The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac (freenovel24 TXT) 📖

barrister was keeping himself as close as

possible to these vulgar minds; he was navigating their waters; he

spoke their language. His painter was Pierre Grassou, and not Joseph

Bridau; his book was "Paul and Virginia." The greatest living poet for

him was Casimire de la Vigne; to his eyes the mission of art was,

above all things, utility. Parmentier, the discoverer of the potato,

was greater to him that thirty Raffaelles; the man in the blue cloak

seemed to him a sister of charity. These were Thuillier's expressions,

and Theodose remembered them all--on occasion.

 

"That young Felix Phellion," he now remarked, "is precisely the

academical man of our day; the product of knowledge which sends God to

the rear. Heavens, what are we coming to? Religion alone can save

France; nothing but the fear of hell will preserve us from domestic

robbery, which is going on at all hours in the bosom of families, and

eating into the surest fortunes. All of you have a secret warfare in

your homes."

 

After this shrewd tirade, which made a great impression upon Brigitte,

he retired, followed by Dutocq, after wishing good evening to the

three Thuilliers.

 

"That young man has great capacity," said Thuillier, sententiously.

 

"Yes, that he has," replied Brigitte, extinguishing the lamps.

 

"He has religion," said Madame Thuillier, as she left the room.

 

"Monsieur," Phellion was saying to Colleville as they came abreast of

the Ecole de Mines, looking about him to see that no one was near, "it

is usually my custom to submit my insight to that of others, but it is

impossible for me not to think that that young lawyer plays the master

at our friend Thuillier's."

 

"My own opinion," said Colleville, who was walking with Phellion

behind his wife, Madame Phellion, and Celeste, "is that he's a Jesuit;

and I don't like Jesuits; the best of them are no good. To my mind a

Jesuit means knavery, and knavery for knavery's sake; they deceive for

the pleasure of deceiving, and, as the saying is, to keep their hand

That's my opinion, and I don't mince it."

 

"I understand you, monsieur," said Phellion, who was arm-in-arm with

Colleville.

 

"No, Monsieur Phellion," remarked Flavie in a shrill voice, "you don't

understand Colleville; but I know what he means, and I think he had

better stop saying it. Such subjects are not to be talked of in the

street, at eleven o'clock at night, and before a young lady."

 

"You are right, wife," said Colleville.

 

When they reached the rue des Deux-Eglises, which Phellion was to

take, they all stopped to say good-night, and Felix Phellion, who was

bring up the rear, said to Colleville:--

 

"Monsieur, your son Francois could enter the Ecole Polytechnique if he

were well-coached; I propose to you to fit him to pass the

examinations this year."

 

"That's an offer not to be refused! Thank you, my friend," said

Colleville. "We'll see about it."

 

"Good!" said Phellion to his son, as they walked on.

 

"Not a bad stroke!" said the mother.

 

"What do you mean by that?" asked Felix.

 

"You are very cleverly paying court to Celeste's parents."

 

"May I never find the solution of my problem if I even thought of it!"

cried the young professor. "I discovered, when talking with the little

Collevilles, that Francois has a strong turn for mathematics, and I

thought I ought to enlighten his father."

 

"Good, my son!" repeated Phellion. "I wouldn't have you otherwise. My

prayers are granted! I have a son whose honor, probity, and private

and civic virtues are all that I could wish."

 

Madame Colleville, as soon as Celeste had gone to bed, said to her

husband:--

 

"Colleville, don't utter those blunt opinions about people without

knowing something about them. When you talk of Jesuits I know you mean

priests; and I wish you would do me the kindness to keep your opinions

on religion to yourself when you are in company with your daughter. We

may sacrifice our own souls, but not the souls of our children. You

don't want Celeste to be a creature without religion? And remember, my

dear, that we are at the mercy of others; we have four children to

provide for; and how do you know that, some day or other, you may not

need the services of this one or that one? Therefore don't make

enemies. You haven't any now, for you are a good-natured fellow; and,

thanks to that quality, which amounts in you to a charm, we have got

along pretty well in life, so far."

 

"That's enough!" said Colleville, flinging his coat on a chair and

pulling off his cravat. "I'm wrong, and you are right, my beautiful

Flavie."

 

"And on the next occasion, my dear old sheep," said the sly creature,

tapping her husband's cheek, "you must try to be polite to that young

lawyer; he is a schemer and we had better have him on our side. He is

playing comedy--well! play comedy with him; be his dupe apparently; if

he proves to have talent, if he has a future before him, make a friend

of him. Do you think I want to see you forever in the mayor's office?"

 

"Come, wife Colleville," said the former clarionet, tapping his knee

to indicate the place he wished his wife to take. "Let us warm our

toes and talk.--When I look at you I am more than ever convinced that

the youth of women is in their figure."

 

"And in their heart."

 

"Well, both," assented Colleville; "waist slender, heart solid--"

 

"No, you old stupid, deep."

 

"What is good about you is that you have kept your fairness without

growing fat. But the fact is, you have such tiny bones. Flavie, it is

a fact that if I had life to live over again I shouldn't wish for any

other wife than you."

 

"You know very well I have always preferred you to _others_. How

unlucky that monseigneur is dead! Do you know what I covet for you?"

 

"No; what?"

 

"Some office at the Hotel de Ville,--an office worth twelve thousand

francs a year; cashier, or something of that kind; either there, or at

Poissy, in the municipal department; or else as manufacturer of

musical instruments--"

 

"Any one of them would suit me."

 

"Well, then! if that queer barrister has power, and he certainly has

plenty of intrigue, let us manage him. I'll sound him; leave me to do

the thing--and, above all, don't thwart his game at the Thuilliers'."

 

Theodose had laid a finger on a sore sport in Flavie Colleville's

heart; and this requires an explanation, which may, perhaps, have the

value of a synthetic glance at women's life.

 

At forty years of age a woman, above all, if she has tasted the

poisoned apple of passion, undergoes a solemn shock; she sees two

deaths before her: that of the body and that of the heart. Dividing

women into two great categories which respond to the common ideas, and

calling them either virtuous or guilty, it is allowable to say that

after that fatal period they both suffer pangs of terrible intensity.

If virtuous, and disappointed in the deepest hopes of their nature

--whether they have had the courage to submit, whether they have

buried their revolt in their hearts or at the foot of the altar--they

never admit to themselves that all is over for them without horror.

That thought has such strange and diabolical depths that in it lies

the reason of some of those apostasies which have, at times, amazed

the world and horrified it. If guilty, women of that age fall into one

of several delirious conditions which often turn, alas! to madness, or

end in suicide, or terminate in some with passion greater than the

situation itself.

 

The following is the "dilemmatic" meaning of this crisis. Either they

have known happiness, known it in a virtuous life, and are unable to

breathe in any air but that surcharged with incense, or act in any but

a balmy atmosphere of flattery and worship,--if so, how is it possible

to renounce it?--or, by a phenomenon less rare than singular, they

have found only wearying pleasures while seeking for the happiness

that escaped them--sustained in that eager chase by the irritating

satisfactions of vanity, clinging to the game like a gambler to his

double or quits; for to them these last days of beauty are their last

stake against despair.

 

"You have been loved, but never adored."

 

That speech of Theodose, accompanied by a look which read, not into

her heart, but into her life, was the key-note to her enigma, and

Flavie felt herself divined.

 

The lawyer had merely repeated ideas which literature has rendered

trivial; but what matter where the whip comes from, or how it is made,

if it touches the sensitive spot of a horse's hide? The emotion was in

Flavie, not in the speech, just as the noise is not in the avalanche,

though it produces it.

 

A young officer, two fops, a banker, a clumsy youth, and Colleville,

were poor attempts at happiness. Once in her life Madame Colleville

had dreamed of it, but never attained it. Death had hastened to put an

end to the only passion in which she had found a charm. For the last

two years she had listened to the voice of religion, which told her

that neither the Church, nor its votaries, should talk of love or

happiness, but of duty and resignation; that the only happiness lay in

the satisfaction of fulfilling painful and costly duties, the rewards

for which were not in this world. All the same, however, she was

conscious of another clamoring voice; but, inasmuch as her religion

was only a mask which it suited her to wear, and not a conversion, she

did not lay it aside, thinking it a resource. Believing also that

piety, false or true, was a becoming manner in which to meet her

future, she continued in the Church, as though it were the cross-roads

of a forest, where, seated on a bench, she read the sign-posts, and

waited for some lucky chance; feeling all the while that night was

coming on.

 

Thus it happened that her interest was keenly excited when Theodose

put her secret condition of mind into words, seeming to promise her

the realization of her castle in the air, already built and overthrown

some six or eight times.

 

From the beginning of the winter she had noticed that Theodose was

examining and studying her, though cautiously and secretly. More than

once, she had put on her gray moire silk with its black lace, and her

headdress of Mechlin with a few flowers, in order to appear to her

best advantage; and men know very well when a toilet has been made to

please them. The old beau of the Empire, that handsome Thuillier,

overwhelmed her with compliments, assuring her she was queen of the

salon, but la Peyrade said infinitely more to the purpose by a look.

 

Flavie had expected, Sunday after Sunday, a declaration, saying to

herself at times:--

 

"He knows I am ruined and haven't a sou. Perhaps he is really pious."

 

Theodose did nothing rashly; like a wise musician, he had marked the

place in his symphony where he intended to tap his drum. When he saw

Colleville attempting to warn Thuillier against him, he fired his

broadside, cleverly prepared during the three or four months in which

he had been studying Flavie; he now succeeded with her as he had,

earlier in the day, succeeded with Thuillier.

 

While getting into bed, Theodose said to himself:--

 

"The wife is on my side; the husband can't endure me; they are now

quarrelling; and I shall get the better of it, for she does what she

likes with that man."

 

The lawyer was mistaken in one thing: there was no dispute whatever,

and Colleville was sleeping peacefully beside his dear little Flavie,

while she was saying to herself:--

 

"Certainly Theodose must be a superior man."

 

Many men, like la Peyrade, derive their superiority from the audacity,

or the difficulty, of an enterprise; the strength they display

increases their muscular power, and they spend it freely. Then when

success is won, or defeat is met, the public is astonished to find how

small, exhausted, and puny those men really are. After casting into

the minds of the two persons on whom Celeste's fate chiefly depended,

an interest and curiosity that were almost feverish, Theodose

pretended to be a very busy man; for five or six days he was out of

the house from morning till night, in order not to meet Flavie until

the time when her interest should increase to the point of

overstepping conventionality, and also in order to force the handsome

Thuillier to come and fetch him.

 

The following Sunday he felt certain he should find Madame Colleville

at church; he was not mistaken, for they came out, each of them, at

the same moment, and met at the corner of the rue des Deux-Eglises.

Theodose offered his arm, which Flavie accepted, leaving her daughter

to walk in front with her brother Anatole. This youngest