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

ca! papa Minard, we'll keep quiet about all this; silence is the

word. Will you take a cup of tea?"

 

"Willingly," replied Minard.

 

"Celeste," said the old maid, "ring for Henri, and tell him to put the

large kettle on the fire."

 

Though the visit to the notary was not to be made till two in the

afternoon, Brigitte began early in the morning of the next day what

Thuillier called her _rampage_, a popular term which expresses that

turbulent, nagging, irritating activity which La Fontaine has

described so well in his fable of "The Old Woman and her Servants."

Brigitte declared that if you didn't take time by the forelock no one

would be ready. She prevented Thuillier from going to his office,

insisting that if he once got off she never should see him again; she

plagued Josephine, the cook, about hurrying the breakfast, and in

spite of what had happened the day before she scarcely restrained

herself from nagging at Madame Thuillier, who did not enter, as she

thought she should have done, into her favorite maxim, "Better be

early than late."

 

Presently down she went to the Collevilles' to make the same

disturbance; and there she put her veto on the costume, far too

elegant, which Flavie meditated wearing, and told Celeste the hat and

gown she wished her to appear in. As for Colleville, who could not, he

declared, stay away all the morning from his official duties, she

compelled him to put on his dress-suit before he went out, made him

set his watch by hers, and warned him that if he was late no one would

wait for him.

 

The amusing part of it was that Brigitte herself, after driving every

one at the point of the bayonet, came very near being late herself.

Under pretext of aiding others, independently of minding her own

business, which, for worlds, she would never have spared herself, she

had put her fingers and eyes into so many things that they ended by

overwhelming her. However, she ascribed the delay in which she was

almost caught to the hairdresser, whom she had sent for to make, on

this extraordinary occasion, what she called her "part." That artist

having, unadvisedly, dressed her hair in the fashion, he was

compelled, after she had looked at herself in the glass, to do his

work over again, and conform to the usual style of his client, which

consisted chiefly in never being "done" at all, a method that gave her

head a general air of what is vulgarly called "a cross cat."

 

About half-past one o'clock la Peyrade, Thuillier, Colleville, Madame

Thuillier, and Celeste were assembled in the salon. Flavie joined them

soon after, fastening her bracelets as she came along to avoid a

rebuff, and having the satisfaction of knowing that she was ready

before Brigitte. As for the latter, already furious at finding herself

late, she had another cause for exasperation. The event of the day

seemed to require a corset, a refinement which she usually discarded.

The unfortunate maid, whose duty it was to lace her and to discover

the exact point to which she was willing to be drawn in, alone knew

the terrors and storms of a corset day.

 

"I'd rather," said the girl, "lace the obelisk; I know it would lend

itself to being laced better than she does; and, anyhow, it couldn't

be bad-tongued."

 

While the party in the salon were amusing themselves, under their

breaths, at the "flagrante delicto" of unpunctuality in which Queen

Elizabeth was caught, the porter entered, and gave to Thuillier a

sealed package, addressed to "Monsieur Thuillier, director of the

'Echo de la Bievre.' _In haste_."

 

Thuillier opened the envelope, and found within a copy of a

ministerial journal which had hitherto shown itself discourteous to

the new paper by refusing the _exchange_ which all periodicals usually

make very willingly with one another.

 

Puzzled by the fact of this missive being sent to his own house and

not to the office of the "Echo," Thuillier hastily opened the sheet,

and read, with what emotion the reader may conceive, the following

article, commended to his notice by a circle in red ink:--

 

An obscure organ was about to expire in its native shade when an

ambitious person of recent date bethought himself of galvanizing

His object was to make it a foothold by which to climb from

municipal functions to the coveted position of deputy. Happily

this object, having come to the surface, will end in failure.

Electors will certainly not be inveigled by so wily a manner of

advancing self-interests; and when the proper time arrives, if

ridicule has not already done justice on this absurd candidacy, we

shall ourselves prove to the pretender that to aspire to the

distinguished honor of representing the nation something more is

required than the money to buy a paper and pay an underling to put

into good French the horrible diction of his articles and

pamphlets. We confine ourselves to-day to this limited notice, but

our readers may be sure that we shall keep them informed about

this electoral comedy, if indeed the parties concerned have the

melancholy courage to go on with it.

 

Thuillier read twice over this sudden declaration of war, which was

far from leaving him calm and impassible; then, taking la Peyrade

aside, he said to him:--

 

"Read that; it is serious."

 

"Well?" said la Peyrade, after reading the article.

 

"Well? how well?" exclaimed Thuillier.

 

"I mean, what do you find so serious in that?"

 

"What do I find so serious?" repeated Thuillier. "I don't think

anything could be more insulting to me."

 

"You can't doubt," said la Peyrade, "that the virtuous Cerizet is at

the bottom of it; he has thrown this firecracker between your legs by

way of revenge."

 

"Cerizet, or anybody else who wrote that diatribe is an insolent

fellow," cried Thuillier, getting angry, "and the matter shall not

rest there."

 

"For my part," said la Peyrade, "I advise you to make no reply. You

are not named; though, of course, the attack is aimed at you. But you

ought to let our adversary commit himself farther; when the right

moment comes, we'll rap him over the knuckles."

 

"No!" said Thuillier, "I won't stay quiet one minute under such an

insult."

 

"The devil!" said the barrister; "what a sensitive epidermis! Do

reflect, my dear fellow, that you have made yourself a candidate and a

journalist, and therefore you really must harden yourself better than

that."

 

"My good friend, it is a principle of mine not to let anybody step on

my toes. Besides, they say themselves they are going on with this

thing. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to cut short such

impertinence."

 

"But do consider," said la Peyrade. "Certainly in journalism, as in

candidacy, a hot temper has its uses; a man makes himself respected,

and stops attacks--"

 

"Just so," said Thuillier, "'principiis obsta.' Not to-day, because we

haven't the time, but to-morrow I shall carry that paper into court."

 

"Into court!" echoed la Peyrade; "you surely wouldn't go to law in

such a matter as this? In the first place, there is nothing to proceed

upon; you are not named nor the paper either, and, besides, it is a

pitiable business, going to law; you'll look like a boy who has been

fighting, and got the worst of it, and runs to complain to his mamma.

Now if you had said that you meant to make Fleury intervene in the

matter, I could understand that--though the affair is rather personal

to you, and it might be difficult to make it seem--"

 

"Ah ca!" said Thuillier, "do you suppose I am going to commit myself

with a Cerizet or any other newspaper bully? I pique myself, my dear

fellow, on possessing civic courage, which does not give in to

prejudices, and which, instead of taking justice into its own hands,

has recourse to the means of defence that are provided by law.

Besides, with the legal authority the Court of Cassation now has over

duelling, I have no desire to put myself in the way of being

expatriated, or spending two or three years in prison."

 

"Well," said la Peyrade, "we'll talk it over later; here's your

sister, and she would think everything lost if this little matter

reached her ears."

 

When Brigitte appeared Colleville shouted "Full!" and proceeded to

sing the chorus of "La Parisienne."

 

"Heavens! Colleville, how vulgar you are!" cried the tardy one,

hastening to cast a stone in the other's garden to avoid the throwing

of one into hers. "Well, are you all ready?" she added, arranging her

mantle before a mirror. "What o'clock is it? it won't do to get there

before the time, like provincials."

 

"Ten minutes to two," said Colleville; "I go by the Tuileries."

 

"Well, then we are just right," said Brigitte; "it will take about

that time to get to the rue Caumartin. Josephine," she cried, going to

the door of the salon, "we'll dine at six, therefore be sure you put

the turkey to roast at the right time, and mind you don't burn it, as

you did the other day. Bless me! who's that?" and with a hasty motion

she shut the door, which she had been holding open. "What a nuisance!

I hope Henri will have the sense to tell him we are out."

 

Not at all; Henri came in to say that an old gentleman, with a very

genteel air, had asked to be received on urgent business.

 

"Why didn't you say we were all out?"

 

"That's what I should have done if mademoiselle had not opened the

door of the salon so that the gentleman could see the whole family

assembled."

 

"Oh, yes!" said Brigitte, "you are never in the wrong, are you?"

 

"What am I to say to him?" asked the man.

 

"Say," replied Thuillier, "that I am very sorry not to be able to

receive him, but I am expected at a notary's office about a marriage

contract; but that if he could return two hours hence--"

 

"I have told him all that," said Henri, "and he answered that that

contract was precisely what he had come about, and that his business

concerned you more than himself."

 

"You had better go and see him, Thuillier, and get rid of him in

double-quick," said Brigitte; "that's shorter than talking to Henri,

who is always an orator."

 

If la Peyrade had been consulted he might not have joined in that

advice, for he had had more than one specimen of the spokes some

occult influence was putting into the wheels of his marriage, and the

present visit seemed to him ominous.

 

"Show him into my study," said Thuillier, following his sister's

advice; and, opening the door which led from the salon to the study,

he went to receive his importunate visitor.

 

Brigitte immediately applied her eye to the keyhole.

 

"Goodness!" she exclaimed, "there's my imbecile of a Thuillier

offering him a chair! and away in a corner, too, where I can't hear a

word they say!"

 

La Peyrade was walking about the room with an inward agitation covered

by an appearance of great indifference. He even went up to the three

women, and made a few lover-like speeches to Celeste, who received

them with a smiling, happy air in keeping with the role she was

playing. As for Colleville, he was killing the time by composing an

anagram on the six words of "le journal 'l'Echo de la Bievre,'" for

which he had found the following version, little reassuring (as far as

it went) for the prospects of that newspaper: "O d'Echo, jarni! la

bevue reell"--but as the final "e" was lacking to complete the last

word, the work was not altogether as satisfactory as it should have

been.

 

"He's taking snuff!" said Brigitte, her eye still glued to the

keyhole; "his gold snuff-box beats Minard's--though, perhaps, it is

only silver-gilt," she added, reflectively. "He's doing the talking,

and Thuillier is sitting there listening to him like a buzzard. I

shall go in and tell them they can't keep ladies waiting that way."

 

But just as she put her hand on the lock she heard Thuillier's visitor

raise his voice, and that made her look through the keyhole again.

 

"He is standing up; he's going," she said with satisfaction.

 

But a moment later she saw she had made a mistake; the little old man

had only left his chair to walk up and down the room and continue the

conversation with greater freedom.

 

"My gracious! I shall certainly go in," she said, "and tell Thuillier

we are going without him, and he can follow us."

 

So saying, the old maid gave two little sharp and very imperious raps

on the door, after which she resolutely entered the study.

 

La Peyrade, goaded by anxiety, had the bad taste to look through the

keyhole himself at what was happening. Instantly he thought he

recognized the small old man he had seen under the name of "the

commander" on that memorable morning when he had waited for Madame de

Godollo. Then he saw Thuillier addressing his sister with impatience

and with