The Two Brothers, Honoré de Balzac [sites to read books for free TXT] 📗

she asked.

"No, mademoiselle."

"Well, what is it you want to know? You have some reason--"

"Yes, I want to know--"

"What?" said Flore.

"You won't tell me?" exclaimed Rouget.

"Yes I will, on my honor--"

"Ah! that's it," returned Rouget, with a frightened air. "Are you an honest girl?"

"I'll take my oath--"

"Are you, truly?"

"Don't you hear me tell you so?"

"Come; are you the same as you were when your uncle brought you here barefooted?"

"A fine question, faith!" cried Flore, blushing.

The heir lowered his head and did not raise it again. Flore, amazed at such an encouraging sign from a man who had been overcome by a fear of that nature, left the room.

Three days later, at the same hour (for both seemed to regard the dessert as a field of battle), Flore spoke first, and said to her master,--

"Have you anything against me?"

"No, mademoiselle," he answered, "No--" (a pause) "On the contrary."

"You seemed annoyed the other day to hear I was an honest girl."

"No, I only wished to know--" (a pause) "But you would not tell me--"

"On my word!" she said, "I will tell you the whole truth."

"The whole truth about--my father?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Your father," she said, looking full into her master's eye, "was a worthy man--he liked a joke--What of that?--there was nothing in it. But, poor dear man, it wasn't the will that was wanting. The truth is, he had some spite against you, I don't know what, and he meant--oh! he meant you harm. Sometimes he made me laugh; but there! what of that?"

"Well, Flore," said the heir, taking her hand, "as my father was nothing to you--"

"What did you suppose he was to me?" she cried, as if offended by some unworthy suspicion.

"Well, but just listen--"

"He was my benefactor, that was all. Ah! he would have liked to make me his wife, but--"

"But," said Rouget, taking the hand which Flore had snatched away from him, "if he was nothing to you you can stay here with me, can't you?"

"If you wish it," she said, dropping her eyes.

"No, no! if you wish it, you!" exclaimed Rouget. "Yes, you shall be--mistress here. All that is here shall be yours; you shall take care of my property, it is almost yours now--for I love you; I have always loved you since the day you came and stood there--there!--with bare feet."

Flore made no answer. When the silence became embarrassing, Jean-Jacques had recourse to a terrible argument.

"Come," he said, with visible warmth, "wouldn't it be better than returning to the fields?"

"As you will, Monsieur Jean," she answered.

Nevertheless, in spite of her "as you will," Jean-Jacques got no further. Men of his nature want certainty. The effort that they make in avowing their love is so great, and costs them so much, that they feel unable to go on with it. This accounts for their attachment to the first woman who accepts them. We can only guess at circumstances by results. Ten months after the death of his father, Jean-Jacques changed completely; his leaden face cleared, and his whole countenance breathed happiness. Flore exacted that he should take minute care of his person, and her own vanity was gratified in seeing him well-dressed; she always stood on the sill of the door, and watched him starting for a walk, until she could see him no longer. The whole town noticed these changes, which had made a new man of the bachelor.

"Have you heard the news?" people said to each other in Issoudun.

"What is it?"

"Jean-Jacques inherits everything from his father, even the Rabouilleuse."

"Don't you suppose the old doctor was wicked enough to provide a ruler for his son?"

"Rouget has got a treasure, that's certain," said everybody.

"She's a sly one! She is very handsome, and she will make him marry her."

"What luck that girl has had, to be sure!"

"The luck that only comes to pretty girls."

"Ah, bah! do you believe that? look at my uncle Borniche-Herau. You have heard of Mademoiselle Ganivet? she was as ugly as seven capital sins, but for all that, she got three thousand francs a year out of him."

"Yes, but that was in 1778."

"Still, Rouget is making a mistake. His father left him a good forty thousand francs' income, and he ought to marry Mademoiselle Herau."

"The doctor tried to arrange it, but she would not consent; Jean-Jacques is so stupid--"

"Stupid! why women are very happy with that style of man."

"Is your wife happy?"

Such was the sort of tattle that ran through Issoudun. If people, following the use and wont of the provinces, began by laughing at this quasi-marriage, they ended by praising Flore for devoting herself to the poor fellow. We now see how it was that Flore Brazier obtained the management of the Rouget household,--from father to son, as young Goddet had said. It is desirable to sketch the history of that management for the edification of old bachelors.

Fanchette, the cook, was the only person in Issoudun who thought it wrong that Flore Brazier should be queen over Jean-Jacques Rouget and his home. She protested against the immorality of the connection, and took a tone of injured virtue; the fact being that she was humiliated by having, at her age, a crab-girl for a mistress,--a child who had been brought barefoot into the house. Fanchette owned three hundred francs a year in the Funds, for the doctor made her invest her savings in that way, and he had left her as much more in an annuity; she could therefore live at her ease without the necessity of working, and she quitted the house nine months after the funeral of her old master, April 15, 1806. That date may indicate, to a perspicacious observer, the epoch at which Flore Brazier ceased to be an honest girl.

The Rabouilleuse, clever enough to foresee Fanchette's probable defection,--there is nothing like the exercise of power for teaching policy,--was already resolved to do without a servant. For six months she had studied, without seeming to do so, the culinary operations that made Fanchette a cordon-bleu worthy of cooking for a doctor. In the matter of choice living, doctors are on a par with bishops. The doctor had brought Fanchette's talents to perfection. In the provinces the lack of occupation and the monotony of existence turn all activity of mind towards the kitchen. People do not dine as luxuriously in the country as they do in Paris, but they dine better; the dishes are meditated upon and studied. In rural regions we often find some Careme in petticoats, some unrecognized genius able to serve a simple dish of haricot-beans worthy of the nod with which Rossini welcomed a perfectly-rendered measure.

When studying for his degree in Paris, the doctor had followed a course of chemistry under Rouelle, and had gathered some ideas which he afterwards put to use in the chemistry of cooking. His memory is famous in Issoudun for certain improvements little known outside of Berry. It was he who discovered that an omelette is far more delicate when the whites and the yolks are not beaten together with the violence which cooks usually put into the operation. He considered that the whites should be beaten to a froth and the yolks gently added by degrees; moreover a frying-pan should never be used, but a "cagnard" of porcelain or earthenware. The "cagnard" is a species of thick dish standing on four feet, so that when it is placed on the stove the air circulates underneath and prevents the fire from cracking it. In Touraine the "cagnard" is called a "cauquemarre." Rabelais, I think, speaks of a "cauquemarre" for cooking cockatrice eggs, thus proving the antiquity of the utensil. The doctor had also found a way to prevent the tartness of browned butter; but his secret, which unluckily he kept to his own kitchen, has been lost.

Flore, a born fryer and roaster, two qualities that can never be acquired by observation nor yet by labor, soon surpassed Fanchette. In making herself a cordon-bleu she was thinking of Jean-Jacques's comfort; though she was, it must be owned, tolerably dainty. Incapable, like all persons without education, of doing anything with her brains, she spent her activity upon household matters. She rubbed up the furniture till it shone, and kept everything about the house in a state of cleanliness worthy of Holland. She managed the avalanches of soiled linen and the floods of water that go by the name of "the wash," which was done, according to provincial usage, three times a year. She kept a housewifely eye to the linen, and mended it carefully. Then, desirous of learning little by little the secret of the family property, she acquired the very limited business knowledge which Rouget possessed, and increased it by conversations with the notary of the late doctor, Monsieur Heron. Thus instructed, she gave excellent advice to her little Jean-Jacques. Sure of being always mistress, she was as eager and solicitous about the old bachelor's interests as if they had been her own. She was not obliged to guard against the exactions of her uncle, for two months before the doctor's death Brazier died of a fall as he was leaving a wine-shop, where, since his rise in fortune, he spent most of his time. Flore had also lost her father; thus she served her master with all the affection which an orphan, thankful to make herself a home and a settlement in life, would naturally feel.

This period of his life was paradise to poor Jean-Jacques, who now acquired the gentle habits of an animal, trained into a sort of monastic regularity. He slept late. Flore, who was up at daybreak attending to her housekeeping, woke him so that he should find his breakfast ready as soon as he had finished dressing. After breakfast, about eleven o'clock, Jean-Jacques went to walk; talked with the people he met, and came home at three in the afternoon to read the papers,--those of the department, and a journal from Paris which he received three days after publication, well greased by the thirty hands through which it came, browned by the snuffy noses that had pored over it, and soiled by the various tables on which it had lain. The old bachelor thus got through the day until it was time for dinner; over that meal he spent as much time as it was possible to give to it. Flore told him the news of the town, repeating the cackle that was current, which she had carefully picked up. Towards eight o'clock the lights were put out. Going to bed early is a saving of fire and candles very commonly practised in the provinces, which contributes no doubt to the empty-mindedness of the inhabitants. Too much sleep dulls and weakens the brain.

Such was the life of these two persons during a period of nine years, the great events of which were a few journeys to Bourges, Vierzon, Chateauroux, or somewhat further, if the notaries of those towns and Monsieur Heron had no investments ready for acceptance. Rouget lent his money at five per cent on a first mortgage, with release of the wife's rights in case the owner was married. He never lent more than a third of the value of the property, and required notes payable to his order for an additional interest of two and a half per cent spread over the whole duration of