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diff --git a/1680-0.txt b/1680-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2faa73 --- /dev/null +++ b/1680-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2508 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s At the Sign of the Cat and Racket, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Clara Bell + +Release Date: March, 1998 [Etext #1680] +Posting Date: February 28, 2010 +Last Updated: November 23, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET + + +By Honore De Balzac + + +Translated by Clara Bell + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Mademoiselle Marie de Montheau + + + + + +AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET + + +Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du +Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which +enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening +walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with +hieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xs +and Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, +outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that +every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightest +vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of +which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped +by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the +roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to +shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper +story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, +no doubt, not to overweight the frail house. + +One rainy morning in the month of March, a young man, carefully wrapped +in his cloak, stood under the awning of a shop opposite this old house, +which he was studying with the enthusiasm of an antiquary. In point of +fact, this relic of the civic life of the sixteenth century offered +more than one problem to the consideration of an observer. Each story +presented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow +windows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, +so as to produce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman can +ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man +seemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet +rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds +were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large +Bohemian glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention was +attracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, so +clumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum of +Arts and Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry. +These windows were glazed with small squares of glass so green that, but +for his good eyes, the young man could not have seen the blue-checked +cotton curtains which screened the mysteries of the room from profane +eyes. Now and then the watcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation, +or of the silence in which the house was buried, like the whole +neighborhood, dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary +smile parted his lips each time he looked at the shop, where, in fact, +there were some laughable details. + +A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars, which appeared to +have bent under the weight of the decrepit house, had been encrusted +with as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an old +duchess’ cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carved +joist there was an old painting representing a cat playing rackets. This +picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be said +that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical a +caricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as big as +itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball, +returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and +accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that the +artist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passing +observer. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yet +more grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must have +puzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat’s tail had been +eaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for the +figure of a spectator--so long, and thick, and furry were the tails of +our forefathers’ cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure field +which ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might be read the name +“Guillaume,” and to the left, “Successor to Master Chevrel.” Sun and +rain had worn away most of the gilding parsimoniously applied to the +letters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changed +places in obedience to the laws of old-world orthography. + +To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growing +cleverer day by day, and that modern humbug surpasses everything, it may +be observed that these signs, of which the origin seems so whimsical to +many Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of once living pictures +by which our roguish ancestors contrived to tempt customers into their +houses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, were +animals in cages whose skills astonished the passer-by, and whose +accomplishments prove the patience of the fifteenth-century artisan. +Such curiosities did more to enrich their fortunate owners than the +signs of “Providence,” “Good-faith,” “Grace of God,” and “Decapitation +of John the Baptist,” which may still be seen in the Rue Saint-Denis. + +However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire the +cat, which a minute’s attention sufficed to stamp on his memory. The +young man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after the +manner of an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all the more +remarkable in the midst of the Paris mud, because he wore white silk +stockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He had just +come, no doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hour he had +in his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black hair, now out of curl, +and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been dressed _a la +Caracalla_, a fashion introduced as much by David’s school of painting +as by the mania for Greek and Roman styles which characterized the early +years of this century. + +In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late, +rattled past towards the great market-place at a gallop, the busy street +lay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only to those who +have wandered through deserted Paris at the hours when its roar, hushed +for a moment, rises and spreads in the distance like the great voice +of the sea. This strange young man must have seemed as curious to the +shopkeeping folk of the “Cat and Racket” as the “Cat and Racket” was +to him. A dazzlingly white cravat made his anxious face look even paler +than it really was. The fire that flashed in his black eyes, gloomy +and sparkling by turns, was in harmony with the singular outline of +his features, with his wide, flexible mouth, hardened into a smile. His +forehead, knit with violent annoyance, had a stamp of doom. Is not the +forehead the most prophetic feature of a man? When the stranger’s +brow expressed passion the furrows formed in it were terrible in their +strength and energy; but when he recovered his calmness, so easily +upset, it beamed with a luminous grace which gave great attractiveness +to a countenance in which joy, grief, love, anger, or scorn blazed out +so contagiously that the coldest man could not fail to be impressed. + +He was so thoroughly vexed by the time when the dormer-window of the +loft was suddenly flung open, that he did not observe the apparition of +three laughing faces, pink and white and chubby, but as vulgar as the +face of Commerce as it is seen in sculpture on certain monuments. These +three faces, framed by the window, recalled the puffy cherubs floating +among the clouds that surround God the Father. The apprentices snuffed +up the exhalations of the street with an eagerness that showed how hot +and poisonous the atmosphere of their garret must be. After pointing to +the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he seemed, of the apprentices +retired and came back holding an instrument whose hard metal pipe is now +superseded by a leather tube; and they all grinned with mischief as they +looked down on the loiterer, and sprinkled him with a fine white +shower of which the scent proved that three chins had just been shaved. +Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest corner of their loft, to enjoy +their victim’s rage, the lads ceased laughing on seeing the haughty +indifference with which the young man shook his cloak, and the +intense contempt expressed by his face as he glanced up at the empty +window-frame. + +At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of +the clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners, +of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavy +panes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his long +waiting. The face of a young girl appeared, as fresh as one of the +white cups that bloom on the bosom of the waters, crowned by a frill +of tumbled muslin, which gave her head a look of exquisite innocence. +Though wrapped in brown stuff, her neck and shoulders gleamed here +and there through little openings left by her movements in sleep. No +expression of embarrassment detracted from the candor of her face, or +the calm look of eyes immortalized long since in the sublime works of +Raphael; here were the same grace, the same repose as in those Virgins, +and now proverbial. There was a delightful contrast between the cheeks +of that face on which sleep had, as it were, given high relief to a +superabundance of life, and the antiquity of the heavy window with its +clumsy shape and black sill. Like those day-blowing flowers, which +in the early morning have not yet unfurled their cups, twisted by the +chills of night, the girl, as yet hardly awake, let her blue eyes wander +beyond the neighboring roofs to look at the sky; then, from habit, +she cast them down on the gloomy depths of the street, where they +immediately met those of her adorer. Vanity, no doubt, distressed her at +being seen in undress; she started back, the worn pulley gave way, and +the sash fell with the rapid run, which in our day has earned for this +artless invention of our forefathers an odious name, _Fenetre a la +Guillotine_. The vision had disappeared. To the young man the most +radiant star of morning seemed to be hidden by a cloud. + +During these little incidents the heavy inside shutters that protected +the slight windows of the shop of the “Cat and Racket” had been removed +as if by magic. The old door with its knocker was opened back against +the wall of the entry by a man-servant, apparently coeval with the sign, +who, with a shaking hand, hung upon it a square of cloth, on which were +embroidered in yellow silk the words: “Guillaume, successor to Chevrel.” + Many a passer-by would have found it difficult to guess the class of +trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between the strong iron bars +which protected his shop windows on the outside, certain packages, +wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, though as numerous as +herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the primitive aspect of +the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the merchant clothiers in +Paris, was the one whose stores were always the best provided, whose +connections were the most extensive, and whose commercial honesty never +lay under the slightest suspicion. If some of his brethren in business +made a contract with the Government, and had not the required quantity +of cloth, he was always ready to deliver it, however large the number of +pieces tendered for. The wily dealer knew a thousand ways of extracting +the largest profits without being obliged, like them, to court +patrons, cringing to them, or making them costly presents. When his +fellow-tradesmen could only pay in good bills of long date, he would +mention his notary as an accommodating man, and managed to get a second +profit out of the bargain, thanks to this arrangement, which had made it +a proverb among the traders of the Rue Saint-Denis: “Heaven preserve you +from Monsieur Guillaume’s notary!” to signify a heavy discount. + +The old merchant was to be seen standing on the threshold of his shop, +as if by a miracle, the instant the servant withdrew. Monsieur Guillaume +looked at the Rue Saint-Denis, at the neighboring shops, and at the +weather, like a man disembarking at Havre, and seeing France once more +after a long voyage. Having convinced himself that nothing had changed +while he was asleep, he presently perceived the stranger on guard, and +he, on his part, gazed at the patriarchal draper as Humboldt may have +scrutinized the first electric eel he saw in America. Monsieur Guillaume +wore loose black velvet breeches, pepper-and-salt stockings, and square +toed shoes with silver buckles. His coat, with square-cut fronts, +square-cut tails, and square-cut collar clothed his slightly bent figure +in greenish cloth, finished with white metal buttons, tawny from wear. +His gray hair was so accurately combed and flattened over his yellow +pate that it made it look like a furrowed field. His little green eyes, +that might have been pierced with a gimlet, flashed beneath arches +faintly tinged with red in the place of eyebrows. Anxieties had wrinkled +his forehead with as many horizontal lines as there were creases in his +coat. This colorless face expressed patience, commercial shrewdness, +and the sort of wily cupidity which is needful in business. At that +time these old families were less rare than they are now, in which the +characteristic habits and costume of their calling, surviving in +the midst of more recent civilization, were preserved as cherished +traditions, like the antediluvian remains found by Cuvier in the +quarries. + +The head of the Guillaume family was a notable upholder of ancient +practices; he might be heard to regret the Provost of Merchants, and +never did he mention a decision of the Tribunal of Commerce without +calling it the _Sentence of the Consuls_. Up and dressed the first of +the household, in obedience, no doubt, to these old customs, he stood +sternly awaiting the appearance of his three assistants, ready to scold +them in case they were late. These young disciples of Mercury knew +nothing more terrible than the wordless assiduity with which the master +scrutinized their faces and their movements on Monday in search of +evidence or traces of their pranks. But at this moment the old clothier +paid no heed to his apprentices; he was absorbed in trying to divine the +motive of the anxious looks which the young man in silk stockings and a +cloak cast alternately at his signboard and into the depths of his shop. +The daylight was now brighter, and enabled the stranger to discern the +cashier’s corner enclosed by a railing and screened by old green silk +curtains, where were kept the immense ledgers, the silent oracles of the +house. The too inquisitive gazer seemed to covet this little nook, +and to be taking the plan of a dining-room at one side, lighted by +a skylight, whence the family at meals could easily see the smallest +incident that might occur at the shop-door. So much affection for his +dwelling seemed suspicious to a trader who had lived long enough to +remember the law of maximum prices; Monsieur Guillaume naturally thought +that this sinister personage had an eye to the till of the Cat and +Racket. After quietly observing the mute duel which was going on between +his master and the stranger, the eldest of the apprentices, having seen +that the young man was stealthily watching the windows of the third +floor, ventured to place himself on the stone flag where Monsieur +Guillaume was standing. He took two steps out into the street, raised +his head, and fancied that he caught sight of Mademoiselle Augustine +Guillaume in hasty retreat. The draper, annoyed by his assistant’s +perspicacity, shot a side glance at him; but the draper and his amorous +apprentice were suddenly relieved from the fears which the young man’s +presence had excited in their minds. He hailed a hackney cab on its +way to a neighboring stand, and jumped into it with an air of affected +indifference. This departure was a balm to the hearts of the other two +lads, who had been somewhat uneasy as to meeting the victim of their +practical joke. + +“Well, gentlemen, what ails you that you are standing there with your +arms folded?” said Monsieur Guillaume to his three neophytes. “In former +days, bless you, when I was in Master Chevrel’s service, I should have +overhauled more than two pieces of cloth by this time.” + +“Then it was daylight earlier,” said the second assistant, whose duty +this was. + +The old shopkeeper could not help smiling. Though two of these +young fellows, who were confided to his care by their fathers, rich +manufacturers at Louviers and at Sedan, had only to ask and to have a +hundred thousand francs the day when they were old enough to settle in +life, Guillaume regarded it as his duty to keep them under the rod of an +old-world despotism, unknown nowadays in the showy modern shops, where +the apprentices expect to be rich men at thirty. He made them work like +Negroes. These three assistants were equal to a business which would +harry ten such clerks as those whose sybaritical tastes now swell the +columns of the budget. Not a sound disturbed the peace of this solemn +house, where the hinges were always oiled, and where the meanest article +of furniture showed the respectable cleanliness which reveals strict +order and economy. The most waggish of the three youths often amused +himself by writing the date of its first appearance on the Gruyere +cheese which was left to their tender mercies at breakfast, and which it +was their pleasure to leave untouched. This bit of mischief, and a few +others of the same stamp, would sometimes bring a smile on the face of +the younger of Guillaume’s daughters, the pretty maiden who has just now +appeared to the bewitched man in the street. + +Though each of these apprentices, even the eldest, paid a round sum for +his board, not one of them would have been bold enough to remain at the +master’s table when dessert was served. When Madame Guillaume talked of +dressing the salad, the hapless youths trembled as they thought of the +thrift with which her prudent hand dispensed the oil. They could never +think of spending a night away from the house without having given, long +before, a plausible reason for such an irregularity. Every Sunday, each +in his turn, two of them accompanied the Guillaume family to Mass at +Saint-Leu, and to vespers. Mesdemoiselles Virginie and Augustine, simply +attired in cotton print, each took the arm of an apprentice and walked +in front, under the piercing eye of their mother, who closed the little +family procession with her husband, accustomed by her to carry two large +prayer-books, bound in black morocco. The second apprentice received +no salary. As for the eldest, whose twelve years of perseverance and +discretion had initiated him into the secrets of the house, he was paid +eight hundred francs a year as the reward of his labors. On certain +family festivals he received as a gratuity some little gift, to which +Madame Guillaume’s dry and wrinkled hand alone gave value--netted +purses, which she took care to stuff with cotton wool, to show off the +fancy stitches, braces of the strongest make, or heavy silk stockings. +Sometimes, but rarely, this prime minister was admitted to share the +pleasures of the family when they went into the country, or when, after +waiting for months, they made up their mind to exert the right acquired +by taking a box at the theatre to command a piece which Paris had +already forgotten. + +As to the other assistants, the barrier of respect which formerly +divided a master draper from his apprentices was that they would +have been more likely to steal a piece of cloth than to infringe this +time-honored etiquette. Such reserve may now appear ridiculous; but +these old houses were a school of honesty and sound morals. The masters +adopted their apprentices. The young man’s linen was cared for, mended, +and often replaced by the mistress of the house. If an apprentice fell +ill, he was the object of truly maternal attention. In a case of +danger the master lavished his money in calling in the most celebrated +physicians, for he was not answerable to their parents merely for the +good conduct and training of the lads. If one of them, whose character +was unimpeachable, suffered misfortune, these old tradesmen knew how to +value the intelligence he had displayed, and they did not hesitate +to entrust the happiness of their daughters to men whom they had long +trusted with their fortunes. Guillaume was one of these men of the +old school, and if he had their ridiculous side, he had all their good +qualities; and Joseph Lebas, the chief assistant, an orphan without any +fortune, was in his mind destined to be the husband of Virginie, his +elder daughter. But Joseph did not share the symmetrical ideas of his +master, who would not for an empire have given his second daughter in +marriage before the elder. The unhappy assistant felt that his heart was +wholly given to Mademoiselle Augustine, the younger. In order to justify +this passion, which had grown up in secret, it is necessary to inquire +a little further into the springs of the absolute government which ruled +the old cloth-merchant’s household. + +Guillaume had two daughters. The elder, Mademoiselle Virginie, was +the very image of her mother. Madame Guillaume, daughter of the Sieur +Chevrel, sat so upright in the stool behind her desk, that more than +once she had heard some wag bet that she was a stuffed figure. Her +long, thin face betrayed exaggerated piety. Devoid of attractions or of +amiable manners, Madame Guillaume commonly decorated her head--that of +a woman near on sixty--with a cap of a particular and unvarying shape, +with long lappets, like that of a widow. In all the neighborhood she was +known as the “portress nun.” Her speech was curt, and her movements had +the stiff precision of a semaphore. Her eye, with a gleam in it like a +cat’s, seemed to spite the world because she was so ugly. Mademoiselle +Virginie, brought up, like her younger sister, under the domestic rule +of her mother, had reached the age of eight-and-twenty. Youth mitigated +the graceless effect which her likeness to her mother sometimes gave +to her features, but maternal austerity had endowed her with two great +qualities which made up for everything. She was patient and gentle. +Mademoiselle Augustine, who was but just eighteen, was not like either +her father or her mother. She was one of those daughters whose total +absence of any physical affinity with their parents makes one believe in +the adage: “God gives children.” Augustine was little, or, to describe +her more truly, delicately made. Full of gracious candor, a man of the +world could have found no fault in the charming girl beyond a certain +meanness of gesture or vulgarity of attitude, and sometimes a want of +ease. Her silent and placid face was full of the transient melancholy +which comes over all young girls who are too weak to dare to resist +their mother’s will. + +The two sisters, always plainly dressed, could not gratify the innate +vanity of womanhood but by a luxury of cleanliness which became them +wonderfully, and made them harmonize with the polished counters and +the shining shelves, on which the old man-servant never left a speck of +dust, and with the old-world simplicity of all they saw about them. As +their style of living compelled them to find the elements of happiness +in persistent work, Augustine and Virginie had hitherto always satisfied +their mother, who secretly prided herself on the perfect characters of +her two daughters. It is easy to imagine the results of the training +they had received. Brought up to a commercial life, accustomed to +hear nothing but dreary arguments and calculations about trade, having +studied nothing but grammar, book-keeping, a little Bible-history, and +the history of France in Le Ragois, and never reading any book but what +their mother would sanction, their ideas had not acquired much scope. +They knew perfectly how to keep house; they were familiar with the +prices of things; they understood the difficulty of amassing money; they +were economical, and had a great respect for the qualities that make a +man of business. Although their father was rich, they were as skilled +in darning as in embroidery; their mother often talked of having them +taught to cook, so that they might know how to order a dinner and scold +a cook with due knowledge. They knew nothing of the pleasures of the +world; and, seeing how their parents spent their exemplary lives, they +very rarely suffered their eyes to wander beyond the walls of their +hereditary home, which to their mother was the whole universe. The +meetings to which family anniversaries gave rise filled in the future of +earthly joy to them. + +When the great drawing-room on the second floor was to be prepared to +receive company--Madame Roguin, a Demoiselle Chevrel, fifteen months +younger than her cousin, and bedecked with diamonds; young Rabourdin, +employed in the Finance Office; Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, the rich +perfumer, and his wife, known as Madame Cesar; Monsieur Camusot, the +richest silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, with his father-in-law, +Monsieur Cardot, two or three old bankers, and some immaculate +ladies--the arrangements, made necessary by the way in which everything +was packed away--the plate, the Dresden china, the candlesticks, and the +glass--made a variety in the monotonous lives of the three women, who +came and went and exerted themselves as nuns would to receive their +bishop. Then, in the evening, when all three were tired out with having +wiped, rubbed, unpacked, and arranged all the gauds of the festival, as +the girls helped their mother to undress, Madame Guillaume would say to +them, “Children, we have done nothing today.” + +When, on very great occasions, “the portress nun” allowed dancing, +restricting the games of boston, whist, and backgammon within the limits +of her bedroom, such a concession was accounted as the most unhoped +felicity, and made them happier than going to the great balls, to two +or three of which Guillaume would take the girls at the time of the +Carnival. + +And once a year the worthy draper gave an entertainment, when he spared +no expense. However rich and fashionable the persons invited might be, +they were careful not to be absent; for the most important houses on +the exchange had recourse to the immense credit, the fortune, or the +time-honored experience of Monsieur Guillaume. Still, the excellent +merchant’s daughters did not benefit as much as might be supposed by the +lessons the world has to offer to young spirits. At these parties, which +were indeed set down in the ledger to the credit of the house, they wore +dresses the shabbiness of which made them blush. Their style of dancing +was not in any way remarkable, and their mother’s surveillance did not +allow of their holding any conversation with their partners beyond Yes +and No. Also, the law of the old sign of the Cat and Racket commanded +that they should be home by eleven o’clock, the hour when balls and +fetes begin to be lively. Thus their pleasures, which seemed to conform +very fairly to their father’s position, were often made insipid by +circumstances which were part of the family habits and principles. + +As to their usual life, one remark will sufficiently paint it. Madame +Guillaume required her daughters to be dressed very early in the +morning, to come down every day at the same hour, and she ordered their +employments with monastic regularity. Augustine, however, had been +gifted by chance with a spirit lofty enough to feel the emptiness of +such a life. Her blue eyes would sometimes be raised as if to pierce +the depths of that gloomy staircase and those damp store-rooms. After +sounding the profound cloistral silence, she seemed to be listening to +remote, inarticulate revelations of the life of passion, which accounts +feelings as of higher value than things. And at such moments her cheek +would flush, her idle hands would lay the muslin sewing on the polished +oak counter, and presently her mother would say in a voice, of which +even the softest tones were sour, “Augustine, my treasure, what are +you thinking about?” It is possible that two romances discovered +by Augustine in the cupboard of a cook Madame Guillaume had +lately discharged--_Hippolyte Comte de Douglas_ and _Le Comte de +Comminges_--may have contributed to develop the ideas of the young girl, +who had devoured them in secret, during the long nights of the past +winter. + +And so Augustine’s expression of vague longing, her gentle voice, her +jasmine skin, and her blue eyes had lighted in poor Lebas’ soul a +flame as ardent as it was reverent. From an easily understood caprice, +Augustine felt no affection for the orphan; perhaps she did not know +that he loved her. On the other hand, the senior apprentice, with his +long legs, his chestnut hair, his big hands and powerful frame, had +found a secret admirer in Mademoiselle Virginie, who, in spite of her +dower of fifty thousand crowns, had as yet no suitor. Nothing could +be more natural than these two passions at cross-purposes, born in the +silence of the dingy shop, as violets bloom in the depths of a wood. The +mute and constant looks which made the young people’s eyes meet by sheer +need of change in the midst of persistent work and cloistered peace, was +sure, sooner or later, to give rise to feelings of love. The habit of +seeing always the same face leads insensibly to our reading there the +qualities of the soul, and at last effaces all its defects. + +“At the pace at which that man goes, our girls will soon have to go on +their knees to a suitor!” said Monsieur Guillaume to himself, as he +read the first decree by which Napoleon drew in advance on the conscript +classes. + +From that day the old merchant, grieved at seeing his eldest daughter +fade, remembered how he had married Mademoiselle Chevrel under much the +same circumstances as those of Joseph Lebas and Virginie. A good bit +of business, to marry off his daughter, and discharge a sacred debt +by repaying to an orphan the benefit he had formerly received from +his predecessor under similar conditions! Joseph Lebas, who was now +three-and-thirty, was aware of the obstacle which a difference of +fifteen years placed between Augustine and himself. Being also too +clear-sighted not to understand Monsieur Guillaume’s purpose, he knew +his inexorable principles well enough to feel sure that the second would +never marry before the elder. So the hapless assistant, whose heart was +as warm as his legs were long and his chest deep, suffered in silence. + +This was the state of the affairs in the tiny republic which, in the +heart of the Rue Saint-Denis, was not unlike a dependency of La Trappe. +But to give a full account of events as well as of feelings, it is +needful to go back to some months before the scene with which this story +opens. At dusk one evening, a young man passing the darkened shop of the +Cat and Racket, had paused for a moment to gaze at a picture which might +have arrested every painter in the world. The shop was not yet lighted, +and was as a dark cave beyond which the dining-room was visible. A +hanging lamp shed the yellow light which lends such charm to pictures +of the Dutch school. The white linen, the silver, the cut glass, were +brilliant accessories, and made more picturesque by strong contrasts of +light and shade. The figures of the head of the family and his wife, the +faces of the apprentices, and the pure form of Augustine, near whom a +fat chubby-cheeked maid was standing, composed so strange a group; the +heads were so singular, and every face had so candid an expression; it +was so easy to read the peace, the silence, the modest way of life in +this family, that to an artist accustomed to render nature, there was +something hopeless in any attempt to depict this scene, come upon by +chance. The stranger was a young painter, who, seven years before, had +gained the first prize for painting. He had now just come back from +Rome. His soul, full-fed with poetry; his eyes, satiated with Raphael +and Michael Angelo, thirsted for real nature after long dwelling in the +pompous land where art has everywhere left something grandiose. Right or +wrong, this was his personal feeling. His heart, which had long been +a prey to the fire of Italian passion, craved one of those modest +and meditative maidens whom in Rome he had unfortunately seen only +in painting. From the enthusiasm produced in his excited fancy by the +living picture before him, he naturally passed to a profound admiration +for the principal figure; Augustine seemed to be pensive, and did not +eat; by the arrangement of the lamp the light fell full on her face, and +her bust seemed to move in a circle of fire, which threw up the shape of +her head and illuminated it with almost supernatural effect. The artist +involuntarily compared her to an exiled angel dreaming of heaven. An +almost unknown emotion, a limpid, seething love flooded his heart. After +remaining a minute, overwhelmed by the weight of his ideas, he tore +himself from his bliss, went home, ate nothing, and could not sleep. + +The next day he went to his studio, and did not come out of it till he +had placed on canvas the magic of the scene of which the memory had, in +a sense, made him a devotee; his happiness was incomplete till he should +possess a faithful portrait of his idol. He went many times past the +house of the Cat and Racket; he even ventured in once or twice, under +a disguise, to get a closer view of the bewitching creature that Madame +Guillaume covered with her wing. For eight whole months, devoted to his +love and to his brush, he was lost to the sight of his most intimate +friends forgetting the world, the theatre, poetry, music, and all his +dearest habits. One morning Girodet broke through all the barriers with +which artists are familiar, and which they know how to evade, went into +his room, and woke him by asking, “What are you going to send to the +Salon?” The artist grasped his friend’s hand, dragged him off to the +studio, uncovered a small easel picture and a portrait. After a long +and eager study of the two masterpieces, Girodet threw himself on his +comrade’s neck and hugged him, without speaking a word. His feelings +could only be expressed as he felt them--soul to soul. + +“You are in love?” said Girodet. + +They both knew that the finest portraits by Titian, Raphael, and +Leonardo da Vinci, were the outcome of the enthusiastic sentiments +by which, indeed, under various conditions, every masterpiece is +engendered. The artist only bent his head in reply. + +“How happy are you to be able to be in love, here, after coming back +from Italy! But I do not advise you to send such works as these to the +Salon,” the great painter went on. “You see, these two works will not +be appreciated. Such true coloring, such prodigious work, cannot yet be +understood; the public is not accustomed to such depths. The pictures +we paint, my dear fellow, are mere screens. We should do better to +turn rhymes, and translate the antique poets! There is more glory to be +looked for there than from our luckless canvases!” + +Notwithstanding this charitable advice, the two pictures were exhibited. +The _Interior_ made a revolution in painting. It gave birth to the +pictures of genre which pour into all our exhibitions in such prodigious +quantity that they might be supposed to be produced by machinery. As +to the portrait, few artists have forgotten that lifelike work; and the +public, which as a body is sometimes discerning, awarded it the crown +which Girodet himself had hung over it. The two pictures were surrounded +by a vast throng. They fought for places, as women say. Speculators and +moneyed men would have covered the canvas with double napoleons, but the +artist obstinately refused to sell or to make replicas. An enormous sum +was offered him for the right of engraving them, and the print-sellers +were not more favored than the amateurs. + +Though these incidents occupied the world, they were not of a nature to +penetrate the recesses of the monastic solitude in the Rue Saint-Denis. +However, when paying a visit to Madame Guillaume, the notary’s wife +spoke of the exhibition before Augustine, of whom she was very fond, +and explained its purpose. Madame Roguin’s gossip naturally inspired +Augustine with a wish to see the pictures, and with courage enough to +ask her cousin secretly to take her to the Louvre. Her cousin succeeded +in the negotiations she opened with Madame Guillaume for permission to +release the young girl for two hours from her dull labors. Augustine was +thus able to make her way through the crowd to see the crowned work. A +fit of trembling shook her like an aspen leaf as she recognized herself. +She was terrified, and looked about her to find Madame Roguin, from +whom she had been separated by a tide of people. At that moment her +frightened eyes fell on the impassioned face of the young painter. She +at once recalled the figure of a loiterer whom, being curious, she had +frequently observed, believing him to be a new neighbor. + +“You see how love has inspired me,” said the artist in the timid +creature’s ear, and she stood in dismay at the words. + +She found supernatural courage to enable her to push through the crowd +and join her cousin, who was still struggling with the mass of people +that hindered her from getting to the picture. + +“You will be stifled!” cried Augustine. “Let us go.” + +But there are moments, at the Salon, when two women are not always free +to direct their steps through the galleries. By the irregular course to +which they were compelled by the press, Mademoiselle Guillaume and her +cousin were pushed to within a few steps of the second picture. Chance +thus brought them, both together, to where they could easily see the +canvas made famous by fashion, for once in agreement with talent. Madame +Roguin’s exclamation of surprise was lost in the hubbub and buzz of the +crowd; Augustine involuntarily shed tears at the sight of this wonderful +study. Then, by an almost unaccountable impulse, she laid her finger on +her lips, as she perceived quite near her the ecstatic face of the young +painter. The stranger replied by a nod, and pointed to Madame Roguin, as +a spoil-sport, to show Augustine that he had understood. This pantomime +struck the young girl like hot coals on her flesh; she felt quite +guilty as she perceived that there was a compact between herself and the +artist. The suffocating heat, the dazzling sight of beautiful dresses, +the bewilderment produced in Augustine’s brain by the truth of coloring, +the multitude of living or painted figures, the profusion of gilt +frames, gave her a sense of intoxication which doubled her alarms. She +would perhaps have fainted if an unknown rapture had not surged up +in her heart to vivify her whole being, in spite of this chaos of +sensations. She nevertheless believed herself to be under the power +of the Devil, of whose awful snares she had been warned of by the +thundering words of preachers. This moment was to her like a moment of +madness. She found herself accompanied to her cousin’s carriage by the +young man, radiant with joy and love. Augustine, a prey to an agitation +new to her experience, an intoxication which seemed to abandon her to +nature, listened to the eloquent voice of her heart, and looked again +and again at the young painter, betraying the emotion that came over +her. Never had the bright rose of her cheeks shown in stronger contrast +with the whiteness of her skin. The artist saw her beauty in all its +bloom, her maiden modesty in all its glory. She herself felt a sort of +rapture mingled with terror at thinking that her presence had brought +happiness to him whose name was on every lip, and whose talent lent +immortality to transient scenes. She was loved! It was impossible to +doubt it. When she no longer saw the artist, these simple words still +echoed in her ear, “You see how love has inspired me!” And the throbs of +her heart, as they grew deeper, seemed a pain, her heated blood revealed +so many unknown forces in her being. She affected a severe headache to +avoid replying to her cousin’s questions concerning the pictures; but +on their return Madame Roguin could not forbear from speaking to Madame +Guillaume of the fame that had fallen on the house of the Cat and +Racket, and Augustine quaked in every limb as she heard her mother say +that she should go to the Salon to see her house there. The young girl +again declared herself suffering, and obtained leave to go to bed. + +“That is what comes of sight-seeing,” exclaimed Monsieur Guillaume--“a +headache. And is it so very amusing to see in a picture what you can +see any day in your own street? Don’t talk to me of your artists! Like +writers, they are a starveling crew. Why the devil need they choose my +house to flout it in their pictures?” + +“It may help to sell a few ells more of cloth,” said Joseph Lebas. + +This remark did not protect art and thought from being condemned once +again before the judgment-seat of trade. As may be supposed, these +speeches did not infuse much hope into Augustine, who, during the night, +gave herself up to the first meditations of love. The events of the day +were like a dream, which it was a joy to recall to her mind. She was +initiated into the fears, the hopes, the remorse, all the ebb and flow +of feeling which could not fail to toss a heart so simple and timid as +hers. What a void she perceived in this gloomy house! What a treasure +she found in her soul! To be the wife of a genius, to share his glory! +What ravages must such a vision make in the heart of a girl brought up +among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a young creature who, +in the midst of sordid elements, had pined for a life of elegance! A +sunbeam had fallen into the prison. Augustine was suddenly in love. So +many of her feelings were soothed that she succumbed without reflection. +At eighteen does not love hold a prism between the world and the eyes +of a young girl? She was incapable of suspecting the hard facts which +result from the union of a loving woman with a man of imagination, and +she believed herself called to make him happy, not seeing any disparity +between herself and him. To her the future would be as the present. +When, next day, her father and mother returned from the Salon, their +dejected faces proclaimed some disappointment. In the first place, the +painter had removed the two pictures; and then Madame Guillaume had lost +her cashmere shawl. But the news that the pictures had disappeared from +the walls since her visit revealed to Augustine a delicacy of sentiment +which a woman can always appreciate, even by instinct. + +On the morning when, on his way home from a ball, Theodore de +Sommervieux--for this was the name which fame had stamped on Augustine’s +heart--had been squirted on by the apprentices while awaiting the +appearance of his artless little friend, who certainly did not know that +he was there, the lovers had seen each other for the fourth time only +since their meeting at the Salon. The difficulties which the rule of +the house placed in the way of the painter’s ardent nature gave added +violence to his passion for Augustine. + +How could he get near to a young girl seated in a counting-house between +two such women as Mademoiselle Virginie and Madame Guillaume? How could +he correspond with her when her mother never left her side? Ingenious, +as lovers are, to imagine woes, Theodore saw a rival in one of the +assistants, to whose interests he supposed the others to be devoted. If +he should evade these sons of Argus, he would yet be wrecked under the +stern eye of the old draper or of Madame Guillaume. The very vehemence +of his passion hindered the young painter from hitting on the ingenious +expedients which, in prisoners and in lovers, seem to be the last effort +of intelligence spurred by a wild craving for liberty, or by the fire of +love. Theodore wandered about the neighborhood with the restlessness of +a madman, as though movement might inspire him with some device. +After racking his imagination, it occurred to him to bribe the blowsy +waiting-maid with gold. Thus a few notes were exchanged at long +intervals during the fortnight following the ill-starred morning when +Monsieur Guillaume and Theodore had so scrutinized one another. At +the present moment the young couple had agreed to see each other at a +certain hour of the day, and on Sunday, at Saint-Leu, during Mass and +vespers. Augustine had sent her dear Theodore a list of the relations +and friends of the family, to whom the young painter tried to get +access, in the hope of interesting, if it were possible, in his love +affairs, one of these souls absorbed in money and trade, to whom a +genuine passion must appear a quite monstrous speculation, a thing +unheard-of. Nothing meanwhile, was altered at the sign of the Cat and +Racket. If Augustine was absent-minded, if, against all obedience to the +domestic code, she stole up to her room to make signals by means of +a jar of flowers, if she sighed, if she were lost in thought, no one +observed it, not even her mother. This will cause some surprise to those +who have entered into the spirit of the household, where an idea tainted +with poetry would be in startling contrast to persons and things, where +no one could venture on a gesture or a look which would not be seen and +analyzed. Nothing, however, could be more natural: the quiet barque that +navigated the stormy waters of the Paris Exchange, under the flag of +the Cat and Racket, was just now in the toils of one of these tempests +which, returning periodically, might be termed equinoctial. For the +last fortnight the five men forming the crew, with Madame Guillaume and +Mademoiselle Virginie, had been devoting themselves to the hard labor, +known as stock-taking. + +Every bale was turned over, and the length verified to ascertain the +exact value of the remnant. The ticket attached to each parcel was +carefully examined to see at what time the piece had been bought. The +retail price was fixed. Monsieur Guillaume, always on his feet, his pen +behind his ear, was like a captain commanding the working of the ship. +His sharp tones, spoken through a trap-door, to inquire into the +depths of the hold in the cellar-store, gave utterance to the barbarous +formulas of trade-jargon, which find expression only in cipher. “How +much H. N. Z.?”--“All sold.”--“What is left of Q. X.?”--“Two ells.”--“At +what price?”--“Fifty-five three.”--“Set down A. at three, with all of +J. J., all of M. P., and what is left of V. D. O.”--A hundred other +injunctions equally intelligible were spouted over the counters like +verses of modern poetry, quoted by romantic spirits, to excite each +other’s enthusiasm for one of their poets. In the evening Guillaume, +shut up with his assistant and his wife, balanced his accounts, carried +on the balance, wrote to debtors in arrears, and made out bills. All +three were busy over this enormous labor, of which the result could be +stated on a sheet of foolscap, proving to the head of the house that +there was so much to the good in hard cash, so much in goods, so much +in bills and notes; that he did not owe a sou; that a hundred or two +hundred thousand francs were owing to him; that the capital had been +increased; that the farmlands, the houses, or the investments were +extended, or repaired, or doubled. Whence it became necessary to begin +again with increased ardor, to accumulate more crown-pieces, without its +ever entering the brain of these laborious ants to ask--“To what end?” + +Favored by this annual turmoil, the happy Augustine escaped the +investigations of her Argus-eyed relations. At last, one Saturday +evening, the stock-taking was finished. The figures of the sum-total +showed a row of 0’s long enough to allow Guillaume for once to relax the +stern rule as to dessert which reigned throughout the year. The shrewd +old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants to remain at +table. The members of the crew had hardly swallowed their thimbleful +of some home-made liqueur, when the rumble of a carriage was heard. The +family party were going to see _Cendrillon_ at the Varietes, while +the two younger apprentices each received a crown of six francs, with +permission to go wherever they chose, provided they were in by midnight. + +Notwithstanding this debauch, the old cloth-merchant was shaving himself +at six next morning, put on his maroon-colored coat, of which the +glowing lights afforded him perennial enjoyment, fastened a pair of gold +buckles on the knee-straps of his ample satin breeches; and then, at +about seven o’clock, while all were still sleeping in the house, he +made his way to the little office adjoining the shop on the first floor. +Daylight came in through a window, fortified by iron bars, and looking +out on a small yard surrounded by such black walls that it was very like +a well. The old merchant opened the iron-lined shutters, which were so +familiar to him, and threw up the lower half of the sash window. The icy +air of the courtyard came in to cool the hot atmosphere of the little +room, full of the odor peculiar to offices. + +The merchant remained standing, his hand resting on the greasy arm of +a large cane chair lined with morocco, of which the original hue had +disappeared; he seemed to hesitate as to seating himself. He looked with +affection at the double desk, where his wife’s seat, opposite his own, +was fitted into a little niche in the wall. He contemplated the +numbered boxes, the files, the implements, the cash box--objects all +of immemorial origin, and fancied himself in the room with the shade of +Master Chevrel. He even pulled out the high stool on which he had once +sat in the presence of his departed master. This stool, covered with +black leather, the horse-hair showing at every corner--as it had long +done, without, however, coming out--he placed with a shaking hand on the +very spot where his predecessor had put it, and then, with an emotion +difficult to describe, he pulled a bell, which rang at the head of +Joseph Lebas’ bed. When this decisive blow had been struck, the old man, +for whom, no doubt, these reminiscences were too much, took up three or +four bills of exchange, and looked at them without seeing them. + +Suddenly Joseph Lebas stood before him. + +“Sit down there,” said Guillaume, pointing to the stool. + +As the old master draper had never yet bid his assistant be seated in +his presence, Joseph Lebas was startled. + +“What do you think of these notes?” asked Guillaume. + +“They will never be paid.” + +“Why?” + +“Well, I heard the day before yesterday Etienne and Co. had made their +payments in gold.” + +“Oh, oh!” said the draper. “Well, one must be very ill to show one’s +bile. Let us speak of something else.--Joseph, the stock-taking is +done.” + +“Yes, monsieur, and the dividend is one of the best you have ever made.” + +“Do not use new-fangled words. Say the profits, Joseph. Do you know, my +boy, that this result is partly owing to you? And I do not intend to pay +you a salary any longer. Madame Guillaume has suggested to me to take +you into partnership.--‘Guillaume and Lebas;’ will not that make a +good business name? We might add, ‘and Co.’ to round off the firm’s +signature.” + +Tears rose to the eyes of Joseph Lebas, who tried to hide them. + +“Oh, Monsieur Guillaume, how have I deserved such kindness? I only do my +duty. It was so much already that you should take an interest in a poor +orph----” + +He was brushing the cuff of his left sleeve with his right hand, and +dared not look at the old man, who smiled as he thought that this modest +young fellow no doubt needed, as he had needed once on a time, some +encouragement to complete his explanation. + +“To be sure,” said Virginie’s father, “you do not altogether deserve +this favor, Joseph. You have not so much confidence in me as I have in +you.” (The young man looked up quickly.) “You know all the secrets +of the cash-box. For the last two years I have told you almost all +my concerns. I have sent you to travel in our goods. In short, I have +nothing on my conscience as regards you. But you--you have a soft place, +and you have never breathed a word of it.” Joseph Lebas blushed. “Ah, +ha!” cried Guillaume, “so you thought you could deceive an old fox like +me? When you knew that I had scented the Lecocq bankruptcy?” + +“What, monsieur?” replied Joseph Lebas, looking at his master as keenly +as his master looked at him, “you knew that I was in love?” + +“I know everything, you rascal,” said the worthy and cunning old +merchant, pulling the assistant’s ear. “And I forgive you--I did the +same myself.” + +“And you will give her to me?” + +“Yes--with fifty thousand crowns; and I will leave you as much by will, +and we will start on our new career under the name of a new firm. We +will do good business yet, my boy!” added the old man, getting up and +flourishing his arms. “I tell you, son-in-law, there is nothing like +trade. Those who ask what pleasure is to be found in it are simpletons. +To be on the scent of a good bargain, to hold your own on ‘Change, to +watch as anxiously as at the gaming-table whether Etienne and Co. will +fail or no, to see a regiment of Guards march past all dressed in your +cloth, to trip your neighbor up--honestly of course!--to make the goods +cheaper than others can; then to carry out an undertaking which you +have planned, which begins, grows, totters, and succeeds! to know the +workings of every house of business as well as a minister of police, so +as never to make a mistake; to hold up your head in the midst of wrecks, +to have friends by correspondence in every manufacturing town; is not +that a perpetual game, Joseph? That is life, that is! I shall die in +that harness, like old Chevrel, but taking it easy now, all the same.” + +In the heat of his eager rhetoric, old Guillaume had scarcely looked +at his assistant, who was weeping copiously. “Why, Joseph, my poor boy, +what is the matter?” + +“Oh, I love her so! Monsieur Guillaume, that my heart fails me; I +believe----” + +“Well, well, boy,” said the old man, touched, “you are happier than you +know, by God! For she loves you. I know it.” + +And he blinked his little green eyes as he looked at the young man. + +“Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augustine!” exclaimed Joseph Lebas +in his rapture. + +He was about to rush out of the room when he felt himself clutched by a +hand of iron, and his astonished master spun him round in front of him +once more. + +“What has Augustine to do with this matter?” he asked, in a voice which +instantly froze the luckless Joseph. + +“Is it not she that--that--I love?” stammered the assistant. + +Much put out by his own want of perspicacity, Guillaume sat down +again, and rested his long head in his hands to consider the perplexing +situation in which he found himself. Joseph Lebas, shamefaced and in +despair, remained standing. + +“Joseph,” the draper said with frigid dignity, “I was speaking of +Virginie. Love cannot be made to order, I know. I know, too, that you +can be trusted. We will forget all this. I will not let Augustine marry +before Virginie.--Your interest will be ten per cent.” + +The young man, to whom love gave I know not what power of courage and +eloquence, clasped his hand, and spoke in his turn--spoke for a quarter +of an hour, with so much warmth and feeling, that he altered the +situation. If the question had been a matter of business the old +tradesman would have had fixed principles to guide his decision; but, +tossed a thousand miles from commerce, on the ocean of sentiment, +without a compass, he floated, as he told himself, undecided in the face +of such an unexpected event. Carried away by his fatherly kindness, he +began to beat about the bush. + +“Deuce take it, Joseph, you must know that there are ten years between +my two children. Mademoiselle Chevrel was no beauty, still she has had +nothing to complain of in me. Do as I did. Come, come, don’t cry. Can +you be so silly? What is to be done? It can be managed perhaps. There +is always some way out of a scrape. And we men are not always devoted +Celadons to our wives--you understand? Madame Guillaume is very pious. +... Come. By Gad, boy, give your arm to Augustine this morning as we go +to Mass.” + +These were the phrases spoken at random by the old draper, and their +conclusion made the lover happy. He was already thinking of a friend of +his as a match for Mademoiselle Virginie, as he went out of the smoky +office, pressing his future father-in-law’s hand, after saying with a +knowing look that all would turn out for the best. + +“What will Madame Guillaume say to it?” was the idea that greatly +troubled the worthy merchant when he found himself alone. + +At breakfast Madame Guillaume and Virginie, to whom the draper had not +yet confided his disappointment, cast meaning glances at Joseph Lebas, +who was extremely embarrassed. The young assistant’s bashfulness +commended him to his mother-in-law’s good graces. The matron became +so cheerful that she smiled as she looked at her husband, and allowed +herself some little pleasantries of time-honored acceptance in such +simple families. She wondered whether Joseph or Virginie were the +taller, to ask them to compare their height. This preliminary fooling +brought a cloud to the master’s brow, and he even made such a point of +decorum that he desired Augustine to take the assistant’s arm on their +way to Saint-Leu. Madame Guillaume, surprised at this manly delicacy, +honored her husband with a nod of approval. So the procession left +the house in such order as to suggest no suspicious meaning to the +neighbors. + +“Does it not seem to you, Mademoiselle Augustine,” said the assistant, +and he trembled, “that the wife of a merchant whose credit is as good +as Monsieur Guillaume’s, for instance, might enjoy herself a little more +than Madame your mother does? Might wear diamonds--or keep a carriage? +For my part, if I were to marry, I should be glad to take all the work, +and see my wife happy. I would not put her into the counting-house. +In the drapery business, you see, a woman is not so necessary now as +formerly. Monsieur Guillaume was quite right to act as he did--and +besides, his wife liked it. But so long as a woman knows how to turn her +hand to the book-keeping, the correspondence, the retail business, the +orders, and her housekeeping, so as not to sit idle, that is enough. At +seven o’clock, when the shop is shut, I shall take my pleasures, go to +the play, and into company.--But you are not listening to me.” + +“Yes, indeed, Monsieur Joseph. What do you think of painting? That is a +fine calling.” + +“Yes. I know a master house-painter, Monsieur Lourdois. He is +well-to-do.” + +Thus conversing, the family reached the Church of Saint-Leu. There +Madame Guillaume reasserted her rights, and, for the first time, placed +Augustine next herself, Virginie taking her place on the fourth chair, +next to Lebas. During the sermon all went well between Augustine and +Theodore, who, standing behind a pillar, worshiped his Madonna with +fervent devotion; but at the elevation of the Host, Madame Guillaume +discovered, rather late, that her daughter Augustine was holding her +prayer-book upside down. She was about to speak to her strongly, when, +lowering her veil, she interrupted her own devotions to look in the +direction where her daughter’s eyes found attraction. By the help of her +spectacles she saw the young artist, whose fashionable elegance seemed +to proclaim him a cavalry officer on leave rather than a tradesman of +the neighborhood. It is difficult to conceive of the state of violent +agitation in which Madame Guillaume found herself--she, who flattered +herself on having brought up her daughters to perfection--on discovering +in Augustine a clandestine passion of which her prudery and ignorance +exaggerated the perils. She believed her daughter to be cankered to the +core. + +“Hold your book right way up, miss,” she muttered in a low voice, +tremulous with wrath. She snatched away the tell-tale prayer-book and +returned it with the letter-press right way up. “Do not allow your +eyes to look anywhere but at your prayers,” she added, “or I shall +have something to say to you. Your father and I will talk to you after +church.” + +These words came like a thunderbolt on poor Augustine. She felt faint; +but, torn between the distress she felt and the dread of causing a +commotion in church she bravely concealed her anguish. It was, however, +easy to discern the stormy state of her soul from the trembling of her +prayer-book, and the tears which dropped on every page she turned. From +the furious glare shot at him by Madame Guillaume the artist saw the +peril into which his love affair had fallen; he went out, with a raging +soul, determined to venture all. + +“Go to your room, miss!” said Madame Guillaume, on their return home; +“we will send for you, but take care not to quit it.” + +The conference between the husband and wife was conducted so secretly +that at first nothing was heard of it. Virginie, however, who had tried +to give her sister courage by a variety of gentle remonstrances, carried +her good nature so far as to listen at the door of her mother’s bedroom +where the discussion was held, to catch a word or two. The first time +she went down to the lower floor she heard her father exclaim, “Then, +madame, do you wish to kill your daughter?” + +“My poor dear!” said Virginie, in tears, “papa takes your part.” + +“And what do they want to do to Theodore?” asked the innocent girl. + +Virginie, inquisitive, went down again; but this time she stayed longer; +she learned that Joseph Lebas loved Augustine. It was written that on +this memorable day, this house, generally so peaceful, should be a hell. +Monsieur Guillaume brought Joseph Lebas to despair by telling him of +Augustine’s love for a stranger. Lebas, who had advised his friend to +become a suitor for Mademoiselle Virginie, saw all his hopes wrecked. +Mademoiselle Virginie, overcome by hearing that Joseph had, in a way, +refused her, had a sick headache. The dispute that had arisen from the +discussion between Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, when, for the third +time in their lives, they had been of antagonistic opinions, had shown +itself in a terrible form. Finally, at half-past four in the afternoon, +Augustine, pale, trembling, and with red eyes, was haled before her +father and mother. The poor child artlessly related the too brief tale +of her love. Reassured by a speech from her father, who promised to +listen to her in silence, she gathered courage as she pronounced to her +parents the name of Theodore de Sommervieux, with a mischievous little +emphasis on the aristocratic _de_. And yielding to the unknown charm of +talking of her feelings, she was brave enough to declare with innocent +decision that she loved Monsieur de Sommervieux, that she had written to +him, and she added, with tears in her eyes: “To sacrifice me to another +man would make me wretched.” + +“But, Augustine, you cannot surely know what a painter is?” cried her +mother with horror. + +“Madame Guillaume!” said the old man, compelling her to +silence.--“Augustine,” he went on, “artists are generally little better +than beggars. They are too extravagant not to be always a bad sort. I +served the late Monsieur Joseph Vernet, the late Monsieur Lekain, and +the late Monsieur Noverre. Oh, if you could only know the tricks played +on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de +Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of +rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, +your Monsieur Sumer--, Somm----” + +“De Sommervieux, papa.” + +“Well, well, de Sommervieux, well and good. He can never have been half +so sweet to you as Monsieur le Chevalier de Saint-Georges was to me the +day I got a verdict of the consuls against him. And in those days they +were gentlemen of quality.” + +“But, father, Monsieur Theodore is of good family, and he wrote me that +he is rich; his father was called Chevalier de Sommervieux before the +Revolution.” + +At these words Monsieur Guillaume looked at his terrible better half, +who, like an angry woman, sat tapping the floor with her foot while +keeping sullen silence; she avoided even casting wrathful looks +at Augustine, appearing to leave to Monsieur Guillaume the whole +responsibility in so grave a matter, since her opinion was not listened +to. Nevertheless, in spite of her apparent self-control, when she +saw her husband giving way so mildly under a catastrophe which had no +concern with business, she exclaimed: + +“Really, monsieur, you are so weak with your daughters! However----” + +The sound of a carriage, which stopped at the door, interrupted the +rating which the old draper already quaked at. In a minute Madame Roguin +was standing in the middle of the room, and looking at the actors in +this domestic scene: “I know all, my dear cousin,” said she, with a +patronizing air. + +Madame Roguin made the great mistake of supposing that a Paris notary’s +wife could play the part of a favorite of fashion. + +“I know all,” she repeated, “and I have come into Noah’s Ark, like +the dove, with the olive-branch. I read that allegory in the _Genie du +Christianisme_,” she added, turning to Madame Guillaume; “the allusion +ought to please you, cousin. Do you know,” she went on, smiling at +Augustine, “that Monsieur de Sommervieux is a charming man? He gave me +my portrait this morning, painted by a master’s hand. It is worth at +least six thousand francs.” And at these words she patted Monsieur +Guillaume on the arm. The old draper could not help making a grimace +with his lips, which was peculiar to him. + +“I know Monsieur de Sommervieux very well,” the Dove ran on. “He has +come to my evenings this fortnight past, and made them delightful. He +has told me all his woes, and commissioned me to plead for him. I know +since this morning that he adores Augustine, and he shall have her. Ah, +cousin, do not shake your head in refusal. He will be created Baron, I +can tell you, and has just been made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, +by the Emperor himself, at the Salon. Roguin is now his lawyer, and +knows all his affairs. Well! Monsieur de Sommervieux has twelve thousand +francs a year in good landed estate. Do you know that the father-in-law +of such a man may get a rise in life--be mayor of his _arrondissement_, +for instance. Have we not seen Monsieur Dupont become a Count of the +Empire, and a senator, all because he went as mayor to congratulate the +Emperor on his entry into Vienna? Oh, this marriage must take place! For +my part, I adore the dear young man. His behavior to Augustine is only +met with in romances. Be easy, little one, you shall be happy, and every +girl will wish she were in your place. Madame la Duchesse de Carigliano, +who comes to my ‘At Homes,’ raves about Monsieur de Sommervieux. Some +spiteful people say she only comes to me to meet him; as if a duchesse +of yesterday was doing too much honor to a Chevrel, whose family have +been respected citizens these hundred years! + +“Augustine,” Madame Roguin went on, after a short pause, “I have seen +the portrait. Heavens! How lovely it is! Do you know that the Emperor +wanted to have it? He laughed, and said to the Deputy High Constable +that if there were many women like that in his court while all the kings +visited it, he should have no difficulty about preserving the peace of +Europe. Is not that a compliment?” + +The tempests with which the day had begun were to resemble those of +nature, by ending in clear and serene weather. Madame Roguin displayed +so much address in her harangue, she was able to touch so many strings +in the dry hearts of Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, that at last she hit +on one which she could work upon. At this strange period commerce and +finance were more than ever possessed by the crazy mania for seeking +alliance with rank; and the generals of the Empire took full advantage +of this desire. Monsieur Guillaume, as a singular exception, opposed +this deplorable craving. His favorite axioms were that, to secure +happiness, a woman must marry a man of her own class; that every one was +punished sooner or later for having climbed too high; that love could +so little endure under the worries of a household, that both husband and +wife needed sound good qualities to be happy, that it would not do for +one to be far in advance of the other, because, above everything, they +must understand each other; if a man spoke Greek and his wife Latin, +they might come to die of hunger. He had himself invented this sort +of adage. And he compared such marriages to old-fashioned materials of +mixed silk and wool. Still, there is so much vanity at the bottom of +man’s heart that the prudence of the pilot who steered the Cat and +Racket so wisely gave way before Madame Roguin’s aggressive volubility. +Austere Madame Guillaume was the first to see in her daughter’s +affection a reason for abdicating her principles and for consenting to +receive Monsieur de Sommervieux, whom she promised herself she would put +under severe inquisition. + +The old draper went to look for Joseph Lebas, and inform him of the +state of affairs. At half-past six, the dining-room immortalized by the +artist saw, united under its skylight, Monsieur and Madame Roguin, the +young painter and his charming Augustine, Joseph Lebas, who found his +happiness in patience, and Mademoiselle Virginie, convalescent from her +headache. Monsieur and Madame Guillaume saw in perspective both their +children married, and the fortunes of the Cat and Racket once more in +skilful hands. Their satisfaction was at its height when, at dessert, +Theodore made them a present of the wonderful picture which they had +failed to see, representing the interior of the old shop, and to which +they all owed so much happiness. + +“Isn’t it pretty!” cried Guillaume. “And to think that any one would pay +thirty thousand francs for that!” + +“Because you can see my lappets in it,” said Madame Guillaume. + +“And the cloth unrolled!” added Lebas; “you might take it up in your +hand.” + +“Drapery always comes out well,” replied the painter. “We should be +only too happy, we modern artists, if we could touch the perfection of +antique drapery.” + +“So you like drapery!” cried old Guillaume. “Well, then, by Gad! shake +hands on that, my young friend. Since you can respect trade, we shall +understand each other. And why should it be despised? The world began +with trade, since Adam sold Paradise for an apple. He did not strike +a good bargain though!” And the old man roared with honest laughter, +encouraged by the champagne, which he sent round with a liberal hand. +The band that covered the young artist’s eyes was so thick that he +thought his future parents amiable. He was not above enlivening them +by a few jests in the best taste. So he too pleased every one. In the +evening, when the drawing-room, furnished with what Madame Guillaume +called “everything handsome,” was deserted, and while she flitted +from the table to the chimney-piece, from the candelabra to the tall +candlesticks, hastily blowing out the wax-lights, the worthy draper, who +was always clear-sighted when money was in question, called Augustine to +him, and seating her on his knee, spoke as follows:-- + +“My dear child, you shall marry your Sommervieux since you insist; you +may, if you like, risk your capital in happiness. But I am not going to +be hoodwinked by the thirty thousand francs to be made by spoiling good +canvas. Money that is lightly earned is lightly spent. Did I not hear +that hare-brained youngster declare this evening that money was made +round that it might roll. If it is round for spendthrifts, it is flat +for saving folks who pile it up. Now, my child, that fine gentleman +talks of giving you carriages and diamonds! He has money, let him spend +it on you; so be it. It is no concern of mine. But as to what I can give +you, I will not have the crown-pieces I have picked up with so much toil +wasted in carriages and frippery. Those who spend too fast never grow +rich. A hundred thousand crowns, which is your fortune, will not buy +up Paris. It is all very well to look forward to a few hundred thousand +francs to be yours some day; I shall keep you waiting for them as long +as possible, by Gad! So I took your lover aside, and a man who managed +the Lecocq bankruptcy had not much difficulty in persuading the artist +to marry under a settlement of his wife’s money on herself. I will keep +an eye on the marriage contract to see that what he is to settle on you +is safely tied up. So now, my child, I hope to be a grandfather, by Gad! +I will begin at once to lay up for my grandchildren; but swear to me, +here and now, never to sign any papers relating to money without my +advice; and if I go soon to join old Father Chevrel, promise to consult +young Lebas, your brother-in-law.” + +“Yes, father, I swear it.” + +At these words, spoken in a gentle voice, the old man kissed his +daughter on both cheeks. That night the lovers slept as soundly as +Monsieur and Madame Guillaume. + + + +Some few months after this memorable Sunday the high altar of Saint-Leu +was the scene of two very different weddings. Augustine and Theodore +appeared in all the radiance of happiness, their eyes beaming with love, +dressed with elegance, while a fine carriage waited for them. Virginie, +who had come in a good hired fly with the rest of the family, humbly +followed her younger sister, dressed in the simplest fashion like a +shadow necessary to the harmony of the picture. Monsieur Guillaume had +exerted himself to the utmost in the church to get Virginie married +before Augustine, but the priests, high and low, persisted in addressing +the more elegant of the two brides. He heard some of his neighbors +highly approving the good sense of Mademoiselle Virginie, who was +making, as they said, the more substantial match, and remaining faithful +to the neighborhood; while they fired a few taunts, prompted by envy of +Augustine, who was marrying an artist and a man of rank; adding, with a +sort of dismay, that if the Guillaumes were ambitious, there was an end +to the business. An old fan-maker having remarked that such a prodigal +would soon bring his wife to beggary, father Guillaume prided himself +_in petto_ for his prudence in the matter of marriage settlements. In +the evening, after a splendid ball, followed by one of those substantial +suppers of which the memory is dying out in the present generation, +Monsieur and Madame Guillaume remained in a fine house belonging to them +in the Rue du Colombier, where the wedding had been held; Monsieur +and Madame Lebas returned in their fly to the old home in the Rue +Saint-Denis, to steer the good ship Cat and Racket. The artist, +intoxicated with happiness, carried off his beloved Augustine, and +eagerly lifting her out of their carriage when it reached the Rue des +Trois-Freres, led her to an apartment embellished by all the arts. + +The fever of passion which possessed Theodore made a year fly over the +young couple without a single cloud to dim the blue sky under which they +lived. Life did not hang heavy on the lovers’ hands. Theodore lavished +on every day inexhaustible _fioriture_ of enjoyment, and he delighted +to vary the transports of passion by the soft languor of those hours +of repose when souls soar so high that they seem to have forgotten all +bodily union. Augustine was too happy for reflection; she floated on +an undulating tide of rapture; she thought she could not do enough by +abandoning herself to sanctioned and sacred married love; simple and +artless, she had no coquetry, no reserves, none of the dominion which a +worldly-minded girl acquires over her husband by ingenious caprice; she +loved too well to calculate for the future, and never imagined that so +exquisite a life could come to an end. Happy in being her husband’s sole +delight, she believed that her inextinguishable love would always be +her greatest grace in his eyes, as her devotion and obedience would be +a perennial charm. And, indeed, the ecstasy of love had made her so +brilliantly lovely that her beauty filled her with pride, and gave her +confidence that she could always reign over a man so easy to kindle +as Monsieur de Sommervieux. Thus her position as a wife brought her no +knowledge but the lessons of love. + +In the midst of her happiness, she was still the simple child who had +lived in obscurity in the Rue Saint-Denis, and who never thought of +acquiring the manners, the information, the tone of the world she had +to live in. Her words being the words of love, she revealed in them, no +doubt, a certain pliancy of mind and a certain refinement of speech; +but she used the language common to all women when they find themselves +plunged in passion, which seems to be their element. When, by chance, +Augustine expressed an idea that did not harmonize with Theodore’s, the +young artist laughed, as we laugh at the first mistakes of a foreigner, +though they end by annoying us if they are not corrected. + +In spite of all this love-making, by the end of this year, as delightful +as it was swift, Sommervieux felt one morning the need for resuming his +work and his old habits. His wife was expecting their first child. He +saw some friends again. During the tedious discomforts of the year when +a young wife is nursing an infant for the first time, he worked, +no doubt, with zeal, but he occasionally sought diversion in the +fashionable world. The house which he was best pleased to frequent +was that of the Duchesse de Carigliano, who had at last attracted the +celebrated artist to her parties. When Augustine was quite well again, +and her boy no longer required the assiduous care which debars a mother +from social pleasures, Theodore had come to the stage of wishing to know +the joys of satisfied vanity to be found in society by a man who shows +himself with a handsome woman, the object of envy and admiration. + +To figure in drawing-rooms with the reflected lustre of her husband’s +fame, and to find other women envious of her, was to Augustine a new +harvest of pleasures; but it was the last gleam of conjugal happiness. +She first wounded her husband’s vanity when, in spite of vain efforts, +she betrayed her ignorance, the inelegance of her language, and the +narrowness of her ideas. Sommervieux’s nature, subjugated for nearly two +years and a half by the first transports of love, now, in the calm of +less new possession, recovered its bent and habits, for a while diverted +from their channel. Poetry, painting, and the subtle joys of imagination +have inalienable rights over a lofty spirit. These cravings of a +powerful soul had not been starved in Theodore during these two years; +they had only found fresh pasture. As soon as the meadows of love had +been ransacked, and the artist had gathered roses and cornflowers as the +children do, so greedily that he did not see that his hands could +hold no more, the scene changed. When the painter showed his wife the +sketches for his finest compositions he heard her exclaim, as her father +had done, “How pretty!” This tepid admiration was not the outcome of +conscientious feeling, but of her faith on the strength of love. + +Augustine cared more for a look than for the finest picture. The only +sublime she knew was that of the heart. At last Theodore could not +resist the evidence of the cruel fact--his wife was insensible to +poetry, she did not dwell in his sphere, she could not follow him in +all his vagaries, his inventions, his joys and his sorrows; she walked +groveling in the world of reality, while his head was in the skies. +Common minds cannot appreciate the perennial sufferings of a being +who, while bound to another by the most intimate affections, is obliged +constantly to suppress the dearest flights of his soul, and to thrust +down into the void those images which a magic power compels him to +create. To him the torture is all the more intolerable because his +feeling towards his companion enjoins, as its first law, that they +should have no concealments, but mingle the aspirations of their thought +as perfectly as the effusions of their soul. The demands of nature are +not to be cheated. She is as inexorable as necessity, which is, indeed, +a sort of social nature. Sommervieux took refuge in the peace and +silence of his studio, hoping that the habit of living with artists +might mould his wife and develop in her the dormant germs of lofty +intelligence which some superior minds suppose must exist in every +being. But Augustine was too sincerely religious not to take fright +at the tone of artists. At the first dinner Theodore gave, she heard +a young painter say, with the childlike lightness, which to her was +unintelligible, and which redeems a jest from the taint of profanity, +“But, madame, your Paradise cannot be more beautiful than Raphael’s +Transfiguration!--Well, and I got tired of looking at that.” + +Thus Augustine came among this sparkling set in a spirit of distrust +which no one could fail to see. She was a restraint on their freedom. +Now an artist who feels restraint is pitiless; he stays away, or laughs +it to scorn. Madame Guillaume, among other absurdities, had an excessive +notion of the dignity she considered the prerogative of a married woman; +and Augustine, though she had often made fun of it, could not help a +slight imitation of her mother’s primness. This extreme propriety, which +virtuous wives do not always avoid, suggested a few epigrams in the +form of sketches, in which the harmless jest was in such good taste +that Sommervieux could not take offence; and even if they had been +more severe, these pleasantries were after all only reprisals from +his friends. Still, nothing could seem a trifle to a spirit so open as +Theodore’s to impressions from without. A coldness insensibly crept over +him, and inevitably spread. To attain conjugal happiness we must climb +a hill whose summit is a narrow ridge, close to a steep and slippery +descent: the painter’s love was falling down it. He regarded his wife as +incapable of appreciating the moral considerations which justified him +in his own eyes for his singular behavior to her, and believed himself +quite innocent in hiding from her thoughts she could not enter into, +and peccadilloes outside the jurisdiction of a _bourgeois_ conscience. +Augustine wrapped herself in sullen and silent grief. These unconfessed +feelings placed a shroud between the husband and wife which could not +fail to grow thicker day by day. Though her husband never failed in +consideration for her, Augustine could not help trembling as she saw +that he kept for the outer world those treasures of wit and grace that +he formerly would lay at her feet. She soon began to find sinister +meaning in the jocular speeches that are current in the world as to the +inconstancy of men. She made no complaints, but her demeanor conveyed +reproach. + +Three years after her marriage this pretty young woman, who dashed past +in her handsome carriage, and lived in a sphere of glory and riches +to the envy of heedless folk incapable of taking a just view of the +situations of life, was a prey to intense grief. She lost her color; she +reflected; she made comparisons; then sorrow unfolded to her the first +lessons of experience. She determined to restrict herself bravely within +the round of duty, hoping that by this generous conduct she might +sooner or later win back her husband’s love. But it was not so. When +Sommervieux, fired with work, came in from his studio, Augustine did not +put away her work so quickly but that the painter might find his wife +mending the household linen, and his own, with all the care of a good +housewife. She supplied generously and without a murmur the money needed +for his lavishness; but in her anxiety to husband her dear Theodore’s +fortune, she was strictly economical for herself and in certain details +of domestic management. Such conduct is incompatible with the easy-going +habits of artists, who, at the end of their life, have enjoyed it so +keenly that they never inquire into the causes of their ruin. + +It is useless to note every tint of shadow by which the brilliant hues +of their honeymoon were overcast till they were lost in utter blackness. +One evening poor Augustine, who had for some time heard her husband +speak with enthusiasm of the Duchesse de Carigliano, received from a +friend certain malignantly charitable warnings as to the nature of the +attachment which Sommervieux had formed for this celebrated flirt of +the Imperial Court. At one-and-twenty, in all the splendor of youth and +beauty, Augustine saw herself deserted for a woman of six-and-thirty. +Feeling herself so wretched in the midst of a world of festivity which +to her was a blank, the poor little thing could no longer understand +the admiration she excited, or the envy of which she was the object. +Her face assumed a different expression. Melancholy, tinged her features +with the sweetness of resignation and the pallor of scorned love. Ere +long she too was courted by the most fascinating men; but she remained +lonely and virtuous. Some contemptuous words which escaped her husband +filled her with incredible despair. A sinister flash showed her the +breaches which, as a result of her sordid education, hindered the +perfect union of her soul with Theodore’s; she loved him well enough to +absolve him and condemn herself. She shed tears of blood, and perceived, +too late, that there are _mesalliances_ of the spirit as well as of +rank and habits. As she recalled the early raptures of their union, +she understood the full extent of that lost happiness, and accepted the +conclusion that so rich a harvest of love was in itself a whole life, +which only sorrow could pay for. At the same time, she loved too truly +to lose all hope. At one-and-twenty she dared undertake to educate +herself, and make her imagination, at least, worthy of that she admired. +“If I am not a poet,” thought she, “at any rate, I will understand +poetry.” + +Then, with all the strength of will, all the energy which every woman +can display when she loves, Madame de Sommervieux tried to alter her +character, her manners, and her habits; but by dint of devouring books +and learning undauntedly, she only succeeded in becoming less ignorant. +Lightness of wit and the graces of conversation are a gift of nature, or +the fruit of education begun in the cradle. She could appreciate +music and enjoy it, but she could not sing with taste. She understood +literature and the beauties of poetry, but it was too late to +cultivate her refractory memory. She listened with pleasure to social +conversation, but she could contribute nothing brilliant. Her religious +notions and home-grown prejudices were antagonistic to the complete +emancipation of her intelligence. Finally, a foregone conclusion against +her had stolen into Theodore’s mind, and this she could not conquer. The +artist would laugh, at those who flattered him about his wife, and his +irony had some foundation; he so overawed the pathetic young creature +that, in his presence, or alone with him, she trembled. Hampered by her +too eager desire to please, her wits and her knowledge vanished in one +absorbing feeling. Even her fidelity vexed the unfaithful husband, who +seemed to bid her do wrong by stigmatizing her virtue as insensibility. +Augustine tried in vain to abdicate her reason, to yield to her +husband’s caprices and whims, to devote herself to the selfishness of +his vanity. Her sacrifices bore no fruit. Perhaps they had both let +the moment slip when souls may meet in comprehension. One day the young +wife’s too sensitive heart received one of those blows which so strain +the bonds of feeling that they seem to be broken. She withdrew into +solitude. But before long a fatal idea suggested to her to seek counsel +and comfort in the bosom of her family. + +So one morning she made her way towards the grotesque facade of the +humble, silent home where she had spent her childhood. She sighed as she +looked up at the sash-window, whence one day she had sent her first kiss +to him who now shed as much sorrow as glory on her life. Nothing was +changed in the cavern, where the drapery business had, however, started +on a new life. Augustine’s sister filled her mother’s old place at the +desk. The unhappy young woman met her brother-in-law with his pen behind +his ear; he hardly listened to her, he was so full of business. The +formidable symptoms of stock-taking were visible all round him; he +begged her to excuse him. She was received coldly enough by her sister, +who owed her a grudge. In fact, Augustine, in her finery, and stepping +out of a handsome carriage, had never been to see her but when passing +by. The wife of the prudent Lebas, imagining that want of money was the +prime cause of this early call, tried to keep up a tone of reserve which +more than once made Augustine smile. The painter’s wife perceived that, +apart from the cap and lappets, her mother had found in Virginie a +successor who could uphold the ancient honor of the Cat and Racket. At +breakfast she observed certain changes in the management of the house +which did honor to Lebas’ good sense; the assistants did not rise before +dessert; they were allowed to talk, and the abundant meal spoke of ease +without luxury. The fashionable woman found some tickets for a box at +the Francais, where she remembered having seen her sister from time to +time. Madame Lebas had a cashmere shawl over her shoulders, of which +the value bore witness to her husband’s generosity to her. In short, the +couple were keeping pace with the times. During the two-thirds of the +day she spent there, Augustine was touched to the heart by the equable +happiness, devoid, to be sure, of all emotion, but equally free from +storms, enjoyed by this well-matched couple. They had accepted life as +a commercial enterprise, in which, above all, they must do credit to the +business. Not finding any great love in her husband, Virginie had set to +work to create it. Having by degrees learned to esteem and care for his +wife, the time that his happiness had taken to germinate was to Joseph +Lebas a guarantee of its durability. Hence, when Augustine plaintively +set forth her painful position, she had to face the deluge of +commonplace morality which the traditions of the Rue Saint-Denis +furnished to her sister. + +“The mischief is done, wife,” said Joseph Lebas; “we must try to give +our sister good advice.” Then the clever tradesman ponderously analyzed +the resources which law and custom might offer Augustine as a means +of escape at this crisis; he ticketed every argument, so to speak, and +arranged them in their degrees of weight under various categories, as +though they were articles of merchandise of different qualities; then he +put them in the scale, weighed them, and ended by showing the necessity +for his sister-in-law’s taking violent steps which could not satisfy the +love she still had for her husband; and, indeed, the feeling had +revived in all its strength when she heard Joseph Lebas speak of +legal proceedings. Augustine thanked them, and returned home even more +undecided than she had been before consulting them. She now ventured +to go to the house in the Rue du Colombier, intending to confide her +troubles to her father and mother; for she was like a sick man who, in +his desperate plight, tries every prescription, and even puts faith in +old wives’ remedies. + +The old people received their daughter with an effusiveness that touched +her deeply. Her visit brought them some little change, and that to them +was worth a fortune. For the last four years they had gone their way +like navigators without a goal or a compass. Sitting by the chimney +corner, they would talk over their disasters under the old law of +_maximum_, of their great investments in cloth, of the way they had +weathered bankruptcies, and, above all, the famous failure of Lecocq, +Monsieur Guillaume’s battle of Marengo. Then, when they had exhausted +the tale of lawsuits, they recapitulated the sum total of their most +profitable stock-takings, and told each other old stories of the +Saint-Denis quarter. At two o’clock old Guillaume went to cast an eye on +the business at the Cat and Racket; on his way back he called at all the +shops, formerly the rivals of his own, where the young proprietors hoped +to inveigle the old draper into some risky discount, which, as was his +wont, he never refused point-blank. Two good Normandy horses were dying +of their own fat in the stables of the big house; Madame Guillaume never +used them but to drag her on Sundays to high Mass at the parish church. +Three times a week the worthy couple kept open house. By the influence +of his son-in-law Sommervieux, Monsieur Guillaume had been named a +member of the consulting board for the clothing of the Army. Since her +husband had stood so high in office, Madame Guillaume had decided +that she must receive; her rooms were so crammed with gold and silver +ornaments, and furniture, tasteless but of undoubted value, that the +simplest room in the house looked like a chapel. Economy and expense +seemed to be struggling for the upper hand in every accessory. It was as +though Monsieur Guillaume had looked to a good investment, even in the +purchase of a candlestick. In the midst of this bazaar, where splendor +revealed the owner’s want of occupation, Sommervieux’s famous picture +filled the place of honor, and in it Monsieur and Madame Guillaume found +their chief consolation, turning their eyes, harnessed with eye-glasses, +twenty times a day on this presentment of their past life, to them so +active and amusing. The appearance of this mansion and these rooms, +where everything had an aroma of staleness and mediocrity, the spectacle +offered by these two beings, cast away, as it were, on a rock far from +the world and the ideas which are life, startled Augustine; she could +here contemplate the sequel of the scene of which the first part had +struck her at the house of Lebas--a life of stir without movement, a +mechanical and instinctive existence like that of the beaver; and then +she felt an indefinable pride in her troubles, as she reflected that +they had their source in eighteen months of such happiness as, in her +eyes, was worth a thousand lives like this; its vacuity seemed to her +horrible. However, she concealed this not very charitable feeling, and +displayed for her parents her newly-acquired accomplishments of mind, +and the ingratiating tenderness that love had revealed to her, disposing +them to listen to her matrimonial grievances. Old people have a weakness +for this kind of confidence. Madame Guillaume wanted to know the most +trivial details of that alien life, which to her seemed almost fabulous. +The travels of Baron da la Houtan, which she began again and again and +never finished, told her nothing more unheard-of concerning the Canadian +savages. + +“What, child, your husband shuts himself into a room with naked women! +And you are so simple as to believe that he draws them?” + +As she uttered this exclamation, the grandmother laid her spectacles +on a little work-table, shook her skirts, and clasped her hands on her +knees, raised by a foot-warmer, her favorite pedestal. + +“But, mother, all artists are obliged to have models.” + +“He took good care not to tell us that when he asked leave to marry +you. If I had known it, I would never had given my daughter to a man who +followed such a trade. Religion forbids such horrors; they are immoral. +And at what time of night do you say he comes home?” + +“At one o’clock--two----” + +The old folks looked at each other in utter amazement. + +“Then he gambles?” said Monsieur Guillaume. “In my day only gamblers +stayed out so late.” + +Augustine made a face that scorned the accusation. + +“He must keep you up through dreadful nights waiting for him,” said +Madame Guillaume. “But you go to bed, don’t you? And when he has lost, +the wretch wakes you.” + +“No, mamma, on the contrary, he is sometimes in very good spirits. Not +unfrequently, indeed, when it is fine, he suggests that I should get up +and go into the woods.” + +“The woods! At that hour? Then have you such a small set of rooms that +his bedroom and his sitting-room are not enough, and that he must run +about? But it is just to give you cold that the wretch proposes such +expeditions. He wants to get rid of you. Did one ever hear of a man +settled in life, a well-behaved, quiet man galloping about like a +warlock?” + +“But, my dear mother, you do not understand that he must have excitement +to fire his genius. He is fond of scenes which----” + +“I would make scenes for him, fine scenes!” cried Madame Guillaume, +interrupting her daughter. “How can you show any consideration to such a +man? In the first place, I don’t like his drinking water only; it is not +wholesome. Why does he object to see a woman eating? What queer notion +is that! But he is mad. All you tell us about him is impossible. A man +cannot leave his home without a word, and never come back for ten days. +And then he tells you he has been to Dieppe to paint the sea. As if +any one painted the sea! He crams you with a pack of tales that are too +absurd.” + +Augustine opened her lips to defend her husband; but Madame Guillaume +enjoined silence with a wave of her hand, which she obeyed by a survival +of habit, and her mother went on in harsh tones: “Don’t talk to me about +the man! He never set foot in church excepting to see you and to be +married. People without religion are capable of anything. Did Guillaume +ever dream of hiding anything from me, of spending three days without +saying a word to me, and of chattering afterwards like a blind magpie?” + +“My dear mother, you judge superior people too severely. If their ideas +were the same as other folks’, they would not be men of genius.” + +“Very well, then let men of genius stop at home and not get married. +What! A man of genius is to make his wife miserable? And because he is a +genius it is all right! Genius, genius! It is not so very clever to +say black one minute and white the next, as he does, to interrupt other +people, to dance such rigs at home, never to let you know which foot you +are to stand on, to compel his wife never to be amused unless my lord is +in gay spirits, and to be dull when he is dull.” + +“But, mother, the very nature of such imaginations----” + +“What are such ‘imaginations’?” Madame Guillaume went on, interrupting +her daughter again. “Fine ones his are, my word! What possesses a man +that all on a sudden, without consulting a doctor, he takes it into his +head to eat nothing but vegetables? If indeed it were from religious +motives, it might do him some good--but he has no more religion than a +Huguenot. Was there ever a man known who, like him, loved horses better +than his fellow-creatures, had his hair curled like a heathen, laid +statues under muslin coverlets, shut his shutters in broad day to work +by lamp-light? There, get along; if he were not so grossly immoral, he +would be fit to shut up in a lunatic asylum. Consult Monsieur Loraux, +the priest at Saint Sulpice, ask his opinion about it all, and he will +tell you that your husband, does not behave like a Christian.” + +“Oh, mother, can you believe----?” + +“Yes, I do believe. You loved him, and you can see none of these things. +But I can remember in the early days after your marriage. I met him +in the Champs-Elysees. He was on horseback. Well, at one minute he was +galloping as hard as he could tear, and then pulled up to a walk. I said +to myself at that moment, ‘There is a man devoid of judgement.’” + +“Ah, ha!” cried Monsieur Guillaume, “how wise I was to have your money +settled on yourself with such a queer fellow for a husband!” + +When Augustine was so imprudent as to set forth her serious grievances +against her husband, the two old people were speechless with +indignation. But the word “divorce” was ere long spoken by Madame +Guillaume. At the sound of the word divorce the apathetic old draper +seemed to wake up. Prompted by his love for his daughter, and also by +the excitement which the proceedings would bring into his uneventful +life, father Guillaume took up the matter. He made himself the leader of +the application for a divorce, laid down the lines of it, almost argued +the case; he offered to be at all the charges, to see the lawyers, the +pleaders, the judges, to move heaven and earth. Madame de Sommervieux +was frightened, she refused her father’s services, said she would not +be separated from her husband even if she were ten times as unhappy, and +talked no more about her sorrows. After being overwhelmed by her parents +with all the little wordless and consoling kindnesses by which the +old couple tried in vain to make up to her for her distress of heart, +Augustine went away, feeling the impossibility of making a superior mind +intelligible to weak intellects. She had learned that a wife must hide +from every one, even from her parents, woes for which it is so difficult +to find sympathy. The storms and sufferings of the upper spheres +are appreciated only by the lofty spirits who inhabit there. In any +circumstance we can only be judged by our equals. + +Thus poor Augustine found herself thrown back on the horror of her +meditations, in the cold atmosphere of her home. Study was indifferent +to her, since study had not brought her back her husband’s heart. +Initiated into the secret of these souls of fire, but bereft of their +resources, she was compelled to share their sorrows without sharing +their pleasures. She was disgusted with the world, which to her seemed +mean and small as compared with the incidents of passion. In short, her +life was a failure. + +One evening an idea flashed upon her that lighted up her dark grief like +a beam from heaven. Such an idea could never have smiled on a heart less +pure, less virtuous than hers. She determined to go to the Duchesse de +Carigliano, not to ask her to give her back her husband’s heart, but to +learn the arts by which it had been captured; to engage the interest of +this haughty fine lady for the mother of her lover’s children; to appeal +to her and make her the instrument of her future happiness, since she +was the cause of her present wretchedness. + +So one day Augustine, timid as she was, but armed with supernatural +courage, got into her carriage at two in the afternoon to try for +admittance to the boudoir of the famous coquette, who was never visible +till that hour. Madame de Sommervieux had not yet seen any of the +ancient and magnificent mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. As she +made her way through the stately corridors, the handsome staircases, +the vast drawing-rooms--full of flowers, though it was in the depth of +winter, and decorated with the taste peculiar to women born to opulence +or to the elegant habits of the aristocracy, Augustine felt a terrible +clutch at her heart; she coveted the secrets of an elegance of which +she had never had an idea; she breathed in an air of grandeur which +explained the attraction of the house for her husband. When she reached +the private rooms of the Duchess she was filled with jealousy and a sort +of despair, as she admired the luxurious arrangement of the furniture, +the draperies and the hangings. Here disorder was a grace, here luxury +affected a certain contempt of splendor. The fragrance that floated +in the warm air flattered the sense of smell without offending it. +The accessories of the rooms were in harmony with a view, through +plate-glass windows, of the lawns in a garden planted with evergreen +trees. It was all bewitching, and the art of it was not perceptible. The +whole spirit of the mistress of these rooms pervaded the drawing-room +where Augustine awaited her. She tried to divine her rival’s character +from the aspect of the scattered objects; but there was here something +as impenetrable in the disorder as in the symmetry, and to the +simple-minded young wife all was a sealed letter. All that she could +discern was that, as a woman, the Duchess was a superior person. Then a +painful thought came over her. + +“Alas! And is it true,” she wondered, “that a simple and loving heart +is not all-sufficient to an artist; that to balance the weight of these +powerful souls they need a union with feminine souls of a strength equal +to their own? If I had been brought up like this siren, our weapons at +least might have been equal in the hour of struggle.” + +“But I am not at home!” The sharp, harsh words, though spoken in an +undertone in the adjoining boudoir, were heard by Augustine, and her +heart beat violently. + +“The lady is in there,” replied the maid. + +“You are an idiot! Show her in,” replied the Duchess, whose voice was +sweeter, and had assumed the dulcet tones of politeness. She evidently +now meant to be heard. + +Augustine shyly entered the room. At the end of the dainty boudoir she +saw the Duchess lounging luxuriously on an ottoman covered with brown +velvet and placed in the centre of a sort of apse outlined by soft folds +of white muslin over a yellow lining. Ornaments of gilt bronze, arranged +with exquisite taste, enhanced this sort of dais, under which the +Duchess reclined like a Greek statue. The dark hue of the velvet gave +relief to every fascinating charm. A subdued light, friendly to her +beauty, fell like a reflection rather than a direct illumination. A few +rare flowers raised their perfumed heads from costly Sevres vases. At +the moment when this picture was presented to Augustine’s astonished +eyes, she was approaching so noiselessly that she caught a glance from +those of the enchantress. This look seemed to say to some one whom +Augustine did not at first perceive, “Stay; you will see a pretty woman, +and make her visit seem less of a bore.” + +On seeing Augustine, the Duchess rose and made her sit down by her. + +“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, madame?” she said with +a most gracious smile. + +“Why all the falseness?” thought Augustine, replying only with a bow. + +Her silence was compulsory. The young woman saw before her a superfluous +witness of the scene. This personage was, of all the Colonels in the +army, the youngest, the most fashionable, and the finest man. His face, +full of life and youth, but already expressive, was further enhanced by +a small moustache twirled up into points, and as black as jet, by a full +imperial, by whiskers carefully combed, and a forest of black hair in +some disorder. He was whisking a riding whip with an air of ease and +freedom which suited his self-satisfied expression and the elegance of +his dress; the ribbons attached to his button-hole were carelessly tied, +and he seemed to pride himself much more on his smart appearance than +on his courage. Augustine looked at the Duchesse de Carigliano, and +indicated the Colonel by a sidelong glance. All its mute appeal was +understood. + +“Good-bye, then, Monsieur d’Aiglemont, we shall meet in the Bois de +Boulogne.” + +These words were spoken by the siren as though they were the result of +an agreement made before Augustine’s arrival, and she winged them with a +threatening look that the officer deserved perhaps for the admiration he +showed in gazing at the modest flower, which contrasted so well with the +haughty Duchess. The young fop bowed in silence, turned on the heels +of his boots, and gracefully quitted the boudoir. At this instant, +Augustine, watching her rival, whose eyes seemed to follow the brilliant +officer, detected in that glance a sentiment of which the transient +expression is known to every woman. She perceived with the deepest +anguish that her visit would be useless; this lady, full of artifice, +was too greedy of homage not to have a ruthless heart. + +“Madame,” said Augustine in a broken voice, “the step I am about to take +will seem to you very strange; but there is a madness of despair which +ought to excuse anything. I understand only too well why Theodore +prefers your house to any other, and why your mind has so much power +over his. Alas! I have only to look into myself to find more than ample +reasons. But I am devoted to my husband, madame. Two years of tears have +not effaced his image from my heart, though I have lost his. In my folly +I dared to dream of a contest with you; and I have come to you to ask +you by what means I may triumph over yourself. Oh, madame,” cried the +young wife, ardently seizing the hand which her rival allowed her to +hold, “I will never pray to God for my own happiness with so much +fervor as I will beseech Him for yours, if you will help me to win back +Sommervieux’s regard--I will not say his love. I have no hope but in +you. Ah! tell me how you could please him, and make him forget the first +days----” At these words Augustine broke down, suffocated with sobs she +could not suppress. Ashamed of her weakness, she hid her face in her +handkerchief, which she bathed with tears. + +“What a child you are, my dear little beauty!” said the Duchess, carried +away by the novelty of such a scene, and touched, in spite of herself, +at receiving such homage from the most perfect virtue perhaps in Paris. +She took the young wife’s handkerchief, and herself wiped the tears from +her eyes, soothing her by a few monosyllables murmured with gracious +compassion. After a moment’s silence the Duchess, grasping poor +Augustine’s hands in both her own--hands that had a rare character of +dignity and powerful beauty--said in a gentle and friendly voice: +“My first warning is to advise you not to weep so bitterly; tears are +disfiguring. We must learn to deal firmly with the sorrows that make us +ill, for love does not linger long by a sick-bed. Melancholy, at first, +no doubt, lends a certain attractive grace, but it ends by dragging the +features and blighting the loveliest face. And besides, our tyrants are +so vain as to insist that their slaves should be always cheerful.” + +“But, madame, it is not in my power not to feel. How is it possible, +without suffering a thousand deaths, to see the face which once beamed +with love and gladness turn chill, colorless, and indifferent? I cannot +control my heart!” + +“So much the worse, sweet child. But I fancy I know all your story. +In the first place, if your husband is unfaithful to you, understand +clearly that I am not his accomplice. If I was anxious to have him in my +drawing-room, it was, I own, out of vanity; he was famous, and he went +nowhere. I like you too much already to tell you all the mad things he +has done for my sake. I will only reveal one, because it may perhaps +help us to bring him back to you, and to punish him for the audacity of +his behavior to me. He will end by compromising me. I know the world +too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of a too superior +man. You should know that one may allow them to court one, but marry +them--that is a mistake! We women ought to admire men of genius, and +delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living with them? Never.--No, +no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in inspecting the machinery of +the opera instead of sitting in a box to enjoy its brilliant illusions. +But this misfortune has fallen on you, my poor child, has it not? Well, +then, you must try to arm yourself against tyranny.” + +“Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, I +already detected some arts of which I had no suspicion.” + +“Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you +have mastered the knowledge of these trifles, important, too, in their +way. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that matter more +than one clever man is a fool, in spite of all his talent. But I dare +wager you never could refuse your Theodore anything!” + +“How refuse anything, madame, if one loves a man?” + +“Poor innocent, I could adore you for your simplicity. You should know +that the more we love the less we should allow a man, above all, a +husband, to see the whole extent of our passion. The one who loves most +is tyrannized over, and, which is worse, is sooner or later neglected. +The one who wishes to rule should----” + +“What, madame, must I then dissimulate, calculate, become false, form an +artificial character, and live in it? How is it possible to live in such +a way? Can you----” she hesitated; the Duchess smiled. + +“My dear child,” the great lady went on in a serious tone, “conjugal +happiness has in all times been a speculation, a business demanding +particular attention. If you persist in talking passion while I am +talking marriage, we shall soon cease to understand each other. Listen +to me,” she went on, assuming a confidential tone. “I have been in +the way of seeing some of the superior men of our day. Those who have +married have for the most part chosen quite insignificant wives. Well, +those wives governed them, as the Emperor governs us; and if they were +not loved, they were at least respected. I like secrets--especially +those which concern women--well enough to have amused myself by seeking +the clue to the riddle. Well, my sweet child, those worthy women had the +gift of analyzing their husbands’ nature; instead of taking fright, like +you, at their superiority, they very acutely noted the qualities they +lacked, and either by possessing those qualities, or by feigning to +possess them, they found means of making such a handsome display of them +in their husbands’ eyes that in the end they impressed them. Also, I +must tell you, all these souls which appear so lofty have just a speck +of madness in them, which we ought to know how to take advantage of. By +firmly resolving to have the upper hand and never deviating from that +aim, by bringing all our actions to bear on it, all our ideas, our +cajolery, we subjugate these eminently capricious natures, which, by +the very mutability of their thoughts, lend us the means of influencing +them.” + +“Good heavens!” cried the young wife in dismay. “And this is life. It is +a warfare----” + +“In which we must always threaten,” said the Duchess, laughing. “Our +power is wholly factitious. And we must never allow a man to despise +us; it is impossible to recover from such a descent but by odious +manoeuvring. Come,” she added, “I will give you a means of bringing your +husband to his senses.” + +She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice +to conjugal arts through the labyrinth of her palace. They came to +a back-staircase, which led up to the reception rooms. As Madame de +Carigliano pressed the secret springlock of the door she stopped, +looking at Augustine with an inimitable gleam of shrewdness and grace. +“The Duc de Carigliano adores me,” said she. “Well, he dare not enter by +this door without my leave. And he is a man in the habit of commanding +thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face a battery, but before +me,--he is afraid!” + +Augustine sighed. They entered a sumptuous gallery, where the painter’s +wife was led by the Duchess up to the portrait painted by Theodore of +Mademoiselle Guillaume. On seeing it, Augustine uttered a cry. + +“I knew it was no longer in my house,” she said, “but--here!----” + +“My dear child, I asked for it merely to see what pitch of idiocy a man +of genius may attain to. Sooner or later I should have returned it to +you, for I never expected the pleasure of seeing the original here face +to face with the copy. While we finish our conversation I will have it +carried down to your carriage. And if, armed with such a talisman, +you are not your husband’s mistress for a hundred years, you are not a +woman, and you deserve your fate.” + +Augustine kissed the Duchess’ hand, and the lady clasped her to her +heart, with all the more tenderness because she would forget her by the +morrow. This scene might perhaps have destroyed for ever the candor and +purity of a less virtuous woman than Augustine, for the astute politics +of the higher social spheres were no more consonant to Augustine than +the narrow reasoning of Joseph Lebas, or Madame Guillaume’s vapid +morality. Strange are the results of the false positions into which +we may be brought by the slightest mistake in the conduct of life! +Augustine was like an Alpine cowherd surprised by an avalanche; if he +hesitates, if he listens to the shouts of his comrades, he is almost +certainly lost. In such a crisis the heart steels itself or breaks. + +Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to such agitation as it is +difficult to describe. Her conversation with the Duchesse de Carigliano +had roused in her mind a crowd of contradictory thoughts. Like the sheep +in the fable, full of courage in the wolf’s absence, she preached +to herself, and laid down admirable plans of conduct; she devised a +thousand coquettish stratagems; she even talked to her husband, finding, +away from him, all the springs of true eloquence which never desert a +woman; then, as she pictured to herself Theodore’s clear and steadfast +gaze, she began to quake. When she asked whether monsieur were at home +her voice shook. On learning that he would not be in to dinner, she felt +an unaccountable thrill of joy. Like a criminal who has appealed against +sentence of death, a respite, however short, seemed to her a lifetime. +She placed the portrait in her room, and waited for her husband in all +the agonies of hope. That this venture must decide her future life, she +felt too keenly not to shiver at every sound, even the low ticking of +the clock, which seemed to aggravate her terrors by doling them out to +her. She tried to cheat time by various devices. The idea struck her of +dressing in a way which would make her exactly like the portrait. Then, +knowing her husband’s restless temper, she had her room lighted up with +unusual brightness, feeling sure that when he came in curiosity would +bring him there at once. Midnight had struck when, at the call of the +groom, the street gate was opened, and the artist’s carriage rumbled in +over the stones of the silent courtyard. + +“What is the meaning of this illumination?” asked Theodore in glad +tones, as he came into her room. + +Augustine skilfully seized the auspicious moment; she threw herself into +her husband’s arms, and pointed to the portrait. The artist stood rigid +as a rock, and his eyes turned alternately on Augustine, on the accusing +dress. The frightened wife, half-dead, as she watched her husband’s +changeful brow--that terrible brow--saw the expressive furrows gathering +like clouds; then she felt her blood curdling in her veins when, with a +glaring look, and in a deep hollow voice, he began to question her: + +“Where did you find that picture?” + +“The Duchess de Carigliano returned it to me.” + +“You asked her for it?” + +“I did not know that she had it.” + +The gentleness, or rather the exquisite sweetness of this angel’s voice, +might have touched a cannibal, but not an artist in the clutches of +wounded vanity. + +“It is worthy of her!” exclaimed the painter in a voice of thunder. “I +will be avenged!” he cried, striding up and down the room. “She shall +die of shame; I will paint her! Yes, I will paint her as Messalina +stealing out at night from the palace of Claudius.” + +“Theodore!” said a faint voice. + +“I will kill her!” + +“My dear----” + +“She is in love with that little cavalry colonel, because he rides +well----” + +“Theodore!” + +“Let me be!” said the painter in a tone almost like a roar. + +It would be odious to describe the whole scene. In the end the frenzy +of passion prompted the artist to acts and words which any woman not so +young as Augustine would have ascribed to madness. + +At eight o’clock next morning Madame Guillaume, surprising her +daughter, found her pale, with red eyes, her hair in disorder, holding a +handkerchief soaked with tears, while she gazed at the floor strewn with +the torn fragments of a dress and the broken fragments of a large gilt +picture-frame. Augustine, almost senseless with grief, pointed to the +wreck with a gesture of deep despair. + +“I don’t know that the loss is very great!” cried the old mistress of +the Cat and Racket. “It was like you, no doubt; but I am told that there +is a man on the boulevard who paints lovely portraits for fifty crowns.” + +“Oh, mother!” + +“Poor child, you are quite right,” replied Madame Guillaume, who +misinterpreted the expression of her daughter’s glance at her. “True, +my child, no one ever can love you as fondly as a mother. My darling, +I guess it all; but confide your sorrows to me, and I will comfort you. +Did I not tell you long ago that the man was mad! Your maid has told me +pretty stories. Why, he must be a perfect monster!” + +Augustine laid a finger on her white lips, as if to implore a moment’s +silence. During this dreadful night misery had led her to that patient +resignation which in mothers and loving wives transcends in its +effects all human energy, and perhaps reveals in the heart of women the +existence of certain chords which God has withheld from men. + + + +An inscription engraved on a broken column in the cemetery at Montmartre +states that Madame de Sommervieux died at the age of twenty-seven. In +the simple words of this epitaph one of the timid creature’s friends can +read the last scene of a tragedy. Every year, on the second of November, +the solemn day of the dead, he never passes this youthful monument +without wondering whether it does not need a stronger woman than +Augustine to endure the violent embrace of genius? + +“The humble and modest flowers that bloom in the valley,” he reflects, +“perish perhaps when they are transplanted too near the skies, to the +region where storms gather and the sun is scorching.” + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Aiglemont, General, Marquis Victor d’ + The Firm of Nucingen + A Woman of Thirty + + Birotteau, Cesar + Cesar Birotteau + A Bachelor’s Establishment + + Camusot + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Cousin Pons + The Muse of the Department + Cesar Birotteau + + Cardot, Jean-Jerome-Severin + A Start in Life + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Cesar Birotteau + + Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de + Father Goriot + Sarrasine + + Carigliano, Duchesse de + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Peasantry + The Member for Arcis + + Guillaume + Cesar Birotteau + + Lebas, Joseph + Cesar Birotteau + Cousin Betty + + Lebas, Madame Joseph (Virginie) + Cesar Birotteau + Cousin Betty + + Lourdois + Cesar Birotteau + + Rabourdin, Xavier + The Government Clerks + Cesar Birotteau + The Middle Classes + + Roguin, Madame + Cesar Birotteau + Pierrette + A Second Home + A Daughter of Eve + + Sommervieux, Theodore de + The Government Clerks + Modeste Mignon + + Sommervieux, Madame Theodore de (Augustine) + At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + Cesar Birotteau + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Sign of the Cat and Racket, by +Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET *** + +***** This file should be named 1680-0.txt or 1680-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/1680/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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