Modeste Mignon, Honoré de Balzac [booksvooks txt] 📗

heard to say in her own salon after close and intimate conversations:--

"Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the other who is only a dream of the senses."

The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, gives us a glimpse of the enchanted isle to which the meanderings of this correspondence had led the two lovers.

To Monsieur de Canalis,--Be at Havre next Sunday; go to church;
after the morning service, walk once or twice round the nave, and
go out without speaking to any one; but wear a white rose in your
button-hole. Then return to Paris, where you shall receive an
answer. I warn you that this answer will not be what you wish;
for, as I told you, the future is not yet mine. But should I not
indeed be mad and foolish to say yes without having seen you? When
I have seen you I can say no without wounding you; I can make sure
that you shall not see me.

This letter had been sent off the evening before the day when the abortive struggle between Dumay and Modeste had taken place. The happy girl was impatiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindicate or condemn her heart and her actions,--a solemn moment in the life of any woman, and which three months of close communion of souls now rendered as romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have wished. Every one, except the mother, had taken this torpor of expectation for the calm of innocence. No matter how firmly family laws and religious precepts may bind, there will always be the Clarissas and the Julies, whose souls like flowing cups o'erlap the brim under some spiritual pressure. Modeste was glorious in the savage energy with which she repressed her exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely quiet. Let us say frankly that the memory of her sister was more potent upon her than any social conventions; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no grief upon her father and her mother. But what tumultuous heavings were within her breast! no wonder that a mother guessed them.

On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay took Madame Mignon about mid-day to a seat in the sun among the flowers. The blind woman turned her wan and blighted face toward the ocean; she inhaled the odors of the sea and took the hand of her daughter who remained beside her. The mother hesitated between forgiveness and remonstrance ere she put the important question; for she comprehended the girl's love and recognized, as the pretended Canalis had done, that Modeste was exceptional in nature.

"God grant that your father return in time! If he delays much longer he will find none but you to love him. Modeste, promise me once more never to leave him," she said in a fond maternal tone.

Modeste lifted her mother's hands to her lips and kissed them gently, replying: "Need I say it again?"

"Ah, my child! I did this thing myself. I left my father to follow my husband; and yet my father was all alone; I was all the child he had. Is that why God has so punished me? What I ask of you is to marry as your father wishes, to cherish him in your heart, not to sacrifice him to your own happiness, but to make him the centre of your home. Before losing my sight, I wrote him all my wishes, and I know he will execute them. I enjoined him to keep his property intact and in his own hands; not that I distrust you, my Modeste, for a moment, but who can be sure of a son-in-law? Ah! my daughter, look at me; was I reasonable? One glance of the eye decided my life. Beauty, so often deceitful, in my case spoke true; but even were it the same with you, my poor child, swear to me that you will let your father inquire into the character, the habits, the heart, and the previous life of the man you distinguish with your love--if, by chance, there is such a man."

"I will never marry without the consent of my father," answered Modeste.

"You see, my darling," said Madame Mignon after a long pause, "that if I am dying by inches through Bettina's wrong-doing, your father would not survive yours, no, not for a moment. I know him; he would put a pistol to his head,--there could be no life, no happiness on earth for him."

Modeste walked a few steps away from her mother, but immediately came back.

"Why did you leave me?" demanded Madame Mignon.

"You made me cry, mamma," answered Modeste.

"Ah, my little darling, kiss me. You love no one here? you have no lover, have you?" she asked, holding Modeste on her lap, heart to heart.

"No, my dear mamma," said the little Jesuit.

"Can you swear it?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Modeste.

Madame Mignon said no more; but she still doubted.

"At least, if you do choose your husband, you will tell your father?" she resumed.

"I promised that to my sister, and to you, mother. What evil do you think I could commit while I wear that ring upon my finger and read those words: 'Think of Bettina?' Poor sister!"

At these words a truce of silence came between the pair; the mother's blighted eyes rained tears which Modeste could not check, though she threw herself upon her knees, and cried: "Forgive me! oh, forgive me, mother!"

At this instant the excellent Dumay was coming up the hill of Ingouville on the double-quick,--a fact quite abnormal in the present life of the cashier.

Three letters had brought ruin to the Mignons; a single letter now restored their fortunes. Dumay had received from a sea-captain just arrived from the China Seas the following letter containing the first news of his patron and friend, Charles Mignon:--

To Monsieur Jean Dumay:

My Dear Dumay,--I shall quickly follow, barring the chances of the
voyage, the vessel which carries this letter. In fact, I should
have taken it, but I did not wish to leave my own ship to which I
am accustomed.

I told you that no new was to be good news. But the first words of
this letter ought to make you a happy man. I have made seven
millions at the least. I am bringing back a large part of it in
indigo, one third in safe London securities, and another third in
good solid gold. Your remittances helped me to make the sum I had
settled in my own mind much sooner than I expected. I wanted two
millions for my daughters and a competence for myself.

I have been engaged in the opium trade with the largest houses in
Canton, all ten times richer than ever I was. You have no idea, in
Europe, what these rich East India merchants are. I went to Asia
Minor and purchased opium at low prices, and from thence to Canton
where I delivered my cargoes to the companies who control the
trade. My last expedition was to the Philippine Islands where I
exchanged opium for indigo of the first quality. In fact, I may
have half a million more than I stated, for I reckoned the indigo
at what it cost me. I have always been well in health; not the
slightest illness. That is the result of working for one's
children. Since the second year I have owned a pretty little brig
of seven hundred tons, called the "Mignon." She is built of oak,
double-planked, and copper-fastened; and all the interior fittings
were done to suit me. She is, in fact, an additional piece of
property.

A sea-life and the active habits required by my business have kept
me in good health. To tell you all this is the same as telling it
to my two daughters and my dear wife. I trust that the wretched
man who took away my Bettina deserted her when he heard of my
ruin; and that I shall find the poor lost lamb at the Chalet. My
three dear women and my Dumay! All four of you have been ever
present in my thoughts for the last three years. You are a rich
man, now, Dumay. Your share, outside of my own fortune, amounts to
five hundred and sixty thousand francs, for which I send you
herewith a check, which can only be paid to you in person by the
Mongenods, who have been duly advised from New York.

A few short months, and I shall see you all again, and all well, I
trust. My dear Dumay, if I write this letter to you it is because
I am anxious to keep my fortune a secret for the present. I
therefore leave to you the happiness of preparing my dear angels
for my return. I have had enough of commerce; and I am resolved to
leave Havre. My intention is to buy back the estate of La Bastie,
and to entail it, so as to establish an estate yielding at least a
hundred thousand francs a year, and then to ask the king to grant
that one of my sons-in-law may succeed to my name and title. You
know, my poor Dumay, what a terrible misfortune overtook us
through the fatal reputation of a large fortune,--my daughter's
honor was lost. I have therefore resolved that the amount of my
present fortune shall not be known. I shall not disembark at
Havre, but at Marseilles. I shall sell my indigo, and negotiate
for the purchase of La Bastie through the house of Mongenod in
Paris. I shall put my funds in the Bank of France and return to
the Chalet giving out that I have a considerable fortune in
merchandise. My daughters will be supposed to have two or three
hundred thousand francs. To choose which of my sons-in-law is
worthy to succeed to my title and estates and to live with us, is
now the object of my life; but both of them must be, like you and
me, honest, loyal, and firm men, and absolutely honorable.

My dear old fellow, I have never doubted you for a moment. We have
gone through wars and commerce together and now we will undertake
agriculture; you shall be my bailiff. You will like that, will you
not? And so, old friend, I leave it to your discretion to tell
what you think best to my wife and daughters; I rely upon your
prudence. In four years great changes may have taken place in
their characters.

Adieu, my old Dumay. Say to my daughters and to my wife that I
have never failed to kiss them in my thoughts morning and evening
since I left them. The second check for