The Brotherhood of Consolation, Honoré de Balzac [robert munsch read aloud txt] 📗

have many enjoyments, and they are all the greater because they are perpetually won from death. I am afraid you will think me quite garrulous," she added, smiling.

"Madame, I should like to listen to you forever," replied Godefroid; "I have never heard a voice that was comparable to yours; it is music; Rubini is not more enchanting."

"Don't speak of Rubini or the opera," said the old man, sadly. "That is a pleasure that, rich as I am, I cannot give to my daughter. She was once a great musician, and the opera was her greatest pleasure."

"Forgive me," said Godefroid.

"You will soon get accustomed to us," said the old man.

"Yes, and this is the process," said the sick woman, laughing; "when they've cried 'puss, puss, puss,' often enough you'll learn the puss-in-the-corner of our conversations."

Godefroid gave a rapid glance at Monsieur Bernard, who, seeing the tears in the eyes of his new neighbor, seemed to be making him a sign not to undo the results of the self-command he and his grandson had practised for so many years.

This sublime and perpetual imposture, proved by the complete illusion of the sick woman, produced on Godefroid's mind the impression of an Alpine precipice down which two chamois hunters picked their way. The magnificent gold snuff-box enriched with diamonds with which the old man carelessly toyed as he sat by his daughter's bedside was like the stroke of genius which in the work of a great man elicits a cry of admiration. Godefroid looked at that snuff-box, wondering it had not been sold or found its way to the mont-de-piete.

"This evening, Monsieur Godefroid, my daughter received the announcement of your visit with such excitement that all the curious symptoms of her malady which have troubled us very much for the last twelve days have entirely disappeared. You can fancy how grateful I am to you."

"And I, too," said the invalid in her caressing tones, drooping her head with a motion full of coquetry. "Monsieur is to me a deputy from the world. Since I was twenty years old, monsieur, I have not seen a salon, or a party, or a ball. And I must tell you that I love dancing, and adore the theatre, especially the opera. I imagine everything by thought! I read a great deal; and then my father, who goes into society, tells me about social events."

Godefroid made an involuntary movement as if to kneel at the old man's feet.

"Yes, when he goes to the opera, and he often goes, he describes to me the singing and tells me about the dresses of the ladies. Oh! I would I were cured for the sake of my father, who lives solely for me as I live by him and for him, and then for my son, to whom I would fain be a real mother. Ah! monsieur, what blessed beings my old father and my good son are! I should also like to recover so as to hear Lablache, Rubini, Tamburini, Grisi, and 'I Puritani.' But--"

"Come, come, my child, be calm! If we talk music we are lost!" said the old man, smiling.

That smile, which rejuvenated his face, was evidently a perpetual deception to the sick woman.

"Yes, yes, I'll be good," said Vanda, with a petulant little air; "but when will you give me an accordion?"

The portable instrument then called by that name had just been invented. It could, if desired, be placed at the edge of a bedstead, and only needed the pressure of a foot to give out the sounds of an organ. This instrument, in its highest development, was equal to a piano; but the cost of it was three hundred francs. Vanda, who read the newspapers and reviews, knew of the existence of the instrument, and had wished for one for the last two months.

"Yes, madame, you shall have one," said Godefroid, after exchanging a look with the old man. "A friend of mine who is just starting for Algiers has a fine instrument and I will borrow it of him. Before buying, you had better try one. It is possible that the powerful, vibrating tones may be too much for you."

"Can I have it to-morrow?" she said, with the wilfulness of a creole.

"To-morrow?" said Monsieur Bernard, "that is soon; besides, to-morrow is Sunday."

"Ah--" she exclaimed, looking at Godefroid, who fancied he could see a soul hovering in the air as he admired the ubiquity of Vanda's glances.

Until then, Godefroid had never known the power of voice and eyes when the whole of life is put into them. The glance was no longer a glance, a look, it was a flame, or rather, a divine incandescence, a radiance, communicating life and mind,--it was thought made visible. The voice, with its thousand intonations, took the place of motions, gestures, attitudes. The variations of the complexion, changing color like the famous chameleon, made the illusion, perhaps we should say the mirage, complete. That suffering head lying on the white pillow edged with laces was a whole person in itself.

Never in his life had Godefroid seen so wonderful a sight; he could scarcely control his emotions. Another wonder, for all was wondrous in this scene, so full of horror and yet of poesy, was that in those who saw it soul alone existed. This atmosphere, filled with mental emotions only, had a celestial influence. Those present felt their bodies as little as the sick woman felt hers. They were all mind. As Godefroid contemplated that frail fragment of woman he forgot the surrounding elegancies of the room, and fancied himself beneath the open heavens. It was not until half an hour had passed that he came back to his sense of things about him; he then noticed a fine picture, which the invalid asked him to examine, saying it was by Gericault.

"Gericault," she told him, "came from Rouen; his family were under certain obligations to my father, who was president of the court, and he showed his gratitude by painting that portrait of me when I was a girl of sixteen."

"It is a beautiful picture," said Godefroid; "and quite unknown to those who are in search of the rare works of that master."

"To me it is merely an object of affection," replied Vanda; "I live in my heart only,--and it is a beautiful life," she added, casting a look at her father in which she seemed to put her very soul. "Ah! monsieur, if you only knew what my father really is! Who would believe that the stern and lofty magistrate to whom the Emperor was under such obligations that he gave him that snuff-box, and on whom Charles X. bestowed as a reward that Sevres tea-set which you see behind you, who would suppose that that rigid supporter of power and law, that learned jurist, should have within his heart of rock the heart of a mother, too? Oh! papa, papa! kiss me, kiss me! come!"

The old man rose, leaned over the bed and kissed the broad poetic forehead of his daughter, whose passionate excitements did not always take the turn of this tempest of affection. Then he walked about the room; his slippers, embroidered by his daughter, making no noise.

"What are your occupations?" said Vanda to Godefroid, after a pause.

"Madame, I am employed by pious persons to help the unfortunate."

"Ah! what a noble mission, monsieur!" she said. "Do you know the thought of devoting myself to that very work has often come to me? but ah! what ideas do not come to me?" she added, with a motion of her head. "Suffering is like a torch which lights up life. If I were ever to recover health--"

"You should amuse yourself, my child," said her father.

"Oh yes!" she said; "I have the desire, but should I then have the faculty? My son will be, I hope a magistrate, worthy of his two grandfathers, and he will leave me. What should I do then? If God restores me to life I will dedicate that life to Him--oh! after giving you all you need of it," she cried, looking tenderly at her father and son. "There are moments, my dear father, when the ideas of Monsieur de Maistre work within me powerfully, and I fancy that I am expiating something."

"See what it is to read too much!" said the old man, evidently troubled.

"That brave Polish general, my great grandfather, took part, though very innocently, in the partition of Poland."

"Well, well! now it is Poland!" said Monsieur Bernard.

"How can I help it, papa? my sufferings are infernal; they give me a horror of life, they disgust me with myself. Well, I ask you, have I done anything to deserve them? Such diseases are not a mere derangement of health, they are caused by a perverted organization and--"

"Sing that national air your poor mother used to sing; Monsieur Godefroid wants to hear it; I have told him about your voice," said the old man, endeavoring to distract her mind from the current of such thoughts.

Vanda began, in a low and tender voice, to sing a Polish song which held Godefroid dumb with admiration and also with sadness. This melody, which greatly resembles the long drawn out melancholy airs of Brittany, is one of those poems which vibrate in the heart long after the ear has heard them. As he listened, Godefroid looked at Vanda, but he could not endure the ecstatic glance of that fragment of a woman, partially insane, and his eyes wandered to two cords which hung one on each side of the canopy of the bed.

"Ah ha!" laughed Vanda, noticing his look, "do you want to know what those cords are for?"

"Vanda!" said her father, hastily, "calm yourself, my daughter. See! here comes tea. That, monsieur," he continued, turning to Godefroid, "is rather a costly affair. My daughter cannot rise, and therefore it is difficult to change her sheets. Those cords are fastened to pulleys; by slipping a square of leather beneath her and drawing it up by the four corners with these pulleys, we are able to make her bed without fatigue to her or to ourselves."

"They swing me!" cried Vanda, gaily.

Happily, Auguste now came in with a teapot, which he placed on a table, together with the Sevres tea-set; then he brought cakes and sandwiches and cream. This sight diverted his mother's mind from the nervous crisis which seemed to threaten her.

"See, Vanda, here is Nathan's new novel. If you wake in the night you will have something to read."

"Oh! delightful! 'La Perle de Dol;' it must be a love-story,--Auguste, I have something to tell you! I'm to have an accordion!"

Auguste looked up suddenly with a strange glance at his grandfather.

"See how he loves his mother!" cried Vanda. "Come and kiss me, my kitten. No, it is not your grandfather you are to thank, but monsieur, who is good enough to lend me one. I am to have it to-morrow. How are they made, monsieur?"

Godefroid, at a sign from the old man, explained an accordion at length, while sipping the tea which Auguste brought him and which was in truth, exquisite.

About half-past ten o'clock he retired, weary of beholding the desperate struggle of the son and father, admiring their heroism, and the daily, hourly patience with which they played their double parts, each equally exhausting.

"Well," said Monsieur Bernard, who followed him home, "you now see, monsieur, the life I live. I am like a thief,