who first took him under his protection, Ernest had that air of +good-breeding which comes of an education begun in the cradle; and the +habit of managing business affairs gave him a certain sedateness which +was not pedantic,--though pedantry is the natural outgrowth of premature +gravity. He was of ordinary height; his face, which won upon all who saw +him by its delicacy and sweetness, was warm in the flesh-tints, though +without color, and relieved by a small moustache and imperial a la +Mazarin. Without this evidence of virility he might have resembled a +young woman in disguise, so refined was the shape of his face and the +cut of his lips, so feminine the transparent ivory of a set of teeth, +regular enough to have seemed artificial. Add to these womanly points a +habit of speech as gentle as the expression of the face; as gentle, +too, as the blue eyes with their Turkish eyelids, and you will readily +understand how it was that the minister occasionally called his young +secretary Mademoiselle de La Briere. The full, clear forehead, well +framed by abundant black hair, was dreamy, and did not contradict the +character of the face, which was altogether melancholy. The prominent +arch of the upper eyelid, though very beautifully cut, overshadowed +the glance of the eye, and added a physical sadness,--if we may so call +it,--produced by the droop of the lid over the eyeball. This inward +doubt or eclipse--which is put into language by the word modesty--was +expressed in his whole person. Perhaps we shall be able to make his +appearance better understood if we say that the logic of design required +greater length in the oval of his head, more space between the chin, +which ended abruptly, and the forehead, which was reduced in height +by the way in which the hair grew. The face had, in short, a rather +compressed appearance. Hard work had already drawn furrows between the +eyebrows, which were somewhat too thick and too near together, like +those of a jealous nature. Though La Briere was then slight, he belonged +to the class of temperaments which begin, after they are thirty, to take +on an unexpected amount of flesh. + +The young man would have seemed to a student of French history a very +fair representative of the royal and almost inconceivable figure of +Louis XIII.,--that historical figure of melancholy modesty without +known cause; pallid beneath the crown; loving the dangers of war and +the fatigues of hunting, but hating work; timid with his mistress to the +extent of keeping away from her; so indifferent as to allow the head +of his friend to be cut off,--a figure that nothing can explain but his +remorse for having avenged his father on his mother. Was he a Catholic +Hamlet, or merely the victim of incurable disease? But the undying worm +which gnawed at the king’s vitals was in Ernest’s case simply distrust +of himself,--the timidity of a man to whom no woman had ever said, “Ah, +how I love thee!” and, above all, the spirit of self-devotion without +an object. After hearing the knell of the monarchy in the fall of his +patron’s ministry, the poor fellow had next fallen upon a rock covered +with exquisite mosses, named Canalis; he was, therefore, still seeking +a power to love, and this spaniel-like search for a master gave him +outwardly the air of a king who has met with his. This play of feeling, +and a general tone of suffering in the young man’s face made it more +really beautiful than he was himself aware of; for he had always +been annoyed to find himself classed by women among the “handsome +disconsolate,”--a class which has passed out of fashion in these days, +when every man seeks to blow his own trumpet and put himself in the +advance. + +The self-distrustful Ernest now rested his immediate hopes on the +fashionable clothes he intended to wear. He put on, for this sacred +interview, where everything depended on a first impression, a pair +of black trousers and carefully polished boots, a sulphur-colored +waistcoat, which left to sight an exquisitely fine shirt with opal +buttons, a black cravat, and a small blue surtout coat which seemed +glued to his back and shoulders by some newly-invented process. +The ribbon of the Legion of honor was in his buttonhole. He wore a +well-fitting pair of kid gloves of the Florentine bronze color, and +carried his cane and hat in the left hand with a gesture and air that +was worthy of the Grand Monarch, and enabled him to show, as the +sacred precincts required, his bare head with the light falling on his +carefully arranged hair. He stationed himself before the service began +in the church porch, from whence he could examine the church, and the +Christians--more particularly the female Christians--who dipped their +fingers in the holy water. + +An inward voice cried to Modeste as she entered, “It is he!” That +surtout, and indeed the whole bearing of the young man were essentially +Parisian; the ribbon, the gloves, the cane, the very perfume of his hair +were not of Havre. So when La Briere turned about to examine the +tall and imposing Madame Latournelle, the notary, and the bundled-up +(expression sacred to women) figure of Modeste, the poor child, though +she had carefully tutored herself for the event, received a violent blow +on her heart when her eyes rested on this poetic figure, illuminated by +the full light of day as it streamed through the open door. She could +not be mistaken; a small white rose nearly hid the ribbon of the Legion. +Would he recognize his unknown mistress muffled in an old bonnet with +a double veil? Modeste was so in fear of love’s clairvoyance that she +began to stoop in her walk like an old woman. + +“Wife,” said little Latournelle as they took their seats, “that +gentleman does not belong to Havre.” + +“So many strangers come here,” answered his wife. + +“But,” said the notary, “strangers never come to look at a church like +ours, which is less than two centuries old.” + +Ernest remained in the porch throughout the service without seeing any +woman who realized his hopes. Modeste, on her part, could not control +the trembling of her limbs until Mass was nearly over. She was in the +grasp of a joy that none but she herself could depict. At last she heard +the foot-fall of a gentleman on the pavement of the aisle. The service +over, La Briere was making a circuit of the church, where no one now +remained but the punctiliously pious, whom he proceeded to subject to +a shrewd and keen analysis. Ernest noticed that a prayer-book shook +violently in the hands of a veiled woman as he passed her; as she alone +kept her face hidden his suspicions were aroused, and then confirmed by +Modeste’s dress, which the lover’s eye now scanned and noted. He left +the church with the Latournelles and followed them at a distance to +the rue Royale, where he saw them enter a house accompanied by Modeste, +whose custom it was to stay with her friends till the hour of vespers. +After examining the little house, which was ornamented with scutcheons, +he asked the name of the owner, and was told that he was Monsieur +Latournelle, the chief notary in Havre. As Ernest lounged along the rue +Royale hoping for a glimpse into the house, Modeste caught sight of him, +and thereupon declared herself too ill to go to vespers. Poor +Ernest thus had his trouble for his pains. He dared not wander about +Ingouville; moreover, he made it a point of honor to obey orders, and +he therefore went back to Paris, previously writing a letter which +Francoise Cochet duly delivered on the morrow with the Havre postmark. + +It was the custom of Monsieur and Madame Latournelle to dine at the +Chalet every Sunday when they brought back Modeste after vespers. So, as +soon as the invalid felt a little better, they started for Ingouville, +accompanied by Butscha. Once at home, the happy Modeste forgot her +pretended illness and her disguise, and dressed herself charmingly, +humming as she came down to dinner,-- + + “Nought is sleeping--Heart! awaking, + Lift thine incense to the skies.” + +Butscha shuddered slightly when he caught sight of her, so changed did +she seem to him. The wings of love were fastened to her shoulders; she +had the air of a nymph, a Psyche; her cheeks glowed with the divine +color of happiness. + +“Who wrote the words to which you have put that pretty music?” asked her +mother. + +“Canalis, mamma,” she answered, flushing rosy red from her throat to her +forehead. + +“Canalis!” cried the dwarf, to whom the inflections of the girl’s voice +and her blush told the only thing of which he was still ignorant. “He, +that great poet, does he write songs?” + +“They are only simple verses,” she said, “which I have ventured to set +to German airs.” + +“No, no,” interrupted Madame Mignon, “the music is your own, my +daughter.” + +Modeste, feeling that she grew more and more crimson, went off into the +garden, calling Butscha after her. + +“You can do me a great service,” she said. “Dumay is keeping a secret +from my mother and me as to the fortune which my father is bringing back +with him; and I want to know what it is. Did not Dumay send papa when +he first went away over five hundred thousand francs? Yes. Well, papa is +not the kind of man to stay away four years and only double his capital. +It seems he is coming back on a ship of his own, and Dumay’s share +amounts to almost six hundred thousand francs.” + +“There is no need to question Dumay,” said Butscha. “Your father lost, +as you know, about four millions when he went away, and he has doubtless +recovered them. He would of course give Dumay ten per cent of his +profits; the worthy man admitted the other day how much it was, and my +master and I think that in that case the colonel’s fortune must amount +to six or seven millions--” + +“Oh, papa!” cried Modeste, crossing her hands on her breast and looking +up to heaven, “twice you have given me life!” + +“Ah, mademoiselle!” said Butscha, “you love a poet. That kind of man +is more or less of a Narcissus. Will he know how to love you? A +phrase-maker, always busy in fitting words together, must be a bore. +Mademoiselle, a poet is no more poetry than a seed is a flower.” + +“Butscha, I never saw so handsome a man.” + +“Beauty is a veil which often serves to hide imperfections.” + +“He has the most angelic heart of heaven--” + +“I pray God you may be right,” said the dwarf, clasping his hands, +“--and happy! That man shall have, as you have, a servant in Jean +Butscha. I will not be notary; I shall give that up; I shall study the +sciences.” + +“Why?” + +“Ah, mademoiselle, to train up your children, if you will deign to make +me their tutor. But, oh! if you would only listen to some advice. Let +me take up this matter; let me look into the life and habits of this +man,--find out if he is kind, or bad-tempered, or gentle, if he commands +the respect which you merit in a husband, if he is able to love utterly, +preferring you to everything, even his own talent--” + +“What does that signify if I love him?” + +“Ah, true!” cried the dwarf. + +At that instant Madame Mignon was saying to her friends,-- + +“My daughter saw the man she loves this morning.” + +“Then it must have been that sulphur waistcoat which puzzled you so, +Latournelle,” said his wife. “The young man had a pretty white rose in +his buttonhole.” + +“Ah!” sighed the mother, “the sign of recognition.” + +“And he also wore the ribbon of an officer of the Legion of honor. He is +a charming young man. But we are all deceiving ourselves; Modeste +never raised her veil, and her clothes were huddled on like a +beggar-woman’s--” + +“And she said she was ill,” cried the notary; “but she has taken off her +mufflings and is just as well as she ever was.” + +“It is incomprehensible!” said Dumay. + +“Not at all,” said the notary; “it is now as clear as day.” + +“My child,” said Madame Mignon to Modeste, as she came into the room, +followed by Butscha, “did you see a well-dressed young man at church +this morning, with a white rose in his button-hole?” + +“I saw him,” said Butscha quickly, perceiving by everybody’s strained +attention that Modeste was likely to fall into a trap. “It was +Grindot, the famous architect, with whom the town is in treaty for the +restoration of the church. He has just come from Paris, and I met +him this morning examining the exterior as I was on my way to +Sainte-Adresse.” + +“Oh, an architect, was he? he puzzled me,” said Modeste, for whom +Butscha had thus gained time to recover herself. + +Dumay looked askance at Butscha. Modeste, fully warned, recovered her +impenetrable composure. Dumay’s distrust was now thoroughly aroused, and +he resolved to go the mayor’s office early in the morning and ascertain +if the architect had really been in Havre the previous day. Butscha, +on the other hand, was equally determined to go to Paris and find out +something about Canalis. + +Gobenheim came to play whist, and by his presence subdued and compressed +all this fermentation of feelings. Modeste awaited her mother’s bedtime +with impatience. She intended to write, but never did so except at +night. Here is the letter which love dictated to her while all the world +was sleeping:-- + + To Monsieur de Canalis,--Ah! my friend, my well-beloved! What + atrocious falsehoods those portraits in the shop-windows are! And + I, who made that horrible lithograph my joy!--I am humbled at the + thought of loving one so handsome. No; it is impossible that those + Parisian women are so stupid as not to have seen their dreams + fulfilled in you. You neglected! you unloved! I do not believe a + word of all that you have written me about your lonely and obscure + life, your hunger for an idol,--sought in vain until now. You have + been too well loved, monsieur; your brow, white and smooth as a + magnolia leaf, reveals it; and it is I who must be neglected,--for + who am I? Ah! why have you called me to life? I felt for a moment + as though the heavy burden of the flesh was leaving me; my soul + had broken the crystal which held it captive; it pervaded my whole + being; the cold silence of material things had ceased; all things + in nature had a voice and spoke to me. The old church was + luminous. It’s arched roof, brilliant with gold and azure like + those of an Italian cathedral, sparkled above my head. Melodies + such as the angels sang to martyrs, quieting their pains, sounded + from the organ. The rough pavements of Havre seemed to my feet a + flowery mead; the sea spoke to me with a voice of sympathy, like + an old friend whom I had never truly understood. I saw clearly how + the roses in my garden had long adored me and bidden me love; they + lifted their heads and smiled as I came back from church. I heard + your name, “Melchior,” chiming in the flower-bells; I saw it + written on the clouds. Yes, yes, I live, I am living, thanks to + thee,--my poet, more beautiful than that cold, conventional Lord + Byron, with a face as dull as the English climate. One glance of + thine, thine Orient glance, pierced through my double veil and + sent thy blood to my heart, and from thence to my head and feet. + Ah! that is not the life our mother gave us. A hurt to thee would + hurt me too at the very instant it was given,--my life exists by + thy thought only. I know now the purpose of the divine faculty of + music; the angels invented it to utter love. Ah, my Melchior, to + have genius and to have beauty is too much; a man should be made + to choose between them at his birth. + + When I think of the treasures of tenderness and affection which + you have given me, and more especially for the last month, I ask + myself if I dream. No, but you hide some mystery; what woman can + yield you up to me and not die? Ah! jealousy has entered my heart + with love,--love in which I could not have believed. How could I + have imagined so mighty a conflagration? And now--strange and + inconceivable revulsion!--I would rather you were ugly. + + What follies I committed after I came home! The yellow dahlias + reminded me of your waistcoat, the white roses were my loving + friends; I bowed to them with a look that belonged to you, like + all that is of me. The very color of the gloves, moulded to hands + of a gentleman, your step along the nave,--all, all, is so printed + on my memory that sixty years hence I shall see the veriest + trifles of this day of days,--the color of the atmosphere, the ray + of sunshine that flickered on a certain pillar; I shall hear the + prayer your step interrupted; I shall inhale the incense of the + altar; forever I shall feel above our heads the priestly hands + that blessed us both as you passed by me at the closing + benediction. The good Abbe Marcelin married us then! The + happiness, above that of earth, which I feel in this new world of + unexpected emotions can only be equalled by the joy of telling it + to you, of sending it back to him who poured it into my heart with + the lavishness of the sun itself. No more veils, no more + disguises, my beloved. Come back to me, oh, come back soon. With + joy I now unmask. + + You have no doubt heard of the house of Mignon in Havre? Well, I + am, through an irreparable misfortune, its sole heiress. But you + are not to look down upon us, descendant of an Auvergne knight; + the arms of the Mignon de La Bastie will do no dishonor to those + of Canalis. We bear gules, on a bend sable four bezants or; + quarterly four crosses patriarchal or; a cardinal’s hat as crest, + and the fiocchi for supports. Dear, I will be faithful to our + motto: “Una fides, unus Dominus!”--the true faith, and one only + Master. + + Perhaps, my friend, you will find some irony in my name, after all + that I have done, and all that I herein avow. I am named Modeste. + Therefore I have not deceived you by signing “O. d’Este M.” + Neither have I misled you about our fortune; it will amount, I + believe, to the sum which rendered you so virtuous. I know that to + you money is a consideration of small importance; therefore I + speak of it without reserve. Let me tell you how happy it makes me + to give freedom of action to our happiness,--to be able to say, + when the fancy for travel takes us, “Come, let us go in a + comfortable carriage, sitting side by side, without a thought of + money”--happy, in short, to tell the king, “I have the fortune + which you require in your peers.” Thus Modeste Mignon can be of + service to you, and her gold will have the noblest of uses. + + As to your servant herself,--you did see her once, at her window. + Yes, “the fairest daughter of Eve the fair” was indeed your + unknown damozel; but how little the Modeste of to-day resembles + her of that long past era! That one was in her shroud, this one + --have I made you know it?--has received from you the life of life. + Love, pure, and sanctioned, the love my father, now returning + rich and prosperous, will authorize, has raised me with its + powerful yet childlike hand from the grave in which I slept. You + have wakened me as the sun wakens the flowers. The eyes of your + beloved are no longer those of the little Modeste so daring in her + ignorance,--no, they are dimmed with the sight of happiness, and + the lids close over them. To-day I tremble lest I can never + deserve my fate. The king has come in his glory; my lord has now a + subject who asks pardon for the liberties she has taken, like the + gambler with loaded dice after cheating Monsieur de Grammont. + + My cherished poet! I will be thy Mignon--happier far than the + Mignon of Goethe, for thou wilt leave me in mine own land,--in thy + heart. Just as I write this pledge of our betrothal a nightingale + in the Vilquin park answers for thee. Ah, tell me quick that his + note, so pure, so clear, so full, which fills my heart with joy + and love like an Annunciation, does not lie to me. + + My father will pass through Paris on his way from Marseilles; the + house of Mongenod, with whom he corresponds, will know his + address. Go to him, my Melchior, tell him that you love me; but do + not try to tell him how I love you,--let that be forever between + ourselves and God. I, my dear one, am about to tell everything to + my mother. Her heart will justify my conduct; she will rejoice in + our secret poem, so romantic, human and divine in one. + + You have the confession of the daughter; you must now obtain the + consent of the Comte de La Bastie, father of your + +Modeste. + + + P.S.--Above all, do not come to Havre without having first + obtained my father’s consent. If you love me you will not fail to + find him on his way through Paris. + + +“What are you doing, up at this hour, Mademoiselle Modeste?” said the +voice of Dumay at her door. + +“Writing to my father,” she answered; “did you not tell me you should +start in the morning?” + +Dumay had nothing to say to that, and he went to bed, while Modeste +wrote another long letter, this time to her father. + +On the morrow, Francois Cochet, terrified at seeing the Havre postmark +on the envelope which Ernest had mailed the night before, brought her +young mistress the following letter and took away the one which Modeste +had written:-- + + To Mademoiselle O. d’Este M.,--My heart tells me that you were the + woman so carefully veiled and disguised, and seated between + Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, who have but one child, a son. + Ah, my love, if you have only a modest station, without + distinction, without importance, without money even, you do not + know how happy that would make me. You ought to understand me by + this time; why will you not tell me the truth? I am no poet, + --except in heart, through love, through you. Oh! what power of + affection there is in me to keep me here in this hotel, instead of + mounting to Ingouville which I can see from my windows. Will you + ever love me as I love you? To leave Havre in such uncertainty! Am + I not punished for loving you as if I had committed a crime? But I + obey you blindly. Let me have a letter quickly, for if you have + been mysterious, I have returned you mystery for mystery, and I + must at last throw off my disguise, show you the poet that I am, + and abdicate my borrowed glory. + +This letter made Modeste terribly uneasy. She could not get back the +one which Francoise had carried away before she came to the last words, +whose meaning she now sought by reading them again and again; but +she went to her own room and wrote an answer in which she demanded an +immediate explanation. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. MATTERS GROWN COMPLICATED + +During these little events other little events were going on in Havre, +which caused Modeste to forget her present uneasiness. Dumay went down +to Havre early in the morning, and soon discovered that no architect had +been in town the day before. Furious at Butscha’s lie, which revealed a +conspiracy of which he was resolved to know the meaning, he rushed from +the mayor’s office to his friend Latournelle. + +“Where’s your Master Butscha?” he demanded of the notary, when he saw +that the clerk was not in his place. + +“Butscha, my dear fellow, has gone to Paris. He heard some news of his +father this morning on the quays, from a Swedish sailor. It seems the +father went to the Indies and served a prince, or something, and he is +now in Paris.” + +“Lies! it’s all a trick! infamous! I’ll find that damned cripple if I’ve +got to go express to Paris for him,” cried Dumay. “Butscha is deceiving +us; he knows something about Modeste, and hasn’t told us. If he meddles +in this thing he shall never be a notary. I’ll roll him in the mud from +which he came, I’ll--” + +“Come, come, my friend; never hang a man before you try him,” said +Latournelle, frightened at Dumay’s rage. + +After stating the facts on which his suspicions were founded, Dumay +begged Madame Latournelle to go and stay at the Chalet during his +absence. + +“You will find the colonel in Paris,” said the notary. “In the shipping +news quoted this morning in the Journal of Commerce, I found under +the head of Marseilles--here, see for yourself,” he said, offering the +paper. “‘The Bettina Mignon, Captain Mignon, arrived October 6’; it is +now the 17th, and the colonel is sure to be in Paris.” + +Dumay requested Gobenheim to do without him in future, and then went +back to the Chalet, which he reached just as Modeste was sealing her two +letters, to her father and Canalis. Except for the address the letters +were precisely alike both in weight and appearance. Modeste thought she +had laid that to her father over that to her Melchior, but had, in fact, +done exactly the reverse. This mistake, so often made in the little +things of life, occasioned the discovery of her secret by Dumay and her +mother. The former was talking vehemently to Madame Mignon in the salon, +and revealing to her his fresh fears caused by Modeste’s duplicity and +Butscha’s connivance. + +“Madame,” he cried, “he is a serpent whom we have warmed in our bosoms; +there’s no place in his contorted little body for a soul!” + +Modeste put the letter for her father into the pocket of her apron, +supposing it to be that for Canalis, and came downstairs with the letter +for her lover in her hand, to see Dumay before he started for Paris. + +“What has happened to my Black Dwarf? why are you talking so loud!” she +said, appearing at the door. + +“Mademoiselle, Butscha has gone to Paris, and you, no doubt, know +why,--to carry on that affair of the little architect with the sulphur +waistcoat, who, unluckily for the hunchback’s lies, has never been +here.” + +Modeste was struck dumb; feeling sure that the dwarf had departed on +a mission of inquiry as to her poet’s morals, she turned pale, and sat +down. + +“I’m going after him; I shall find him,” continued Dumay. “Is that the +letter for your father, mademoiselle?” he added, holding out his hand. +“I will take it to the Mongenods. God grant the colonel and I may not +pass each other on the road.” + +Modeste gave him the letter. Dumay looked mechanically at the address. + +“‘Monsieur le Baron de Canalis, rue de Paradis-Poissoniere, No. 29’!” he +cried out; “what does that mean?” + +“Ah, my daughter! that is the man you love,” exclaimed Madame Mignon; +“the stanzas you set to music were his--” + +“And that’s his portrait that you have in a frame upstairs,” added +Dumay. + +“Give me back that letter, Monsieur Dumay,” said Modeste, erecting +herself like a lioness defending her cubs. + +“There it is, mademoiselle,” he replied. + +Modeste put it into the bosom of her dress, and gave Dumay the one +intended for her father. + +“I know what you are capable of, Dumay,” she said; “and if you take +one step against Monsieur de Canalis, I shall take another out of this +house, to which I will never return.” + +“You will kill your mother, mademoiselle,” replied Dumay, who left the +room and called his wife. + +The poor mother was indeed half-fainting,--struck to the heart by +Modeste’s words. + +“Good-bye, wife,” said the Breton, kissing the American. “Take care of +the mother; I go to save the daughter.” + +He made his preparations for the journey in a few minutes, and started +for Havre. An hour later he was travelling post to Paris, with the haste +that nothing but passion or speculation can get out of wheels. + +Recovering herself under Modeste’s tender care, Madame Mignon went up to +her bedroom leaning on the arm of her daughter, to whom she said, as her +sole reproach, when they were alone:-- + +“My unfortunate child, see what you have done! Why did you conceal +anything from me? Am I so harsh?” + +“Oh! I was just going to tell it to you comfortably,” sobbed Modeste. + +She thereupon related everything to her mother, read her the letters +and their answers, and shed the rose of her poem petal by petal into the +heart of the kind German woman. When this confidence, which took half +the day, was over, when she saw something that was almost a smile on the +lips of the too indulgent mother, Modeste fell upon her breast in tears. + +“Oh, mother!” she said amid her sobs, “you, whose heart, all gold and +poetry, is a chosen vessel, chosen of God to hold a sacred love, a +single and celestial love that endures for life; you, whom I wish to +imitate by loving no one but my husband,--you will surely understand +what bitter tears I am now shedding. This butterfly, this Psyche of my +thoughts, this dual soul which I have nurtured with maternal care, my +love, my sacred love, this living mystery of mysteries--it is about to +fall into vulgar hands, and they will tear its diaphanous wings and rend +its veil under the miserable pretext of enlightening me, of discovering +whether genius is as prudent as a banker, whether my Melchior has saved +his money, or whether he has some entanglement to shake off; they +want to find out if he is guilty to bourgeois eyes of youthful +indiscretions,--which to the sun of our love are like the clouds of the +dawn. Oh! what will come of it? what will they do? See! feel my hand, it +burns with fever. Ah! I shall never survive it.” + +And Modeste, really taken with a chill, was forced to go to bed, causing +serious uneasiness to her mother, Madame Latournelle, and Madame Dumay, +who took good care of her during the journey of the lieutenant to +Paris,--to which city the logic of events compels us to transport our +drama for a moment. + +Truly modest minds, like that of Ernest de La Briere, but especially +those who, knowing their own value, also know that they are neither +loved nor appreciated, can understand the infinite joy to which the +young secretary abandoned himself on reading Modeste’s letter. Could +it be that after thinking him lofty and witty in soul, his young, his +artless, his tricksome mistress now thought him handsome? This flattery +is the flattery supreme. And why? Beauty is, undoubtedly, the signature +of the master to the work into which he has put his soul; it is the +divine spirit manifested. And to see it where it is not, to create it by +the power of an inward look,--is not that the highest reach of love? +And so the poor youth cried aloud with all the rapture of an applauded +author, “At last I am beloved!” When a woman, be she maid, wife, or +widow, lets the charming words escape her, “Thou art handsome,” the +words may be false, but the man opens his thick skull to their subtle +poison, and thenceforth he is attached by an everlasting tie to the +pretty flatterer, the true or the deceived judge; she becomes his +particular world, he thirsts for her continual testimony, and he never +wearies of it, even if he is a crowned prince. Ernest walked proudly +up and down his room; he struck a three-quarter, full-face, and profile +attitude before the glass; he tried to criticise himself; but a voice, +diabolically persuasive, whispered to him, “Modeste is right.” He took +up her letter and re-read it; he saw his fairest of the fair; he talked +with her; then, in the midst of his ecstacy, a dreadful thought came to +him:-- + +“She thinks me Canalis, and she has a million of money!” + +Down went his happiness, just as a somnambulist, having attained the +peak of a roof, hears a voice, awakes, and falls crushed upon the +pavement. + +“Without the halo of fame I shall be hideous in her eyes,” he cried; +“what a maddening situation I have put myself in!” + +La Briere was too much the man of his letters which we have read, his +heart was too noble and pure to allow him to hesitate at the call of +honor. He at once resolved to find Modeste’s father, if he were in +Paris, and confess all to him, and to let Canalis know the serious +results of their Parisian jest. To a sensitive nature like his, +Modeste’s large fortune was in itself a determining reason. He could not +allow it to be even suspected that the ardor of the correspondence, so +sincere on his part, had in view the capture of a “dot.” Tears were in +his eyes as he made his way to the rue Chantereine to find the banker +Mongenod, whose fortune and business connections were partly the work of +the minister to whom Ernest owed his start in life. + +At the hour when La Briere was inquiring about the father of his beloved +from the head of the house of Mongenod, and getting information that +might be useful to him in his strange position, a scene was taking place +in Canalis’s study which the ex-lieutenant’s hasty departure from Havre +may have led the reader to foresee. + +Like a true soldier of the imperial school, Dumay, whose Breton blood +had boiled all the way to Paris, considered a poet to be a poor stick of +a fellow, of no consequence whatever,--a buffoon addicted to choruses, +living in a garret, dressed in black clothes that were white at every +seam, wearing boots that were occasionally without soles, and linen that +was unmentionable, and whose fingers knew more about ink than soap; in +short, one who looked always as if he had tumbled from the moon, +except when scribbling at a desk, like Butscha. But the seething of the +Breton’s heart and brain received a violent application of cold water +when he entered the courtyard of the pretty house occupied by the poet +and saw a groom washing a carriage, and also, through the windows of a +handsome dining-room, a valet dressed like a banker, to whom the groom +referred him, and who answered, looking the stranger over from head to +foot, that Monsieur le baron was not visible. “There is,” added the man, +“a meeting of the council of state to-day, at which Monsieur le baron is +obliged to be present.” + +“Is this really the house of Monsieur Canalis,” said Dumay, “a writer of +poetry?” + +“Monsieur le baron de Canalis,” replied the valet, “is the great poet +of whom you speak; but he is also the president of the court of Claims +attached to the ministry of foreign affairs.” + +Dumay, who had come to box the ears of a scribbling nobody, found +himself confronted by a high functionary of the state. The salon +where he was told to wait offered, as a topic for his meditations, the +insignia of the Legion of honor glittering on a black coat which the +valet had left upon a chair. Presently his eyes were attracted by the +beauty and brilliancy of a silver-gilt cup bearing the words “Given by +_Madame_.” Then he beheld before him, on a pedestal, a Sevres vase on +which was engraved, “The gift of Madame la _Dauphine_.” + +These mute admonitions brought Dumay to his senses while the valet went +to ask his master if he would receive a person who had come from Havre +expressly to see him,--a stranger named Dumay. + +“What sort of a man?” asked Canalis. + +“He is well-dressed, and wears the ribbon of the Legion of honor.” + +Canalis made a sign of assent, and the valet retreated, and then +returned and announced, “Monsieur Dumay.” + +When he heard himself announced, when he was actually in presence of +Canalis, in a study as gorgeous as it was elegant, with his feet on a +carpet far handsomer than any in the house of Mignon, and when he met +the studied glance of the poet who was playing with the tassels of a +sumptuous dressing-gown, Dumay was so completely taken aback that he +allowed the great poet to have the first word. + +“To what do I owe the honor of your visit, monsieur?” + +“Monsieur,” began Dumay, who remained standing. + +“If you have a good deal to say,” interrupted Canalis, “I must ask you +to be seated.” + +And Canalis himself plunged into an armchair a la Voltaire, crossed his +legs, raised the upper one to the level of his eye and looked fixedly at +Dumay, who became, to use his own martial slang, “bayonetted.” + +“I am listening, monsieur,” said the poet; “my time is precious,--the +ministers are expecting me.” + +“Monsieur,” said Dumay, “I shall be brief. You have seduced--how, I do +not know--a young lady in Havre, young, beautiful, and rich; the +last and only hope of two noble families; and I have come to ask your +intentions.” + +Canalis, who had been busy during the last three months with serious +matters of his own, and was trying to get himself made commander of the +Legion of honor and minister to a German court, had completely forgotten +Modeste’s letter.” + +“I!” he exclaimed. + +“You!” repeated Dumay. + +“Monsieur,” answered Canalis, smiling; “I know no more of what you are +talking about than if you had said it in Hebrew. I seduce a young +girl! I, who--” and a superb smile crossed his features. “Come, come, +monsieur, I’m not such a child as to steal fruit over the hedges when I +have orchards and gardens of my own where the finest peaches ripen. All +Paris knows where my affections are set. Very likely there may be some +young girl in Havre full of enthusiasm for my verses,--of which they are +not worthy; that would not surprise me at all; nothing is more common. +See! look at that lovely coffer of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, +and edged with that iron-work as fine as lace. That coffer belonged +to Pope Leo X., and was given to me by the Duchesse de Chaulieu, who +received it from the king of Spain. I use it to hold the letters I +receive from ladies and young girls living in every quarter of Europe. +Oh! I assure you I feel the utmost respect for these flowers of the +soul, cut and sent in moments of enthusiasm that are worthy of all +reverence. Yes, to me the impulse of a heart is a noble and sublime +thing! Others--scoffers--light their cigars with such letters, or give +them to their wives for curl-papers; but I, who am a bachelor, monsieur, +I have too much delicacy not to preserve these artless offerings--so +fresh, so disinterested--in a tabernacle of their own. In fact, I guard +them with a species of veneration, and at my death they will be burned +before my eyes. People may call that ridiculous, but I do not care. I am +grateful; these proofs of devotion enable me to bear the criticisms and +annoyances of a literary life. When I receive a shot in the back from +some enemy lurking under cover of a daily paper, I look at that casket +and think,--here and there in this wide world there are hearts whose +wounds have been healed, or soothed, or dressed by me!” + +This bit of poetry, declaimed with all the talent of a great actor, +petrified the lieutenant, whose eyes opened to their utmost extent, and +whose astonishment delighted the poet. + +“I will permit you,” continued the peacock, spreading his tail, “out of +respect for your position, which I fully appreciate, to open that coffer +and look for the letter of your young lady. Though I know I am right, I +remember names, and I assure you you are mistaken in thinking--” + +“And this is what a poor child comes to in this gulf of Paris!” cried +Dumay,--“the darling of her parents, the joy of her friends, the hope +of all, petted by all, the pride of a family, who has six persons so +devoted to her that they would willingly make a rampart of their lives +and fortunes between her and sorrow. Monsieur,” Dumay remarked after a +pause, “you are a great poet, and I am only a poor soldier. For fifteen +years I served my country in the ranks; I have had the wind of many a +bullet in my face; I have crossed Siberia and been a prisoner there; the +Russians flung me on a kibitka, and God knows what I suffered. I have +seen thousands of my comrades die,--but you, you have given me a chill +to the marrow of my bones, such as I never felt before.” + +Dumay fancied that his words moved the poet, but in fact they only +flattered him,--a thing which at this period of his life had become +almost an impossibility; for his ambitious mind had long forgotten the +first perfumed phial that praise had broken over his head. + +“Ah, my soldier!” he said solemnly, laying his hand on Dumay’s shoulder, +and thinking to himself how droll it was to make a soldier of the empire +tremble, “this young girl may be all in all to you, but to society at +large what is she? nothing. At this moment the greatest mandarin in +China may be yielding up the ghost and putting half the universe in +mourning, and what is that to you? The English are killing thousands of +people in India more worthy than we are; why, at this very moment while +I am speaking to you some ravishing woman is being burned alive,--did +that make you care less for your cup of coffee this morning at +breakfast? Not a day passes in Paris that some mother in rags does not +cast her infant on the world to be picked up by whoever finds it; and +yet see! here is this delicious tea in a cup that cost five louis, and +I write verses which Parisian women rush to buy, exclaiming, ‘Divine! +delicious! charming! food for the soul!’ Social nature, like Nature +herself, is a great forgetter. You will be quite surprised ten years +hence at what you have done to-day. You are here in a city where people +die, where they marry, where they adore each other at an assignation, +where young girls suffocate themselves, where the man of genius with +his cargo of thoughts teeming with humane beneficence goes to the +bottom,--all side by side, sometimes under the same roof, and yet +ignorant of each other, ignorant and indifferent. And here you come +among us and ask us to expire with grief at this commonplace affair.” + +“You call yourself a poet!” cried Dumay, “but don’t you feel what you +write?” + +“Good heavens! if we endured the joys or the woes we sing we should +be as worn out in three months as a pair of old boots,” said the poet, +smiling. “But stay, you shall not come from Havre to Paris to see +Canalis without carrying something back with you. Warrior!” (Canalis had +the form and action of an Homeric hero) “learn this from the poet: Every +noble sentiment in man is a poem so exclusively individual that his +nearest friend, his other self, cares nothing for it. It is a treasure +which is his alone, it is--” + +“Forgive me for interrupting you,” said Dumay, who was gazing at the +poet with horror, “but did you ever come to Havre?” + +“I was there for a day and a night in the spring of 1824 on my way to +London.” + +“You are a man of honor,” continued Dumay; “will you give me your word +that you do not know Mademoiselle Modeste Mignon?” + +“This is the first time that name ever struck my ear,” replied Canalis. + +“Ah, monsieur!” said Dumay, “into what dark intrigue am I about to +plunge? Can I count upon you to help me in my inquiries?--for I am +certain that some one has been using your name. You ought to have had a +letter yesterday from Havre.” + +“I received none. Be sure, monsieur, that I will help you,” said +Canalis, “so far as I have the opportunity of doing so.” + +Dumay withdrew, his heart torn with anxiety, believing that the wretched +Butscha had worn the skin of the poet to deceive Modeste; whereas +Butscha himself, keen-witted as a prince seeking revenge, and far +cleverer than any paid spy, was ferretting out the life and actions +of Canalis, escaping notice by his insignificance, like an insect that +bores its way into the sap of a tree. + +The Breton had scarcely left the poet’s house when La Briere entered his +friend’s study. Naturally, Canalis told him of the visit of the man from +Havre. + +“Ha!” said Ernest, “Modeste Mignon; that is just what I have come to +speak of.” + +“Ah, bah!” cried Canalis; “have I had a triumph by proxy?” + +“Yes; and here is the key to it. My friend, I am loved by the sweetest +girl in all the world,--beautiful enough to shine beside the greatest +beauties in Paris, with a heart and mind worthy of Clarissa. She has +seen me; I have pleased her, and she thinks me the great Canalis. But +that is not all. Modeste Mignon is of high birth, and Mongenod has just +told me that her father, the Comte de La Bastie, has something like six +millions. The father is here now, and I have asked him through Mongenod +for an interview at two o’clock. Mongenod is to give him a hint, just +a word, that it concerns the happiness of his daughter. But you will +readily understand that before seeing the father I feel I ought to make +a clean breast of it to you.” + +“Among the plants whose flowers bloom in the sunshine of fame,” said +Canalis, impressively, “there is one, and the most magnificent, which +bears like the orange-tree a golden fruit amid the mingled perfumes of +beauty and of mind; a lovely plant, a true tenderness, a perfect bliss, +and--it eludes me.” Canalis looked at the carpet that Ernest might +not read his eyes. “Could I,” he continued after a pause to regain his +self-possession, “how could I have divined that flower from a pretty +sheet of perfumed paper, that true heart, that young girl, that woman in +whom love wears the livery of flattery, who loves us for ourselves, who +offers us felicity? It needed but an angel or a demon to perceive +her; and what am I but the ambitious head of a Court of Claims! Ah, my +friend, fame makes us the target of a thousand arrows. One of us +owes his rich marriage to an hydraulic piece of poetry, while I, more +seductive, more a woman’s man than he, have missed mine,--for, do you +love her, poor girl?” he said, looking up at La Briere. + +“Oh!” ejaculated the young man. + +“Well then,” said the poet, taking his secretary’s arm and leaning +heavily upon it, “be happy, Ernest. By a mere accident I have been not +ungrateful to you. You are richly rewarded for your devotion, and I will +generously further your happiness.” + +Canalis was furious; but he could not behave otherwise than with +propriety, and he made the best of his disappointment by mounting it as +a pedestal. + +“Ah, Canalis, I have never really known you till this moment.” + +“Did you expect to? It takes some time to go round the world,” replied +the poet with his pompous irony. + +“But think,” said La Briere, “of this enormous fortune.” + +“Ah, my friend, is it not well invested in you?” cried Canalis, +accompanying the words with a charming gesture. + +“Melchior,” said La Briere, “I am yours for life and death.” + +He wrung the poet’s hand and left him abruptly, for he was in haste to +meet Monsieur Mignon. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. A FATHER STEPS IN + +The Comte de La Bastie was at this moment overwhelmed with the sorrows +which lay in wait for him as their prey. He had learned from his +daughter’s letter of Bettina’s death and of his wife’s infirmity, and +Dumay related to him, when they met, his terrible perplexity as to +Modeste’s love affairs. + +“Leave me to myself,” he said to his faithful friend. + +As the lieutenant closed the door, the unhappy father threw himself on a +sofa, with his head in his hands, weeping those slow, scanty tears which +suffuse the eyes of a man of sixty, but do not fall,--tears soon dried, +yet quick to start again,--the last dews of the human autumn. + +“To have children, to have a wife, to adore them--what is it but to have +many hearts and bare them to a dagger?” he cried, springing up with the +bound of a tiger and walking up and down the room. “To be a father is +to give one’s self over, bound hand and foot to sorrow. If I meet that +D’Estourny I will kill him. To have daughters!--one gives her life to a +scoundrel, the other, my Modeste, falls a victim to whom? a coward, who +deceives her with the gilded paper of a poet. If it were Canalis himself +it might not be so bad; but that Scapin of a lover!--I will strangle him +with my two hands,” he cried, making an involuntary gesture of furious +determination. “And what then? suppose my Modeste were to die of grief?” + +He gazed mechanically out of the windows of the hotel des Princes, and +then returned to the sofa, where he sat motionless. The fatigues of +six voyages to India, the anxieties of speculation, the dangers he +had encountered and evaded, and his many griefs, had silvered Charles +Mignon’s head. His handsome soldierly face, so pure in outline and now +bronzed by the suns of China and the southern seas, had acquired an air +of dignity which his present grief rendered almost sublime. + +“Mongenod told me he felt confidence in the young man who is coming to +ask me for my daughter,” he thought at last; and at this moment Ernest +de La Briere was announced by one of the servants whom Monsieur de La +Bastie had attached to himself during the last four years. + +“You have come, monsieur, from my friend Mongenod?” he said. + +“Yes,” replied Ernest, growing timid when he saw before him a face as +sombre as Othello’s. “My name is Ernest de La Briere, related to the +family of the late cabinet minister, and his private secretary during +his term of office. On his dismissal, his Excellency put me in the Court +of Claims, to which I am legal counsel, and where I may possibly succeed +as chief--” + +“And how does all this concern Mademoiselle de La Bastie?” asked the +count. + +“Monsieur, I love her; and I have the unhoped-for happiness of being +loved by her. Hear me, monsieur,” cried Ernest, checking a violent +movement on the part of the angry father. “I have the strangest +confession to make to you, a shameful one for a man of honor; but the +worst punishment of my conduct, natural enough in itself, is not +the telling of it to you; no, I fear the daughter even more than the +father.” + +Ernest then related simply, and with the nobleness that comes of +sincerity, all the facts of his little drama, not omitting the twenty or +more letters, which he had brought with him, nor the interview which he +had just had with Canalis. When Monsieur Mignon had finished reading the +letters, the unfortunate lover, pale and suppliant, actually trembled +under the fiery glance of the Provencal. + +“Monsieur,” said the latter, “in this whole matter there is but one +error, but that is cardinal. My daughter will not have six millions; +at the utmost, she will have a marriage portion of two hundred thousand +francs, and very doubtful expectations.” + +“Ah, monsieur!” cried Ernest, rising and grasping Monsieur Mignon’s +hand; “you take a load from my breast. Nothing can now hinder my +happiness. I have friends, influence; I shall certainly be chief of +the Court of Claims. Had Mademoiselle Mignon no more than ten thousand +francs, if I had even to make a settlement on her, she should still be +my wife; and to make her happy as you, monsieur, have made your wife +happy, to be to you a real son (for I have no father), are the deepest +desires of my heart.” + +Charles Mignon stepped back three paces and fixed upon La Briere a look +which entered the eyes of the young man as a dagger enters its sheath; +he stood silent a moment, recognizing the absolute candor, the pure +truthfulness of that open nature in the light of the young man’s +inspired eyes. “Is fate at last weary of pursuing me?” he asked himself. +“Am I to find in this young man the pearl of sons-in-law?” He walked up +and down the room in strong agitation. + +“Monsieur,” he said at last, “you are bound to submit wholly to the +judgment which you have come here to seek, otherwise you are now playing +a farce.” + +“Oh, monsieur!” + +“Listen to me,” said the father, nailing La Briere where he stood with a +glance. “I shall be neither harsh, nor hard, nor unjust. You shall have +the advantages and the disadvantages of the false position in which you +have placed yourself. My daughter believes that she loves one of the +great poets of the day, whose fame is really that which has attracted +her. Well, I, her father, intend to give her the opportunity to choose +between the celebrity which has been a beacon to her, and the poor +reality which the irony of fate has flung at her feet. Ought she not +to choose between Canalis and yourself? I rely upon your honor not to +repeat what I have told you as to the state of my affairs. You may each +come, I mean you and your friend the Baron de Canalis, to Havre for the +last two weeks of October. My house will be open to both of you, and my +daughter must have an opportunity to study you. You must yourself bring +your rival, and not disabuse him as to the foolish tales he will hear +about the wealth of the Comte de La Bastie. I go to Havre to-morrow, and +I shall expect you three days later. Adieu, monsieur.” + +Poor La Briere went back to Canalis with a dragging step. The poet, +meantime, left to himself, had given way to a current of thought out +of which had come that secondary impulse which Monsieur de Talleyrand +valued so much. The first impulse is the voice of nature, the second +that of society. + +“A girl worth six millions,” he thought to himself, “and my eyes were +not able to see that gold shining in the darkness! With such a fortune +I could be peer of France, count, marquis, ambassador. I’ve replied +to middle-class women and silly women, and crafty creatures who wanted +autographs; I’ve tired myself to death with masked-ball intrigues,--at +the very moment when God was sending me a soul of price, an angel with +golden wings! Bah! I’ll make a poem on it, and perhaps the chance will +come again. Heavens! the luck of that little La Briere,--strutting about +in my lustre--plagiarism! I’m the cast and he’s to be the statue, is +he? It is the old fable of Bertrand and Raton. Six millions, a beauty, +a Mignon de La Bastie, an aristocratic divinity loving poetry and the +poet! And I, who showed my muscle as man of the world, who did those +Alcide exercises to silence by moral force the champion of physical +force, that old soldier with a heart, that friend of this very young +girl, whom he’ll now go and tell that I have a heart of iron!--I, to +play Napoleon when I ought to have been seraphic! Good heavens! True, I +shall have my friend. Friendship is a beautiful thing. I have kept him, +but at what a price! Six millions, that’s the cost of it; we can’t have +many friends if we pay all that for them.” + +La Briere entered the room as Canalis reached this point in his +meditations. He was gloom personified. + +“Well, what’s the matter?” said Canalis. + +“The father exacts that his daughter shall choose between the two +Canalis--” + +“Poor boy!” cried the poet, laughing, “he’s a clever fellow, that +father.” + +“I have pledged my honor that I will take you to Havre,” said La Briere, +piteously. + +“My dear fellow,” said Canalis, “if it is a question of your honor you +may count on me. I’ll ask for leave of absence for a month.” + +“Modeste is so beautiful!” exclaimed La Briere, in a despairing tone. +“You will crush me out of sight. I wondered all along that fate should +be so kind to me; I knew it was all a mistake.” + +“Bah! we will see about that,” said Canalis with inhuman gaiety. + +That evening, after dinner, Charles Mignon and Dumay, were flying, +by virtue of three francs to each postilion, from Paris to Havre. +The father had eased the watch-dog’s mind as to Modeste and her love +affairs; the guard was relieved, and Butscha’s innocence established. + +“It is all for the best, my old Dumay,” said the count, who had been +making certain inquiries of Mongenod respecting Canalis and La Briere. +“We are going to have two actors for one part!” he cried gaily. + +Nevertheless, he requested his old comrade to be absolutely silent about +the comedy which was now to be played at the Chalet,--a comedy it might +be, but also a gentle punishment, or, if you prefer it, a lesson given +by the father to the daughter. + +The two friends kept up a long conversation all the way from Paris to +Havre, which put the colonel in possession of the facts relating to his +family during the past four years, and informing Dumay that Desplein, +the great surgeon, was coming to Havre at the end of the present month +to examine the cataract on Madame Mignon’s eyes, and decide if it were +possible to restore her sight. + +A few moments before the breakfast-hour at the Chalet, the clacking of +a postilion’s whip apprised the family that the two soldiers were +arriving; only a father’s joy at returning after long absence could be +heralded with such clatter, and it brought all the women to the garden +gate. There is many a father and many a child--perhaps more fathers than +children--who will understand the delights of such an arrival, and that +happy fact shows that literature has no need to depict it. Perhaps all +gentle and tender emotions are beyond the range of literature. + +Not a word that could trouble the peace of the family was uttered on +this joyful day. Truce was tacitly established between father, mother, +and child as to the so-called mysterious love which had paled Modeste’s +cheeks,--for this was the first day she had left her bed since Dumay’s +departure for Paris. The colonel, with the charming delicacy of a +true soldier, never left his wife’s side nor released her hand; but he +watched Modeste with delight, and was never weary of noting her refined, +elegant, and poetic beauty. Is it not by such seeming trifles that we +recognize a man of feeling? Modeste, who feared to interrupt the subdued +joy of the husband and wife kept at a little distance, coming from time +to time to kiss her father’s forehead, and when she kissed it overmuch +she seemed to mean that she was kissing it for two,--for Bettina and +herself. + +“Oh, my darling, I understand you,” said the colonel, pressing her hand +as she assailed him with kisses. + +“Hush!” whispered the young girl, glancing at her mother. + +Dumay’s rather sly and pregnant silence made Modeste somewhat uneasy as +to the upshot of his journey to Paris. She looked at him furtively +every now and then, without being able to get beneath his epidermis. +The colonel, like a prudent father, wanted to study the character of +his only daughter, and above all consult his wife, before entering on a +conference upon which the happiness of the whole family depended. + +“To-morrow, my precious child,” he said as they parted for the night, +“get up early, and we will go and take a walk on the seashore. We have +to talk about your poems, Mademoiselle de La Bastie.” + +His last words, accompanied by a smile, which reappeared like an echo +on Dumay’s lips, were all that gave Modeste any clew to what was coming; +but it was enough to calm her uneasiness and keep her awake far into the +night with her head full of suppositions; this, however, did not prevent +her from being dressed and ready in the morning long before the colonel. + +“You know all, my kind papa?” she said as soon as they were on the road +to the beach. + +“I know all, and a good deal more than you do,” he replied. + +After that remark father and daughter went some little way in silence. + +“Explain to me, my child, how it happens that a girl whom her mother +idolizes could have taken such an important step as to write to a +stranger without consulting her.” + +“Oh, papa! because mamma would never have allowed it.” + +“And do you think, my daughter, that that was proper? Though you have +been educating your mind in this fatal way, how is it that your good +sense and your intellect did not, in default of modesty, step in and +show you that by acting as you did you were throwing yourself at a man’s +head. To think that my daughter, my only remaining child, should lack +pride and delicacy! Oh, Modeste, you made your father pass two hours in +hell when he heard of it; for, after all, your conduct has been the +same as Bettina’s without the excuse of a heart’s seduction; you were +a coquette in cold blood, and that sort of coquetry is head-love, the +worst vice of French women.” + +“I, without pride!” said Modeste, weeping; “but _he_ has not yet seen +me.” + +“_He_ knows your name.” + +“I did not tell it to him till my eyes had vindicated the +correspondence, lasting three months, during which our souls had spoken +to each other.” + +“Oh, my dear misguided angel, you have mixed up a species of reason +with a folly that has compromised your own happiness and that of your +family.” + +“But, after all, papa, happiness is the absolution of my temerity,” she +said, pouting. + +“Oh! your conduct is temerity, is it?” + +“A temerity that my mother practised before me,” she retorted quickly. + +“Rebellious child! your mother after seeing me at a ball told her +father, who adored her, that she thought she could be happy with me. Be +honest, Modeste; is there any likeness between a love hastily conceived, +I admit, but under the eyes of a father, and your mad action of writing +to a stranger?” + +“A stranger, papa? say rather one of our greatest poets, whose character +and whose life are exposed to the strongest light of day, to detraction, +to calumny,--a man robed in fame, and to whom, my dear father, I was a +mere literary and dramatic personage, one of Shakespeare’s women, until +the moment when I wished to know if the man himself were as beautiful as +his soul.” + +“Good God! my poor child, you are turning marriage into poetry. But if, +from time immemorial, girls have been cloistered in the bosom of their +families, if God, if social laws put them under the stern yoke of +parental sanction, it is, mark my words, to spare them the misfortunes +that this very poetry which charms and dazzles you, and which you are +therefore unable to judge of, would entail upon them. Poetry is indeed +one of the pleasures of life, but it is not life itself.” + +“Papa, that is a suit still pending before the Court of Facts; the +struggle is forever going on between our hearts and the claims of +family.” + +“Alas for the child that finds her happiness in resisting them,” said +the colonel, gravely. “In 1813 I saw one of my comrades, the Marquis +d’Aiglemont, marry his cousin against the wishes of her father, and the +pair have since paid dear for the obstinacy which the young girl took +for love. The family must be sovereign in marriage.” + +“My poet has told me all that,” she answered. “He played Orgon for some +time; and he was brave enough to disparage the personal lives of poets.” + +“I have read your letters,” said Charles Mignon, with the flicker of a +malicious smile on his lips that made Modeste very uneasy, “and I ought +to remark that your last epistle was scarcely permissible in any woman, +even a Julie d’Etanges. Good God! what harm novels do!” + +“We should live them, my dear father, whether people wrote them or not; +I think it is better to read them. There are not so many adventures in +these days as there were under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and so they +publish fewer novels. Besides, if you have read those letters, you must +know that I have chosen the most angelic soul, the most sternly upright +man for your son-in-law, and you must have seen that we love one another +at least as much as you and mamma love each other. Well, I admit that it +was not all exactly conventional; I did, if you _will_ have me say so, +wrong--” + +“I have read your letters,” said her father, interrupting her, “and I +know exactly how far your lover justified you in your own eyes for a +proceeding which might be permissible in some woman who understood life, +and who was led away by strong passion, but which in a young girl of +twenty was a monstrous piece of wrong-doing.” + +“Yes, wrong-doing for commonplace people, for the narrow-minded +Gobenheims, who measure life with a square rule. Please let us keep to +the artistic and poetic life, papa. We young girls have only two ways to +act; we must let a man know we love him by mincing and simpering, or we +must go to him frankly. Isn’t the last way grand and noble? We French +girls are delivered over by our families like so much merchandise, at +sixty days’ sight, sometimes thirty, like Mademoiselle Vilquin; but in +England, and Switzerland, and Germany, they follow very much the plan +I have adopted. Now what have you got to say to that? Am I not half +German?” + +“Child!” cried the colonel, looking at her; “the supremacy of France +comes from her sound common-sense, from the logic to which her noble +language constrains her mind. France is the reason of the whole world. +England and Germany are romantic in their marriage customs,--though even +there noble families follow our customs. You certainly do not mean to +deny that your parents, who know life, who are responsible for your +soul and for your happiness, have no right to guard you from the +stumbling-blocks that are in your way? Good heavens!” he continued, +speaking half to himself, “is it their fault, or is it ours? Ought we +to hold our children under an iron yoke? Must we be punished for the +tenderness that leads us to make them happy, and teaches our hearts how +to do so?” + +Modeste watched her father out of the corner of her eye as she listened +to this species of invocation, uttered in a broken voice. + +“Was it wrong,” she said, “in a girl whose heart was free, to choose for +her husband not only a charming companion, but a man of noble genius, +born to an honorable position, a gentleman; the equal of myself, a +gentlewoman?” + +“You love him?” asked her father. + +“Father!” she said, laying her head upon his breast, “would you see me +die?” + +“Enough!” said the old soldier. “I see your love is inextinguishable.” + +“Yes, inextinguishable.” + +“Can nothing change it?” + +“Nothing.” + +“No circumstances, no treachery, no betrayal? You mean that you will +love him in spite of everything, because of his personal attractions? +Even though he proved a D’Estourny, would you love him still?” + +“Oh, my father! you do not know your daughter. Could I love a coward, a +man without honor, without faith?” + +“But suppose he had deceived you?” + +“He? that honest, candid soul, half melancholy? You are joking, father, +or else you have never met him.” + +“But you see now that your love is not inextinguishable, as you chose +to call it. I have already made you admit that circumstances could alter +your poem; don’t you now see that fathers are good for something?” + +“You want to give me a lecture, papa; it is positively l’Ami des Enfants +over again.” + +“Poor deceived girl,” said her father, sternly; “it is no lecture of +mine, I count for nothing in it; indeed, I am only trying to soften the +blow.” + +“Father, don’t play tricks with my life,” exclaimed Modeste, turning +pale. + +“Then, my daughter, summon all your courage. It is you who have been +playing tricks with your life, and life is now tricking you.” + +Modeste looked at her father in stupid amazement. + +“Suppose that young man whom you love, whom you saw four days ago at +church in Havre, was a deceiver?” + +“Never!” she cried; “that noble head, that pale face full of poetry--” + +“--was a lie,” said the colonel interrupting her. “He was no more +Monsieur de Canalis than I am that sailor over there putting out to +sea.” + +“Do you know what you are killing in me?” she said in a low voice. + +“Comfort yourself, my child; though accident has put the punishment of +your fault into the fault itself, the harm done is not irreparable. +The young man whom you have seen, and with whom you exchanged hearts +by correspondence, is a loyal and honorable fellow; he came to me and +confided everything. He loves you, and I have no objection to him as a +son-in-law.” + +“If he is not Canalis, who is he then?” said Modeste in a changed voice. + +“The secretary; his name is Ernest de La Briere. He is not a nobleman; +but he is one of those plain men with fixed principles and sound +morality who satisfy parents. However, that is not the point; you +have seen him and nothing can change your heart; you have chosen him, +comprehend his soul, it is as beautiful as he himself.” + +The count was interrupted by a heavy sigh from Modeste. The poor girl +sat with her eyes fixed on the sea, pale and rigid as death, as if a +pistol shot had struck her in those fatal words, _a plain man, with +fixed principles and sound morality_. + +“Deceived!” she said at last. + +“Like your poor sister, but less fatally.” + +“Let us go home, father,” she said, rising from the hillock on which +they were sitting. “Papa, hear me, I swear before God to obey your +wishes, whatever they may be, in the _affair_ of my marriage.” + +“Then you don’t love him any longer?” asked her father. + +“I loved an honest man, with no falsehood on his face, upright as +yourself, incapable of disguising himself like an actor, with the paint +of another man’s glory on his cheeks.” + +“You said nothing could change you”; remarked the colonel, ironically. + +“Ah, do not trifle with me!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and +looking at her father in distressful anxiety; “don’t you see that you +are wringing my heart and destroying my beliefs with your jokes.” + +“God forbid! I have told you the exact truth.” + +“You are very kind, father,” she said after a pause, and with a sort of +solemnity. + +“He has kept your letters,” resumed the colonel; “now suppose the rash +caresses of your soul had fallen into the hands of one of those poets +who, as Dumay says, light their cigars with them?” + +“Oh!--you are going too far.” + +“Canalis told him so.” + +“Has Dumay seen Canalis?” + +“Yes,” answered her father. + +The two walked along in silence. + +“So that is why that _gentleman_,” resumed Modeste, “told me so much +harm of poets and poetry; no wonder the little secretary said--Why,” she +added, interrupting herself, “his virtues, his noble qualities, his fine +sentiments are nothing but an epistolary theft! The man who steals glory +and a name may very likely--” + +“--break locks, steal purses, and cut people’s throats on the highway,” + cried the colonel. “Ah, you young girls, that’s just like you,--with +your peremptory opinions and your ignorance of life. A man who once +deceives a woman was born under the scaffold on which he ought to die.” + +This ridicule stopped Modeste’s effervescence for a moment and least, +and again there was silence. + +“My child,” said the colonel, presently, “men in society, as in nature +everywhere, are made to win the hearts of women, and women must +defend themselves. You have chosen to invert the parts. Was that wise? +Everything is false in a false position. The first wrong-doing was +yours. No, a man is not a monster because he seeks to please a woman; it +is our right to win her by aggression with all its consequences, short +of crime and cowardice. A man may have many virtues even if he does +deceive a woman; if he deceives her, it is because he finds her wanting +in some of the treasures that he sought in her. None but a queen, an +actress, or a woman placed so far above a man that she seems to him a +queen, can go to him of herself without incurring blame--and for a young +girl to do it! Why, she is false to all that God has given her that is +sacred and lovely and noble,--no matter with what grace or what poetry +or what precautions she surrounds her fault.” + +“To seek the master and find the servant!” she said bitterly, “oh! I can +never recover from it!” + +“Nonsense! Monsieur Ernest de La Briere is, to my thinking, fully the +equal of the Baron de Canalis. He was private secretary of a cabinet +minister, and he is now counsel for the Court of Claims; he has a heart, +and he adores you, but--he _does not write verses_. No, I admit, he is +not a poet; but for all that he may have a heart full of poetry. At +any rate, my dear girl,” added her father, as Modeste made a gesture of +disgust, “you are to see both of them, the sham and the true Canalis--” + +“Oh, papa!--” + +“Did you not swear just now to obey me in everything, even in the +_affair_ of your marriage? Well, I allow you to choose which of the two +you like best for a husband. You have begun by a poem, you shall finish +with a bucolic, and try if you can discover the real character of these +gentlemen here, in the country, on a few hunting or fishing excursions.” + +Modeste bowed her head and walked home with her father, listening to +what he said but replying only in monosyllables. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. DISENCHANTED + +The poor girl had fallen humiliated from the alp she had scaled in +search of her eagle’s nest, into the mud of the swamp below, where (to +use the poetic language of an author of our day) “after feeling the +soles of her feet too tender to tread the broken glass of reality, +Imagination--which in that delicate bosom united the whole of womanhood, +from the violet-hidden reveries of a chaste young girl to the passionate +desires of the sex--had led her into enchanted gardens where, oh, bitter +sight! she now saw, springing from the ground, not the sublime flower +of her fancy, but the hairy, twisted limbs of the black mandragora.” + Modeste suddenly found herself brought down from the mystic heights of +her love to a straight, flat road bordered with ditches,--in short the +work-day path of common life. What ardent, aspiring soul would not have +been bruised and broken by such a fall? Whose feet were these at which +she had shed her thoughts? The Modeste who re-entered the Chalet was no +more the Modeste who had left it two hours earlier than an actress in +the street is like an actress on the boards. She fell into a state of +numb depression that was pitiful to see. The sun was darkened, nature +veiled itself, even the flowers no longer spoke to her. Like all young +girls with a tendency to extremes, she drank too deeply of the cup of +disillusion. She fought against reality, and would not bend her neck +to the yoke of family and conventions; it was, she felt, too heavy, +too hard, too crushing. She would not listen to the consolations of her +father and mother, and tasted a sort of savage pleasure in letting her +soul suffer to the utmost. + +“Poor Butscha was right,” she said one evening. + +The words indicate the distance she travelled in a short space of time +and in gloomy sadness across the barren plain of reality. Sadness, when +caused by the overgrowth of hope, is a disease,--sometimes a fatal one. +It would be no mean object for physiology to search out in what ways +and by what means Thought produces the same internal disorganization as +poison; and how it is that despair affects the appetite, destroys the +pylorus, and changes all the physical conditions of the strongest life. +Such was the case with Modeste. In three short days she became the image +of morbid melancholy; she did not sing, she could not be made to smile. +Charles Mignon, becoming uneasy at the non-arrival of the two friends, +thought of going to fetch them, when, on the evening of the fifth day, +he received news of their movements through Latournelle. + +Canalis, excessively delighted at the idea of a rich marriage, was +determined to neglect nothing that might help him to cut out La Briere, +without, however, giving La Briere a chance to reproach him for having +violated the laws of friendship. The poet felt that nothing would lower +a lover so much in the eyes of a young girl as to exhibit him in a +subordinate position; and he therefore proposed to La Briere, in the +most natural manner, to take a little country-house at Ingouville for a +month, and live there together on pretence of requiring sea-air. As +soon as La Briere, who at first saw nothing amiss in the proposal, had +consented, Canalis declared that he should pay all expenses, and he sent +his valet to Havre, telling him to see Monsieur Latournelle and get +his assistance in choosing the house,--well aware that the notary would +repeat all particulars to the Mignons. Ernest and Canalis had, as may +well be supposed, talked over all the aspects of the affair, and the +rather prolix Ernest had given a good many useful hints to his rival. +The valet, understanding his master’s wishes, fulfilled them to the +letter; he trumpeted the arrival of the great poet, for whom the doctors +advised sea-air to restore his health, injured as it was by the double +toils of literature and politics. This important personage wanted a +house, which must have at least such and such a number of rooms, as he +would bring with him a secretary, cook, two servants, and a coachman, +not counting himself, Germain Bonnet, the valet. The carriage, selected +and hired for a month by Canalis, was a pretty one; and Germain +set about finding a pair of fine horses which would also answer as +saddle-horses,--for, as he said, monsieur le baron and his secretary +took horseback exercise. Under the eyes of little Latournelle, who went +with him to various houses, Germain made a good deal of talk about the +secretary, rejecting two or three because there was no suitable room for +Monsieur de La Briere. + +“Monsieur le baron,” he said to the notary, “makes his secretary quite +his best friend. Ah! I should be well scolded if Monsieur de La Briere +was not as well treated as monsieur le baron himself; and after all, you +know, Monsieur de La Briere is a lawyer in my master’s court.” + +Germain never appeared in public unless punctiliously dressed in +black, with spotless gloves, well-polished boots, and otherwise as well +apparelled as a lawyer. Imagine the effect he produced in Havre, and the +idea people took of the great poet from this sample of him! The valet +of a man of wit and intellect ends by getting a little wit and intellect +himself which has rubbed off from his master. Germain did not overplay +his part; he was simple and good-humored, as Canalis had instructed him +to be. Poor La Briere was in blissful ignorance of the harm Germain +was doing to his prospects, and the depreciation his consent to the +arrangement had brought upon him; it is, however, true that some inkling +of the state of things rose to Modeste’s ears from these lower regions. + +Canalis had arranged to bring his secretary in his own carriage, and +Ernest’s unsuspicious nature did not perceive that he was putting +himself in a false position until too late to remedy it. The delay in +the arrival of the pair which had troubled Charles Mignon was caused by +the painting of the Canalis arms on the panels of the carriage, and by +certain orders given to a tailor; for the poet neglected none of the +innumerable details which might, even the smallest of them, influence a +young girl. + +“It is all right,” said Latournelle to Mignon on the sixth day. “The +baron’s valet has hired Madame Amaury’s villa at Sanvic, all furnished, +for seven hundred francs; he has written to his master that he may +start, and that all will be ready on his arrival. So the two gentlemen +will be here Sunday. I have also had a letter from Butscha; here it is; +it’s not long: ‘My dear master,--I cannot get back till Sunday. Between +now and then I have some very important inquiries to make which concern +the happiness of a person in whom you take an interest.’” + +The announcement of this arrival did not rouse Modeste from her gloom; +the sense of her fall and the bewilderment of her mind were still +too great, and she was not nearly as much of a coquette as her father +thought her to be. There is, in truth, a charming and permissible +coquetry, that of the soul, which may claim to be love’s politeness. +Charles Mignon, when scolding his daughter, failed to distinguish +between the mere desire of pleasing and the love of the mind,--the +thirst for love, and the thirst for admiration. Like every true colonel +of the Empire he saw in this correspondence, rapidly read, only the +young girl who had thrown herself at the head of a poet; but in the +letters which we were forced to lack of space to suppress, a better +judge would have admired the dignified and gracious reserve which +Modeste had substituted for the rather aggressive and light-minded tone +of her first letters. The father, however, was only too cruelly right on +one point. Modeste’s last letter, which we have read, had indeed spoken +as though the marriage were a settled fact, and the remembrance of that +letter filled her with shame; she thought her father very harsh and +cruel to force her to receive a man unworthy of her, yet to whom +her soul had flown, as it were, bare. She questioned Dumay about his +interview with the poet, she inveigled him into relating its every +detail, and she did not think Canalis as barbarous as the lieutenant had +declared him. The thought of the beautiful casket which held the letters +of the thousand and one women of this literary Don Juan made her smile, +and she was strongly tempted to say to her father: “I am not the only +one to write to him; the elite of my sex send their leaves for the +laurel wreath of the poet.” + +During this week Modeste’s character underwent a transformation. The +catastrophe--and it was a great one to her poetic nature--roused a +faculty of discernment and also the malice latent in her girlish heart, +in which her suitors were about to encounter a formidable adversary. It +is a fact that when a young woman’s heart is chilled her head becomes +clear; she observes with great rapidity of judgment, and with a tinge of +pleasantry which Shakespeare’s Beatrice so admirably represents in “Much +Ado about Nothing.” Modeste was seized with a deep disgust for men, now +that the most distinguished among them had betrayed her hopes. When a +woman loves, what she takes for disgust is simply the ability to see +clearly; but in matters of sentiment she is never, especially if she is +a young girl, in a condition to see clearly. If she cannot admire, she +despises. And so, after passing through terrible struggles of the soul, +Modeste necessarily put on the armor on which, as she had once declared, +the word “Disdain” was engraved. After reaching that point she was able, +in the character of uninterested spectator, to take part in what she was +pleased to call the “farce of the suitors,” a performance in which she +herself was about to play the role of heroine. She particularly set +before her mind the satisfaction of humiliating Monsieur de La Briere. + +“Modeste is saved,” said Madame Mignon to her husband; “she wants to +revenge herself on the false Canalis by trying to love the real one.” + +Such in truth was Modeste’s plan. It was so utterly commonplace that her +mother, to whom she confided her griefs, advised her on the contrary to +treat Monsieur de La Briere with extreme politeness. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. A THIRD SUITOR + +“Those two young men,” said Madame Latournelle, on the Saturday evening, +“have no idea how many spies they have on their tracks. We are eight in +all, on the watch.” + +“Don’t say two young men, wife; say three!” cried little Latournelle, +looking round him. “Gobenheim is not here, so I can speak out.” + +Modeste raised her head, and everybody, imitating Modeste, raised theirs +and looked at the notary. + +“Yes, a third lover--and he is something like a lover--offers himself as +a candidate.” + +“Bah!” exclaimed the colonel. + +“I speak of no less a person,” said Latournelle, pompously, “than +Monsieur le Duc d’Herouville, Marquis de Saint-Sever, Duc de Nivron, +Comte de Bayeux, Vicomte d’Essigny, grand equerry and peer of France, +knight of the Spur and the Golden Fleece, grandee of Spain, and son of +the last governor of Normandy. He saw Mademoiselle Modeste at the time +when he was staying with the Vilquins, and he regretted then--as his +notary, who came from Bayeux yesterday, tells me--that she was not +rich enough for him; for his father recovered nothing but the estate of +Herouville on his return to France, and that is saddled with a sister. +The young duke is thirty-three years old. I am definitively charged to +lay these proposals before you, Monsieur le comte,” added the notary, +turning respectfully to the colonel. + +“Ask Modeste if she wants another bird in her cage,” replied the count; +“as far as I am concerned, I am willing that my lord the grand equerry +shall pay her attention.” + +Notwithstanding the care with which Charles Mignon avoided seeing +people, and though he stayed in the Chalet and never went out without +Modeste, Gobenheim had reported Dumay’s wealth; for Dumay had said to +him when giving up his position as cashier: “I am to be bailiff for my +colonel, and all my fortune, except what my wife needs, is to go to +the children of our little Modeste.” Every one in Havre had therefore +propounded the same question that the notary had already put to himself: +“If Dumay’s share in the profits is six hundred thousand francs, and +he is going to be Monsieur Mignon’s bailiff, then Monsieur Mignon must +certainly have a colossal fortune. He arrived at Marseilles on a ship of +his own, loaded with indigo; and they say at the Bourse that the cargo, +not counting the ship, is worth more than he gives out as his whole +fortune.” + +The colonel was unwilling to dismiss the servants he had brought back +with him, whom he had chosen with care during his travels; and he +therefore hired a house for them in the lower part of Ingouville, where +he installed his valet, cook, and coachman, all Negroes, and three +mulattos on whose fidelity he could rely. The coachman was told to +search for saddle-horses for Mademoiselle and for his master, and for +carriage-horses for the caleche in which the colonel and the lieutenant +had returned to Havre. That carriage, bought in Paris, was of the +latest fashion, and bore the arms of La Bastie, surmounted by a count’s +coronet. These things, insignificant in the eyes of a man who for four +years had been accustomed to the unbridled luxury of the Indies and of +the English merchants at Canton, were the subject of much comment +among the business men of Havre and the inhabitants of Ingouville and +Graville. Before five days had elapsed the rumor of them ran from one +end of Normandy to the other like a train of gunpowder touched by fire. + +“Monsieur Mignon has come back from China with millions,” some one said +in Rouen; “and it seems he was made a count in mid-ocean.” + +“But he was the Comte de La Bastie before the Revolution,” answered +another. + +“So they call him a liberal just because he was plain Charles Mignon for +twenty-five years! What are we coming to?” said a third. + +Modeste was considered, therefore, notwithstanding the silence of her +parents and friends, as the richest heiress in Normandy, and all eyes +began once more to see her merits. The aunt and sister of the Duc +d’Herouville confirmed in the aristocratic salons of Bayeux Monsieur +Charles Mignon’s right to the title and arms of count, derived from +Cardinal Mignon, for whom the Cardinal’s hat and tassels were added as a +crest. They had seen Mademoiselle de La Bastie when they were staying +at the Vilquins, and their solicitude for the impoverished head of their +house now became active. + +“If Mademoiselle de La Bastie is really as rich as she is beautiful,” + said the aunt of the young duke, “she is the best match in the province. +_She_ at least is noble.” + +The last words were aimed at the Vilquins, with whom they had not been +able to come to terms, after incurring the humiliation of staying in +that bourgeois household. + +Such were the little events which, contrary to the rules of Aristotle +and of Horace, precede the introduction of another person into our +story; but the portrait and the biography of this personage, this +late arrival, shall not be long, taking into consideration his own +diminutiveness. The grand equerry shall not take more space here than +he will take in history. Monsieur le Duc d’Herouville, offspring of the +matrimonial autumn of the last governor of Normandy, was born during the +emigration in 1799, at Vienna. The old marechal, father of the present +duke, returned with the king in 1814, and died in 1819, before he was +able to marry his son. He could only leave him the vast chateau of +Herouville, the park, a few dependencies, and a farm which he had bought +back with some difficulty; all of which returned a rental of about +fifteen thousand francs a year. Louis XVIII. gave the post of grand +equerry to the son, who, under Charles X., received the usual pension of +twelve thousand francs which was granted to the pauper peers of France. +But what were these twenty-seven thousand francs a year and the salary +of grand equerry to such a family? In Paris, of course, the young duke +used the king’s coaches, and had a mansion provided for him in the rue +Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, near the royal stables; his salary paid for +his winters in the city, and his twenty-seven thousand francs for the +summers in Normandy. If this noble personage was still a bachelor he was +less to blame than his aunt, who was not versed in La Fontaine’s fables. +Mademoiselle d’Herouville made enormous pretensions wholly out of +keeping with the spirit of the times; for great names, without the money +to keep them up, can seldom win rich heiresses among the higher French +nobility, who are themselves embarrassed to provide for their sons under +the new law of the equal division of property. To marry the young Duc +d’Herouville, it was necessary to conciliate the great banking-houses; +but the haughty pride of the daughter of the house alienated these +people by cutting speeches. During the first years of the Restoration, +from 1817 to 1825, Mademoiselle d’Herouville, though in quest of +millions, refused, among others, the daughter of Mongenod the banker, +with whom Monsieur de Fontaine afterwards contented himself. + +At last, having lost several good opportunities to establish her nephew, +entirely through her own fault, she was just considering whether the +property of the Nucingens was not too basely acquired, or whether she +should lend herself to the ambition of Madame de Nucingen, who wished +to make her daughter a duchess. The king, anxious to restore the +d’Herouvilles to their former splendor, had almost brought about this +marriage, and when it failed he openly accused Mademoiselle d’Herouville +of folly. In this way the aunt made the nephew ridiculous, and the +nephew, in his own way, was not less absurd. When great things disappear +they leave crumbs, “frusteaux,” Rabelais would say, behind them; and +the French nobility of this century has left us too many such fragments. +Neither the clergy nor the nobility have anything to complain of in this +long history of manners and customs. Those great and magnificent social +necessities have been well represented; but we ought surely to renounce +the noble title of historian if we are not impartial, if we do not here +depict the present degeneracy of the race of nobles, although we have +already done so elsewhere,--in the character of the Comte de Mortsauf +(in “The Lily of the Valley”), in the “Duchesse de Langeais,” and the +very nobleness of the nobility in the “Marquis d’Espard.” How then could +it be that the race of heroes and valiant men belonging to the proud +house of Herouville, who gave the famous marshal to the nation, +cardinals to the church, great leaders to the Valois, knights to Louis +XIV., was reduced to a little fragile being smaller than Butscha? That +is a question which we ask ourselves in more than one salon in Paris +when we hear the greatest names of France announced, and see the +entrance of a thin, pinched, undersized young man, scarcely possessing +the breath of life, or a premature old one, or some whimsical creature +in whom an observer can with great difficulty trace the signs of a past +grandeur. The dissipations of the reign of Louis XV., the orgies of that +fatal and egotistic period, have produced an effete generation, in which +manners alone survive the nobler vanished qualities,--forms, which are +the sole heritage our nobles have preserved. The abandonment in which +Louis XVI. was allowed to perish may thus be explained, with some slight +reservations, as a wretched result of the reign of Madame de Pompadour. + +The grand equerry, a fair young man with blue eyes and a pallid face, +was not without a certain dignity of thought; but his thin, undersized +figure, and the follies of his aunt who had taken him to the Vilquins +and elsewhere to pay his court, rendered him extremely diffident. The +house of Herouville had already been threatened with extinction by the +deed of a deformed being (see the “Enfant Maudit” in “Philosophical +Studies”). The grand marshal, that being the family term for the member +who was made duke by Louis XIII., married at the age of eighty. The +young duke admired women, but he placed them too high and respected them +too much; in fact, he adored them, and was only at his ease with those +whom he could not respect. This characteristic caused him to lead a +double life. He found compensation with women of easy virtue for the +worship to which he surrendered himself in the salons, or, if you like, +the boudoirs, of the faubourg Saint-Germain. Such habits and his puny +figure, his suffering face with its blue eyes turning upward in ecstasy, +increased the ridicule already bestowed upon him,--very unjustly +bestowed, as it happened, for he was full of wit and delicacy; but his +wit, which never sparkled, only showed itself when he felt at ease. +Fanny Beaupre, an actress who was supposed to be his nearest friend (at +a price), called him “a sound wine so carefully corked that you break +all your corkscrews.” The beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, whom the +grand equerry could only worship, annihilated him with a speech which, +unfortunately, was repeated from mouth to mouth, like all such pretty +and malicious sayings. + +“He always seems to me,” she said, “like one of those jewels of fine +workmanship which we exhibit but never wear, and keep in cotton-wool.” + +Everything about him, even to his absurdly contrasting title of +grand equerry, amused the good-natured king, Charles X., and made him +laugh,--although the Duc d’Herouville justified his appointment in the +matter of being a fine horseman. Men are like books, often understood +and appreciated too late. Modeste had seen the duke during his fruitless +visit to the Vilquins, and many of these reflections passed through +her mind as she watched him come and go. But under the circumstances in +which she now found herself, she saw plainly that the courtship of +the Duc d’Herouville would save her from being at the mercy of either +Canalis. + +“I see no reason,” she said to Latournelle, “why the Duc d’Herouville +should not be received. I have passed, in spite of our indigence,” she +continued, with a mischievous look at her father, “to the condition +of heiress. Haven’t you observed Gobenheim’s glances? They have quite +changed their character within a week. He is in despair at not being +able to make his games of whist count for mute adoration of my charms.” + +“Hush, my darling!” cried Madame Latournelle, “here he comes.” + +“Old Althor is in despair,” said Gobenheim to Monsieur Mignon as he +entered. + +“Why?” asked the count. + +“Vilquin is going to fail; and the Bourse thinks you are worth several +millions. What ill-luck for his son!” + +“No one knows,” said Charles Mignon, coldly, “what my liabilities in +India are; and I do not intend to take the public into my confidence as +to my private affairs. Dumay,” he whispered to his friend, “if Vilquin +is embarrassed we could get back the villa by paying him what he gave +for it.” + +Such was the general state of things, due chiefly to accident, when on +Sunday morning Canalis and La Briere arrived, with a courier in advance, +at the villa of Madame Amaury. It was known that the Duc d’Herouville, +his sister, and his aunt were coming the following Tuesday to occupy, +also under pretext of ill-health, a hired house at Graville. This +assemblage of suitors made the wits of the Bourse remark that, thanks to +Mademoiselle Mignon, rents would rise at Ingouville. “If this goes on, +she will have a hospital here,” said the younger Mademoiselle Vilquin, +vexed at not becoming a duchess. + +The everlasting comedy of “The Heiress,” about to be played at the +Chalet, might very well be called, in view of Modeste’s frame of mind, +“The Designs of a Young Girl”; for since the overthrow of her illusions +she had fully made up her mind to give her hand to no man whose +qualifications did not fully satisfy her. + +The two rivals, still intimate friends, intended to pay their first +visit at the Chalet on the evening of the day succeeding their arrival. +They had spent Sunday and part of Monday in unpacking and arranging +Madame Amaury’s house for a month’s stay. The poet, always calculating +effects, wished to make the most of the probable excitement which his +arrival would case in Havre, and which would of course echo up to the +Mignons. Therefore, in his role of a man needing rest, he did not leave +the house. La Briere went twice to walk past the Chalet, though always +with a sense of despair, for he feared to displease Modeste, and the +future seemed to him dark with clouds. The two friends came down to +dinner on Monday dressed for the momentous visit. La Briere wore the +same clothes he had so carefully selected for the famous Sunday; but +he now felt like the satellite of a planet, and resigned himself to +the uncertainties of his situation. Canalis, on the other hand, had +carefully attended to his black coat, his orders, and all those little +drawing-room elegancies, which his intimacy with the Duchesse de +Chaulieu and the fashionable world of the faubourg had brought to +perfection. He had gone into the minutiae of dandyism, while poor La +Briere was about to present himself with the negligence of a man without +hope. Germain, as he waited at dinner could not help smiling to himself +at the contrast. After the second course, however, the valet came in +with a diplomatic, that is to say, uneasy air. + +“Does Monsieur le baron know,” he said to Canalis in a low voice, “that +Monsieur the grand equerry is coming to Graville to get cured of the +same illness which has brought Monsieur de La Briere and Monsieur le +baron to the sea-shore?” + +“What, the little Duc d’Herouville?” + +“Yes, monsieur.” + +“Is he coming for Mademoiselle de La Bastie?” asked La Briere, coloring. + +“So it appears, monsieur.” + +“We are cheated!” cried Canalis looking at La Briere. + +“Ah!” retorted Ernest quickly, “that is the first time you have said, +‘we’ since we left Paris: it has been ‘I’ all along.” + +“You understood me,” cried Canalis, with a burst of laughter. “But +we are not in a position to struggle against a ducal coronet, nor the +duke’s title, nor against the waste lands which the Council of State +have just granted, on my report, to the house of Herouville.” + +“His grace,” said La Briere, with a spice of malice that was +nevertheless serious, “will furnish you with compensation in the person +of his sister.” + +At this instant, the Comte de La Bastie was announced; the two young men +rose at once, and La Briere hastened forward to present Canalis. + +“I wished to return the visit that you paid me in Paris,” said the count +to the young lawyer, “and I knew that by coming here I should have the +double pleasure of greeting one of our great living poets.” + +“Great!--Monsieur,” replied the poet, smiling, “no one can be great in a +century prefaced by the reign of a Napoleon. We are a tribe of would-be +great poets; besides, second-rate talent imitates genius nowadays, and +renders real distinction impossible.” + +“Is that the reason why you have thrown yourself into politics?” asked +the count. + +“It is the same thing in that sphere,” said the poet; “there are no +statesmen in these days, only men who handle events more or less. Look +at it, monsieur; under the system of government that we derive from the +Charter, which makes a tax-list of more importance than a coat-of-arms, +there is absolutely nothing solid except that which you went to seek in +China,--wealth.” + +Satisfied with himself and with the impression he was making on the +prospective father-in-law, Canalis turned to Germain. + +“Serve the coffee in the salon,” he said, inviting Monsieur de La Bastie +to leave the dining-room. + +“I thank you for this visit, monsieur le comte,” said La Briere; “it +saves me from the embarrassment of presenting my friend to you in your +own house. You have a heart, and you have also a quick mind.” + +“Bah! the ready wit of Provence, that is all,” said Charles Mignon. + +“Ah, do you come from Provence?” cried Canalis. + +“You must pardon my friend,” said La Briere; “he has not studied, as I +have, the history of La Bastie.” + +At the word _friend_ Canalis threw a searching glance at Ernest. + +“If your health will allow,” said the count to the poet, “I shall hope +to receive you this evening under my roof; it will be a day to mark, +as the old writer said ‘albo notanda lapillo.’ Though we cannot duly +receive so great a fame in our little house, yet your visit will gratify +my daughter, whose admiration for your poems has even led her to set +them to music.” + +“You have something better than fame in your house,” said Canalis; “you +have beauty, if I am to believe Ernest.” + +“Yes, a good daughter; but you will find her rather countrified,” said +Charles Mignon. + +“A country girl sought by the Duc d’Herouville,” remarked Canalis, +dryly. + +“Oh!” replied Monsieur Mignon, with the perfidious good-humor of a +Southerner, “I leave my daughter free. Dukes, princes, commoners,--they +are all the same to me, even men of genius. I shall make no pledges, and +whoever my Modeste chooses will be my son-in-law, or rather my son,” he +added, looking at La Briere. “It could not be otherwise. Madame de La +Bastie is German. She has never adopted our etiquette, and I let my +two women lead me their own way. I have always preferred to sit in +the carriage rather than on the box. I can make a joke of all this at +present, for we have not yet seen the Duc d’Herouville, and I do not +believe in marriages arranged by proxy, any more than I believe in +choosing my daughter’s husband.” + +“That declaration is equally encouraging and discouraging to two young +men who are searching for the philosopher’s stone of happiness in +marriage,” said Canalis. + +“Don’t you consider it useful, necessary, and even politic to stipulate +for perfect freedom of action for parents, daughters, and suitors?” + asked Charles Mignon. + +Canalis, at a sign from La Briere, kept silence. The conversation +presently became unimportant, and after a few turns round the garden the +count retired, urging the visit of the two friends. + +“That’s our dismissal,” cried Canalis; “you saw it as plainly as I did. +Well, in his place, I should not hesitate between the grand equerry and +either of us, charming as we are.” + +“I don’t think so,” said La Briere. “I believe that frank soldier came +here to satisfy his desire to see you, and to warn us of his neutrality +while receiving us in his house. Modeste, in love with your fame, and +misled by my person, stands, as it were, between the real and the ideal, +between poetry and prose. I am, unfortunately, the prose.” + +“Germain,” said Canalis to the valet, who came to take away the coffee, +“order the carriage in half an hour. We will take a drive before we go +to the Chalet.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. A SPLENDID FIRST APPEARANCE + +The two young men were equally impatient to see Modeste, but La Briere +dreaded the interview, while Canalis approached it with the confidence +of self-conceit. The eagerness with which La Briere had met the +father, and the flattery of his attention to the family pride of the +ex-merchant, showed Canalis his own maladroitness, and determined him to +select a special role. The great poet resolved to pretend indifference, +though all the while displaying his seductive powers; to appear to +disdain the young lady, and thus pique her self-love. Trained by +the handsome Duchesse de Chaulieu, he was bound to be worthy of his +reputation as a man who knew women, when, in fact, he did not know them +at all,--which is often the case with those who are the happy victims +of an exclusive passion. While poor Ernest, gloomily ensconced in his +corner of the caleche, gave way to the terrors of genuine love, and +foresaw instinctively the anger, contempt, and disdain of an injured and +offended young girl, Canalis was preparing himself, not less silently, +like an actor making ready for an important part in a new play; +certainly neither of them presented the appearance of a happy man. +Important interests were involved for Canalis. The mere suggestion of +his desire to marry would bring about a rupture of the tie which had +bound him for the last ten years to the Duchesse de Chaulieu. Though +he had covered the purpose of his journey with the vulgar pretext of +needing rest,--in which, by the bye, women never believe, even when +it is true,--his conscience troubled him somewhat; but the word +“conscience” seemed so Jesuitical to La Briere that he shrugged his +shoulders when the poet mentioned his scruples. + +“Your conscience, my friend, strikes me as nothing more nor less than a +dread of losing the pleasures of vanity, and some very real advantages +and habits by sacrificing the affections of Madame de Chaulieu; for, if +you were sure of succeeding with Modeste, you would renounce without the +slightest compunction the wilted aftermath of a passion that has been +mown and well-raked for the last eight years. If you simply mean that +you are afraid of displeasing your protectress, should she find out the +object of your stay here, I believe you. To renounce the duchess and yet +not succeed at the Chalet is too heavy a risk. You take the anxiety of +this alternative for remorse.” + +“You have no comprehension of feelings,” said the poet, irritably, like +a man who hears truth when he expects a compliment. + +“That is what a bigamist should tell the jury,” retorted La Briere, +laughing. + +This epigram made another disagreeable impression on Canalis. He began +to think La Briere too witty and too free for a secretary. + +The arrival of an elegant caleche, driven by a coachman in the Canalis +livery, made the more excitement at the Chalet because the two suitors +were expected, and all the personages of this history were assembled to +receive them, except the duke and Butscha. + +“Which is the poet?” asked Madame Latournelle of Dumay in the embrasure +of a window, where she stationed herself as soon as she heard the +wheels. + +“The one who walks like a drum-major,” answered the lieutenant. + +“Ah!” said the notary’s wife, examining Canalis, who was swinging his +body like a man who knows he is being looked at. The fault lay with the +great lady who flattered him incessantly and spoiled him,--as all women +older than their adorers invariably spoil and flatter them; Canalis in +his moral being was a sort of Narcissus. When a woman of a certain age +wishes to attach a man forever, she begins by deifying his defects, so +as to cut off all possibility of rivalry; for a rival is never, at the +first approach, aware of the super-fine flattery to which the man is +accustomed. Coxcombs are the product of this feminine manoeuvre, when +they are not fops by nature. Canalis, taken young by the handsome +duchess, vindicated his affectations to his own mind by telling himself +that they pleased that “grande dame,” whose taste was law. Such shades +of character may be excessively faint, but it is improper for the +historian not to point them out. For instance, Melchior possessed a +talent for reading which was greatly admired, and much injudicious +praise had given him a habit of exaggeration, which neither poets nor +actors are willing to check, and which made people say of him (always +through De Marsay) that he no longer declaimed, he bellowed his verses; +lengthening the sounds that he might listen to himself. In the slang of +the green-room, Canalis “dragged the time.” He was fond of exchanging +glances with his hearers, throwing himself into postures of +self-complacency and practising those tricks of demeanor which actors +call “balancoires,”--the picturesque phrase of an artistic people. +Canalis had his imitators, and was in fact the head of a school of +his kind. This habit of declamatory chanting slightly affected his +conversation, as we have seen in his interview with Dumay. The moment +the mind becomes finical the manners follow suit, and the great poet +ended by studying his demeanor, inventing attitudes, looking furtively +at himself in mirrors, and suiting his discourse to the particular +pose which he happened to have taken up. He was so preoccupied with the +effect he wished to produce, that a practical joke, Blondet, had bet +once or twice, and won the wager, that he could nonplus him at any +moment by merely looking fixedly at his hair, or his boots, or the tails +of his coats. + +These airs and graces, which started in life with a passport of flowery +youth, now seemed all the more stale and old because Melchior himself +was waning. Life in the world of fashion is quite as exhausting to men +as it is to women, and perhaps the twenty years by which the duchess +exceeded her lover’s age, weighed more heavily upon him than upon her; +for to the eyes of the world she was always handsome,--without rouge, +without wrinkles, and without heart. Alas! neither men nor women have +friends who are friendly enough to warn them of the moment when the +fragrance of their modesty grows stale, when the caressing glance is +but an echo of the stage, when the expression of the face changes from +sentiment to sentimentality, and the artifices of the mind show their +rusty edges. Genius alone renews its skin like a snake; and in the +matter of charm, as in everything else, it is only the heart that never +grows old. People who have hearts are simple in all their ways. Now +Canalis, as we know, had a shrivelled heart. He misused the beauty of +his glance by giving it, without adequate reason, the fixity that comes +to the eyes in meditation. In short, applause was to him a business, in +which he was perpetually on the lookout for gain. His style of paying +compliments, charming to superficial people, seemed insulting to +others of more delicacy, by its triteness and the cool assurance of +its cut-and-dried flattery. As a matter of fact, Melchior lied like a +courtier. He remarked without blushing to the Duc de Chaulieu, who made +no impression whatever when he was obliged to address the Chamber as +minister of foreign affairs, “Your excellency was truly sublime!” Many +men like Canalis are purged of their affectations by the administration +of non-success in little doses. + +These defects, slight in the gilded salons of the faubourg +Saint-Germain, where every one contributes his or her quota of +absurdity, and where these particular forms of exaggerated speech +and affected diction--magniloquence, if you please to call it so--are +surrounded by excessive luxury and sumptuous toilettes, which are to +some extent their excuse, were certain to be far more noticed in the +provinces, whose own absurdities are of a totally different type. +Canalis, by nature over-strained and artificial, could not change his +form; in fact, he had had time to grow stiff in the mould into which the +duchess had poured him; moreover, he was thoroughly Parisian, or, if +you prefer it, truly French. The Parisian is amazed that everything +everywhere is not as it in Paris; the Frenchman, as it is in France. +Good taste, on the contrary, demands that we adapt ourselves to the +customs of foreigners without losing too much of our own character,--as +did Alcibiades, that model of a gentleman. True grace is elastic; it +lends itself to circumstances; it is in harmony with all social centres; +it wears a robe of simple material in the streets, noticeable only by +its cut, in preference to the feathers and flounces of middle-class +vulgarity. Now Canalis, instigated by a woman who loved herself much +more than she loved him, wished to lay down the law and be, everywhere, +such as he himself might see fit to be. He believed he carried his own +public with him wherever he went,--an error shared by several of the +great men of Paris. + +While the poet made a studied and effective entrance into the salon of +the Chalet, La Briere slipped in behind him like a person of no account. + +“Ha! do I see my soldier?” said Canalis, perceiving Dumay, after +addressing a compliment to Madame Mignon, and bowing to the other women. +“Your anxieties are relieved, are they not?” he said, offering his hand +effusively; “I comprehend them to their fullest extent after seeing +mademoiselle. I spoke to you of terrestrial creatures, not of angels.” + +All present seemed by their attitudes to ask the meaning of this speech. + +“I shall always consider it a triumph,” resumed the poet, observing that +everybody wished for an explanation, “to have stirred to mention one +of those men of iron whom Napoleon had the eye to find and make the +supporting piles on which he tried to build an empire, too colossal +to be lasting: for such structures time alone is the cement. But this +triumph--why should I be proud of it?--I count for nothing. It was the +triumph of ideas over facts. Your battles, my dear Monsieur Dumay, your +heroic charges, Monsieur le comte, nay, war itself was the form in which +Napoleon’s idea clothed itself. Of all of these things, what remains? +The sod that covers them knows nothing; harvests come and go without +revealing their resting-place; were it not for the historian, the +writer, futurity would have no knowledge of those heroic days. Therefore +your fifteen years of war are now ideas and nothing more; that which +preserves the Empire forever is the poem that the poets make of them. A +nation that can win such battles must know how to sing them.” + +Canalis paused, to gather by a glance that ran round the circle the +tribute of amazement which he expected of provincials. + +“You must be aware, monsieur, of the regret I feel at not seeing you,” + said Madame Mignon, “since you compensate me with the pleasure of +hearing you.” + +Modeste, determined to think Canalis sublime, sat motionless with +amazement; the embroidery slipped from her fingers, which held it only +by the needleful of thread. + +“Modeste, this is Monsieur Ernest de La Briere. Monsieur Ernest, my +daughter,” said the count, thinking the secretary too much in the +background. + +The young girl bowed coldly, giving Ernest a glance that was meant to +prove to every one present that she saw him for the first time. + +“Pardon me, monsieur,” she said without blushing; “the great admiration +I feel for the greatest of our poets is, in the eyes of my friends, a +sufficient excuse for seeing only him.” + +The pure, fresh voice, with accents like that of Mademoiselle Mars, +charmed the poor secretary, already dazzled by Modeste’s beauty, and +in his sudden surprise he answered by a phrase that would have been +sublime, had it been true. + +“He is my friend,” he said. + +“Ah, then you do pardon me,” she replied. + +“He is more than a friend,” cried Canalis taking Ernest by the shoulder +and leaning upon it like Alexander on Hephaestion, “we love each other +as though we were brothers--” + +Madame Latournelle cut short the poet’s speech by pointing to Ernest +and saying aloud to her husband, “Surely that is the gentleman we saw at +church.” + +“Why not?” said Charles Mignon, quickly, observing that Ernest reddened. + +Modeste coldly took up her embroidery. + +“Madame may be right; I have been twice in Havre lately,” replied La +Briere, sitting down by Dumay. + +Canalis, charmed with Modeste’s beauty, mistook the admiration she +expressed, and flattered himself he had succeeded in producing his +desired effects. + +“I should think a man without heart, if he had no devoted friend near +him,” said Modeste, to pick up the conversation interrupted by Madame +Latournelle’s awkwardness. + +“Mademoiselle, Ernest’s devotion makes me almost think myself worth +something,” said Canalis; “for my dear Pylades is full of talent; he +was the right hand of the greatest minister we have had since the peace. +Though he holds a fine position, he is good enough to be my tutor in the +science of politics; he teaches me to conduct affairs and feeds me with +his experience, when all the while he might aspire to a much better +situation. Oh! he is worth far more than I.” At a gesture from Modeste +he continued gracefully: “Yes, the poetry that I express he carries in +his heart; and if I speak thus openly before him it is because he has +the modesty of a nun.” + +“Enough, oh, enough!” cried La Briere, who hardly knew which way to +look. “My dear Canalis, you remind me of a mother who is seeking to +marry off her daughter.” + +“How is it, monsieur,” said Charles Mignon, addressing Canalis, “that +you can even think of becoming a political character?” + +“It is abdication,” said Modeste, “for a poet; politics are the resource +of matter-of-fact men.” + +“Ah, mademoiselle, the rostrum is to-day the greatest theatre of the +world; it has succeeded the tournaments of chivalry, it is now the +meeting-place for all intellects, just as the army has been the +rallying-point of courage.” + +Canalis stuck spurs into his charger and talked for ten minutes on +political life: “Poetry was but a preface to the statesman.” “To-day the +orator has become a sublime reasoner, the shepherd of ideas.” “A poet +may point the way to nations or individuals, but can he ever cease to be +himself?” He quoted Chateaubriand and declared that he would one day be +greater on the political side than on the literary. “The forum of France +was to be the pharos of humanity.” “Oral battles supplanted fields of +battle: there were sessions of the Chamber finer than any Austerlitz, +and orators were seen to be as lofty as generals; they spent their +lives, their courage, their strength, as freely as those who went to +war.” “Speech was surely one of the most prodigal outlets of the vital +fluid that man had ever known,” etc. + +This improvisation of modern commonplaces, clothed in sonorous phrases +and newly invented words, and intended to prove that the Comte de +Canalis was becoming one of the glories of the French government, made +a deep impression upon the notary and Gobenheim, and upon Madame +Latournelle and Madame Mignon. Modeste looked as though she were at the +theatre, in an attitude of enthusiasm for an actor,--very much like +that of Ernest toward herself; for though the secretary knew all these +high-sounding phrases by heart, he listened through the eyes, as it +were, of the young girl, and grew more and more madly in love with +her. To this true lover, Modeste was eclipsing all the Modestes he had +created as he read her letters and answered them. + +This visit, the length of which was predetermined by Canalis, careful +not to allow his admirers a chance to get surfeited, ended by an +invitation to dinner on the following Monday. + +“We shall not be at the Chalet,” said the Comte de La Bastie. “Dumay +will have sole possession of it. I return to the villa, having bought it +back under a deed of redemption within six months, which I have to-day +signed with Monsieur Vilquin.” + +“I hope,” said Dumay, “that Vilquin will not be able to return to you +the sum you have just lent him, and that the villa will remain yours.” + +“It is an abode in keeping with your fortune,” said Canalis. + +“You mean the fortune that I am supposed to have,” replied Charles +Mignon, hastily. + +“It would be too sad,” said Canalis, turning to Modeste with a charming +little bow, “if this Madonna were not framed in a manner worthy of her +divine perfections.” + +That was the only thing Canalis said to Modeste. He affected not to +look at her, and behaved like a man to whom all idea of marriage was +interdicted. + +“Ah! my dear Madame Mignon,” cried the notary’s wife, as soon as the +gravel was heard to grit under the feet of the Parisians, “what an +intellect!” + +“Is he rich?--that is the question,” said Gobenheim. + +Modeste was at the window, not losing a single movement of the great +poet, and paying no attention to his companion. When Monsieur Mignon +returned to the salon, and Modeste, having received a last bow from the +two friends as the carriage turned, went back to her seat, a weighty +discussion took place, such as provincials invariably hold over +Parisians after a first interview. Gobenheim repeated his phrase, “Is +he rich?” as a chorus to the songs of praise sung by Madame Latournelle, +Modeste, and her mother. + +“Rich!” exclaimed Modeste; “what can that signify! Do you not see that +Monsieur de Canalis is one of those men who are destined for the highest +places in the State. He has more than fortune; he possesses that which +gives fortune.” + +“He will be minister or ambassador,” said Monsieur Mignon. + +“That won’t hinder tax-payers from having to pay the costs of his +funeral,” remarked the notary. + +“How so?” asked Charles Mignon. + +“He strikes me as a man who will waste all the fortunes with whose gifts +Mademoiselle Modeste so liberally endows him,” answered Latournelle. + +“Modeste can’t avoid being liberal to a poet who called her a Madonna,” + said Dumay, sneering, and faithful to the repulsion with which Canalis +had originally inspired him. + +Gobenheim arranged the whist-table with all the more persistency +because, since the return of Monsieur Mignon, Latournelle and Dumay had +allowed themselves to play for ten sous points. + +“Well, my little darling,” said the father to the daughter in the +embrasure of a window. “Admit that papa thinks of everything. If you +send your orders this evening to your former dressmaker in Paris, and +all your other furnishing people, you shall show yourself eight days +hence in all the splendor of an heiress. Meantime we will install +ourselves in the villa. You already have a pretty horse, now order a +habit; you owe that amount of civility to the grand equerry.” + +“All the more because there will be a number of us to ride,” said +Modeste, who was recovering the colors of health. + +“The secretary did not say much,” remarked Madame Mignon. + +“A little fool,” said Madame Latournelle; “the poet has an attentive +word for everybody. He thanked Monsieur Latournelle for his help in +choosing the house; and said he must have taken counsel with a woman of +good taste. But the other looked as gloomy as a Spaniard, and kept his +eyes fixed on Modeste as though he would like to swallow her whole. If +he had even looked at me I should have been afraid of him.” + +“He had a pleasant voice,” said Madame Mignon. + +“No doubt he came to Havre to inquire about the Mignons in the interests +of his friend the poet,” said Modeste, looking furtively at her father. +“It was certainly he whom we saw in church.” + +Madame Dumay and Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, accepted this as the +natural explanation of Ernest’s journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. OF WHICH THE AUTHOR THINKS A GOOD DEAL + +“Do you know, Ernest,” cried Canalis, when they had driven a short +distance from the house, “I don’t see any marriageable woman in society +in Paris who compares with that adorable girl.” + +“Ah, that ends it!” replied Ernest. “She loves you, or she will love you +if you desire it. Your fame won half the battle. Well, you may now +have it all your own way. You shall go there alone in future. Modeste +despises me; she is right to do so; and I don’t see any reason why I +should condemn myself to see, to love, desire, and adore that which I +can never possess.” + +After a few consoling remarks, dashed with his own satisfaction at +having made a new version of Caesar’s phrase, Canalis divulged a desire +to break with the Duchesse de Chaulieu. La Briere, totally unable to +keep up the conversation, made the beauty of the night an excuse to be +set down, and then rushed like one possessed to the seashore, where he +stayed till past ten, in a half-demented state, walking hurriedly up +and down, talking aloud in broken sentences, sometimes standing still +or sitting down, without noticing the uneasiness of two custom-house +officers who were on the watch. After loving Modeste’s wit and +intellect and her aggressive frankness, he now joined adoration of her +beauty--that is to say, love without reason, love inexplicable--to all +the other reasons which had drawn him ten days earlier, to the church in +Havre. + +He returned to the Chalet, where the Pyrenees hounds barked at him till +he was forced to relinquish the pleasure of gazing at Modeste’s windows. +In love, such things are of no more account to the lover than the work +which is covered by the last layer of color is to an artist; yet they +make up the whole of love, just as the hidden toil is the whole of art. +Out of them arise the great painter and the true lover whom the woman +and the public end, sometimes too late, by adoring. + +“Well then!” he cried aloud, “I will stay, I will suffer, I will love +her for myself only, in solitude. Modeste shall be my sun, my life; I +will breathe with her breath, rejoice in her joys and bear her griefs, +be she even the wife of that egoist, Canalis.” + +“That’s what I call loving, monsieur,” said a voice which came from a +shrub by the side of the road. “Ha, ha, so all the world is in love with +Mademoiselle de La Bastie?” + +And Butscha suddenly appeared and looked at La Briere. La Briere checked +his anger when, by the light of the moon, he saw the dwarf, and he made +a few steps without replying. + +“Soldiers who serve in the same company ought to be good comrades,” + remarked Butscha. “You don’t love Canalis; neither do I.” + +“He is my friend,” replied Ernest. + +“Ha, you are the little secretary?” + +“You are to know, monsieur, that I am no man’s secretary. I have the +honor to be of counsel to a supreme court of this kingdom.” + +“I have the honor to salute Monsieur de La Briere,” said Butscha. “I +myself have the honor to be head clerk to Latournelle, chief councillor +of Havre, and my position is a better one than yours. Yes, I have had +the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie nearly every +evening for the last four years, and I expect to live near her, as a +king’s servant lives in the Tuileries. If they offered me the throne of +Russia I should answer, ‘I love the sun too well.’ Isn’t that telling +you, monsieur, that I care more for her than for myself? I am looking +after her interests with the most honorable intentions. Do you believe +that the proud Duchesse de Chaulieu would cast a favorable eye on the +happiness of Madame de Canalis if her waiting-woman, who is in love with +Monsieur Germain, not liking that charming valet’s absence in Havre, +were to say to her mistress while brushing her hair--” + +“Who do you know about all this?” said La Briere, interrupting Butscha. + +“In the first place, I am clerk to a notary,” answered Butscha. “But +haven’t you seen my hump? It is full of resources, monsieur. I have made +myself cousin to Mademoiselle Philoxene Jacmin, born at Honfleur, where +my mother was born, a Jacmin,--there are eight branches of the Jacmins +at Honfleur. So my cousin Philoxene, enticed by the bait of a highly +improbable fortune, has told me a good many things.” + +“The duchess is vindictive?” said La Briere. + +“Vindictive as a queen, Philoxene says; she has never yet forgiven the +duke for being nothing more than her husband,” replied Butscha. “She +hates as she loves. I know all about her character, her tastes, her +toilette, her religion, and her manners; for Philoxene stripped her for +me, soul and corset. I went to the opera expressly to see her, and I +didn’t grudge the ten francs it cost me--I don’t mean the play. If my +imaginary cousin had not told me the duchess had seen her fifty summers, +I should have thought I was over-generous in giving her thirty; she has +never known a winter, that duchess!” + +“Yes,” said La Briere, “she is a cameo--preserved because it is stone. +Canalis would be in a bad way if the duchess were to find out what he +is doing here; and I hope, monsieur, that you will go no further in this +business of spying, which is unworthy of an honest man.” + +“Monsieur,” said Butscha, proudly; “for me Modeste is my country. I do +not spy; I foresee, I take precautions. The duchess will come here if +it is desirable, or she will stay tranquilly where she is, according to +what I judge best.” + +“You?” + +“I.” + +“And how, pray?” + +“Ha, that’s it!” said the little hunchback, plucking a blade of grass. +“See here! this herb believes that men build palaces for it to grow in; +it wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble, and brings +them down, just as the masses forced into the edifice of feudality have +brought it to the ground. The power of the feeble life that can creep +everywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their cannons. I +am one of three who have sworn that Modeste shall be happy, and we would +sell our honor for her. Adieu, monsieur. If you truly love Mademoiselle +de La Bastie, forget this conversation and shake hands with me, for I +think you’ve got a heart. I longed to see the Chalet, and I got here +just as SHE was putting out her light. I saw the dogs rush at you, and +I overheard your words, and that is why I take the liberty of saying we +serve in the same regiment--that of loyal devotion.” + +“Monsieur,” said La Briere, wringing the hunchback’s hand, “would you +have the friendliness to tell me if Mademoiselle Modeste ever loved any +one WITH LOVE before she wrote to Canalis?” + +“Oh!” exclaimed Butscha in an altered voice; “that thought is an insult. +And even now, who knows if she really loves? does she know herself? +She is enamored of genius, of the soul and intellect of that seller of +verses, that literary quack; but she will study him, we shall all study +him; and I know how to make the man’s real character peep out from under +that turtle-shell of fine manners,--we’ll soon see the petty little head +of his ambition and his vanity!” cried Butscha, rubbing his hands. “So, +unless mademoiselle is desperately taken with him--” + +“Oh! she was seized with admiration when she saw him, as if he were +something marvellous,” exclaimed La Briere, letting the secret of his +jealousy escape him. + +“If he is a loyal, honest fellow, and loves her; if he is worthy of +her; if he renounces his duchess,” said Butscha,--“then I’ll manage the +duchess! Here, my dear sir, take this road, and you will get home in ten +minutes.” + +But as they parted, Butscha turned back and hailed poor Ernest, who, +as a true lover, would gladly have stayed there all night talking of +Modeste. + +“Monsieur,” said Butscha, “I have not yet had the honor of seeing our +great poet. I am very curious to observe that magnificent phenomenon +in the exercise of his functions. Do me the favor to bring him to the +Chalet to-morrow evening, and stay as long as possible; for it takes +more than an hour for a man to show himself for what he is. I shall be +the first to see if he loves, if he can love, or if he ever will love +Mademoiselle Modeste.” + +“You are very young to--” + +“--to be a professor,” said Butscha, cutting short La Briere. “Ha, +monsieur, deformed folks are born a hundred years old. And besides, a +sick man who has long been sick, knows more than his doctor; he knows +the disease, and that is more than can be said for the best of doctors. +Well, so it is with a man who cherishes a woman in his heart when the +woman is forced to disdain him for his ugliness or his deformity; he +ends by knowing so much of love that he becomes seductive, just as the +sick man recovers his health; stupidity alone is incurable. I have +had neither father nor mother since I was six years old; I am now +twenty-five. Public charity has been my mother, the procureur du roi my +father. Oh! don’t be troubled,” he added, seeing Ernest’s gesture; “I am +much more lively than my situation. Well, for the last six years, ever +since a woman’s eye first told me I had no right to love, I do love, and +I study women. I began with the ugly ones, for it is best to take the +bull by the horns. So I took my master’s wife, who has certainly been +an angel to me, for my first study. Perhaps I did wrong; but I couldn’t +help it. I passed her through my alembic and what did I find? this +thought, crouching at the bottom of her heart, ‘I am not so ugly as they +think me’; and if a man were to work upon that thought he could bring +her to the edge of the abyss, pious as she is.” + +“And have you studied Modeste?” + +“I thought I told you,” replied Butscha, “that my life belongs to her, +just as France belongs to the king. Do you now understand what you +called my spying in Paris? No one but me really knows what nobility, +what pride, what devotion, what mysterious grace, what unwearying +kindness, what true religion, gaiety, wit, delicacy, knowledge, and +courtesy there are in the soul and in the heart of that adorable +creature!” + +Butscha drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, and La Briere +pressed his hand for a long time. + +“I live in the sunbeam of her existence; it comes from her, it is +absorbed in me; that is how we are united,--as nature is to God, by the +Light and by the Word. Adieu, monsieur; never in my life have I talked +in this way; but seeing you beneath her windows, I felt in my heart that +you loved her as I love her.” + +Without waiting for an answer Butscha quitted the poor lover, into whose +heart his words had put an inexpressible balm. Ernest resolved to make +a friend of him, not suspecting that the chief object of the clerk’s +loquacity was to gain communication with some one connected with +Canalis. Ernest was rocked to sleep that night by the ebb and flow +of thoughts and resolutions and plans for his future conduct, whereas +Canalis slept the sleep of the conqueror, which is the sweetest of +slumbers after that of the just. + +At breakfast next morning, the friends agreed to spend the evening +of the following day at the Chalet and initiate themselves into the +delights of provincial whist. To get rid of the day they ordered their +horses, purchased by Germain at a large price, and started on a voyage +of discovery round the country, which was quite as unknown to them +as China; for the most foreign thing to Frenchmen in France is France +itself. + +By dint of reflecting on his position as an unfortunate and despised +lover, Ernest went through something of the same process as Modeste’s +first letter had forced upon him. Though sorrow is said to develop +virtue, it only develops it in virtuous persons; that cleaning-out of +the conscience takes place only in persons who are by nature clean. +La Briere vowed to endure his sufferings in Spartan silence, to act +worthily, and give way to no baseness; while Canalis, fascinated by the +enormous “dot,” was telling himself to take every means of captivating +the heiress. Selfishness and devotion, the key-notes of the two +characters, therefore took, by the action of a moral law which is often +very odd in its effects, certain measures that were contrary to their +respective natures. The selfish man put on self-abnegation; the man who +thought chiefly of others took refuge on the Aventinus of pride. That +phenomenon is often seen in political life. Men frequently turn their +characters wrong side out, and it sometimes happens that the public is +unable to tell which is the right side. + +After dinner the two friends heard of the arrival of the grand equerry, +who was presented at the Chalet the same evening by Latournelle. +Mademoiselle d’Herouville had contrived to wound that worthy man by +sending a footmen to tell him to come to her, instead of sending her +nephew in person; thus depriving the notary of a distinguished visit he +would certainly have talked about for the rest of his natural life. So +Latournelle curtly informed the grand equerry, when he proposed to +drive him to the Chalet, that he was engaged to take Madame Latournelle. +Guessing from the little man’s sulky manner that there was some blunder +to repair, the duke said graciously:-- + +“Then I shall have the pleasure, if you will allow me, of taking Madame +Latournelle also.” + +Disregarding Mademoiselle d’Herouville’s haughty shrug, the duke left +the room with the notary. Madame Latournelle, half-crazed with joy at +seeing the gorgeous carriage at her door, with footmen in royal livery +letting down the steps, was too agitated on hearing that the grand +equerry had called for her, to find her gloves, her parasol, her +absurdity, or her usual air of pompous dignity. Once in the carriage, +however, and while expressing confused thanks and civilities to the +little duke, she suddenly exclaimed, from a thought in her kind heart,-- + +“But Butscha, where is he?” + +“Let us take Butscha,” said the duke, smiling. + +When the people on the quays, attracted in groups by the splendor of the +royal equipage, saw the funny spectacle, the three little men with the +spare gigantic woman, they looked at one another and laughed. + +“If you melt all three together, they might make one man fit to mate +with that big cod-fish,” said a sailor from Bordeaux. + +“Is there any other thing you would like to take with you, madame?” + asked the duke, jestingly, while the footman awaited his orders. + +“No, monseigneur,” she replied, turning scarlet and looking at her +husband as much as to say, “What did I do wrong?” + +“Monsieur le duc honors me by considering that I am a thing,” said +Butscha; “a poor clerk is usually thought to be a nonentity.” + +Though this was said with a laugh, the duke colored and did not answer. +Great people are to blame for joking with their social inferiors. +Jesting is a game, and games presuppose equality; it is to obviate any +inconvenient results of this temporary equality that players have the +right, after the game is over, not to recognize each other. + +The visit of the grand equerry had the ostensible excuse of an important +piece of business; namely, the retrieval of an immense tract of waste +land left by the sea between the mouths of the two rivers, which +tract had just been adjudged by the Council of State to the house of +Herouville. The matter was nothing less than putting flood-gates with +double bridges, draining three or four hundred acres, cutting canals, +and laying out roadways. When the duke had explained the condition of +the land, Charles Mignon remarked that time must be allowed for the +soil, which was still moving, to settle and grow solid in a natural way. + +“Time, which has providentially enriched your house, Monsieur le duc, +can alone complete the work,” he said, in conclusion. “It would be +prudent to let fifty years elapse before you reclaim the land.” + +“Do not let that be your final word, Monsieur le comte,” said the duke. +“Come to Herouville and see things for yourself.” + +Charles Mignon replied that every capitalist should take time to examine +into such matters with a cool head, thus giving the duke a pretext for +his visits to the Chalet. The sight of Modeste made a lively impression +on the young man, and he asked the favor of receiving her at Herouville +with her father, saying that his sister and his aunt had heard much of +her, and wished to make her acquaintance. On this the count proposed +to present his daughter to those ladies himself, and invited the whole +party to dinner on the day of his return to the villa. The duke accepted +the invitation. The blue ribbon, the title, and above all, the ecstatic +glances of the noble gentleman had an effect upon Modeste; but she +appeared to great advantage in carriage, dignity, and conversation. The +duke withdrew reluctantly, carrying with him an invitation to visit the +Chalet every evening,--an invitation based on the impossibility of a +courtier of Charles X. existing for a single evening without his rubber. + +The following evening, therefore, Modeste was to see all three of her +lovers. No matter what young girls may say, and though the logic of +the heart may lead them to sacrifice everything to preference, it is +extremely flattering to their self-love to see a number of rival +adorers around them,--distinguished or celebrated men, or men of ancient +lineage,--all endeavoring to shine and to please. Suffer as Modeste may +in general estimation, it must be told she subsequently admitted that +the sentiments expressed in her letters paled before the pleasure of +seeing three such different minds at war with one another,--three men +who, taken separately, would each have done honor to the most exacting +family. Yet this luxury of self-love was checked by a misanthropical +spitefulness, resulting from the terrible wound she had +received,--although by this time she was beginning to think of that +wound as a disappointment only. So when her father said to her, +laughing, “Well, Modeste, do you want to be a duchess?” she answered, +with a mocking curtsey,-- + +“Sorrows have made me philosophical.” + +“Do you mean to be only a baroness?” asked Butscha. + +“Or a viscountess?” said her father. + +“How could that be?” she asked quickly. + +“If you accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has enough merit and influence +to obtain permission from the king to bear my titles and arms.” + +“Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, _he_ will not make any +difficulty,” said Modeste, scornfully. + +Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose meaning could only be +guessed by Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay. + +“When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise themselves,” + remarked Latournelle, “and women set them the example. I’ve heard +it said ever since I came into the world that ‘Monsieur this or +Mademoiselle that has made a good marriage,’--meaning that the other +side had made a bad one.” + +“Marriage,” said Butscha, “is like a lawsuit; there’s always one side +discontented. If one dupes the other, certainly half the husbands in the +world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half.” + +“From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?” inquired Modeste. + +“To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of the enemy,” answered +the clerk. + +“What did I tell you, my darling?” said Charles Mignon, alluding to +their conversation on the seashore. + +“Men play as many parts to get married as mothers make their daughters +play to get rid of them,” said Latournelle. + +“Then you approve of stratagems?” said Modeste. + +“On both sides,” cried Gobenheim, “and that brings it even.” + +This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, as they say, in the +intervals of cutting and dealing the cards; and it soon turned chiefly +on the merits of the Duc d’Herouville, who was thought very good-looking +by little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha. Without the +foregoing discussion on the lawfulness of matrimonial tricks, the +reader might possibly find the forthcoming account of the evening so +impatiently awaited by Butscha, somewhat too long. + +Desplein, the famous surgeon, arrived the next morning, and stayed only +long enough to send to Havre for fresh horses and have them put-to, +which took about an hour. After examining Madame Mignon’s eyes, he +decided that she could recover her sight, and fixed a suitable time, a +month later, to perform the operation. This important consultation took +place before the assembled members of the Chalet, who stood trembling +and expectant to hear the verdict of the prince of science. That +illustrious member of the Academy of Sciences put about a dozen brief +questions to the blind woman as he examined her eyes in the strong light +from a window. Modeste was amazed at the value which a man so celebrated +attached to time, when she saw the travelling-carriage piled with books +which the great surgeon proposed to read during the journey; for he had +left Paris the evening before, and had spent the night in sleeping and +travelling. The rapidity and clearness of Desplein’s judgment on each +answer made by Madame Mignon, his succinct tone, his decisive manner, +gave Modeste her first real idea of a man of genius. She perceived +the enormous difference between a second-rate man, like Canalis, and +Desplein, who was even more than a superior man. A man of genius finds +in the consciousness of his talent and in the solidity of his fame an +arena of his own, where his legitimate pride can expand and exercise +itself without interfering with others. Moreover, his perpetual struggle +with men and things leave them no time for the coxcombry of fashionable +genius, which makes haste to gather in the harvests of a fugitive +season, and whose vanity and self-love are as petty and exacting as a +custom-house which levies tithes on all that comes in its way. + +Modeste was the more enchanted by this great practical genius, because +he was evidently charmed with the exquisite beauty of Modeste,--he, +through whose hands so many women had passed, and who had long since +examined the sex, as it were, with magnifier and scalpel. + +“It would be a sad pity,” he said, with an air of gallantry which he +occasionally put on, and which contrasted with his assumed brusqueness, +“if a mother were deprived of the sight of so charming a daughter.” + +Modeste insisted on serving the simple breakfast which was all the +great surgeon would accept. She accompanied her father and Dumay to the +carriage stationed at the garden-gate, and said to Desplein at parting, +her eyes shining with hope,-- + +“And will my dear mamma really see me?” + +“Yes, my little sprite, I’ll promise you that,” he answered, smiling; +“and I am incapable of deceiving you, for I, too, have a daughter.” + +The horses started and carried him off as he uttered the last words with +unexpected grace and feeling. Nothing is more charming than the peculiar +unexpectedness of persons of talent. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. THE POET DOES HIS EXERCISES + +This visit of the great surgeon was the event of the day, and it left a +luminous trace in Modeste’s soul. The young enthusiast ardently admired +the man whose life belonged to others, and in whom the habit of studying +physical suffering had destroyed the manifestations of egoism. That +evening, when Gobenheim, the Latournelles, and Butscha, Canalis, +Ernest, and the Duc d’Herouville were gathered in the salon, they all +congratulated the Mignon family on the hopes which Desplein encouraged. +The conversation, in which the Modeste of her letters was once more in +the ascendant, turned naturally on the man whose genius, unfortunately +for his fame, was appreciable only by the faculty and men of science. +Gobenheim contributed a phrase which is the sacred chrism of genius as +interpreted in these days by public economists and bankers,-- + +“He makes a mint of money.” + +“They say he is very grasping,” added Canalis. + +The praises which Modeste showered on Desplein had annoyed the poet. +Vanity acts like a woman,--they both think they are defrauded when love +or praise is bestowed on others. Voltaire was jealous of the wit of a +roue whom Paris admired for two days; and even a duchess takes offence +at a look bestowed upon her maid. The avarice excited by these two +sentiments is such that a fraction of them given to the poor is thought +robbery. + +“Do you think, monsieur,” said Modeste, smiling, “that we should judge +genius by ordinary standards?” + +“Perhaps we ought first of all to define the man of genius,” replied +Canalis. “One of the conditions of genius is invention,--invention of a +form, a system, a force. Napoleon was an inventor, apart from his other +conditions of genius. He invented his method of making war. Walter Scott +is an inventor, Linnaeus is an inventor, Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire and +Cuvier are inventors. Such men are men of genius of the first rank. They +renew, increase, or modify both science and art. But Desplein is merely +a man whose vast talent consists in properly applying laws already +known; in observing, by means of a natural gift, the limits laid down +for each temperament, and the time appointed by Nature for an operation. +He has not founded, like Hippocrates, the science itself. He has +invented no system, as did Galen, Broussais, and Rasori. He is merely an +executive genius, like Moscheles on the piano, Paganini on the violin, +or Farinelli on his own larynx,--men who have developed enormous +faculties, but who have not created music. You must permit me to +discriminate between Beethoven and la Catalani: to one belongs the +immortal crown of genius and of martyrdom, to the other innumerable +five-franc pieces; one we can pay in coin, but the world remains +throughout all time a debtor to the other. Each day increases our debt +to Moliere, but Baron’s comedies have been overpaid.” + +“I think you make the prerogative of ideas too exclusive,” said Ernest +de La Briere, in a quiet and melodious voice, which formed a sudden +contrast to the peremptory tones of the poet, whose flexible organ had +abandoned its caressing notes for the strident and magisterial voice +of the rostrum. “Genius must be estimated according to its utility; +and Parmentier, who brought potatoes into general use, Jacquart, the +inventor of silk looms; Papin, who first discovered the elastic quality +of steam, are men of genius, to whom statues will some day be erected. +They have changed, or they will change in a certain sense, the face of +the State. It is in that sense that Desplein will always be considered +a man of genius by thinkers; they see him attended by a generation of +sufferers whose pains are stifled by his hand.” + +That Ernest should give utterance to this opinion was enough to make +Modeste oppose it. + +“If that be so, monsieur,” she said, “then the man who could discover a +way to mow wheat without injuring the straw, by a machine that could do +the work of ten men, would be a man of genius.” + +“Yes, my daughter,” said Madame Mignon; “and the poor would bless him +for cheaper bread,--he that is blessed by the poor is blessed of God.” + +“That is putting utility above art,” said Modeste, shaking her head. + +“Without utility what would become of art?” said Charles Mignon. “What +would it rest on? what would it live on? Where would you lodge, and how +would you pay the poet?” + +“Oh! my dear papa, such opinions are fearfully flat and antediluvian! +I am not surprised that Gobenheim and Monsieur de La Briere, who are +interested in the solution of social problems should think so; but you, +whose life has been the most useless poetry of the century,--useless +because the blood you shed all over Europe, and the horrible sufferings +exacted by your colossus, did not prevent France from losing ten +departments acquired under the Revolution,--how can _you_ give in to +such excessively pig-tail notions, as the idealists say? It is plain +you’ve just come from China.” + +The impertinence of Modeste’s speech was heightened by a little air +of contemptuous disdain which she purposely put on, and which fairly +astounded Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, and Dumay. As for Madame +Latournelle, she opened her eyes so wide she no longer saw anything. +Butscha, whose alert attention was comparable to that of a spy, looked +at Monsieur Mignon, expecting to see him flush with sudden and violent +indignation. + +“A little more, young lady, and you will be wanting in respect for your +father,” said the colonel, smiling, and noticing Butscha’s look. “See +what it is to spoil one’s children!” + +“I am your only child,” she said saucily. + +“Child, indeed,” remarked the notary, significantly. + +“Monsieur,” said Modeste, turning upon him, “my father is delighted to +have me for his governess; he gave me life and I give him knowledge; he +will soon owe me something.” + +“There seems occasion for it,” said Madame Mignon. + +“But mademoiselle is right,” said Canalis, rising and standing before +the fireplace in one of the finest attitudes of his collection. “God, +in his providence, has given food and clothing to man, but he has not +directly given him art. He says to man: ‘To live, thou must bow thyself +to earth; to think, thou shalt lift thyself to Me.’ We have as much need +of the life of the soul as of the life of the body,--hence, there are +two utilities. It is true we cannot be shod by books or clothed by +poems. An epic song is not, if you take the utilitarian view, as useful +as the broth of a charity kitchen. The noblest ideas will not sail a +vessel in place of canvas. It is quite true that the cotton-gin gives us +calicoes for thirty sous a yard less than we ever paid before; but that +machine and all other industrial perfections will not breathe the breath +of life into a people, will not tell futurity of a civilization that +once existed. Art, on the contrary, Egyptian, Mexican, Grecian, Roman +art, with their masterpieces--now called useless!--reveal the existence +of races back in the vague immense of time, beyond where the great +intermediary nations, denuded of men of genius, have disappeared, +leaving not a line nor a trace behind them! The works of genius are the +‘summum’ of civilization, and presuppose utility. Surely a pair of boots +are not as agreeable to your eyes as a fine play at the theatre; and you +don’t prefer a windmill to the church of Saint-Ouen, do you? Well then, +nations are imbued with the same feelings as the individual man, and +the man’s cherished desire is to survive himself morally just as he +propagates himself physically. The survival of a people is the work of +its men of genius. At this very moment France is proving, energetically, +the truth of that theory. She is, undoubtedly, excelled by England in +commerce, industry, and navigation, and yet she is, I believe, at the +head of the world,--by reason of her artists, her men of talent, and the +good taste of her products. There is no artist and no superior intellect +that does not come to Paris for a diploma. There is no school of +painting at this moment but that of France; and we shall reign far +longer and perhaps more securely by our books than by our swords. In La +Briere’s system, on the other hand, all that is glorious and lovely must +be suppressed,--woman’s beauty, music, painting, poetry. Society will +not be overthrown, that is true, but, I ask you, who would willingly +accept such a life? All useful things are ugly and forbidding. A kitchen +is indispensable, but you take care not to sit there; you live in the +salon, which you adorn, like this, with superfluous things. Of what +_use_, let me ask you, are these charming wall-paintings, this carved +wood-work? There is nothing beautiful but that which seems to us +useless. We called the sixteenth century the Renascence with admirable +truth of language. That century was the dawn of a new era. Men will +continue to speak of it when all remembrance of anterior centuries had +passed away,--their only merit being that they once existed, like the +million beings who count as the rubbish of a generation.” + +“Rubbish! yes, that may be, but my rubbish is dear to me,” said the +Duc d’Herouville, laughing, during the silent pause which followed the +poet’s pompous oration. + +“Let me ask,” said Butscha, attacking Canalis, “does art, the sphere in +which, according to you, genius is required to evolve itself, exist at +all? Is it not a splendid lie, a delusion, of the social man? Do I want +a landscape scene of Normandy in my bedroom when I can look out and see +a better one done by God himself? Our dreams make poems more glorious +than Iliads. For an insignificant sum of money I can find at Valogne, at +Carentan, in Provence, at Arles, many a Venus as beautiful as those +of Titian. The police gazette publishes tales, differing somewhat +from those of Walter Scott, but ending tragically with blood, not ink. +Happiness and virtue exist above and beyond both art and genius.” + +“Bravo, Butscha!” cried Madame Latournelle. + +“What did he say?” asked Canalis of La Briere, failing to gather from +the eyes and attitude of Mademoiselle Mignon the usual signs of artless +admiration. + +The contemptuous indifference which Modeste had exhibited toward La +Briere, and above all, her disrespectful speeches to her father, so +depressed the young man that he made no answer to Canalis; his eyes, +fixed sorrowfully on Modeste, were full of deep meditation. The Duc +d’Herouville took up Butscha’s argument and reproduced it with much +intelligence, saying finally that the ecstasies of Saint-Theresa were +far superior to the creations of Lord Byron. + +“Oh, Monsieur le duc,” exclaimed Modeste, “hers was a purely personal +poetry, whereas the genius of Lord Byron and Moliere benefit the world.” + +“How do you square that opinion with those of Monsieur le baron?” cried +Charles Mignon, quickly. “Now you are insisting that genius must be +useful, and benefit the world as though it were cotton,--but perhaps you +think logic as antediluvian as your poor old father.” + +Butscha, La Briere, and Madame Latournelle exchanged glances that were +more than half derisive, and drove Modeste to a pitch of irritation that +kept her silent for a moment. + +“Mademoiselle, do not mind them,” said Canalis, smiling upon her, “we +are neither beaten, nor caught in a contradiction. Every work of art, +let it be in literature, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture, +implies a positive social utility, equal to that of all other commercial +products. Art is pre-eminently commerce; presupposes it, in short. An +author pockets ten thousand francs for his book; the making of books +means the manufactory of paper, a foundry, a printing-office, a +bookseller,--in other words, the employment of thousands of men. The +execution of a symphony of Beethoven or an opera by Rossini requires +human arms and machinery and manufactures. The cost of a monument is +an almost brutal case in point. In short, I may say that the works of +genius have an extremely costly basis and are, necessarily, useful to +the workingman.” + +Astride of that theme, Canalis spoke for some minutes with a fine luxury +of metaphor, and much inward complacency as to his phrases; but it +happened with him, as with many another great speaker, that he found +himself at last at the point from which the conversation started, and in +full agreement with La Briere without perceiving it. + +“I see with much pleasure, my dear baron,” said the little duke, slyly, +“that you will make an admirable constitutional minister.” + +“Oh!” said Canalis, with the gesture of a great man, “what is the use +of all these discussions? What do they prove?--the eternal verity of one +axiom: All things are true, all things are false. Moral truths as well +as human beings change their aspect according to their surroundings, to +the point of being actually unrecognizable.” + +“Society exists through settled opinions,” said the Duc d’Herouville. + +“What laxity!” whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband. + +“He is a poet,” said Gobenheim, who overheard her. + +Canalis, who was ten leagues above the heads of his audience, and who +may have been right in his last philosophical remark, took the sort +of coldness which now overspread the surrounding faces of a symptom of +provincial ignorance; but seeing that Modeste understood him, he +was content, being wholly unaware that monologue is particularly +disagreeable to country-folk, whose principal desire it is to exhibit +the manner of life and the wit and wisdom of the provinces to Parisians. + +“It is long since you have seen the Duchesse de Chaulieu?” asked the +duke, addressing Canalis, as if to change the conversation. + +“I left her about six days ago.” + +“Is she well?” persisted the duke. + +“Perfectly well.” + +“Have the kindness to remember me to her when you write.” + +“They say she is charming,” remarked Modeste, addressing the duke. + +“Monsieur le baron can speak more confidently than I,” replied the grand +equerry. + +“More than charming,” said Canalis, making the best of the duke’s +perfidy; “but I am partial, mademoiselle; she has been a friend to me +for the last ten years; I owe all that is good in me to her; she has +saved me from the dangers of the world. Moreover, Monsieur le Duc de +Chaulieu launched me in my present career. Without the influence of that +family the king and the princesses would have forgotten a poor poet +like me; therefore my affection for the duchess must always be full of +gratitude.” + +His voice quivered. + +“We ought to love the woman who has led you to write those sublime +poems, and who inspires you with such noble feelings,” said Modeste, +quite affected. “Who can think of a poet without a muse!” + +“He would be without a heart,” replied Canalis. “He would write barren +verses like Voltaire, who never loved any one but Voltaire.” + +“I thought you did me the honor to say, in Paris,” interrupted Dumay, +“that you never felt the sentiments you expressed.” + +“The shoe fits, my soldier,” replied the poet, smiling; “but let me tell +you that it is quite possible to have a great deal of feeling both in +the intellectual life and in real life. My good friend here, La Briere, +is madly in love,” continued Canalis, with a fine show of generosity, +looking at Modeste. “I, who certainly love as much as he,--that is, I +think so unless I delude myself,--well, I can give to my love a literary +form in harmony with its character. But I dare not say, mademoiselle,” + he added, turning to Modeste with too studied a grace, “that to-morrow I +may not be without inspiration.” + +Thus the poet triumphed over all obstacles. In honor of his love he +rode a-tilt at the hindrances that were thrown in his way, and Modeste +remained wonder-struck at the Parisian wit that scintillated in his +declamatory discourse, of which she had hitherto known little or +nothing. + +“What an acrobat!” whispered Butscha to Latournelle, after listening +to a magnificent tirade on the Catholic religion and the happiness +of having a pious wife,--served up in response to a remark by Madame +Mignon. + +Modeste’s eyes were blindfolded as it were; Canalis’s elocution and the +close attention which she was predetermined to pay to him prevented her +from seeing that Butscha was carefully noting the declamation, the want +of simplicity, the emphasis that took the place of feeling, and the +curious incoherencies in the poet’s speech which led the dwarf to make +his rather cruel comment. At certain points of Canalis’s discourse, when +Monsieur Mignon, Dumay, Butscha, and Latournelle wondered at the +man’s utter want of logic, Modeste admired his suppleness, and said to +herself, as she dragged him after her through the labyrinth of fancy, +“He loves me!” Butscha, in common with the other spectators of what +we must call a stage scene, was struck with the radiant defect of all +egoists, which Canalis, like many men accustomed to perorate, allowed to +be too plainly seen. Whether he understood beforehand what the person he +was speaking to meant to say, whether he was not listening, or whether +he had the faculty of listening when he was thinking of something +else, it is certain that Melchior’s face wore an absent-minded look in +conversation, which disconcerted the ideas of others and wounded their +vanity. Not to listen is not merely a want of politeness, it is a mark +of disrespect. Canalis pushed this habit too far; for he often forgot +to answer a speech which required an answer, and passed, without the +ordinary transitions of courtesy, to the subject, whatever it was, that +preoccupied him. Though such impertinence is accepted without protest +from a man of marked distinction, it stirs a leaven of hatred and +vengeance in many hearts; in those of equals it even goes so far as to +destroy a friendship. If by chance Melchior was forced to listen, he +fell into another fault; he merely lent his attention, and never +gave it. Though this may not be so mortifying, it shows a kind of +semi-concession which is almost as unsatisfactory to the hearer and +leaves him dissatisfied. Nothing brings more profit in the commerce +of society than the small change of attention. He that heareth let him +hear, is not only a gospel precept, it is an excellent speculation; +follow it, and all will be forgiven you, even vice. Canalis took a great +deal of trouble in his anxiety to please Modeste; but though he was +compliant enough with her, he fell back into his natural self with the +others. + +Modeste, pitiless for the ten martyrs she was making, begged Canalis to +read some of his poems; she wanted, she said, a specimen of his gift for +reading, of which she had heard so much. Canalis took the volume which +she gave him, and cooed (for that is the proper word) a poem which is +generally considered his finest,--an imitation of Moore’s “Loves of the +Angels,” entitled “Vitalis,” which Monsieur and Madame Dumay, Madame +Latournelle, and Gobenheim welcomed with a few yawns. + +“If you are a good whist-player, monsieur,” said Gobenheim, flourishing +five cards held like a fan, “I must say I have never met a man as +accomplished as you.” + +The remark raised a laugh, for it was the translation of everybody’s +thought. + +“I play it sufficiently well to live in the provinces for the rest of my +days,” replied Canalis. “That, I think, is enough, and more than enough +literature and conversation for whist-players,” he added, throwing the +volume impatiently on a table. + +This little incident serves to show what dangers environ a drawing-room +hero when he steps, like Canalis, out of his sphere; he is like the +favorite actor of a second-rate audience, whose talent is lost when he +leaves his own boards and steps upon those of an upper-class theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. MODESTE PLAYS HER PART + +The game opened with the baron and the duke, Gobenheim and Latournelle +as partners. Modeste took a seat near the poet, to Ernest’s deep +disappointment; he watched the face of the wayward girl, and marked the +progress of the fascination which Canalis exerted over her. La +Briere had not the gift of seduction which Melchior possessed. Nature +frequently denies it to true hearts, who are, as a rule, timid. This +gift demands fearlessness, an alacrity of ways and means that might be +called the trapeze of the mind; a little mimicry goes with it; in fact +there is always, morally speaking, something of the comedian in a poet. +There is a vast difference between expressing sentiments we do not feel, +though we may imagine all their variations, and feigning to feel them +when bidding for success on the theatre of private life. And yet, though +the necessary hypocrisy of a man of the world may have gangrened a poet, +he ends by carrying the faculties of his talent into the expression of +any required sentiment, just as a great man doomed to solitude ends by +infusing his heart into his mind. + +“He is after the millions,” thought La Briere, sadly; “and he can play +passion so well that Modeste will believe him.” + +Instead of endeavoring to appear more amiable and wittier than his +rival, Ernest imitated the Duc d’Herouville, and was gloomy, anxious, +and watchful; but whereas the courier studied the freaks of the young +heiress, Ernest simply fell a prey to the pains of dark and concentrated +jealousy. He had not yet been able to obtain a glance from his idol. +After a while he left the room with Butscha. + +“It is all over!” he said; “she is caught by him; I am more disagreeable +to her, and moreover, she is right. Canalis is charming; there’s +intellect in his silence, passion in his eyes, poetry in his +rhodomontades.” + +“Is he an honest man?” asked Butscha. + +“Oh, yes,” replied La Briere. “He is loyal and chivalrous, and capable +of getting rid, under Modeste’s influence, of those affectations which +Madame de Chaulieu has taught him.” + +“You are a fine fellow,” said the hunchback; “but is he capable of +loving,--will he love her?” + +“I don’t know,” answered La Briere. “Has she said anything about me?” he +asked after a moment’s silence. + +“Yes,” said Butscha, and he repeated Modeste’s speech about disguises. + +Poor Ernest flung himself upon a bench and held his head in his hands. +He could not keep back his tears, and he did not wish Butscha to see +them; but the dwarf was the very man to guess his emotion. + +“What troubles you?” he asked. + +“She is right!” cried Ernest, springing up; “I am a wretch.” + +And he related the deception into which Canalis had led him when +Modeste’s first letter was received, carefully pointing out to Butscha +that he had wished to undeceive the young girl before she herself +took off the mask, and apostrophizing, in rather juvenile fashion, his +luckless destiny. Butscha sympathetically understood the love in the +flavor and vigor of his simple language, and in his deep and genuine +anxiety. + +“But why don’t you show yourself to Mademoiselle Modeste for what you +are?” he said; “why do you let your rival do his exercises?” + +“Have you never felt your throat tighten when you wished to speak to +her?” cried La Briere; “is there never a strange feeling in the roots of +your hair and on the surface of your skin when she looks at you,--even +if she is thinking of something else?” + +“But you had sufficient judgment to show displeasure when she as good as +told her excellent father that he was a dolt.” + +“Monsieur, I love her too well not to have felt a knife in my heart when +I heard her contradicting her own perfections.” + +“Canalis supported her.” + +“If she had more self-love than heart there would be nothing for a man +to regret in losing her,” answered La Briere. + +At this moment, Modeste, followed by Canalis, who had lost the rubber, +came out with her father and Madame Dumay to breathe the fresh air of +the starry night. While his daughter walked about with the poet, Charles +Mignon left her and came up to La Briere. + +“Your friend, monsieur, ought to have been a lawyer,” he said, smiling +and looking attentively at the young man. + +“You must not judge a poet as you would an ordinary man,--as you would +me, for example, Monsieur le comte,” said La Briere. “A poet has a +mission. He is obliged by his nature to see the poetry of questions, +just as he expresses that of things. When you think him inconsistent +with himself he is really faithful to his vocation. He is a painter +copying with equal truth a Madonna and a courtesan. Moliere is as true +to nature in his old men as in his young ones, and Moliere’s judgment +was assuredly a sound and healthy one. These witty paradoxes might be +dangerous for second-rate minds, but they have no real influence on the +character of great men.” + +Charles Mignon pressed La Briere’s hand. + +“That adaptability, however, leads a man to excuse himself in his own +eyes for actions that are diametrically opposed to each other; above +all, in politics.” + +“Ah, mademoiselle,” Canalis was at this moment saying, in a caressing +voice, replying to a roguish remark of Modeste, “do not think that a +multiplicity of emotions can in any way lessen the strength of feelings. +Poets, even more than other men, must needs love with constancy and +faith. You must not be jealous of what is called the Muse. Happy is the +wife of a man whose days are occupied. If you heard the complaints of +women who have to endure the burden of an idle husband, either a man +without duties, or one so rich as to have nothing to do, you would know +that the highest happiness of a Parisian wife is freedom,--the right +to rule in her own home. Now we writers and men of functions and +occupations, we leave the sceptre to our wives; we cannot descend to +the tyranny of little minds; we have something better to do. If I ever +marry,--which I assure you is a catastrophe very remote at the present +moment,--I should wish my wife to enjoy the same moral freedom that +a mistress enjoys, and which is perhaps the real source of her +attraction.” + +Canalis talked on, displaying the warmth of his fancy and all his +graces, for Modeste’s benefit, as he spoke of love, marriage, and the +adoration of women, until Monsieur Mignon, who had rejoined them, seized +the opportunity of a slight pause to take his daughter’s arm and lead +her up to Ernest de La Briere, whom he had been advising to seek an open +explanation with her. + +“Mademoiselle,” said Ernest, in a voice that was scarcely his own, +“it is impossible for me to remain any longer under the weight of +your displeasure. I do not defend myself; I do not seek to justify my +conduct; I desire only to make you see that _before_ reading your most +flattering letter, addressed to the individual and no longer to the +poet,--the last which you sent to me,--I wished, and I told you in my +note written at Havre that I wished, to correct the error under which +you were acting. All the feelings that I have had the happiness to +express to you are sincere. A hope dawned on me in Paris when your +father told me he was comparatively poor,--but now that all is lost, now +that nothing is left for me but endless regrets, why should I stay +here where all is torture? Let me carry away with me one smile to live +forever in my heart.” + +“Monsieur,” answered Modeste, who seemed cold and absent-minded, “I am +not the mistress of this house; but I certainly should deeply regret to +retain any one where he finds neither pleasure nor happiness.” + +She left La Briere and took Madame Dumay’s arm to re-enter the house. A +few moments later all the actors in this domestic scene reassembled in +the salon, and were a good deal surprised to see Modeste sitting beside +the Duc d’Herouville and coquetting with him like an accomplished +Parisian woman. She watched his play, gave him the advice he wanted, and +found occasion to say flattering things by ranking the merits of noble +birth with those of genius and beauty. Canalis thought he knew the +reason of this change; he had tried to pique Modeste by calling marriage +a catastrophe, and showing that he was aloof from it; but like others +who play with fire, he had burned his fingers. Modeste’s pride and her +present disdain frightened him, and he endeavored to recover his ground, +exhibiting a jealousy which was all the more visible because it was +artificial. Modeste, implacable as an angel, tasted the sweets of power, +and, naturally enough, abused it. The Duc d’Herouville had never known +such a happy evening; a woman smiled on him! At eleven o’clock, an +unheard-of hour at the Chalet, the three suitors took their leave,--the +duke thinking Modeste charming, Canalis believing her excessively +coquettish, and La Briere heart-broken by her cruelty. + +For eight days the heiress continued to be to her three lovers very +much what she had been during that evening; so that the poet appeared +to carry the day against his rivals, in spite of certain freaks and +caprices which from time to time gave the Duc d’Herouville a little +hope. The disrespect she showed to her father, and the great liberties +she took with him; her impatience with her blind mother, to whom she +seemed to grudge the little services which had once been the delight +of her filial piety,--seemed the result of a capricious nature and a +heedless gaiety indulged from childhood. When Modeste went too far, she +turned round and openly took herself to task, ascribing her impertinence +and levity to a spirit of independence. She acknowledged to the duke +and Canalis her distaste for obedience, and professed to regard it as an +obstacle to her marriage; thus investigating the nature of her suitors, +after the manner of those who dig into the earth in search of metals, +coal, tufa, or water. + +“I shall never,” she said, the evening before the day on which the +family were to move into the villa, “find a husband who will put up with +my caprices as my father does; his kindness never flags. I am sure no +one will ever be as indulgent to me as my precious mother.” + +“They know that you love them, mademoiselle,” said La Briere. + +“You may be very sure, mademoiselle, that your husband will know the +full value of his treasure,” added the duke. + +“You have spirit and resolution enough to discipline a husband,” cried +Canalis, laughing. + +Modeste smiled as Henri IV. must have smiled after drawing out the +characters of his three principal ministers, for the benefit of a +foreign ambassador, by means of three answers to an insidious question. + +On the day of the dinner, Modeste, led away by the preference she +bestowed on Canalis, walked alone with him up and down the gravelled +space which lay between the house and the lawn with its flower-beds. +From the gestures of the poet, and the air and manner of the young +heiress, it was easy to see that she was listening favorably to him. +The two demoiselles d’Herouville hastened to interrupt the scandalous +tete-a-tete; and with the natural cleverness of women under such +circumstances, they turned the conversation on the court, and the +distinction of an appointment under the crown,--pointing out the +difference that existed between appointments in the household of the +king and those of the crown. They tried to intoxicate Modeste’s mind by +appealing to her pride, and describing one of the highest stations to +which a woman could aspire. + +“To have a duke for a son,” said the elder lady, “is an actual +advantage. The title is a fortune that we secure to our children without +the possibility of loss.” + +“How is it, then,” said Canalis, displeased at his tete-a-tete being +thus broken in upon, “that Monsieur le duc has had so little success in +a matter where his title would seem to be of special service to him?” + +The two ladies cast a look at Canalis as full of venom as the tooth of a +snake, and they were so disconcerted by Modeste’s amused smile that they +were actually unable to reply. + +“Monsieur le duc has never blamed you,” she said to Canalis, “for the +humility with which you bear your fame; why should you attack him for +his modesty?” + +“Besides, we have never yet met a woman worthy of my nephew’s rank,” + said Mademoiselle d’Herouville. “Some had only the wealth of the +position; others, without fortune, had the wit and birth. I must admit +that we have done well to wait till God granted us an opportunity to +meet one in whom we find the noble blood, the mind, and fortune of a +Duchesse d’Herouville.” + +“My dear Modeste,” said Helene d’Herouville, leading her new friend +apart, “there are a thousand barons in the kingdom, just as there are a +hundred poets in Paris, who are worth as much as he; he is so little of +a great man that even I, a poor girl forced to take the veil for want +of a ‘dot,’ I would not take him. You don’t know what a young man is who +has been for ten years in the hands of a Duchesse de Chaulieu. None but +an old woman of sixty could put up with the little ailments of which, +they say, the great poet is always complaining,--a habit in Louis XIV. +that became a perfectly insupportable annoyance. It is true the duchess +does not suffer from it as much as a wife, who would have him always +about her.” + +Then, practising a well-known manoeuvre peculiar to her sex, Helene +d’Herouville repeated in a low voice all the calumnies which women +jealous of the Duchesse de Chaulieu were in the habit of spreading about +the poet. This little incident, common as it is in the intercourse of +women, will serve to show with what fury the hounds were after Modeste’s +wealth. + +Ten days saw a great change in the opinions at the Chalet as to the +three suitors for Mademoiselle de La Bastie’s hand. This change, +which was much to the disadvantage of Canalis, came about through +considerations of a nature which ought to make the holders of any kind +of fame pause, and reflect. No one can deny, if we remember the passion +with which people seek for autographs, that public curiosity is greatly +excited by celebrity. Evidently most provincials never form an exact +idea in their own minds of how illustrious Parisians put on their +cravats, walk on the boulevards, stand gaping at nothing, or eat +a cutlet; because, no sooner do they perceive a man clothed in the +sunbeams of fashion or resplendent with some dignity that is more or +less fugitive (though always envied), than they cry out, “Look at +that!” “How queer!” and other depreciatory exclamations. In a word, the +mysterious charm that attaches to every kind of fame, even that which +is most justly due, never lasts. It is, and especially with superficial +people who are envious or sarcastic, a sensation which passes off with +the rapidity of lightning, and never returns. It would seem as though +fame, like the sun, hot and luminous at a distance, is cold as the +summit of an alp when you approach it. Perhaps man is only really great +to his peers; perhaps the defects inherent in his constitution disappear +sooner to the eyes of his equals than to those of vulgar admirers. A +poet, if he would please in ordinary life, must put on the fictitious +graces of those who are able to make their insignificances forgotten +by charming manners and complying speeches. The poet of the faubourg +Saint-Germain, who did not choose to bow before this social dictum, was +made before long to feel that an insulting provincial indifference +had succeeded to the dazed fascination of the earlier evenings. The +prodigality of his wit and wisdom had produced upon these worthy souls +somewhat the effect which a shopful of glass-ware produces on the eye; +in other words, the fire and brilliancy of Canalis’s eloquence soon +wearied people who, to use their own words, “cared more for the solid.” + +Forced after a while to behave like an ordinary man, the poet found an +unexpected stumbling-block on ground where La Briere had already won the +suffrage of the worthy people who at first had thought him sulky. They +felt the need of compensating themselves for Canalis’s reputation by +preferring his friend. The best of men are influenced by such feelings +as these. The simple and straightforward young fellow jarred no one’s +self-love; coming to know him better they discovered his heart, his +modesty, his silent and sure discretion, and his excellent bearing. +The Duc d’Herouville considered him, as a political element, far above +Canalis. The poet, ill-balanced, ambitious, and restless as Tasso, +loved luxury, grandeur, and ran into debt; while the young lawyer, +whose character was equable and well-balanced, lived soberly, was useful +without proclaiming it, awaited rewards without begging for them, and +laid by his money. + +Canalis had moreover laid himself open in a special way to the bourgeois +eyes that were watching him. For two or three days he had shown signs +of impatience; he had given way to depression, to states of melancholy +without apparent reason, to those capricious changes of temper which +are the natural results of the nervous temperament of poets. These +originalities (we use the provincial word) came from the uneasiness +that his conduct toward the Duchesse de Chaulieu which grew daily less +explainable, caused him. He knew he ought to write to her, but could not +resolve on doing so. All these fluctuations were carefully remarked +and commented on by the gentle American, and the excellent Madame +Latournelle, and they formed the topic of many a discussion between +these two ladies and Madame Mignon. Canalis felt the effects of these +discussions without being able to explain them. The attention paid +to him was not the same, the faces surrounding him no longer wore the +entranced look of the earlier days; while at the same time Ernest was +evidently gaining ground. + +For the last two days the poet had endeavored to fascinate Modeste only, +and he took advantage of every moment when he found himself alone with +her, to weave the web of passionate language around his love. Modeste’s +blush, as she listened to him on the occasion we have just mentioned, +showed the demoiselles d’Herouville the pleasure with which she was +listening to sweet conceits that were sweetly said; and they, horribly +uneasy at the sight, had immediate recourse to the “ultima ratio” of +women in such cases, namely, those calumnies which seldom miss their +object. Accordingly, when the party met at the dinner-table the poet +saw a cloud on the brow of his idol; he knew that Mademoiselle +d’Herouville’s malignity allowed him to lose no time, and he resolved +to offer himself as a husband at the first moment when he could find +himself alone with Modeste. + +Overhearing a few acid though polite remarks exchanged between the poet +and the two noble ladies, Gobenheim nudged Butscha with his elbow, +and said in an undertone, motioning towards the poet and the grand +equerry,-- + +“They’ll demolish one another!” + +“Canalis has genius enough to demolish himself all alone,” answered the +dwarf. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. A RIDDLE GUESSED + +During the dinner, which was magnificent and admirably well served, the +duke obtained a signal advantage over Canalis. Modeste, who had received +her habit and other equestrian equipments the night before, spoke of +taking rides about the country. A turn of the conversation led her to +express the wish to see a hunt with hounds, a pleasure she had never yet +enjoyed. The duke at once proposed to arrange a hunt in one of the crown +forests, which lay a few leagues from Havre. Thanks to his intimacy +with the Prince de Cadignan, Master of the Hunt, he saw his chance of +displaying an almost regal pomp before Modeste’s eyes, and alluring her +with a glimpse of court fascinations, to which she could be introduced +by marriage. Glances were exchanged between the duke and the two +demoiselles d’Herouville, which plainly said, “The heiress is ours!” + and the poet, who detected them, and who had nothing but his personal +splendors to depend on, determined all the more firmly to obtain some +pledge of affection at once. Modeste, on the other hand, half-frightened +at being thus pushed beyond her intentions by the d’Herouvilles, walked +rather markedly apart with Melchior, when the company adjourned to the +park after dinner. With the pardonable curiosity of a young girl, she +let him suspect the calumnies which Helene had poured into her ears; but +on Canalis’s exclamation of anger, she begged him to keep silence about +them, which he promised. + +“These stabs of the tongue,” he said, “are considered fair in the great +world. They shock your upright nature; but as for me, I laugh at them; I +am even pleased. These ladies must feel that the duke’s interests are in +great peril, when they have recourse to such warfare.” + +Making the most of the advantage Modeste had thus given him, Canalis +entered upon his defence with such warmth, such eagerness, and with a +passion so exquisitely expressed, as he thanked her for a confidence in +which he could venture to see the dawn of love, that she found herself +suddenly as much compromised with the poet as she feared to be with the +grand equerry. Canalis, feeling the necessity of prompt action, declared +himself plainly. He uttered vows and protestations in which his poetry +shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion, and illuminating his +allusions to the beauty of his mistress and the charms of her evening +dress. This counterfeit enthusiasm, in which the night, the foliage, +the heavens and the earth, and Nature herself played a part, carried the +eager lover beyond all bounds; for he dwelt on his disinterestedness, +and revamped in his own charming style, Diderot’s famous apostrophe +to “Sophie and fifteen hundred francs!” and the well-worn “love in +a cottage” of every lover who knows perfectly well the length of the +father-in-law’s purse. + +“Monsieur,” said Modeste, after listening with delight to the melody of +this concerto; “the freedom granted to me by my parents has allowed me +to listen to you; but it is to them that you must address yourself.” + +“But,” exclaimed Canalis, “tell me that if I obtain their consent, you +will ask nothing better than to obey them.” + +“I know beforehand,” she replied, “that my father has certain fancies +which may wound the proper pride of an old family like yours. He wishes +to have his own title and name borne by his grandsons.” + +“Ah! dear Modeste, what sacrifices would I not make to commit my life to +the guardian care of an angel like you.” + +“You will permit me not to decide in a moment the fate of my whole +life,” she said, turning to rejoin the demoiselles d’Herouville. + +Those noble ladies were just then engaged in flattering the vanity +of little Latournelle, intending to win him over to their interests. +Mademoiselle d’Herouville, to whom we shall in future confine the family +name, to distinguish her from her niece Helene, was giving the notary to +understand that the post of judge of the Supreme Court in Havre, which +Charles X. would bestow as she desired, was an office worthy of his +legal talent and his well-known probity. Butscha, meanwhile, who had +been walking about with La Briere, was greatly alarmed at the progress +Canalis was evidently making, and he waylaid Modeste at the lower step +of the portico when the whole party returned to the house to endure the +torments of their inevitable whist. + +“Mademoiselle,” he said, in a low whisper, “I do hope you don’t call him +Melchior.” + +“I’m very near it, my Black Dwarf,” she said, with a smile that might +have made an angel swear. + +“Good God!” exclaimed Butscha, letting fall his hands, which struck the +marble steps. + +“Well! and isn’t he worth more than that spiteful and gloomy secretary +in whom you take such an interest?” she retorted, assuming, at the mere +thought of Ernest, the haughty manner whose secret belongs exclusively +to young girls,--as if their virginity lent them wings to fly to heaven. +“Pray, would your little La Briere accept me without a fortune?” she +said, after a pause. + +“Ask your father,” replied Butscha, who walked a few steps from the +house, to get Modeste at a safe distance from the windows. “Listen to +me, mademoiselle. You know that he who speaks to you is ready to give +not only his life but his honor for you, at any moment, and at all +times. Therefore you may believe in him; you can confide to him that +which you may not, perhaps, be willing to say to your father. Tell me, +has that sublime Canalis been making you the disinterested offer that +you now fling as a reproach at poor Ernest?” + +“Yes.” + +“Do you believe it?” + +“That question, my manikin,” she replied, giving him one of the ten or +a dozen nicknames she had invented for him, “strikes me as undervaluing +the strength of my self-love.” + +“Ah, you are laughing, my dear Mademoiselle Modeste; then there’s no +danger: I hope you are only making a fool of him.” + +“Pray what would you think of me, Monsieur Butscha, if I allowed myself +to make fun of those who do me the honor to wish to marry me? You ought +to know, master Jean, that even if a girl affects to despise the most +despicable attentions, she is flattered by them.” + +“Then I flatter you?” said the young man, looking up at her with a face +that was illuminated like a city for a festival. + +“You?” she said; “you give me the most precious of all friendships,--a +feeling as disinterested as that of a mother for her child. Compare +yourself to no one; for even my father is obliged to be devoted to me.” + She paused. “I cannot say that I love you, in the sense which men give +to that word, but what I do give you is eternal and can know no change.” + +“Then,” said Butscha, stooping to pick up a pebble that he might kiss +the hem of her garment, “suffer me to watch over you as a dragon guards +a treasure. The poet was covering you just now with the lace-work of his +precious phrases, the tinsel of his promises; he chanted his love on the +best strings of his lyre, I know he did. If, as soon as this noble lover +finds out how small your fortune is, he makes a sudden change in his +behavior, and is cold and embarrassed, will you still marry him? shall +you still esteem him?” + +“He would be another Francisque Althor,” she said, with a gesture of +bitter disgust. + +“Let me have the pleasure of producing that change of scene,” said +Butscha. “Not only shall it be sudden, but I believe I can change it +back and make your poet as loving as before,--nay, it is possible +to make him blow alternately hot and cold upon your heart, just as +gracefully as he has talked on both sides of an argument in one evening +without ever finding it out.” + +“If you are right,” she said, “who can be trusted?” + +“One who truly loves you.” + +“The little duke?” + +Butscha looked at Modeste. The pair walked some distance in silence; the +girl was impenetrable and not an eyelash quivered. + +“Mademoiselle, permit me to be the exponent of the thoughts that are +lying at the bottom of your heart like sea-mosses under the waves, and +which you do not choose to gather up.” + +“Eh!” said Modeste, “so my intimate friend and counsellor thinks himself +a mirror, does he?” + +“No, an echo,” he answered, with a gesture of sublime humility. +“The duke loves you, but he loves you too much. If I, a dwarf, have +understood the infinite delicacy of your heart, it would be repugnant +to you to be worshipped like a saint in her shrine. You are eminently a +woman; you neither want a man perpetually at your feet of whom you +are eternally sure, nor a selfish egoist like Canalis, who will always +prefer himself to you. Why? ah, that I don’t know. But I will make +myself a woman, an old woman, and find out the meaning of the plan which +I have read in your eyes, and which perhaps is in the heart of every +girl. Nevertheless, in your great soul you feel the need of worshipping. +When a man is at your knees, you cannot put yourself at his. You can’t +advance in that way, as Voltaire might say. The little duke has too many +genuflections in his moral being and the poet has too few,--indeed, I +might say, none at all. Ha, I have guessed the mischief in your smiles +when you talk to the grand equerry, and when he talks to you and you +answer him. You would never be unhappy with the duke, and everybody will +approve your choice, if you do choose him; but you will never love +him. The ice of egotism, and the burning heat of ecstasy both produce +indifference in the heart of every woman. It is evident to my mind that +no such perpetual worship will give you the infinite delights which you +are dreaming of in marriage,--in some marriage where obedience will be +your pride, where noble little sacrifices can be made and hidden, +where the heart is full of anxieties without a cause, and successes are +awaited with eager hope, where each new chance for magnanimity is hailed +with joy, where souls are comprehended to their inmost recesses, and +where the woman protects with her love the man who protects her.” + +“You are a sorcerer!” exclaimed Modeste. + +“Neither will you find that sweet equality of feeling, that continual +sharing of each other’s life, that certainty of pleasing which makes +marriage tolerable, if you take Canalis,--a man who thinks of himself +only, whose ‘I’ is the one string to his lute, whose mind is so fixed +on himself that he has hitherto taken no notice of your father or the +duke,--a man of second-rate ambitions, to whom your dignity and your +devotion will matter nothing, who will make you a mere appendage to +his household, and who already insults you by his indifference to your +behavior; yes, if you permitted yourself to go so far as to box your +mother’s ears Canalis would shut his eyes to it, and deny your +crime even to himself, because he thirsts for your money. And so, +mademoiselle, when I spoke of the man who truly loves you I was not +thinking of the great poet who is nothing but a little comedian, nor of +the duke, who might be a good marriage for you, but never a husband--” + +“Butscha, my heart is a blank page on which you are yourself writing all +that you read there,” cried Modeste, interrupting him. “You are carried +away by your provincial hatred for everything that obliges you to +look higher than your own head. You can’t forgive a poet for being a +statesman, for possessing the gift of speech, for having a noble future +before him,--and you calumniate his intentions.” + +“His!--mademoiselle, he will turn his back upon you with the baseness of +an Althor.” + +“Make him play that pretty little comedy, and--” + +“That I will! he shall play it through and through within three +days,--on Wednesday,--recollect, Wednesday! Until then, mademoiselle, +amuse yourself by listening to the little tunes of the lyre, so that the +discords and the false notes may come out all the more distinctly.” + +Modeste ran gaily back to the salon, where La Briere, who was sitting by +the window, where he had doubtless been watching his idol, rose to his +feet as if a groom of the chambers had suddenly announced, “The Queen.” + It was a movement of spontaneous respect, full of that living eloquence +that lies in gesture even more than in speech. Spoken love cannot +compare with acts of love; and every young girl of twenty has the +wisdom of fifty in applying the axiom. In it lies the great secret of +attraction. Instead of looking Modeste in the face, as Canalis who paid +her public homage would have done, the neglected lover followed her with +a furtive look between his eyelids, humble after the manner of Butscha, +and almost timid. The young heiress observed it, as she took her place +by Canalis, to whose game she proceeded to pay attention. During a +conversation which ensued, La Briere heard Modeste say to her father +that she should ride out for the first time on the following Wednesday; +and she also reminded him that she had no whip in keeping with her new +equipments. The young man flung a lightning glance at the dwarf, and a +few minutes later the two were pacing the terrace. + +“It is nine o’clock,” cried Ernest. “I shall start for Paris at full +gallop; I can get there to-morrow morning by ten. My dear Butscha, from +you she will accept anything, for she is attached to you; let me give +her a riding-whip in your name. If you will do me this immense kindness, +you shall have not only my friendship but my devotion.” + +“Ah, you are very happy,” said Butscha, ruefully; “you have money, you!” + +“Tell Canalis not to expect me, and that he must find some pretext to +account for my absence.” + +An hour later Ernest had ridden out of Havre. He reached Paris in twelve +hours, where his first act was to secure a place in the mail-coach +for Havre on the following evening. Then he went to three of the chief +jewellers in Paris and compared all the whip-handles that they could +offer; he was in search of some artistic treasure that was regally +superb. He found one at last, made by Stidmann for a Russian, who was +unable to pay for it when finished,--a fox-head in gold, with a ruby of +exorbitant value; all his savings went into the purchase, the cost of +which was seven thousand francs. Ernest gave a drawing of the arms of +La Bastie, and allowed the shop-people twenty hours to engrave them. +The handle, a masterpiece of delicate workmanship, was fitted to an +india-rubber whip and put into a morocco case lined with velvet, on +which two M.’s interlaced were stamped in gold. + +La Briere got back to Havre by the mail-coach Wednesday morning in +time to breakfast with Canalis. The poet had concealed his secretary’s +absence by declaring that he was busy with some work sent from Paris. +Butscha, who met La Briere at the coach-door, took the box containing +the precious work of art to Francoise Cochet, with instructions to place +it on Modeste’s dressing-table. + +“Of course you will accompany Mademoiselle Modeste on her ride to-day?” + said Butscha, who went to Canalis’s house to let La Briere know by a +wink that the whip had gone to its destination. + +“I?” answered Ernest; “no, I am going to bed.” + +“Bah!” exclaimed Canalis, looking at him. “I don’t know what to make of +you.” + +Breakfast was then served, and the poet naturally invited their visitor +to stay and take it. Butscha complied, having seen in the expression of +the valet’s face the success of a trick in which we shall see the first +fruits of his promise to Modeste. + +“Monsieur is very right to detain the clerk of Monsieur Latournelle,” + whispered Germain in his master’s ear. + +Canalis and Germain went into the salon on a sign that passed between +them. + +“I went out this morning to see the men fish, monsieur,” said the +valet,--“an excursion proposed to me by the captain of a smack, whose +acquaintance I have made.” + +Germain did not acknowledge that he had the bad taste to play billiards +in a cafe,--a fact of which Butscha had taken advantage to surround him +with friends of his own and manage him as he pleased. + +“Well?” said Canalis, “to the point,--quick!” + +“Monsieur le baron, I heard a conversation about Monsieur Mignon, which +I encouraged as far as I could; for no one, of course, knew that I +belong to you. Ah! monsieur, judging by the talk of the quays, you are +running your head into a noose. The fortune of Mademoiselle de La Bastie +is, like her name, modest. The vessel on which the father returned does +not belong to him, but to rich China merchants to whom he renders an +account. They even say things that are not at all flattering to Monsieur +Mignon’s honor. Having heard that you and Monsieur le duc were rivals +for Mademoiselle de La Bastie’s hand, I have taken the liberty to warn +you; of the two, wouldn’t it be better that his lordship should gobble +her? As I came home I walked round the quays, and into that theatre-hall +where the merchants meet; I slipped boldly in and out among them. Seeing +a well-dressed stranger, those worthy fellows began to talk to me of +Havre, and I got them, little by little, to speak of Colonel Mignon. +What they said only confirms the stories the fishermen told me; and I +feel that I should fail in my duty if I keep silence. That is why I did +not get home in time to dress monsieur this morning.” + +“What am I to do?” cried Canalis, who remembered his proposals to +Modeste the night before, and did not see how he could get out of them. + +“Monsieur knows my attachment to him,” said Germain, perceiving that the +poet was quite thrown off his balance; “he will not be surprised if I +give him a word of advice. There is that clerk; try to get the truth out +of him. Perhaps he’ll unbutton after a bottle or two of champagne, or at +any rate a third. It would be strange indeed if monsieur, who will one +day be ambassador, as Philoxene has heard Madame la duchesse say time +and time again, couldn’t turn a little notary’s clerk inside out.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. BUTSCHA DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF + +At this instant Butscha, the hidden prompter of the fishing part, was +requesting the secretary to say nothing about his trip to Paris, and not +to interfere in any way with what he, Butscha, might do. The dwarf +had already made use of an unfavorable feeling lately roused against +Monsieur Mignon in Havre in consequence of his reserve and his +determination to keep silence as to the amount of his fortune. The +persons who were most bitter against him even declared calumniously that +he had made over a large amount of property to Dumay to save it from the +just demands of his associates in China. Butscha took advantage of this +state of feeling. He asked the fishermen, who owed him many a good turn, +to keep the secret and lend him their tongues. They served him well. +The captain of the fishing-smack told Germain that one of his cousins, +a sailor, had just returned from Marseilles, where he had been paid off +from the brig in which Monsieur Mignon returned to France. The brig had +been sold to the account of some other person than Monsieur Mignon, and +the cargo was only worth three or four hundred thousand francs at the +utmost. + +“Germain,” said Canalis, as the valet was leaving the room, “serve +champagne and claret. A member of the legal fraternity of Havre must +carry away with him proper ideas of a poet’s hospitality. Besides, he +has got a wit that is equal to Figaro’s,” added Canalis, laying his +hand on the dwarf’s shoulder, “and we must make it foam and sparkle with +champagne; you and I, Ernest, will not spare the bottle either. Faith, +it is over two years since I’ve been drunk,” he added, looking at La +Briere. + +“Not drunk with wine, you mean,” said Butscha, looking keenly at him, +“yes, I can believe that. You get drunk every day on yourself, you drink +in so much praise. Ha, you are handsome, you are a poet, you are famous +in your lifetime, you have the gift of an eloquence that is equal to +your genius, and you please all women,--even my master’s wife. Admired +by the finest sultana-valide that I ever saw in my life (and I never +saw but her) you can, if you choose, marry Mademoiselle de La Bastie. +Goodness! the mere inventory of your present advantages, not to speak +of the future (a noble title, peerage, embassy!), is enough to make me +drunk already,--like the men who bottle other men’s wine.” + +“All such social distinctions,” said Canalis, “are of little use without +the one thing that gives them value,--wealth. Here we can talk as men +with men; fine sentiments only do in verse.” + +“That depends on circumstances,” said the dwarf, with a knowing gesture. + +“Ah! you writer of conveyances,” said the poet, smiling at the +interruption, “you know as well as I do that ‘cottage’ rhymes with +‘pottage,’--and who would like to live on that for the rest of his +days?” + +At table Butscha played the part of Trigaudin, in the “Maison en +loterie,” in a way that alarmed Ernest, who did not know the waggery of +a lawyer’s office, which is quite equal to that of an atelier. Butscha +poured forth the scandalous gossip of Havre, the private history of +fortune and boudoirs, and the crimes committed code in hand, which are +called in Normandy, “getting out of a thing as best you can.” He spared +no one; and his liveliness increased with the torrents of wine which +poured down his throat like rain through a gutter. + +“Do you know, La Briere,” said Canalis, filling Butscha’s glass, “that +this fellow would make a capital secretary to the embassy?” + +“And oust his chief!” cried the dwarf flinging a look at Canalis whose +insolence was lost in the gurgling of carbonic acid gas. “I’ve little +enough gratitude and quite enough scheming to get astride of your +shoulders. Ha, ha, a poet carrying a hunchback! that’s been seen, often +seen--on book-shelves. Come, don’t look at me as if I were swallowing +swords. My dear great genius, you’re a superior man; you know that +gratitude is the word of fools; they stick it in the dictionary, but it +isn’t in the human heart; pledges are worth nothing, except on a certain +mount that is neither Pindus nor Parnassus. You think I owe a great deal +to my master’s wife, who brought me up. Bless you, the whole town has +paid her for that in praises, respect, and admiration,--the very best +of coin. I don’t recognize any service that is only the capital of +self-love. Men make a commerce of their services, and gratitude +goes down on the debit side,--that’s all. As to schemes, they are my +divinity. What?” he exclaimed, at a gesture of Canalis, “don’t you +admire the faculty which enables a wily man to get the better of a +man of genius? it takes the closest observation of his vices, and his +weaknesses, and the wit to seize the happy moment. Ask diplomacy if +its greatest triumphs are not those of craft over force? If I were your +secretary, Monsieur le baron, you’d soon be prime-minister, because +it would be my interest to have you so. Do you want a specimen of my +talents in that line? Well then, listen; you love Mademoiselle Modeste +distractedly, and you’ve good reason to do so. The girl has my fullest +esteem; she is a true Parisian. Sometimes we get a few real Parisians +born down here in the provinces. Well, Modeste is just the woman to help +a man’s career. She’s got _that_ in her,” he cried, with a turn of his +wrist in the air. “But you’ve a dangerous competitor in the duke; what +will you give me to get him out of Havre within three days?” + +“Finish this bottle,” said the poet, refilling Butscha’s glass. + +“You’ll make me drunk,” said the dwarf, tossing off his ninth glass of +champagne. “Have you a bed where I could sleep it off? My master is +as sober as the camel that he is, and Madame Latournelle too. They are +brutal enough, both of them, to scold me; and they’d have the rights of +it too--there are those deeds I ought to be drawing!--” Then, suddenly +returning to his previous ideas, after the fashion of a drunken man, he +exclaimed, “and I’ve such a memory; it is on a par with my gratitude.” + +“Butscha!” cried the poet, “you said just now you had no gratitude; you +contradict yourself.” + +“Not at all,” he replied. “To forget a thing means almost always +recollecting it. Come, come, do you want me to get rid of the duke? I’m +cut out for a secretary.” + +“How could you manage it?” said Canalis, delighted to find the +conversation taking this turn of its own accord. + +“That’s none of your business,” said the dwarf, with a portentous +hiccough. + +Butscha’s head rolled between his shoulders, and his eyes turned from +Germain to La Briere, and from La Briere to Canalis, after the manner of +men who, knowing they are tipsy, wish to see what other men are thinking +of them; for in the shipwreck of drunkenness it is noticeable that +self-love is the last thing that goes to the bottom. + +“Ha! my great poet, you’re a pretty good trickster yourself; but you +are not deep enough. What do you mean by taking me for one of your own +readers,--you who sent your friend to Paris, full gallop, to inquire +into the property of the Mignon family? Ha, ha! I hoax, thou hoaxest, we +hoax--Good! But do me the honor to believe that I’m deep enough to keep +the secrets of my own business. As the head-clerk of a notary, my heart +is a locked box, padlocked! My mouth never opens to let out anything +about a client. I know all, and I know nothing. Besides, my passion is +well known. I love Modeste; she is my pupil, and she must make a good +marriage. I’ll fool the duke, if need be; and you shall marry--” + +“Germain, coffee and liqueurs,” said Canalis. + +“Liqueurs!” repeated Butscha with a wave of his hand, and the air of a +sham virgin repelling seduction; “Ah, those poor deeds! one of ‘em was a +marriage contract; and that second clerk of mine is as stupid as--as--an +epithalamium, and he’s capable of digging his penknife right through the +bride’s paraphernalia; he thinks he’s a handsome man because he’s five +feet six,--idiot!” + +“Here is some creme de the, a liqueur of the West Indies,” said Canalis. +“You, whom Mademoiselle Modeste consults--” + +“Yes, she consults me.” + +“Well, do you think she loves me?” asked the poet. + +“Loves you? yes, more than she loves the duke,” answered the dwarf, +rousing himself from a stupor which was admirably played. “She loves +you for your disinterestedness. She told me she was ready to make the +greatest sacrifices for your sake; to give up dress and spend as little +as possible on herself, and devote her life to showing you that in +marrying her you hadn’t done so” (hiccough) “bad a thing for yourself. +She’s as right as a trivet,--yes, and well informed. She knows +everything, that girl.” + +“And she has three hundred thousand francs?” + +“There may be quite as much as that,” cried the dwarf, enthusiastically. +“Papa Mignon,--mignon by name, mignon by nature, and that’s why I +respect him,--well, he would rob himself of everything to marry his +daughter. Your Restoration” (hiccough) “has taught him how to live on +half-pay; he’d be quite content to live with Dumay on next to nothing, +if he could rake and scrape enough together to give the little one three +hundred thousand francs. But don’t let’s forget that Dumay is going to +leave all his money to Modeste. Dumay, you know, is a Breton, and +that fact clinches the matter; he won’t go back from his word, and +his fortune is equal to the colonel’s. But I don’t approve of Monsieur +Mignon’s taking back that villa, and, as they often ask my advice, I +told them so. ‘You sink too much in it,’ I said; ‘if Vilquin does not +buy it back there’s two hundred thousand francs which won’t bring you a +penny; it only leaves you a hundred thousand to get along with, and it +isn’t enough.’ The colonel and Dumay are consulting about it now. But +nevertheless, between you and me, Modeste is sure to be rich. I hear +talk on the quays against it; but that’s all nonsense; people are +jealous. Why, there’s no such ‘dot’ in Havre,” cried Butscha, beginning +to count on his fingers. “Two to three hundred thousand in ready money,” + bending back the thumb of his left hand with the forefinger of his +right, “that’s one item; the reversion of the villa Mignon, that’s +another; ‘tertio,’ Dumay’s property!” doubling down his middle finger. +“Ha! little Modeste may count upon her six hundred thousand francs +as soon as the two old soldiers have got their marching orders for +eternity.” + +This coarse and candid statement, intermingled with a variety of +liqueurs, sobered Canalis as much as it appeared to befuddle Butscha. +To the latter, a young provincial, such a fortune must of course seem +colossal. He let his head fall into the palm of his right hand, and +putting his elbows majestically on the table, blinked his eyes and +continued talking to himself:-- + +“In twenty years, thanks to that Code, which pillages fortunes under +what they call ‘Successions,’ an heiress worth a million will be as rare +as generosity in a money-lender. Suppose Modeste does want to spend all +the interest of her own money,--well, she is so pretty, so sweet and +pretty; why she’s--you poets are always after metaphors--she’s a weasel +as tricky as a monkey.” + +“How came you to tell me she had six millions?” said Canalis to La +Briere, in a low voice. + +“My friend,” said Ernest, “I do assure you that I was bound to silence +by an oath; perhaps, even now, I ought not to say as much as that.” + +“Bound! to whom?” + +“To Monsieur Mignon.” + +“Ernest! you who know how essential fortune is to me--” + +Butscha snored. + +“--who know my situation, and all that I shall lose in the Duchesse de +Chaulieu, by this attempt at marrying, YOU could coldly let me plunge +into such a thing as this?” exclaimed Canalis, turning pale. “It was a +question of friendship; and ours was a compact entered into long before +you ever saw that crafty Mignon.” + +“My dear fellow,” said Ernest, “I love Modeste too well to--” + +“Fool! then take her,” cried the poet, “and break your oath.” + +“Will you promise me on your word of honor to forget what I now tell +you, and to behave to me as though this confidence had never been made, +whatever happens?” + +“I’ll swear that, by my mother’s memory.” + +“Well then,” said La Briere, “Monsieur Mignon told me in Paris that he +was very far from having the colossal fortune which the Mongenods told +me about and which I mentioned to you. The colonel intends to give two +hundred thousand francs to his daughter. And now, Melchior, I ask you, +was the father really distrustful of us, as you thought; or was he +sincere? It is not for me to answer those questions. If Modeste without +a fortune deigns to choose me, she will be my wife.” + +“A blue-stocking! educated till she is a terror! a girl who has read +everything, who knows everything,--in theory,” cried Canalis, hastily, +noticing La Briere’s gesture, “a spoiled child, brought up in luxury in +her childhood, and weaned of it for five years. Ah! my poor friend, take +care what you are about.” + +“Ode and Code,” said Butscha, waking up, “you do the ode and I the code; +there’s only a C’s difference between us. Well, now, code comes from +‘coda,’ a tail,--mark that word! See here! a bit of good advice is worth +your wine and your cream of tea. Father Mignon--he’s cream, too; the +cream of honest men--he is going with his daughter on this riding party; +do you go up frankly and talk ‘dot’ to him. He’ll answer plainly, and +you’ll get at the truth, just as surely as I’m drunk, and you’re a great +poet,--but no matter for that; we are to leave Havre together, that’s +settled, isn’t it? I’m to be your secretary in place of that little +fellow who sits there grinning at me and thinking I’m drunk. Come, let’s +go, and leave him to marry the girl.” + +Canalis rose to leave the room to dress for the excursion. + +“Hush, not a word,--he is going to commit suicide,” whispered Butscha, +sober as a judge, to La Briere as he made the gesture of a street boy +at Canalis’s back. “Adieu, my chief!” he shouted, in stentorian tones, +“will you allow me to take a snooze in that kiosk down in the garden?” + +“Make yourself at home,” answered the poet. + +Butscha, pursued by the laughter of the three servants of the +establishment, gained the kiosk by walking over the flower-beds and +round the vases with the perverse grace of an insect describing its +interminable zig-zags as it tries to get out of a closed window. When he +had clambered into the kiosk, and the servants had retired, he sat down +on a wooden bench and wallowed in the delights of his triumph. He had +completely fooled a great man; he had not only torn off his mask, but +he had made him untie the strings himself; and he laughed like an author +over his own play,--that is to say, with a true sense of the immense +value of his “vis comica.” + +“Men are tops!” he cried, “you’ve only to find the twine to wind ‘em +up with. But I’m like my fellows,” he added, presently. “I should faint +away if any one came and said to me ‘Mademoiselle Modeste has been +thrown from her horse, and has broken her leg.’” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. THE POET FEELS THAT HE IS LOVED TOO WELL + +An hour later, Modeste, charmingly equipped in a bottle-green cassimere +habit, a small hat with a green veil, buckskin gloves, and velvet boots +which met the lace frills of her drawers, and mounted on an elegantly +caparisoned little horse, was exhibiting to her father and the Duc +d’Herouville the beautiful present she had just received; she was +evidently delighted with an attention of a kind that particularly +flatters women. + +“Did it come from you, Monsieur le duc?” she said, holding the sparkling +handle toward him. “There was a card with it, saying, ‘Guess if you +can,’ and some asterisks. Francoise and Dumay credit Butscha with this +charming surprise; but my dear Butscha is not rich enough to buy such +rubies. And as for papa (to whom I said, as I remember, on Sunday +evening, that I had no whip), he sent to Rouen for this one,”--pointing +to a whip in her father’s hand, with a top like a cone of turquoise, a +fashion then in vogue which has since become vulgar. + +“I would give ten years of my old age, mademoiselle, to have the right +to offer you that beautiful jewel,” said the duke, courteously. + +“Ah, here comes the audacious giver!” cried Modeste, as Canalis rode +up. “It is only a poet who knows where to find such choice things. +Monsieur,” she said to Melchior, “my father will scold you, and say that +you justify those who accuse you of extravagance.” + +“Oh!” exclaimed Canalis, with apparent simplicity, “so that is why La +Briere rode at full gallop from Havre to Paris?” + +“Does your secretary take such liberties?” said Modeste, turning pale, +and throwing the whip to Francoise with an impetuosity that expressed +scorn. “Give me your whip, papa.” + +“Poor Ernest, who lies there on his bed half-dead with fatigue!” said +Canalis, overtaking the girl, who had already started at a gallop. “You +are pitiless, mademoiselle. ‘I have’ (the poor fellow said to me) ‘only +this one chance to remain in her memory.’” + +“And should you think well of a woman who could take presents from half +the parish?” said Modeste. + +She was surprised to receive no answer to this inquiry, and attributed +the poet’s inattention to the noise of the horse’s feet. + +“How you delight in tormenting those who love you,” said the duke. “Your +nobility of soul and your pride are so inconsistent with your faults +that I begin to suspect you calumniate yourself, and do those naughty +things on purpose.” + +“Ah! have you only just found that out, Monsieur le duc?” she exclaimed, +laughing. “You have the sagacity of a husband.” + +They rode half a mile in silence. Modeste was a good deal astonished not +to receive the fire of the poet’s eyes. The evening before, as she was +pointing out to him an admirable effect of setting sunlight across the +water, she had said, remarking his inattention, “Well, don’t you see +it?”--to which he replied, “I can see only your hand”; but now his +admiration for the beauties of nature seemed a little too intense to be +natural. + +“Does Monsieur de La Briere know how to ride?” she asked, for the +purpose of teasing him. + +“Not very well, but he gets along,” answered the poet, cold as Gobenheim +before the colonel’s return. + +At a cross-road, which Monsieur Mignon made them take through a lovely +valley to reach a height overlooking the Seine, Canalis let Modeste and +the duke pass him, and then reined up to join the colonel. + +“Monsieur le comte,” he said, “you are an open-hearted soldier, and +I know you will regard my frankness as a title to your esteem. When +proposals of marriage, with all their brutal,--or, if you please, too +civilized--discussions, are carried on by third parties, it is an injury +to all. We are both gentlemen, and both discreet; and you, like myself, +have passed beyond the age of surprises. Let us therefore speak as +intimates. I will set you the example. I am twenty-nine years old, +without landed estates, and full of ambition. Mademoiselle Modeste, +as you must have perceived, pleases me extremely. Now, in spite of the +little defects which your dear girl likes to assume--” + +“--not counting those she really possesses,” said the colonel, +smiling,-- + +“--I should gladly make her my wife, and I believe I could render her +happy. The question of money is of the utmost importance to my future, +which hangs to-day in the balance. All young girls expect to be loved +_whether or no_--fortune or no fortune. But you are not the man to marry +your dear Modeste without a ‘dot,’ and my situation does not allow me +to make a marriage of what is called love unless with a woman who has +a fortune at least equal to mine. I have, from my emoluments and +sinecures, from the Academy and from my works, about thirty thousand +francs a year, a large income for a bachelor. If my wife brought me as +much more, I should still be in about the same condition that I am now. +Shall you give Mademoiselle a million?” + +“Ah, monsieur, we have not reached that point as yet,” said the colonel, +Jesuitically. + +“Then suppose,” said Canalis, quickly, “that we go no further; we will +let the matter drop. You shall have no cause to complain of me, Monsieur +le comte; the world shall consider me among the unfortunate suitors of +your charming daughter. Give me your word of honor to say nothing on +the subject to any one, not even to Mademoiselle Modeste, because,” he +added, throwing a word of promise to the ear, “my circumstances may so +change that I can ask you for her without ‘dot.’” + +“I promise you that,” said the colonel. “You know, monsieur, with what +assurance the public, both in Paris and the provinces, talk of fortunes +that they make and unmake. People exaggerate both happiness and +unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say +we are. There is nothing sure and certain in business except investments +in land. I am awaiting the accounts of my agents with very great +impatience. The sale of my merchandise and my ship, and the settlement +of my affairs in China, are not yet concluded; and I cannot know the +full amount of my fortune for at least six months. I did, however, say +to Monsieur de La Briere in Paris that I would guarantee a ‘dot’ of two +hundred thousand francs in ready money. I wish to entail my estates, and +enable my grandchildren to inherit my arms and title.” + +Canalis did not listen to this statement after the opening sentence. +The four riders, having now reached a wider road, went abreast and soon +reached a stretch of table-land, from which the eye took in on one side +the rich valley of the Seine toward Rouen, and on the other an horizon +bounded only by the sea. + +“Butscha was right, God is the greatest of all landscape painters,” said +Canalis, contemplating the view, which is unique among the many fine +scenes that have made the shores of the Seine so justly celebrated. + +“Above all do we feel that, my dear baron,” said the duke, “on +hunting-days, when nature has a voice, and a lively tumult breaks +the silence; at such times the landscape, changing rapidly as we ride +through it, seems really sublime.” + +“The sun is the inexhaustible palette,” said Modeste, looking at the +poet in a species of bewilderment. + +A remark that she presently made on his absence of mind gave him +an opportunity of saying that he was just then absorbed in his own +thoughts,--an excuse that authors have more reason for giving than other +men. + +“Are we really made happy by carrying our lives into the midst of +the world, and swelling them with all sorts of fictitious wants and +over-excited vanities?” said Modeste, moved by the aspect of the fertile +and billowy country to long for a philosophically tranquil life. + +“That is a bucolic, mademoiselle, which is only written on tablets of +gold,” said the poet. + +“And sometimes under garret-roofs,” remarked the colonel. + +Modeste threw a piercing glance at Canalis, which he was unable to +sustain; she was conscious of a ringing in her ears, darkness seemed to +spread before her, and then she suddenly exclaimed in icy tones:-- + +“Ah! it is Wednesday!” + +“I do not say this to flatter your passing caprice, mademoiselle,” said +the duke, to whom the little scene, so tragical for Modeste, had left +time for thought; “but I declare I am so profoundly disgusted with the +world and the Court and Paris that had I a Duchesse d’Herouville, gifted +with the wit and graces of mademoiselle, I would gladly bind myself to +live like a philosopher at my chateau, doing good around me, draining my +marshes, educating my children--” + +“That, Monsieur le duc, will be set to the account of your great +goodness,” said Modeste, letting her eyes rest steadily on the noble +gentleman. “You flatter me in not thinking me frivolous, and in +believing that I have enough resources within myself to be able to live +in solitude. It is perhaps my lot,” she added, glancing at Canalis, with +an expression of pity. + +“It is the lot of all insignificant fortunes,” said the poet. “Paris +demands Babylonian splendor. Sometimes I ask myself how I have ever +managed to keep it up.” + +“The king does that for both of us,” said the duke, candidly; “we live +on his Majesty’s bounty. If my family had not been allowed, after the +death of Monsieur le Grand, as they call Cinq-Mars, to keep his office +among us, we should have been obliged to sell Herouville to the Black +Brethren. Ah, believe me, mademoiselle, it is a bitter humiliation to me +to have to think of money in marrying.” + +The simple honesty of this confession came from his heart, and the +regret was so sincere that it touched Modeste. + +“In these days,” said the poet, “no man in France, Monsieur le duc, is +rich enough to marry a woman for herself, her personal worth, her grace, +or her beauty--” + +The colonel looked at Canalis with a curious eye, after first watching +Modeste, whose face no longer expressed the slightest astonishment. + +“For persons of high honor,” he said slowly, “it is a noble employment +of wealth to repair the ravages of time and destiny, and restore the old +historic families.” + +“Yes, papa,” said Modeste, gravely. + +The colonel invited the duke and Canalis to dine with him sociably +in their riding-dress, promising them to make no change himself. +When Modeste went to her room to make her toilette, she looked at the +jewelled whip she had disdained in the morning. + +“What workmanship they put into such things nowadays!” she said to +Francoise Cochet, who had become her waiting-maid. + +“That poor young man, mademoiselle, who has got a fever--” + +“Who told you that?” + +“Monsieur Butscha. He came here this afternoon and asked me to say to +you that he hoped you would notice he had kept his word on the appointed +day.” + +Modeste came down into the salon dressed with royal simplicity. + +“My dear father,” she said aloud, taking the colonel by the arm, “please +go and ask after Monsieur de La Briere’s health, and take him back his +present. You can say that my small means, as well as my natural tastes, +forbid my wearing ornaments which are only fit for queens or courtesans. +Besides, I can only accept gifts from a bridegroom. Beg him to keep the +whip until you know whether you are rich enough to buy it back.” + +“My little girl has plenty of good sense,” said the colonel, kissing his +daughter on the forehead. + +Canalis took advantage of a conversation which began between the duke +and Madame Mignon to escape to the terrace, where Modeste joined him, +influenced by curiosity, though the poet believed her desire to become +Madame de Canalis had brought her there. Rather alarmed at the indecency +with which he had just executed what soldiers call a “volte-face,” and +which, according to the laws of ambition, every man in his position +would have executed quite as brutally, he now endeavored, as the +unfortunate Modeste approached him, to find plausible excuses for his +conduct. + +“Dear Modeste,” he began, in a coaxing tone, “considering the terms on +which we stand to each other, shall I displease you if I say that +your replies to the Duc d’Herouville were very painful to a man in +love,--above all, to a poet whose soul is feminine, nervous, full of the +jealousies of true passion. I should make a poor diplomatist indeed if +I had not perceived that your first coquetries, your little premeditated +inconsistencies, were only assumed for the purpose of studying our +characters--” + +Modeste raised her head with the rapid, intelligent, half-coquettish +motion of a wild animal, in whom instinct produces such miracles of +grace. + +“--and therefore when I returned home and thought them over, they never +misled me. I only marvelled at a cleverness so in harmony with your +character and your countenance. Do not be uneasy, I never doubted that +your assumed duplicity covered an angelic candor. No, your mind, your +education, have in no way lessened the precious innocence which we +demand in a wife. You are indeed a wife for a poet, a diplomatist, a +thinker, a man destined to endure the chances and changes of life; and +my admiration is equalled only by the attachment I feel to you. I now +entreat you--if yesterday you were not playing a little comedy when +you accepted the love of a man whose vanity will change to pride if +you accept him, one whose defects will become virtues under your divine +influence--I entreat you do not excite a passion which, in him, amounts +to vice. Jealousy is a noxious element in my soul, and you have revealed +to me its strength; it is awful, it destroys everything--Oh! I do not +mean the jealousy of an Othello,” he continued, noticing Modeste’s +gesture. “No, no; my thoughts were of myself: I have been so indulged +on that point. You know the affection to which I owe all the happiness I +have ever enjoyed,--very little at the best” (he sadly shook his head). +“Love is symbolized among all nations as a child, because it fancies +the world belongs to it, and it cannot conceive otherwise. Well, Nature +herself set the limit to that sentiment. It was still-born. A tender, +maternal soul guessed and calmed the painful constriction of my +heart,--for a woman who feels, who knows, that she is past the joys of +love becomes angelic in her treatment of others. The duchess has never +made me suffer in my sensibilities. For ten years not a word, not a +look, that could wound me! I attach more value to words, to thoughts, +to looks, than ordinary men. If a look is to me a treasure beyond all +price, the slightest doubt is deadly poison; it acts instantaneously, +my love dies. I believe--contrary to the mass of men, who delight in +trembling, hoping, expecting--that love can only exist in perfect, +infantile, and infinite security. The exquisite purgatory, where women +delight to send us by their coquetry, is a base happiness to which I +will not submit: to me, love is either heaven or hell. If it is hell, +I will have none of it. I feel an affinity with the azure skies of +Paradise within my soul. I can give myself without reserve, without +secrets, doubts or deceptions, in the life to come; and I demand +reciprocity. Perhaps I offend you by these doubts. Remember, however, +that I am only talking of myself--” + +“--a good deal, but never too much,” said Modeste, offended in every +hole and corner of her pride by this discourse, in which the Duchesse de +Chaulieu served as a dagger. “I am so accustomed to admire you, my dear +poet.” + +“Well, then, can you promise me the same canine fidelity which I offer +to you? Is it not beautiful? Is it not just what you have longed for?” + +“But why, dear poet, do you not marry a deaf-mute, and one who is also +something of an idiot? I ask nothing better than to please my husband. +But you threaten to take away from a girl the very happiness you so +kindly arrange for her; you are tearing away every gesture, every word, +every look; you cut the wings of your bird, and then expect it to +hover about you. I know poets are accused of inconsistency--oh! very +unjustly,” she added, as Canalis made a gesture of denial; “that alleged +defect which comes from the brilliant activity of their minds which +commonplace people cannot take into account. I do not believe, however, +that a man of genius can invent such irreconcilable conditions and call +his invention life. You are requiring the impossible solely for +the pleasure of putting me in the wrong,--like the enchanters in +fairy-tales, who set tasks to persecuted young girls whom the good +fairies come and deliver.” + +“In this case the good fairy would be true love,” said Canalis in a curt +tone, aware that his elaborate excuse for a rupture was seen through by +the keen and delicate mind which Butscha had piloted so well. + +“My dear poet, you remind me of those fathers who inquire into a +girl’s ‘dot’ before they are willing to name that of their son. You are +quarrelling with me without knowing whether you have the slightest right +to do so. Love is not gained by such dry arguments as yours. The poor +duke on the contrary abandons himself to it like my Uncle Toby; with +this difference, that I am not the Widow Wadman,--though widow indeed +of many illusions as to poetry at the present moment. Ah, yes, we young +girls will not believe in anything that disturbs our world of fancy! I +was warned of all this beforehand. My dear poet, you are attempting to +get up a quarrel which is unworthy of you. I no longer recognize the +Melchior of yesterday.” + +“Because Melchior has discovered a spirit of ambition in you which--” + +Modeste looked at him from head to foot with an imperial eye. + +“But I shall be peer of France and ambassador as well as he,” added +Canalis. + +“Do you take me for a bourgeois,” she said, beginning to mount the steps +of the portico; but she instantly turned back and added, “That is less +impertinent than to take me for a fool. The change in your conduct comes +from certain silly rumors which you have heard in Havre, and which my +maid Francoise has repeated to me.” + +“Ah, Modeste, how can you think it?” said Canalis, striking a dramatic +attitude. “Do you think me capable of marrying you only for your money?” + +“If I do you that wrong after your edifying remarks on the banks of the +Seine can you easily undeceive me,” she said, annihilating him with her +scorn. + +“Ah!” thought the poet, as he followed her into the house, “if you +think, my little girl, that I’m to be caught in that net, you take me +to be younger than I am. Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful little +thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of the king of Borneo. +But she has given me a good reason for the rupture by accusing me of +such unworthy sentiments. Isn’t she sly? La Briere will get a burden on +his back--idiot that he is! And five years hence it will be a good joke +to see them together.” + +The coldness which this altercation produced between Modeste and Canalis +was visible to all eyes that evening. The poet went off early, on the +ground of La Briere’s illness, leaving the field to the grand equerry. +About eleven o’clock Butscha, who had come to walk home with Madame +Latournelle, whispered in Modeste’s ear, “Was I right?” + +“Alas, yes,” she said. + +“But I hope you have left the door half open, so that he can come back; +we agreed upon that, you know.” + +“Anger got the better of me,” said Modeste. “Such meanness sent the +blood to my head and I told him what I thought of him.” + +“Well, so much the better. When you are both so angry that you can’t +speak civilly to each other I engage to make him desperately in love and +so pressing that you will be deceived yourself.” + +“Come, come, Butscha; he is a great poet; he is a gentleman; he is a man +of intellect.” + +“Your father’s eight millions are more to him than all that.” + +“Eight millions!” exclaimed Modeste. + +“My master, who has sold his practice, is going to Provence to attend +to the purchase of lands which your father’s agent has suggested to him. +The sum that is to be paid for the estate of La Bastie is four millions; +your father has agreed to it. You are to have a ‘dot’ of two millions +and another million for an establishment in Paris, a hotel and +furniture. Now, count up.” + +“Ah! then I can be Duchesse d’Herouville!” cried Modeste, glancing at +Butscha. + +“If it hadn’t been for that comedian of a Canalis you would have kept +HIS whip, thinking it came from me,” said the dwarf, indirectly pleading +La Briere’s cause. + +“Monsieur Butscha, may I ask if I am to marry to please you?” said +Modeste, laughing. + +“That fine fellow loves you as well as I do,--and you loved him for +eight days,” retorted Butscha; “and HE has got a heart.” + +“Can he compete, pray, with an office under the Crown? There are but +six, grand almoner, chancellor, grand chamberlain, grand master, high +constable, grand admiral,--but they don’t appoint high constables any +longer.” + +“In six months, mademoiselle, the masses--who are made up of wicked +Butschas--could send all those grand dignities to the winds. Besides, +what signifies nobility in these days? There are not a thousand real +noblemen in France. The d’Herouvilles are descended from a tipstaff +in the time of Robert of Normandy. You will have to put up with many a +vexation from the old aunt with the furrowed face. Look here,--as you +are so anxious for the title of duchess,--you belong to the Comtat, and +the Pope will certainly think as much of you as he does of all those +merchants down there; he’ll sell you a duchy with some name ending in +‘ia’ or ‘agno.’ Don’t play away your happiness for an office under the +Crown.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. A DIPLOMATIC LETTER + +The poet’s reflections during the night were thoroughly matter of fact. +He sincerely saw nothing worse in life than the situation of a married +man without money. Still trembling at the danger he had been led into by +his vanity, his desire to get the better of the duke, and his belief in +the Mignon millions, he began to ask himself what the duchess must be +thinking of his stay in Havre, aggravated by the fact that he had not +written to her for fourteen days, whereas in Paris they exchanged four +or five letters a week. + +“And that poor woman is working hard to get me appointed commander of +the Legion and ambassador to the Court of Baden!” he cried. + +Thereupon, with that promptitude of decision which results--in poets as +well as in speculators--from a lively intuition of the future, he sat +down and composed the following letter:-- + + To Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu: + + My dear Eleonore,--You have doubtless been surprised at not + hearing from me; but the stay I am making in this place is not + altogether on account of my health. I have been trying to do a + good turn to our little friend La Briere. The poor fellow has + fallen in love with a certain Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie, a + rather pale, insignificant, and thread-papery little thing, who, + by the way, has the vice of liking literature, and calls herself a + poet to excuse the caprices and humors of a rather sullen nature. + You know Ernest,--he is so easy to catch that I have been afraid + to leave him to himself. Mademoiselle de La Bastie was inclined to + coquet with your Melchior, and was only too ready to become your + rival, though her arms are thin, and she has no more bust than + most girls; moreover, her hair is as dead and colorless as that of + Madame de Rochefide, and her eyes small, gray, and very + suspicious. I put a stop--perhaps rather brutally--to the + attentions of Mademoiselle Immodeste; but love, such as mine for + you, demanded it. What care I for all the women on earth, + --compared to you, what are they? + + The people with whom I pass my time, and who form the circle round + the heiress, are so thoroughly bourgeois that they almost turn my + stomach. Pity me; imagine! I pass my evenings with notaries, + notaresses, cashiers, provincial money-lenders--ah! what a change + from my evenings in the rue de Grenelle. The alleged fortune of + the father, lately returned from China, has brought to Havre that + indefatigable suitor, the grand equerry, hungry after the + millions, which he wants, they say, to drain his marshes. The king + does not know what a fatal present he made the duke in those waste + lands. His Grace, who has not yet found out that the lady had only + a small fortune, is jealous of _me_; for La Briere is quietly making + progress with his idol under cover of his friend, who serves as a + blind. + + Notwithstanding Ernest’s romantic ecstasies, I myself, a poet, + think chiefly of the essential thing, and I have been making some + inquiries which darken the prospects of our friend. If my angel + would like absolution for some of our little sins, she will try to + find out the facts of the case by sending for Mongenod, the + banker, and questioning him, with the dexterity that characterizes + her, as to the father’s fortune? Monsieur Mignon, formerly colonel + of cavalry in the Imperial guard, has been for the last seven + years a correspondent of the Mongenods. It is said that he gives + his daughter a “dot” of two hundred thousand francs, and before I + make the offer on Ernest’s behalf I am anxious to get the rights + of the story. As soon as the affair is arranged I shall return to + Paris. I know a way to settle everything to the advantage of our + young lover,--simply by the transmission of the father-in-law’s + title, and no one, I think, can more readily obtain that favor + than Ernest, both on account of his own services and the influence + which you and I and the duke can exert for him. With his tastes, + Ernest, who of course will step into my office when I go to Baden, + will be perfectly happy in Paris with twenty-five thousand francs + a year, a permanent place, and a wife--luckless fellow! + + Ah, dearest, how I long for the rue de Grenelle! Fifteen days of + absence! when they do not kill love, they revive all the ardor of + its earlier days, and you know, better than I, perhaps, the + reasons that make my love eternal,--my bones will love thee in the + grave! Ah! I cannot bear this separation. If I am forced to stay + here another ten days, I shall make a flying visit of a few hours + to Paris. + + Has the duke obtained for me the thing we wanted; and shall you, + my dearest life, be ordered to drink the Baden waters next year? + The billing and cooing of the “handsome disconsolate,” compared + with the accents of our happy love--so true and changeless for now + ten years!--have given me a great contempt for marriage. I had + never seen the thing so near. Ah, dearest! what the world calls a + “false step” brings two beings nearer together than the law--does + it not? + +The concluding idea served as a text for two pages of reminiscences and +aspirations a little too confidential for publication. + +The evening before the day on which Canalis put the above epistle into +the post, Butscha, under the name of Jean Jacmin, had received a letter +from his fictitious cousin, Philoxene, and had mailed his answer, which +thus preceded the letter of the poet by about twelve hours. Terribly +anxious for the last two weeks, and wounded by Melchior’s silence, +the duchess herself dictated Philoxene’s letter to her cousin, and +the moment she had read the answer, rather too explicit for her +quinquagenary vanity, she sent for the banker and made close inquiries +as to the exact fortune of Monsieur Mignon. Finding herself betrayed and +abandoned for the millions, Eleonore gave way to a paroxysm of anger, +hatred, and cold vindictiveness. Philoxene knocked at the door of the +sumptuous room, and entering found her mistress with her eyes full +of tears,--so unprecedented a phenomenon in the fifteen years she had +waited upon her that the woman stopped short stupefied. + +“We expiate the happiness of ten years in ten minutes,” she heard the +duchess say. + +“A letter from Havre, madame.” + +Eleonore read the poet’s prose without noticing the presence of +Philoxene, whose amazement became still greater when she saw the dawn +of fresh serenity on the duchess’s face as she read further and further +into the letter. Hold out a pole no thicker than a walking-stick to +a drowning man, and he will think it a high-road of safety. The happy +Eleonore believed in Canalis’s good faith when she had read through the +four pages in which love and business, falsehood and truth, jostled +each other. She who, a few moments earlier, had sent for her husband +to prevent Melchior’s appointment while there was still time, was now +seized with a spirit of generosity that amounted almost to the sublime. + +“Poor fellow!” she thought; “he has not had one faithless thought; he +loves me as he did on the first day; he tells me all--Philoxene!” + she cried, noticing her maid, who was standing near and pretending to +arrange the toilet-table. + +“Madame la duchesse?” + +“A mirror, child!” + +Eleonore looked at herself, saw the fine razor-like lines traced on her +brow, which disappeared at a little distance; she sighed, and in that +sigh she felt she bade adieu to love. A brave thought came into her +mind, a manly thought, outside of all the pettiness of women,--a +thought which intoxicates for a moment, and which explains, perhaps, +the clemency of the Semiramis of Russia when she married her young and +beautiful rival to Momonoff. + +“Since he has not been faithless, he shall have the girl and her +millions,” she thought,--“provided Mademoiselle Mignon is as ugly as he +says she is.” + +Three raps, circumspectly given, announced the duke, and his wife went +herself to the door to let him in. + +“Ah! I see you are better, my dear,” he cried, with the counterfeit +joy that courtiers assume so readily, and by which fools are so readily +taken in. + +“My dear Henri,” she answered, “why is it you have not yet obtained that +appointment for Melchior,--you who sacrificed so much to the king in +taking a ministry which you knew could only last one year.” + +The duke glanced at Philoxene, who showed him by an almost imperceptible +sign the letter from Havre on the dressing-table. + +“You would be terribly bored at Baden and come back at daggers drawn +with Melchior,” said the duke. + +“Pray why?” + +“Why, you would always be together,” said the former diplomat, with +comic good-humor. + +“Oh, no,” she said; “I am going to marry him.” + +“If we can believe d’Herouville, our dear Canalis stands in no need +of your help in that direction,” said the duke, smiling. “Yesterday +Grandlieu read me some passages from a letter the grand equerry had +written him. No doubt they were dictated by the aunt for the express +purpose of their reaching you, for Mademoiselle d’Herouville, always on +the scent of a ‘dot,’ knows that Grandlieu and I play whist nearly every +evening. That good little d’Herouville wants the Prince de Cadignan to +go down and give a royal hunt in Normandy, and endeavor to persuade the +king to be present, so as to turn the head of the damozel when she sees +herself the object of such a grand affair. In short, two words from +Charles X. would settle the matter. D’Herouville says the girl has +incomparable beauty--” + +“Henri, let us go to Havre!” cried the duchess, interrupting him. + +“Under what pretext?” said her husband, gravely; he was one of the +confidants of Louis XVIII. + +“I never saw a hunt.” + +“It would be all very well if the king went; but it is a terrible bore +to go so far, and he will not do it; I have just been speaking with him +about it.” + +“Perhaps _Madame_ would go?” + +“That would be better,” returned the duke, “I dare say the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse would help you to persuade her from Rosny. If she goes the +king will not be displeased at the use of his hunting equipage. Don’t +go to Havre, my dear,” added the duke, paternally, “that would be giving +yourself away. Come, here’s a better plan, I think. Gaspard’s chateau of +Rosembray is on the other side of the forest of Brotonne; why not give +him a hint to invite the whole party?” + +“He invite them?” said Eleonore. + +“I mean, of course, the duchess; she is always engaged in pious works +with Mademoiselle d’Herouville; give that old maid a hint, and get her +to speak to Gaspard.” + +“You are a love of a man,” cried Eleonore; “I’ll write to the old maid +and to Diane at once, for we must get hunting things made,--a riding hat +is so becoming. Did you win last night at the English embassy?” + +“Yes,” said the duke; “I cleared myself.” + +“Henri, above all things, stop proceedings about Melchior’s two +appointments.” + +After writing half a dozen lines to the beautiful Diane de Maufrigneuse, +and a short hint to Mademoiselle d’Herouville, Eleonore sent the +following answer like the lash of a whip through the poet’s lies. + + To Monsieur le Baron de Canalis:-- + + My dear poet,--Mademoiselle de La Bastie is very beautiful; + Mongenod has proved to me that her father has millions. I did + think of marrying you to her; I am therefore much displeased at + your want of confidence. If you had any intention of marrying La + Briere when you went to Havre it is surprising that you said + nothing to me about it before you started. And why have you + omitted writing to a friend who is so easily made anxious as I? + Your letter arrived a trifle late; I had already seen the banker. + You are a child, Melchior, and you are playing tricks with us. It + is not right. The duke himself is quite indignant at your + proceedings; he thinks you less than a gentleman, which casts some + reflections on your mother’s honor. + + Now, I intend to see things for myself. I shall, I believe, have + the honor of accompanying _Madame_ to the hunt which the Duc + d’Herouville proposes to give for Mademoiselle de La Bastie. I + will manage to have you invited to Rosembray, for the meet will + probably take place in Duc de Verneuil’s park. + + Pray believe, my dear poet, that I am none the less, for life, + + Your friend, Eleonore de M. + + +“There, Ernest, just look at that!” cried Canalis, tossing the letter +at Ernest’s nose across the breakfast-table; “that’s the two thousandth +love-letter I have had from that woman, and there isn’t even a ‘thou’ in +it. The illustrious Eleonore has never compromised herself more than she +does there. Marry, and try your luck! The worst marriage in the world +is better than this sort of halter. Ah, I am the greatest Nicodemus that +ever tumbled out of the moon! Modeste has millions, and I’ve lost +her; for we can’t get back from the poles, where we are to-day, to the +tropics, where we were three days ago! Well, I am all the more anxious +for your triumph over the grand equerry, because I told the duchess I +came here only for your sake; and so I shall do my best for you.” + +“Alas, Melchior, Modeste must needs have so noble, so grand, so +well-balanced a nature to resist the glories of the Court, and all these +splendors cleverly displayed for her honor and glory by the duke, that I +cannot believe in the existence of such perfection,--and yet, if she is +still the Modeste of her letters, there might be hope!” + +“Well, well, you are a happy fellow, you young Boniface, to see the +world and your mistress through green spectacles!” cried Canalis, +marching off to pace up and down the garden. + +Caught between two lies, the poet was at a loss what to do. + +“Play by rule, and you lose!” he cried presently, sitting down in the +kiosk. “Every man of sense would have acted as I did four days ago, and +got himself out of the net in which I saw myself. At such times people +don’t disentangle nets, they break through them! Come, let us be calm, +cold, dignified, affronted. Honor requires it; English stiffness is the +only way to win her back. After all, if I have to retire finally, I can +always fall back on my old happiness; a fidelity of ten years can’t go +unrewarded. Eleonore will arrange me some good marriage.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. TRUE LOVE + +The hunt was destined to be not only a meet of the hounds, but a meeting +of all the passions excited by the colonel’s millions and Modeste’s +beauty; and while it was in prospect there was truce between the +adversaries. During the days required for the arrangement of this +forestrial solemnity, the salon of the villa Mignon presented the +tranquil picture of a united family. Canalis, cut short in his role of +injured love by Modeste’s quick perceptions, wished to appear courteous; +he laid aside his pretensions, gave no further specimens of his +oratory, and became, what all men of intellect can be when they renounce +affectation, perfectly charming. He talked finances with Gobenheim, and +war with the colonel, Germany with Madame Mignon, and housekeeping with +Madame Latournelle,--endeavoring to bias them all in favor of La Briere. +The Duc d’Herouville left the field to his rivals, for he was obliged +to go to Rosembray to consult with the Duc de Verneuil, and see that the +orders of the Royal Huntsman, the Prince de Cadignan, were carried out. +And yet the comic element was not altogether wanting. Modeste found +herself between the depreciatory hints of Canalis as to the gallantry +of the grand equerry, and the exaggerations of the two Mesdemoiselles +d’Herouville, who passed every evening at the villa. Canalis made +Modeste take notice that, instead of being the heroine of the hunt, she +would be scarcely noticed. _Madame_ would be attended by the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse, daughter-in-law of the Prince de Cadignan, by the Duchesse +de Chaulieu, and other great ladies of the Court, among whom she could +produce no sensation; no doubt the officers in garrison at Rouen would +be invited, etc. Helene, on the other hand, was incessantly telling her +new friend, whom she already looked upon as a sister-in-law, that she +was to be presented to _Madame_; undoubtedly the Duc de Verneuil would +invite her father and herself to stay at Rosembray; if the colonel +wished to obtain a favor of the king,--a peerage, for instance,--the +opportunity was unique, for there was hope of the king himself being +present on the third day; she would be delighted with the charming +welcome with which the beauties of the Court, the Duchesses de Chaulieu, +de Maufrigneuse, de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu, and other ladies, were prepared +to meet her. It was in fact an excessively amusing little warfare, with +its marches and countermarches and stratagems,--all of which were keenly +enjoyed by the Dumays, the Latournelles, Gobenheim, and Butscha, who, +in conclave assembled, said horrible things of these noble personages, +cruelly noting and intelligently studying all their little meannesses. + +The promises on the d’Herouville side were, however, confirmed by the +arrival of an invitation, couched in flattering terms, from the Duc de +Verneuil and the Master of the Hunt to Monsieur le Comte de La Bastie +and his daughter, to stay at Rosembray and be present at a grand hunt on +the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, of November following. + +La Briere, full of dark presentiments, craved the presence of Modeste +with an eagerness whose bitter joys are known only to lovers who feel +that they are parted, and parted fatally from those they love. Flashes +of joy came to him intermingled with melancholy meditations on the one +theme, “I have lost her,” and made him all the more interesting to those +who watched him, because his face and his whole person were in keeping +with his profound feeling. There is nothing more poetic than a living +elegy, animated by a pair of eyes, walking about, and sighing without +rhymes. + +The Duc d’Herouville arrived at last to arrange for Modeste’s departure; +after crossing the Seine she was to be conveyed in the duke’s caleche, +accompanied by the Demoiselles d’Herouville. The duke was charmingly +courteous, he begged Canalis and La Briere to be of the party, assuring +them, as he did the colonel, that he had taken particular care that +hunters should be provided for them. The colonel invited the three +lovers to breakfast on the morning of the start. Canalis then began to +put into execution a plan that he had been maturing in his own mind for +the last few days; namely, to quietly reconquer Modeste, and throw over +the duchess, La Briere, and the duke. A graduate of diplomacy could +hardly remain stuck in the position in which he found himself. On the +other hand La Briere had come to the resolution of bidding Modeste an +eternal farewell. Each suitor was therefore on the watch to slip in a +last word, like the defendant’s counsel to the court before judgment is +pronounced; for all felt that the three weeks’ struggle was approaching +its conclusion. After dinner on the evening before the start was to be +made, the colonel had taken his daughter by the arm and made her feel +the necessity of deciding. + +“Our position with the d’Herouville family will be quite intolerable at +Rosembray,” he said to her. “Do you mean to be a duchess?” + +“No, father,” she answered. + +“Then do you love Canalis?” + +“No, papa, a thousand times no!” she exclaimed with the impatience of a +child. + +The colonel looked at her with a sort of joy. + +“Ah, I have not influenced you,” cried the true father, “and I will +now confess that I chose my son-in-law in Paris when, having made him +believe that I had but little fortune, he grasped my hand and told me I +took a weight from his mind--” + +“Who is it you mean?” asked Modeste, coloring. + +“_The man of fixed principles and sound moralities_,” said her father, +slyly, repeating the words which had dissolved poor Modeste’s dream on +the day after his return. + +“I was not even thinking of him, papa. Please leave me at liberty to +refuse the duke myself; I understand him, and I know how to soothe him.” + +“Then your choice is not made?” + +“Not yet; there is another syllable or two in the charade of my destiny +still to be guessed; but after I have had a glimpse of court life at +Rosembray I will tell you my secret.” + +“Ah! Monsieur de La Briere,” cried the colonel, as the young man +approached them along the garden path in which they were walking, “I +hope you are going to this hunt?” + +“No, colonel,” answered Ernest. “I have come to take leave of you and of +mademoiselle; I return to Paris--” + +“You have no curiosity,” said Modeste, interrupting, and looking at him. + +“A wish--that I cannot expect--would suffice to keep me,” he replied. + +“If that is all, you must stay to please me; I wish it,” said the +colonel, going forward to meet Canalis, and leaving his daughter and La +Briere together for a moment. + +“Mademoiselle,” said the young man, raising his eyes to hers with the +boldness of a man without hope, “I have an entreaty to make to you.” + +“To me?” + +“Let me carry away with me your forgiveness. My life can never be happy; +it must be full of remorse for having lost my happiness--no doubt by my +own fault; but, at least,--” + +“Before we part forever,” said Modeste, interrupting a la Canalis, and +speaking in a voice of some emotion, “I wish to ask you one thing; and +though you once disguised yourself, I think you cannot be so base as to +deceive me now.” + +The taunt made him turn pale, and he cried out, “Oh, you are pitiless!” + +“Will you be frank?” + +“You have the right to ask me that degrading question,” he said, in a +voice weakened by the violent palpitation of his heart. + +“Well, then, did you read my letters to Monsieur de Canalis?” + +“No, mademoiselle; and I allowed your father to read them it was to +justify my love by showing him how it was born, and how sincere my +efforts were to cure you of your fancy.” + +“But how came the idea of that unworthy masquerade ever to arise?” she +said, with a sort of impatience. + +La Briere related truthfully the scene in the poet’s study which +Modeste’s first letter had occasioned, and the sort of challenge that +resulted from his expressing a favorable opinion of a young girl thus +led toward a poet’s fame, as a plant seeks its share of the sun. + +“You have said enough,” said Modeste, restraining some emotion. “If you +have not my heart, monsieur, you have at least my esteem.” + +These simple words gave the young man a violent shock; feeling himself +stagger, he leaned against a tree, like a man deprived for a moment of +reason. Modest, who had left him, turned her head and came hastily back. + +“What is the matter?” she asked, taking his hand to prevent him from +falling. + +“Forgive me--I thought you despised me.” + +“But,” she answered, with a distant and disdainful manner, “I did not +say that I loved you.” + +And she left him again. But this time, in spite of her harshness, La +Briere thought he walked on air; the earth softened under his feet, the +trees bore flowers; the skies were rosy, the air cerulean, as they are +in the temples of Hymen in those fairy pantomimes which finish happily. +In such situations every woman is a Janus, and sees behind her without +turning round; and thus Modeste perceived on the face of her lover the +indubitable symptoms of a love like Butscha’s,--surely the “ne plus +ultra” of a woman’s hope. Moreover, the great value which La Briere +attached to her opinion filled Modeste with an emotion that was +inestimably sweet. + +“Mademoiselle,” said Canalis, leaving the colonel and waylaying Modeste, +“in spite of the little value you attach to my sentiments, my honor is +concerned in effacing a stain under which I have suffered too long. Here +is a letter which I received from the Duchesse de Chaulieu five days +after my arrival in Havre.” + +He let Modeste read the first lines of the letter we have seen, which +the duchess began by saying that she had seen Mongenod, and now wished +to marry her poet to Modeste; then he tore that passage from the body of +the letter, and placed the fragment in her hand. + +“I cannot let you read the rest,” he said, putting the paper in his +pocket; “but I confide these few lines to your discretion, so that you +may verify the writing. A young girl who could accuse me of ignoble +sentiments is quite capable of suspecting some collusion, some trickery. +Ah, Modeste,” he said, with tears in his voice, “your poet, the poet of +Madame de Chaulieu, has no less poetry in his heart than in his mind. +You are about to see the duchess; suspend your judgment of me till +then.” + +He left Modeste half bewildered. + +“Oh, dear!” she said to herself; “it seems they are all angels--and not +marriageable; the duke is the only one that belongs to humanity.” + +“Mademoiselle Modeste,” said Butscha, appearing with a parcel under his +arm, “this hunt makes me very uneasy. I dreamed your horse ran away with +you, and I have been to Rouen to see if I could get a Spanish bit which, +they tell me, a horse can’t take between his teeth. I entreat you to +use it. I have shown it to the colonel, and he has thanked me more than +there is any occasion for.” + +“Poor, dear Butscha!” cried Modeste, moved to tears by this maternal +care. + +Butscha went skipping off like a man who has just heard of the death of +a rich uncle. + +“My dear father,” said Modeste, returning to the salon; “I should like +to have that beautiful whip,--suppose you were to ask Monsieur de La +Briere to exchange it for your picture by Van Ostade.” + +Modeste looked furtively at Ernest, while the colonel made him this +proposition, standing before the picture which was the sole thing he +possessed in memory of his campaigns, having bought it of a burgher +at Rabiston; and she said to herself as La Briere left the room +precipitately, “He will be at the hunt.” + +A curious thing happened. Modeste’s three lovers each and all went to +Rosembray with their hearts full of hope, and captivated by her many +perfections. + +Rosembray,--an estate lately purchased by the Duc de Verneuil, with the +money which fell to him as his share of the thousand millions voted as +indemnity for the sale of the lands of the emigres,--is remarkable for +its chateau, whose magnificence compares only with that of Mesniere or +of Balleroy. This imposing and noble edifice is approached by a wide +avenue of four rows of venerable elms, from which the visitor enters +an immense rising court-yard, like that at Versailles, with magnificent +iron railings and two lodges, and adorned with rows of large +orange-trees in their tubs. Facing this court-yard, the chateau +presents, between two fronts of the main building which retreat on +either side of this projection, a double row of nineteen tall windows, +with carved arches and diamond panes, divided from each other by a +series of fluted pilasters surmounted by an entablature which hides an +Italian roof, from which rise several stone chimneys masked by +carved trophies of arms. Rosembray was built, under Louis XIV., by a +“fermier-general” named Cottin. The facade toward the park differs from +that on the court-yard by having a narrower projection in the centre, +with columns between five windows, above which rises a magnificent +pediment. The family of Marigny, to whom the estates of this Cottin were +brought in marriage by Mademoiselle Cottin, her father’s sole heiress, +ordered a sunrise to be carved on this pediment by Coysevox. Beneath it +are two angels unwinding a scroll, on which is cut this motto in honor +of the Grand Monarch, “Sol nobis benignus.” + +From the portico, reached by two grand circular and balustraded flights +of steps, the view extends over an immense fish-pond, as long and wide +as the grand canal at Versailles, beginning at the foot of a grass-plot +which compares well with the finest English lawns, and bordered with +beds and baskets now filled with the brilliant flowers of autumn. On +either side of the piece of water two gardens, laid out in the French +style, display their squares and long straight paths, like brilliant +pages written in the ciphers of Lenotre. These gardens are backed to +their whole length by a border of nearly thirty acres of woodland. From +the terrace the view is bounded by a forest belonging to Rosembray and +contiguous to two other forests, one of which belongs to the Crown, the +other to the State. It would be difficult to find a nobler landscape. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. A GIRL’S REVENGE + +Modeste’s arrival at Rosembray made a certain sensation in the avenue +when the carriage with the liveries of France came in sight, accompanied +by the grand equerry, the colonel, Canalis, and La Briere on +horseback, preceded by an outrider in full dress, and followed by six +servants,--among whom were the Negroes and the mulatto,--and the britzka +of the colonel for the two waiting-women and the luggage. The carriage +was drawn by four horses, ridden by postilions dressed with an elegance +specially commanded by the grand equerry, who was often better served +than the king himself. As Modeste, dazzled by the magnificence of the +great lords, entered and beheld this lesser Versailles, she suddenly +remembered her approaching interview with the celebrated duchesses, and +began to fear that she might seem awkward, or provincial, or parvenue; +in fact, she lost her self-possession, and heartily repented having +wished for a hunt. + +Fortunately, however, as the carriage drew up, Modeste saw an old man, +in a blond wig frizzed into little curls, whose calm, plump, smooth face +wore a fatherly smile and an expression of monastic cheerfulness which +the half-veiled glance of the eye rendered almost noble. This was the +Duc de Verneuil, master of Rosembray. The duchess, a woman of extreme +piety, the only daughter of a rich and deceased chief-justice, spare +and erect, and the mother of four children, resembled Madame +Latournelle,--if the imagination can go so far as to adorn the notary’s +wife with the graces of a bearing that was truly abbatial. + +“Ah, good morning, dear Hortense!” said Mademoiselle d’Herouville, +kissing the duchess with the sympathy that united their haughty +natures; “let me present to you and to the dear duke our little angel, +Mademoiselle de La Bastie.” + +“We have heard so much of you, mademoiselle,” said the duchess, “that we +were in haste to receive you.” + +“And regret the time lost,” added the Duc de Verneuil, with courteous +admiration. + +“Monsieur le Comte de La Bastie,” said the grand equerry, taking the +colonel by the arm and presenting him to the duke and duchess, with an +air of respect in his tone and gesture. + +“I am glad to welcome you, Monsieur le comte!” said Monsieur de +Verneuil. “You possess more than one treasure,” he added, looking at +Modeste. + +The duchess took Modeste under her arm and led her into an immense +salon, where a dozen or more women were grouped about the fireplace. The +men of the party remained with the duke on the terrace, except Canalis, +who respectfully made his way to the superb Eleonore. The Duchesse de +Chaulieu, seated at an embroidery-frame, was showing Mademoiselle de +Verneuil how to shade a flower. + +If Modeste had run a needle through her finger when handling a +pin-cushion she could not have felt a sharper prick than she received +from the cold and haughty and contemptuous stare with which Madame de +Chaulieu favored her. For an instant she saw nothing but that one woman, +and she saw through her. To understand the depths of cruelty to which +these charming creatures, whom our passions deify, can go, we must see +women with each other. Modeste would have disarmed almost any other than +Eleonore by the perfectly stupid and involuntary admiration which +her face betrayed. Had she not known the duchess’s age she would have +thought her a woman of thirty-six; but other and greater astonishments +awaited her. + +The poet had run plump against a great lady’s anger. Such anger is the +worst of sphinxes; the face is radiant, all the rest menacing. Kings +themselves cannot make the exquisite politeness of a mistress’s cold +anger capitulate when she guards it with steel armor. Canalis tried to +cling to the steel, but his fingers slipped on the polished surface, +like his words on the heart; and the gracious face, the gracious words, +the gracious bearing of the duchess hid the steel of her wrath, now +fallen to twenty-five below zero, from all observers. The appearance +of Modeste in her sublime beauty, and dressed as well as Diane de +Maufrigneuse herself, had fired the train of gunpowder which reflection +had been laying in Eleonore’s mind. + +All the women had gone to the windows to see the new wonder get out of +the royal carriage, attended by her three suitors. + +“Do not let us seem so curious,” Madame de Chaulieu had said, cut to the +heart by Diane’s exclamation,--“She is divine! where in the world +does she come from?”--and with that the bevy flew back to their seats, +resuming their composure, though Eleonore’s heart was full of hungry +vipers all clamorous for a meal. + +Mademoiselle d’Herouville said in a low voice and with much meaning +to the Duchesse de Verneuil, “Eleonore receives her Melchior very +ungraciously.” + +“The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse thinks there is a coolness between them,” + said Laure de Verneuil, with simplicity. + +Charming phrase! so often used in the world of society,--how the north +wind blows through it. + +“Why so?” asked Modeste of the pretty young girl who had lately left the +Sacre-Coeur. + +“The great poet,” said the pious duchess--making a sign to her daughter +to be silent--“left Madame de Chaulieu without a letter for more than +two weeks after he went to Havre, having told her that he went there for +his health--” + +Modeste made a hasty movement, which caught the attention of Laure, +Helene, and Mademoiselle d’Herouville. + +“--and during that time,” continued the devout duchess, “she was +endeavoring to have him appointed commander of the Legion of honor, and +minister at Baden.” + +“Oh, that was shameful in Canalis; he owes everything to her,” exclaimed +Mademoiselle d’Herouville. + +“Why did not Madame de Chaulieu come to Havre?” asked Modeste of Helene, +innocently. + +“My dear,” said the Duchesse de Verneuil, “she would let herself be cut +in little pieces without saying a word. Look at her,--she is regal; her +head would smile, like Mary Stuart’s, after it was cut off; in fact, she +has some of that blood in her veins.” + +“Did she not write to him?” asked Modeste. + +“Diane tells me,” answered the duchess, prompted by a nudge from +Mademoiselle d’Herouville, “that in answer to Canalis’s first letter she +made a cutting reply a few days ago.” + +This explanation made Modeste blush with shame for the man before her; +she longed, not to crush him under her feet, but to revenge herself by +one of those malicious acts that are sharper than a dagger’s thrust. She +looked haughtily at the Duchesse de Chaulieu-- + +“Monsieur Melchior!” she said. + +All the women snuffed the air and looked alternately at the duchess, who +was talking in an undertone to Canalis over the embroidery-frame, +and then at the young girl so ill brought up as to disturb a lovers’ +meeting,--a thing not permissible in any society. Diane de Maufrigneuse +nodded, however, as much as to say, “The child is in the right of it.” + All the women ended by smiling at each other; they were enraged with a +woman who was fifty-six years old and still handsome enough to put her +fingers into the treasury and steal the dues of youth. Melchior looked +at Modeste with feverish impatience, and made the gesture of a master +to a valet, while the duchess lowered her head with the movement of a +lioness disturbed at a meal; her eyes, fastened on the canvas, emitted +red flames in the direction of the poet, which stabbed like epigrams, +for each word revealed to her a triple insult. + +“Monsieur Melchior!” said Modeste again in a voice that asserted its +right to be heard. + +“What, mademoiselle?” demanded the poet. + +Forced to rise, he remained standing half-way between the embroidery +frame, which was near a window, and the fireplace where Modeste was +seated with the Duchesse de Verneuil on a sofa. What bitter reflections +came into his ambitious mind, as he caught a glance from Eleonore. If +he obeyed Modeste all was over, and forever, between himself and his +protectress. Not to obey her was to avow his slavery, to lose the +chances of his twenty-five days of base manoeuvring, and to disregard +the plainest laws of decency and civility. The greater the folly, the +more imperatively the duchess exacted it. Modeste’s beauty and money +thus pitted against Eleonore’s rights and influence made this hesitation +between the man and his honor as terrible to witness as the peril of +a matador in the arena. A man seldom feels such palpitations as those +which now came near causing Canalis an aneurism, except, perhaps, before +the green table, where his fortune or his ruin is about to be decided. + +“Mademoiselle d’Herouville hurried me from the carriage, and I left +behind me,” said Modeste to Canalis, “my handkerchief--” + +Canalis shrugged his shoulders significantly. + +“And,” continued Modeste, taking no notice of his gesture, “I had tied +into one corner of it the key of a desk which contains the fragment of +an important letter; have the kindness, Monsieur Melchior, to get it for +me.” + +Between an angel and a tiger equally enraged Canalis, who had turned +livid, no longer hesitated,--the tiger seemed to him the least dangerous +of the two; and he was about to do as he was told, and commit himself +irretrievably, when La Briere appeared at the door of the salon, seeming +to his anguished mind like the archangel Gabriel tumbling from heaven. + +“Ernest, here, Mademoiselle de La Bastie wants you,” said the poet, +hastily returning to his chair by the embroidery frame. + +Ernest rushed to Modeste without bowing to any one; he saw only her, +took his commission with undisguised joy, and darted from the room, with +the secret approbation of every woman present. + +“What an occupation for a poet!” said Modeste to Helene d’Herouville, +glancing toward the embroidery at which the duchess was now working +savagely. + +“If you speak to her, if you ever look at her, all is over between us,” + said the duchess to the poet in a low voice, not at all satisfied with +the very doubtful termination which Ernest’s arrival had put to the +scene; “and remember, if I am not present, I leave behind me eyes that +will watch you.” + +So saying, the duchess, a woman of medium height, but a little too +stout, like all women over fifty who retain their beauty, rose and +walked toward the group which surrounded Diane de Maufrigneuse, stepping +daintily on little feet that were as slender and nervous as a deer’s. +Beneath her plumpness could be seen the exquisite delicacy of such +women, which comes from the vigor of their nervous systems controlling +and vitalizing the development of flesh. There is no other way to +explain the lightness of her step, and the incomparable nobility of her +bearing. None but the women whose quarterings begin with Noah know, +as Eleonore did, how to be majestic in spite of a buxom tendency. A +philosopher might have pitied Philoxene, while admiring the graceful +lines of the bust and the minute care bestowed upon a morning dress, +which was worn with the elegance of a queen and the easy grace of a +young girl. Her abundant hair, still undyed, was simply wound about her +head in plaits; she bared her snowy throat and shoulders, exquisitely +modelled, and her celebrated hand and arm, with pardonable pride. +Modeste, together with all other antagonists of the duchess, recognized +in her a woman of whom they were forced to say, “She eclipses us.” In +fact, Eleonore was one of the “grandes dames” now so rare. To endeavor +to explain what august quality there was in the carriage of the head, +what refinement and delicacy in the curve of the throat, what harmony in +her movements, and nobility in her bearing, what grandeur in the perfect +accord of details with the whole being, and in the arts, now a second +nature, which render a woman grand and even sacred,--to explain all +these things would simply be to attempt to analyze the sublime. People +enjoy such poetry as they enjoy that of Paganini; they do not explain to +themselves the medium, they know the cause is in the spirit that remains +invisible. + +Madame de Chaulieu bowed her head in salutation of Helene and her aunt; +then, saying to Diane, in a pure and equable tone of voice, without a +trace of emotion, “Is it not time to dress, duchess?” she made her exit, +accompanied by her daughter-in-law and Mademoiselle d’Herouville. As she +left the room she spoke in an undertone to the old maid, who pressed her +arm, saying, “You are charming,”--which meant, “I am all gratitude +for the service you have just done us.” After that, Mademoiselle +d’Herouville returned to the salon to play her part of spy, and her +first glance apprised Canalis that the duchess had made him no empty +threat. That apprentice in diplomacy became aware that his science was +not sufficient for a struggle of this kind, and his wit served him +to take a more honest position, if not a worthier one. When Ernest +returned, bringing Modeste’s handkerchief, the poet seized his arm and +took him out on the terrace. + +“My dear friend,” he said, “I am not only the most unfortunate man in +the world, but I am also the most ridiculous; and I come to you to get +me out of the hornet’s nest into which I have run myself. Modeste is a +demon; she sees my difficulty and she laughs at it; she has just spoken +to me of a fragment of a letter of Madame de Chaulieu, which I had +the folly to give her; if she shows it I can never make my peace with +Eleonore. Therefore, will you at once ask Modeste to send me back that +paper, and tell her, from me, that I make no pretensions to her hand. +Say I count upon her delicacy, upon her propriety as a young girl, to +behave to me as if we had never known each other. I beg her not to speak +to me; I implore her to treat me harshly,--though I hardly dare ask her +to feign a jealous anger, which would help my interests amazingly. Go, I +will wait here for an answer.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. MODESTE BEHAVES WITH DIGNITY + +On re-entering the salon Ernest de La Briere found a young officer of +the company of the guard d’Havre, the Vicomte de Serizy, who had just +arrived from Rosny to announce that _Madame_ was obliged to be present +at the opening of the Chambers. We know the importance then attached to +this constitutional solemnity, at which Charles X. delivered his speech, +surrounded by the royal family,--Madame la Dauphine and _Madame_ being +present in their gallery. The choice of the emissary charged with the +duty of expressing the princess’s regrets was an attention to Diane, +who was then an object of adoration to this charming young man, son of +a minister of state, gentleman in ordinary of the chamber, only son and +heir to an immense fortune. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse permitted his +attentions solely for the purpose of attracting notice to the age of +his mother, Madame de Serizy, who was said, in those chronicles that +are whispered behind the fans, to have deprived her of the heart of the +handsome Lucien de Rubempre. + +“You will do us the pleasure, I hope, to remain at Rosembray,” said the +severe duchess to the young officer. + +While giving ear to every scandal, the devout lady shut her eyes to the +derelictions of her guests who had been carefully selected by the duke; +indeed, it is surprising how much these excellent women will tolerate +under pretence of bringing the lost sheep back to the fold by their +indulgence. + +“We reckoned without our constitutional government,” said the grand +equerry; “and Rosembray, Madame la duchesse, will lose a great honor.” + +“We shall be more at our ease,” said a tall thin old man, about +seventy-five years of age, dressed in blue cloth, and wearing his +hunting-cap by permission of the ladies. This personage, who closely +resembled the Duc de Bourbon, was no less than the Prince de Cadignan, +Master of the Hunt, and one of the last of the great French lords. +Just as La Briere was endeavoring to slip behind the sofa and obtain a +moment’s intercourse with Modeste, a man of thirty-eight, short, fat, +and very common in appearance, entered the room. + +“My son, the Prince de Loudon,” said the Duchesse de Verneuil to +Modeste, who could not restrain the expression of amazement that +overspread her young face on seeing the man who bore the historical name +that the hero of La Vendee had rendered famous by his bravery and the +martyrdom of his death. + +“Gaspard,” said the duchess, calling her son to her. The young +prince came at once, and his mother continued, motioning to Modeste, +“Mademoiselle de La Bastie, my friend.” + +The heir presumptive, whose marriage with Desplein’s only daughter had +lately been arranged, bowed to the young girl without seeming struck, +as his father had been, with her beauty. Modeste was thus enabled to +compare the youth of to-day with the old age of a past epoch; for the +old Prince de Cadignan had already said a few words which made her feel +that he rendered as true a homage to womanhood as to royalty. The Duc de +Rhetore, the eldest son of the Duchesse de Chaulieu, chiefly remarkable +for manners that were equally impertinent and free and easy, bowed +to Modeste rather cavalierly. The reason of this contrast between the +fathers and the sons is to be found, probably, in the fact that young +men no longer feel themselves great beings, as their forefathers did, +and they dispense with the duties of greatness, knowing well that they +are now but the shadow of it. The fathers retain the inherent politeness +of their vanished grandeur, like the mountain-tops still gilded by the +sun when all is twilight in the valley. + +Ernest was at last able to slip a word into Modeste’s ear, and she rose +immediately. + +“My dear,” said the duchesse, thinking she was going to dress, and +pulling a bell-rope, “they shall show you your apartment.” + +Ernest accompanied Modeste to the foot of the grand staircase, +presenting the request of the luckless poet, and endeavoring to touch +her feelings by describing Melchior’s agony. + +“You see, he loves--he is a captive who thought he could break his +chain.” + +“Love in such a rapid seeker after fortune!” retorted Modeste. + +“Mademoiselle, you are at the entrance of life; you do not know its +defiles. The inconsistencies of a man who falls under the dominion of a +woman much older than himself should be forgiven, for he is really not +accountable. Think how many sacrifices Canalis has made to her. He +has sown too much seed of that kind to resign the harvest; the duchess +represents to him ten years of devotion and happiness. You made him +forget all that, and unfortunately, he has more vanity than pride; he +did not reflect on what he was losing until he met Madame Chaulieu here +to-day. If you really understood him, you would help him. He is a child, +always mismanaging his life. You call him a seeker after fortune, but +he seeks very badly; like all poets, he is a victim of sensations; he +is childish, easily dazzled like a child by anything that shines, and +pursuing its glitter. He used to love horses and pictures, and he craved +fame,--well, he sold his pictures to buy armor and old furniture of the +Renaissance and Louis XV.; just now he is seeking political power. Admit +that his hobbies are noble things.” + +“You have said enough,” replied Modeste; “come,” she added, seeing her +father, whom she called with a motion of her head to give her his arm; +“come with me, and I will give you that scrap of paper; you shall carry +it to the great man and assure him of my condescension to his wishes, +but on one condition,--you must thank him in my name for the pleasure I +have taken in seeing one of the finest of the German plays performed in +my honor. I have learned that Goethe’s masterpiece is neither Faust +nor Egmont--” and then, as Ernest looked at the malicious girl with a +puzzled air, she added: “It is Torquato Tasso! Tell Monsieur de Canalis +to re-read it,” she added smiling; “I particularly desire that you +will repeat to your friend word for word what I say; for it is not an +epigram, it is the justification of his conduct,--with this trifling +difference, that he will, I trust, become more and more reasonable, +thanks to the folly of his Eleonore.” + +The duchess’s head-woman conducted Modeste and her father to their +apartment, where Francoise Cochet had already put everything in order, +and the choice elegance of which astounded the colonel, more especially +after he heard from Francoise that there were thirty other apartments in +the chateau decorated with the same taste. + +“This is what I call a proper country-house,” said Modeste. + +“The Comte de La Bastie must build you one like it,” replied her father. + +“Here, monsieur,” said Modeste, giving the bit of paper to Ernest; +“carry it to our friend and put him out of his misery.” + +The word _our_ friend struck the young man’s heart. He looked at Modeste +to see if there was anything real in the community of interests which +she seemed to admit, and she, understanding perfectly what his look +meant, added, “Come, go at once, your friend is waiting.” + +La Briere colored excessively, and left the room in a state of doubt and +anxiety less endurable than despair. The path that approaches happiness +is, to the true lover, like the narrow way which Catholic poetry has +called the entrance to Paradise,--expressing thus a dark and gloomy +passage, echoing with the last cries of earthly anguish. + +An hour later this illustrious company were all assembled in the +salon; some were playing whist, others conversing; the women had their +embroideries in hand, and all were waiting the announcement of dinner. +The Prince de Cadignan was drawing Monsieur Mignon out upon China, +and his campaigns under the empire, and making him talk about the +Portendueres, the L’Estorades, and the Maucombes, Provencal families; he +blamed him for not seeking service, and assured him that nothing would +be easier than to restore him to his rank as colonel of the Guard. + +“A man of your birth and your fortune ought not to belong to the present +Opposition,” said the prince, smiling. + +This society of distinguished persons not only pleased Modeste, but it +enabled her to acquire, during her stay, a perfection of manners which +without this revelation she would have lacked all her life. Show a clock +to an embryo mechanic, and you reveal to him the whole mechanism; he +thus develops the germs of his faculty which lie dormant within him. +In like manner Modeste had the instinct to appropriate the distinctive +qualities of Madame de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Chaulieu. For her, the +sight of these women was an education; whereas a bourgeois would merely +have ridiculed their ways or made them absurd by clumsy imitation. A +well-born, well-educated, and right-minded young woman like Modeste +fell naturally into connection with these people, and saw at once the +differences that separate the aristocratic world from the bourgeois +world, the provinces from the faubourg Saint-Germain; she caught the +almost imperceptible shadings; in short, she perceived the grace of the +“grande dame” without doubting that she could herself acquire it. She +noticed also that her father and La Briere appeared infinitely better +in this Olympus than Canalis. The great poet, abdicating his real +and incontestable power, that of the mind, became nothing more than +a courtier seeking a ministry, intriguing for an order, and forced to +please the whole galaxy. Ernest de La Briere, without ambitions, was +able to be himself; while Melchior became, to use a vulgar expression, +a mere toady, and courted the Prince de Loudon, the Duc de Rhetore, the +Vicomte de Serizy, or the Duc de Maufrigneuse, like a man not free +to assert himself, as did Colonel Mignon, who was justly proud of his +campaigns, and of the confidence of the Emperor Napoleon. Modeste took +note of the strained efforts of the man of real talent, seeking some +witticism that should raise a laugh, some clever speech, some compliment +with which to flatter these grand personages, whom it was his interest +to please. In a word, to Modeste’s eyes the peacock plucked out his +tail-feathers. + +Toward the middle of the evening the young girl sat down with the grand +equerry in a corner of the salon. She led him there purposely to end +a suit which she could no longer encourage if she wished to retain her +self-respect. + +“Monsieur le duc, if you really knew me,” she said, “you would +understand how deeply I am touched by your attentions. It is because of +the profound respect I feel for your character, and the friendship which +a soul like yours inspires in mine, that I cannot endure to wound your +self-love. Before your arrival in Havre I loved sincerely, deeply, and +forever, one who is worthy of being loved, and my affection for whom +is still a secret; but I wish you to know--and in saying this I am +more sincere than most young girls--that had I not already formed this +voluntary attachment, you would have been my choice, for I recognize +your noble and beautiful qualities. A few words which your aunt and +sister have said to me as to your intentions lead me to make this frank +avowal. If you think it desirable, a letter from my mother shall recall +me, on pretence of her illness, to-morrow morning before the hunt +begins. Without your consent I do not choose to be present at a fete +which I owe to your kindness, and where, if my secret should escape me, +you might feel hurt and defrauded. You will ask me why I have come here +at all. I could not withstand the invitation. Be generous enough not to +reproach me for what was almost a necessary curiosity. But this is not +the chief, not the most delicate thing I have to say to you. You have +firm friends in my father and myself,--more so than perhaps you realize; +and as my fortune was the first cause that brought you to me, I wish +to say--but without intending to use it as a sedative to calm the grief +which gallantry requires you to testify--that my father has thought +over the affair of the marshes, his friend Dumay thinks your project +feasible, and they have already taken steps to form a company. +Gobenheim, Dumay, and my father have subscribed fifteen hundred thousand +francs, and undertake to get the rest from capitalists, who will feel +it in their interest to take up the matter. If I have not the honor +of becoming the Duchesse d’Herouville, I have almost the certainty of +enabling you to choose her, free from all trammels in your choice, +and in a higher sphere than mine. Oh! let me finish,” she cried, at a +gesture from the duke. + +“Judging by my nephew’s emotion,” whispered Mademoiselle d’Herouville to +her niece, “it is easy to see you have a sister.” + +“Monsieur le duc, all this was settled in my mind the day of our first +ride, when I heard you deplore your situation. This is what I have +wished to say to you. That day determined my future life. Though you +did not make the conquest of a woman, you have at least gained faithful +friends at Ingouville--if you will deign to accord us that title.” + +This little discourse, which Modeste had carefully thought over, +was said with so much charm of soul that the tears came to the grand +equerry’s eyes; he seized her hand and kissed it. + +“Stay during the hunt,” he said; “my want of merit has accustomed me +to these refusals; but while accepting your friendship and that of the +colonel, you must let me satisfy myself by the judgment of competent +scientific men, that the draining of those marshes will be no risk to +the company you speak of, before I agree to the generous offer of your +friends. You are a noble girl, and though my heart aches to think I can +only be your friend, I will glory in that title, and prove it to you at +all times and in all seasons.” + +“In that case, Monsieur le duc, let us keep our secret. My choice will +not be known, at least I think not, until after my mother’s complete +recovery. I should like our first blessing to come from her eyes.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. CONCLUSION + +“Ladies,” said the Prince de Cadignan, as the guests were about to +separate for the night, “I know that several of you propose to follow +the hounds with us to-morrow, and it becomes my duty to tell you that if +you will be Dianas you must rise, like Diana, with the dawn. The meet is +for half-past eight o’clock. I have in the course of my life seen many +women display greater courage than men, but for a few seconds only; and +you will need a strong dose of resolution to keep you on horseback the +whole day, barring a halt for breakfast, which we shall take, like true +hunters and huntresses, on the nail. Are you still determined to show +yourselves trained horse-women?” + +“Prince, it is necessary for me to do so,” said Modeste, adroitly. + +“I answer for myself,” said the Duchesse de Chaulieu. + +“And I for my daughter Diane; she is worthy of her name,” added the +prince. “So, then, you all persist in your intentions? However, I shall +arrange, for the sake of Madame and Mademoiselle de Verneuil and others +of the party who stay at home, to drive the stag to the further end of +the pond.” + +“Make yourself quite easy, mesdames,” said the Prince de Loudon, when +the Royal Huntsman had left the room; “that breakfast ‘on the nail’ will +take place under a comfortable tent.” + +The next day, at dawn, all signs gave promise of a glorious day. The +skies, veiled by a slight gray vapor, showed spaces of purest blue, and +would surely be swept clear before mid-day by the northwest wind, which +was already playing with the fleecy cloudlets. As the hunting party left +the chateau, the Master of the Hunt, the Duc de Rhetore, and the Prince +de Loudon, who had no ladies to escort, rode in the advance, noticing +the white masses of the chateau, with its rising chimneys relieved +against the brilliant red-brown foliage which the trees in Normandy put +on at the close of a fine autumn. + +“The ladies are fortunate in their weather,” remarked the Duc de +Rhetore. + +“Oh, in spite of all their boasting,” replied the Prince de Cadignan, “I +think they will let us hunt without them!” + +“So they might, if each had not a squire,” said the duke. + +At this moment the attention of these determined huntsmen--for the +Prince de Loudon and the Duc de Rhetore are of the race of Nimrod, and +the best shots of the faubourg Saint-Germain--was attracted by a loud +altercation; and they spurred their horses to an open space at the +entrance to the forest of Rosembray, famous for its mossy turf, which +was appointed for the meet. The cause of the quarrel was soon apparent. +The Prince de Loudon, afflicted with anglomania, had brought out his own +hunting establishment, which was exclusively Britannic, and placed it +under orders of the Master of the Hunt. Now, one of his men, a little +Englishman,--fair, pale, insolent, and phlegmatic, scarcely able to +speak a word of French, and dressed with a neatness which distinguishes +all Britons, even those of the lower classes,--had posted himself on one +side of this open space. John Barry wore a short frock-coat, buttoned +tightly at the waist, made of scarlet cloth, with buttons bearing the De +Verneuil arms, white leather breeches, top-boots, a striped waistcoat, +and a collar and cape of black velvet. He held in his hand a small +hunting-whip, and hanging to his wrist by a silken cord was a +brass horn. This man, the first whipper-in, was accompanied by two +thorough-bred dogs,--fox-hounds, white, with liver spots, long in the +leg, fine in the muzzle, with slender heads, and little ears at their +crests. The huntsman--famous in the English county from which the +Prince de Loudon had obtained him at great cost--was in charge of an +establishment of fifteen horses and sixty English hounds, which cost the +Duc de Verneuil, who was nothing of a huntsman, but chose to indulge his +son in this essentially royal taste, an enormous sum of money to keep +up. + +Now, when John arrived on the ground, he found himself forestalled by +three other whippers-in, in charge of two of the royal packs of hounds +which had been brought there in carts. They were the three best huntsmen +of the Prince de Cadignan, and presented, both in character and in their +distinctively French costume, a marked contrast to the representative +of insolent Albion. These favorites of the Prince, each wearing +full-brimmed, three-cornered hats, very flat and very wide-spreading, +beneath which grinned their swarthy, tanned, and wrinkled faces, lighted +by three pairs of twinkling eyes, were noticeably lean, sinewy, and +vigorous, like men in whom sport had become a passion. All three were +supplied with immense horns of Dampierre, wound with green worsted +cords, leaving only the brass tubes visible; but they controlled their +dogs by the eye and voice. Those noble animals were far more faithful +and submissive subjects than the human lieges whom the king was at that +moment addressing; all were marked with white, black, or liver spots, +each having as distinctive a countenance as the soldiers of Napoleon, +their eyes flashing like diamonds at the slightest noise. One of them, +brought from Poitou, was short in the back, deep in the shoulder, +low-jointed, and lop-eared; the other, from England, white, fine as a +greyhound with no belly, small ears, and built for running. Both were +young, impatient, and yelping eagerly, while the old hounds, on the +contrary, covered with scars, lay quietly with their heads on their +forepaws, and their ears to the earth like savages. + +As the Englishman came up, the royal dogs and huntsmen looked at each +other as though they said, “If we cannot hunt by ourselves his Majesty’s +service is insulted.” + +Beginning with jests, the quarrel presently grew fiercer between +Monsieur Jacquin La Roulie, the old French whipper-in, and John Barry, +the young islander. The two princes guessed from afar the subject of +the altercation, and the Master of the Hunt, setting spurs to his horse, +brought it to an end by saying, in a voice of authority:-- + +“Who drew the wood?” + +“I, monseigneur,” said the Englishman. + +“Very good,” said the Prince de Cadignan, proceeding to take Barry’s +report. + +Dogs and men became silent and respectful before the Royal Huntsman, as +though each recognized his dignity as supreme. The prince laid out the +day’s work; for it is with a hunt as it is with a battle, and the +Master of Charles X.’s hounds was the Napoleon of forests. Thanks to the +admirable system which he has introduced into French venery, he was able +to turn his thoughts exclusively to the science and strategy of it. +He now quietly assigned a special duty to the Prince de Loudon’s +establishment, that of driving the stag to water, when, as he expected, +the royal hounds had sent it into the Crown forest which outlined the +horizon directly in front of the chateau. The prince knew well how to +soothe the self-love of his old huntsmen by giving them the most arduous +part of the work, and also that of the Englishman, whom he employed at +his own speciality, affording him a chance to show the fleetness of his +horses and dogs in the open. The two national systems were thus face to +face and allowed to do their best under each other’s eyes. + +“Does monseigneur wish us to wait any longer?” said La Roulie, +respectfully. + +“I know what you mean, old friend,” said the prince. “It is late, but--” + +“Here come the ladies,” said the second whipper-in. + +At that moment the cavalcade of sixteen riders was seen to approach +at the head of which were the green veils of the four ladies. Modeste, +accompanied by her father, the grand equerry, and La Briere, was in the +advance, beside the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse whom the Vicomte de Serizy +escorted. Behind them rode the Duchesse de Chaulieu, flanked by Canalis, +on whom she was smiling without a trace of rancor. When they had reached +the open space where the huntsmen with their red coats and brass bugles, +surrounded by the hounds, made a picture worthy of Van der Meulen, the +Duchesse de Chaulieu, who, in spite of her embonpoint, sat her horse +admirably, rode up to Modeste, finding it more for her dignity not to +avoid that young person, to whom the evening before she had not said a +single word. + +When the Master of the Hunt finished his compliments to the ladies on +their amazing punctuality, Eleonore deigned to observe the magnificent +whip which sparked in Modeste’s little hand, and graciously asked leave +to look at it. + +“I have never seen anything of the kind more beautiful,” she said, +showing it to Diane de Maufrigneuse. “It is in keeping with its +possessor,” she added, returning it to Modeste. + +“You must admit, Madame la duchesse,” answered Mademoiselle de La +Bastie, with a tender and malicious glance at La Briere, “that it is a +rather strange gift from the hand of a future husband.” + +“I should take it,” said Madame de Maufrigneuse, “as a declaration of my +rights, in remembrance of Louis XIV.” + +La Briere’s eyes were suffused, and for a moment he dropped his +reins; but a second glance from Modeste ordered him not to betray his +happiness. The hunt now began. + +The Duc d’Herouville took occasion to say in a low voice to his +fortunate rival; “Monsieur, I hope that you will make your wife happy; +if I can be useful to you in any way, command my services; I should be +only too glad to contribute to the happiness of so charming a pair.” + +This great day, in which such vast interests of heart and fortune were +decided, caused but one anxiety to the Master of the Hunt,--namely, +whether or not the stag would cross the pond and be killed on the +lawn before the house; for huntsmen of his calibre are like great +chess-players who can predict a checkmate under certain circumstances. +The happy old man succeeded to the height of his wishes; the run was +magnificent, and the ladies released him from his attendance upon them +for the hunt of the next day but one,--which, however, turned out to be +rainy. + +The Duc de Verneuil’s guests stayed five days at Rosembray. On the last +day the Gazette de France announced the appointment of Monsieur le Baron +de Canalis to the rank of commander of the Legion of honor, and to the +post of minister at Carlsruhe. + +When, early in the month of December, Madame de La Bastie, operated upon +by Desplein, recovered her sight and saw Ernest de La Briere for the +first time, she pressed Modeste’s hand and whispered in her ear, “I +should have chosen him myself.” + +Toward the last of February all the deeds for the estates in Provence +were signed by Latournelle, and about that time the family of La Bastie +obtained the marked honor of the king’s signature to the marriage +contract and to the ordinance transmitting their title and arms to La +Briere, who henceforth took the name of La Briere-La Bastie. The estate +of La Bastie was entailed by letters-patent issued about the end of +April. La Briere’s witnesses on the occasion of his marriage were +Canalis and the minister whom he had served for five years as secretary. +Those of the bride were the Duc d’Herouville and Desplein, whom the +Mignons long held in grateful remembrance, after giving him magnificent +and substantial proofs of their regard. + +Later, in the course of this long history of our manners and customs, we +may again meet Monsieur and Madame de La Briere-La Bastie; and those +who have the eyes to see, will then behold how sweet, how easy, is the +marriage yoke with an educated and intelligent woman; for Modeste, who +had the wit to avoid the follies of pedantry, is the pride and happiness +of her husband, as she is of her family and of all those who surround +her. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Beaupre, Fanny A Start in Life + The Muse of the Department + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + +Bixiou, Jean-Jacques The Purse + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Government Clerks + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Firm of Nucingen + The Muse of the Department + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + Beatrix + A Man of Business + Gaudissart II. + The Unconscious Humorists + Cousin Pons + +Blondet, Emile Jealousies of a Country Town + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Another Study of Woman + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + The Firm of Nucingen + The Peasantry + +Bridau, Joseph The Purse + A Bachelor’s Establishment + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Start in Life + Another Study of Woman + Pierre Grassou + Letters of Two Brides + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + +Cadignan, Prince de The Secrets of a Princess + +Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de Letters of Two Brides + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Magic Skin + Another Study of Woman + A Start in Life + Beatrix + The Unconscious Humorists + The Member for Arcis + +Chatillonest, De A Woman of Thirty + +Chaulieu, Henri, Duc de Letters of Two Brides + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Thirteen + +Dauriat A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + +Desplein The Atheist’s Mass + Cousin Pons + Lost Illusions + The Thirteen + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Honorine + +Estourny, Charles d’ Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + A Man of Business + +Fontaine, Comte de The Chouans + The Ball at Sceaux + Cesar Birotteau + The Government Clerks + +Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de The Gondreville Mystery + The Thirteen + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + +Herouville, Duc d’ The Hated Son + Jealousies of a Country Town + Cousin Betty + +La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de The Government Clerks + +La Bastie la Briere, Madame Ernest de (Modeste) The Member for Arcis + Cousin Betty + +Loudon, Prince de The Chouans + +Marsay, Henri de The Thirteen + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + +Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de The Secrets of a Princess + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Muse of the Department + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Letters of Two Brides + Another Study of Woman + The Gondreville Mystery + The Member for Arcis + +Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de Father Goriot + The Thirteen + Eugenie Grandet + Cesar Birotteau + Melmoth Reconciled + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Commission in Lunacy + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Firm of Nucingen + Another Study of Woman + A Daughter of Eve + The Member for Arcis + +Schinner, Hippolyte The Purse + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Pierre Grassou + A Start in Life + Albert Savarus + The Government Clerks + The Imaginary Mistress + The Unconscious Humorists + +Serizy, Comte Hugret de A Start in Life + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Honorine + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + +Serizy, Vicomte de A Start in Life + The Imaginary Mistress + +Sommervieux, Theodore de At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + The Government Clerks + +Stidmann Beatrix + The Member for Arcis + Cousin Betty + Cousin Pons + The Unconscious Humorists + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Modeste Mignon, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1482 *** |