Unconscious Comedians, Honoré de Balzac [good books to read .txt] 📗

didn't you tell us you belonged to the Opposition?" asked Leon, seizing Gazonal by the arm. "How stupid of you! One deputy more or less to Right or Left and your bed is made."

"We are all for the Others down my way."

"Let 'em go," said Bixiou, with a facetious look; "they have Providence on their side, and Providence will bring them back without you and in spite of themselves. A manufacturer ought to be a fatalist."

"What luck! There's Maxime, with Canalis and Giraud," said Leon.

"Come along, friend Gazonal, the promised actors are mustering on the stage," said Bixiou.

And all three advanced to the above-named personages, who seemed to be sauntering along with nothing to do.

"Have they turned you out, or why are you idling about in this way?" said Bixiou to Giraud.

"No, while they are voting by secret ballot we have come out for a little air," replied Giraud.

"How did the prime minister pull through?"

"He was magnificent!" said Canalis.

"Magnificent!" repeated Maxime.

"Magnificent!" cried Giraud.

"So! so! Right, Left, and Centre are unanimous!"

"All with a different meaning," observed Maxime de Trailles.

Maxime was the ministerial deputy.

"Yes," said Canalis, laughing.

Though Canalis had already been a minister, he was at this moment tending toward the Right.

"Ah! but you had a fine triumph just now," said Maxime to Canalis; "it was you who forced the minister into the tribune."

"And made him lie like a charlatan," returned Canalis.

"A worthy victory," said the honest Giraud. "In his place what would you have done?"

"I should have lied."

"It isn't called lying," said Maxime de Trailles; "it is called protecting the crown."

So saying, he led Canalis away to a little distance.

"That's a great orator," said Leon to Giraud, pointing to Canalis.

"Yes and no," replied the councillor of state. "A fine bass voice, and sonorous, but more of an artist in words than an orator. In short, he's a fine instrument but he isn't music, consequently he has not, and he never will have, the ear of the Chamber; in no case will he ever be master of the situation."

Canalis and Maxime were returning toward the little group as Giraud, deputy of the Left Centre, pronounced this verdict. Maxime took Giraud by the arm and led him off, probably to make the same confidence he had just made Canalis.

"What an honest, upright fellow that is," said Leon to Canalis, nodding towards Giraud.

"One of those upright fellows who kill administrators," replied Canalis.

"Do you think him a good orator?"

"Yes and no," replied Canalis; "he is wordy; he's long-winded, a plodder in argument, and a good logician; but he doesn't understand the higher logic, that of events and circumstances; consequently he has never had, and never will have, the ear of the Chamber."

At the moment when Canalis uttered this judgment on Giraud, the latter was returning with Maxime to the group; and forgetting the presence of a stranger whose discretion was not known to them like that of Leon and Bixiou, he took Canalis by the hand in a very significant manner.

"Well," he said, "I consent to what Monsieur de Trailles proposes. I'll put the question to you in the Chamber, but I shall do it with great severity."

"Then we shall have the house with us, for a man of your weight and your eloquence is certain to have the ear of the Chamber," said Canalis. "I'll reply to you; but I shall do it sharply, to crush you."

"You could bring about a change of the cabinet, for on such ground you can do what you like with the Chamber, and be master of the situation."

"Maxime has trapped them both," said Leon to his cousin; "that fellow is like a fish in water among the intrigues of the Chamber."

"Who is he?" asked Gazonal.

"An ex-scoundrel who is now in a fair way to become an ambassador," replied Bixiou.

"Giraud!" said Leon to the councillor of state, "don't leave the Chamber without asking Rastignac what he promised to tell you about a suit you are to render a decision on two days hence. It concerns my cousin here; I'll go and see you to-morrow morning early about it."

The three friends followed the three deputies, at a distance, into the lobby.

"Cousin, look at those two men," said Leon, pointing out to him a former minister and the leader of the Left Centre. "Those are two men who really have 'the ear of the Chamber,' and who are called in jest ministers of the department of the Opposition. They have the ear of the Chamber so completely that they are always pulling it."

"It is four o'clock," said Bixiou, "let us go back to the rue de Berlin."

"Yes; you've now seen the heart of the government, cousin, and you must next be shown the ascarides, the taenia, the intestinal worm,--the republican, since I must needs name him," said Leon.

When the three friends were once more packed into their hackney-coach, Gazonal looked at his cousin and Bixiou like a man who had a mind to launch a flood of oratorical and Southern bile upon the elements.

"I distrusted with all my might this great hussy of a town," he rolled out in Southern accents; "but since this morning I despise her! The poor little province you think so petty is an honest girl; but Paris is a prostitute, a greedy, lying comedian; and I am very thankful not to be robbed of my skin in it."

"The day is not over yet," said Bixiou, sententiously, winking at Leon.

"And why do you complain in that stupid way," said Leon, "of a prostitution to which you will owe the winning of your lawsuit? Do you think you are more virtuous than we, less of a comedian, less greedy, less liable to fall under some temptation, less conceited than those we have been making dance for you like puppets?"

"Try me!"

"Poor lad!" said Leon, shrugging his shoulders, "haven't you already promised Rastignac your electoral influence?"

"Yes, because he was the only one who ridiculed himself."

"Poor lad!" repeated Bixiou, "why slight me, who am always ridiculing myself? You are like a pug-dog barking at a tiger. Ha! if you saw us really ridiculing a man, you'd see that we can drive a sane man mad."

This conversation brought Gazonal back to his cousin's house, where the sight of luxury silenced him, and put an end to the discussion. Too late he perceived that Bixiou had been making him pose.

At half-past five o'clock, the moment when Leon de Lora was making his evening toilet to the great wonderment of Gazonal, who counted the thousand and one superfluities of his cousin, and admired the solemnity of the valet as he performed his functions, the "pedicure of monsieur" was announced, and Publicola Masson, a little man fifty years of age, made his appearance, laid a small box of instruments on the floor, and sat down on a small chair opposite to Leon, after bowing to Gazonal and Bixiou.

"How are matters going with you?" asked Leon, delivering to Publicola one of his feet, already washed and prepared by the valet.

"I am forced to take two pupils,--two young fellows who, despairing of fortune, have quitted surgery for corporistics; they were actually dying of hunger; and yet they are full of talent."

"I'm not asking you about pedestrial affairs, I want to know how you are getting on politically."

Masson gave a glance at Gazonal, more eloquent than any species of question.

"Oh! you can speak out, that's my cousin; in a way he belongs to you; he thinks himself legitimist."

"Well! we are coming along, we are advancing! In five years from now Europe will be with us. Switzerland and Italy are fermenting finely; and when the occasion comes we are all ready. Here, in Paris, we have fifty thousand armed men, without counting two hundred thousand citizens who haven't a penny to live upon."

"Pooh," said Leon, "how about the fortifications?"

"Pie-crust; we can swallow them," replied Masson.

"In the first place, we sha'n't let the cannon in, and, in the second, we've got a little machine more powerful than all the forts in the world,--a machine, due to a doctor, which cured more people during the short time we worked it than the doctors ever killed."

"How you talk!" exclaimed Gazonal, whose flesh began to creep at Publicola's air and manner.

"Ha! that's the thing we rely on! We follow Saint-Just and Robespierre; but we'll do better than they; they were timid, and you see what came of it; an emperor! the elder branch! the younger branch! The Montagnards didn't lop the social tree enough."

"Ah ca! you, who will be, they tell me, consul, or something of that kind, tribune perhaps, be good enough to remember," said Bixiou, "that I have asked your protection for the last dozen years."

"No harm shall happen to you; we shall need wags, and you can take the place of Barere," replied the corn-doctor.

"And I?" said Leon.

"Ah, you! you are my client, and that will save you; for genius is an odious privilege, to which too much is accorded in France; we shall be forced to annihilate some of our greatest men in order to teach others to be simple citizens."

The corn-cutter spoke with a semi-serious, semi-jesting air that made Gazonal shudder.

"So," he said, "there's to be no more religion?"

"No more religion _of the State_," replied the pedicure, emphasizing the last words; "every man will have his own. It is very fortunate that the government is just now endowing convents; they'll provide our funds. Everything, you see, conspires in our favour. Those who pity the peoples, who clamor on behalf of proletaries, who write works against the Jesuits, who busy themselves about the amelioration of no matter what,--the communists, the humanitarians, the philanthropists, you understand,--all these people are our advanced guard. While we are storing gunpowder, they are making the tinder which the spark of a single circumstance will ignite."

"But what do you expect will make the happiness of France?" cried Gazonal.

"Equality of citizens and cheapness of provisions. We mean that there will be no persons lacking anything, no millionaires, no suckers of blood and victims."

"That's it!--maximum and minimum," said Gazonal.

"You've said it," replied the corn-cutter, decisively.

"No more manufacturers?" asked Gazonal.

"The state will manufacture. We shall all be the usufructuaries of France; each will have his ration as on board ship; and all the world will work according to their capacity."

"Ah!" said Gazonal, "and while awaiting the time when you can cut off the heads of aristocrats--"

"I cut their nails," said the radical republican, putting up his tools and finishing the jest himself.

Then he bowed very politely and went away.

"Can this be possible in 1845?" cried Gazonal.

"If there were time we could show you," said his cousin, "all the personages of 1793, and you could talk with them. You have just seen Marat; well! we know Fouquier-Tinville, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Chabot, Fouche, Barras; there is even a magnificent Madame Roland."

"Well, the tragic is not lacking in your play," said Gazonal.

"It is six o'clock. Before we take you to see Odry in 'Les Saltimbauques' to-night," said Leon to Gazonal, "we must go and pay a visit