The Lesser Bourgeoisie, Honore de Balzac [good book recommendations .TXT] 📗

my

son, expressed the desire to know him."

 

"Parbleu! yes, to convert him," said Brigitte. "But as for this

marriage, I am sorry to tell you that the mustard is made too late for

the dinner; Thuillier will never renounce his la Peyrade."

 

"Mademoiselle," said Phellion, rising, "I feel no humiliation for the

useless step I have this day taken; I do not even ask you to keep it

secret, for I shall myself mention it to our friends and

acquaintances."

 

"Tell it to whom you like, my good man," replied Brigitte,

acrimoniously. "Because your son has discovered a star,--if, indeed,

he did discover it, and not that old fool the government decorated--do

you expect him to marry a daughter of the King of the French?"

 

"Enough," said Phellion, "we will say no more. I might answer that,

without depreciating the Thuilliers, the Orleans family seems to me

more distinguished; but I do not like to introduce acerbity into the

conversation, and therefore, begging you to receive the assurance of

my humble respects, I retire."

 

So saying, he made his exit majestically, and left Brigitte with the

arrow of his comparison, discharged after the manner of the Parthian

"in extremis," sticking in her mind, and she herself in a temper all

the more savage because already, the evening before, Madame Thuillier,

after the guests were gone, had the incredible audacity to say

something in favor of Felix. Needless to relate that the poor helot

was roughly put down and told to mind her own business. But this

attempt at a will of her own in her sister-in-law had already put the

old maid in a vile humor, and Phellion, coming to reopen the subject,

exasperated her. Josephine, the cook, and the "male domestic,"

received the after-clap of the scene which had just taken place.

Brigitte found that in her absence everything had been done wrong, and

putting her own hand to the work, she hoisted herself on a chair, at

the risk of her neck, to reach the upper shelves of the closet, where

her choicest china, for gala days, was carefully kept under lock and

key.

 

This day, which for Brigitte began so ill, was, beyond all gainsaying,

one of the stormiest and most portentous of this narrative. 

CHAPTER XIV9A STORMY DAY)

As an exact historian, we must go back and begin the day at six in the

morning, when we can see Madame Thuillier going to the Madeleine to

hear the mass that the Abbe Gondrin was in the habit of saying at that

hour, and afterwards approaching the holy table,--a viaticum which

pious souls never fail to give themselves when it is in their minds to

accomplish some great resolution.

 

About mid-day the abbe received a visit in his own home from Madame

Thuillier and Celeste. The poor child wanted a little development of

the words by which the priest had given security, the evening before,

in Brigitte's salon, for the eternal welfare of Felix Phellion. It

seemed strange to the mind of this girl-theologian that, without

practising religion, a soul could be received into grace by the divine

justice; for surely the anathema is clear: Out of the Church there is

no salvation.

 

"My dear child," said the Abbe Gondrin, "learn to understand that

saying which seems to you so inexplicable. It is more a saying of

thanksgiving for those who have the happiness to live within the pale

of our holy mother the Church than a malediction upon those who have

the misfortune to live apart from her. God sees to the depths of all

hearts; He knows His elect; and so great is the treasure of His

goodness that to none is it given to limit its riches and its

munificence. Who shall dare to say to God: Thou wilt be generous and

munificent so far and no farther. Jesus Christ forgave the woman in

adultery, and on the cross He promised heaven to a thief, in order to

prove to us that He deals with men, not according to human sentiments,

but according to _his_ wisdom and _his_ mercy. He who thinks himself a

Christian may be in the eyes of God an idolator; and another who is

thought a pagan may, by his feelings and his actions be, without his

own knowledge, a Christian. Our holy religion has this that is divine

about it; all grandeur, all heroism are but the practice of its

precepts. I was saying yesterday to Monsieur de la Peyrade that pure

souls must be, in course of time, its inevitable conquest. It is

all-important to give them their just credit; that is a confidence

which returns great dividends; and, besides, charity commands it."

 

"Ah! my God!" cried Celeste, "to learn that too late! I, who could

have chosen between Felix and Monsieur de la Peyrade, and did not dare

to follow the ideas of my heart! Oh! Monsieur l'abbe, couldn't you

speak to my mother? Your advice is always listened to."

 

"Impossible, my dear child," replied the vicar. "If I had the

direction of Madame Colleville's conscience I might perhaps say a

word, but we are so often accused of meddling imprudently in family

matters! Be sure that my intervention here, without authority or

right, would do you more harm than good. It is for you and for those

who love you," he added, giving a look to Madame Thuillier, "to see if

these arrangements, already so far advanced, could be changed in the

direction of your wishes."

 

It was written that the poor child was to drink to the dregs the cup

she had herself prepared by her intolerance. As the abbe finished

speaking, his housekeeper came in to ask if he would receive Monsieur

Felix Phellion. Thus, like the Charter of 1830, Madame de Godollo's

officious falsehood was turned into truth.

 

"Go this way," he said hastily, showing his two penitents out by a

private corridor.

 

Life has such strange encounters that it does sometimes happen that

the same form of proceeding must be used by courtesans and by the men

of God.

 

"Monsieur l'abbe," said Felix to the young vicar as soon as they met,

"I have heard of the kind manner in which you were so very good as to

speak of me in Monsieur Thuillier's salon last night, and I should

have hastened to express my gratitude if another interest had not

drawn me to you."

 

The Abbe Gondrin passed hastily over the compliments, eager to know in

what way he could be useful to his fellow-man.

 

"With an intention that I wish to think kindly," replied Felix, "you

were spoken to yesterday about the state of my soul. Those who read it

so fluently know more than I do about my inner being, for, during the

last few days I have felt strange, inexplicable feelings within me.

Never have I doubted God, but, in contact with that infinitude where

he has permitted my thought to follow the traces of his work I seem to

have gathered a sense of him less vague, more immediate; and this has

led me to ask myself whether an honest and upright life is the only

homage which his omnipotence expects of me. Nevertheless, there are

numberless objections rising in my mind against the worship of which

you are the minister; while sensible of the beauty of its external

form in many of its precepts and practices, I find myself deterred by

my reason. I shall have paid dearly, perhaps by the happiness of my

whole life, for the slowness and want of vigor which I have shown in

seeking the solution of my doubts. I have now decided to search to the

bottom of them. No one so well as you, Monsieur l'abbe, can help me to

solve them. I have come with confidence to lay them before you, to ask

you to listen to me, to answer me, and to tell me by what studies I

can pursue the search for light. It is a cruelly afflicted soul that

appeals to you. Is not that a good ground for the seed of your word?"

 

The Abbe Gondrin eagerly protested the joy with which, notwithstanding

his own insufficiency, he would undertake to reply to the scruples of

conscience in the young savant. After asking him for a place in his

friendship, and telling him to come at certain hours for conversation,

he asked him to read, as a first step, the "Thoughts" of Pascal. A

natural affinity, on the side of science, would, he believed, be

established between the spirit of Pascal and that of the young

mathematician.

 

While this scene was passing, a scene to which the greatness of the

interests in question and the moral and intellectual elevation of the

personages concerned in it gave a character of grandeur which, like

all reposeful, tranquil aspects, is easier far to comprehend than to

reproduce, another scene, of sharp and bitter discord, that chronic

malady of bourgeois households, where the pettiness of minds and

passions gives open way to it, was taking place in the Thuillier home.

 

Mounted upon her chair, her hair in disorder and her face and fingers

dirty, Brigitte, duster in hand, was cleaning the shelves of the

closet, where she was replacing her library of plates, dishes, and

sauce-boats, when Flavie came in and accosted her.

 

"Brigitte," she said, "when you have finished what you are about you

had better come down to our apartment, or else I'll send Celeste to

you; she seems to me to be inclined to make trouble."

 

"In what way?" asked Brigitte, continuing to dust.

 

"I think she and Madame Thuillier went to see the Abbe Gondrin this

morning, and she has been attacking me about Felix Phellion, and talks

of him as if he were a god; from that to refusing to marry la Peyrade

is but a step."

 

"Those cursed skull-caps!" said Brigitte; "they meddle in everything!

I didn't want to invite him, but you would insist."

 

"Yes," said Flavie, "it was proper."

 

"Proper! I despise proprieties!" cried the old maid. "He's a maker of

speeches; he said nothing last night that wasn't objectionable. Send

Celeste to me; I'll settle her."

 

At this instant a servant announced to Brigitte the arrival of a clerk

from the office of the new notary chosen, in default of Dupuis, to

draw up the contract. Without considering her disorderly appearance,

Brigitte ordered him to be shown in, but she made him the

condescension of descending from her perch instead of talking from the

height of it.

 

"Monsieur Thuillier," said the clerk, "came to our office this morning

to explain to the master the clauses of the contract he has been so

good as to entrust to us. But before writing down the stipulations, we

are in the habit of obtaining from the lips of each donor a direct

expression of his or her intentions. In accordance with this rule,

Monsieur Thuillier told us that he gives to the bride the reversion,

at his death, of the house he inhabits, which I presume to be this

one?"

 

"Yes," said Brigitte, "that is the understanding. As for me, I give

three hundred thousand francs a year in the Three-per-cents, capital

and interest; but the bride is married under the dotal system."

 

"That is so," said the clerk, consulting his notes. "Mademoiselle

Brigitte, three thousand francs a year. Now, there is Madame Celeste

Thuillier, wife of Louis-Jerome Thuillier, who gives six thousand in

the Three-per-cents, capital and interest, and six thousand more at

her death."

 

"All that is just as if the notary had written it down," said

Brigitte; "but if it is your custom you can see my sister-in-law; they

will show you the way."

 

So saying, the old maid ordered the "male domestic" to take the clerk

to Madame Thuillier.

 

A moment later the clerk returned, saying there was certainly some

misunderstanding, and that Madame Thuillier declared she had no

intention of making any agreement in favor of the marriage.

 

"That's a pretty thing!" cried Brigitte. "Come with me, monsieur."

 

Then, like a hurricane, she rushed into Madame Thuillier's chamber;

the latter was pale and trembling.

 

"What's this you have told monsieur?--that you give nothing to

Celeste's 'dot'?"

 

"Yes," said the slave, declaring insurrection, although in a shaking

voice; "my intention is to