Bureaucracy by Honoré de Balzac (best novels of all time TXT) 📖

charged in a certain way, and drew down upon himself the happy answer, "I did not make them." He talked of his devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the Dauphine paid him. He stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought his friend, and they often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as his mentor, and hoped to rid the division and France of the young fool by tempting him to excesses, and openly avowed that intention.

Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere's division of the ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who resembled more or less those that are represented here. It is difficult even for an observer to decide from the aspect of these strange personalities whether the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the effects of their employment or whether they entered the service because they were natural born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door of Nature and of the government both. Nature, to a civil-service clerk is, in fact, the sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on all sides by green boxes; to him, atmospheric changes are the air of the corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms without ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he treads is a tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter and moistened by the attendant's watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling toward which he yawns; his element is dust. Several distinguished doctors have remonstrated against the influence of this second nature, both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who turn a crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly. Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to reform their present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to each a larger salary and far heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor bored when doing great things. Under the present system government loses fully four hours out of the nine which the clerks owe to the service,--hours wasted, as we shall see, in conversations, in gossip, in disputes, and, above all, in underhand intriguing. The reader must have haunted the bureaus of the ministerial departments before he can realize how much their petty and belittling life resembles that of seminaries. Wherever men live collectively this likeness is obvious; in regiments, in law-courts, you will find the elements of the school on a smaller or larger scale. The government clerks, forced to be together for nine hours of the day, looked upon their office as a sort of class-room where they had tasks to perform, where the head of the bureau was no other than a schoolmaster, and where the gratuities bestowed took the place of prizes given out to proteges,--a place, moreover, where they teased and hated each other, and yet felt a certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment, which itself is less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances in life he grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the secondary bonds of affection. A government office is, in short, a microcosm of society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its cupidity, its determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its frivolous gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying.


CHAPTER V. THE MACHINE IN MOTION

At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a state of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event which was about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every day, and there is no insurance office where the chances of life and death are calculated with more sagacity than in a government bureau. Self-interest stifles all compassion, as it does in children, but the government service adds hypocrisy to boot.

The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o'clock in the morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former. Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this particular morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study where Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers for Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave the premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain, therefore, of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had seen, together with its copy, in some corner of the study, he searched through the boxes one after another until he finally came upon the fatal list. He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing house, where he obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing, of course, Rabourdin's own writing. Anxious not to arouse suspicion, he had gone very early to the office and replaced both the memorandum and Sebastien's copy in the box from which he had taken them. Sebastien, who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin's party, was, in spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by the spirit of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore, whereas love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais. This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin's whole career.

Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten o'clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine o'clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do the work of copying clerks.

"Did any one get to the office before you?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Sebastien,--"Monsieur Dutocq."

"Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me."

Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came. Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four o'clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread of his reflections.

"Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself, "and this is my reward."

This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it would never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army pardon, what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of informing against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the ministers in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was left to an official so placed but to send in his resignation and leave Paris; his honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no avail; no one will either ask for them or listen to them. A minister may well do the same thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the right instruments; but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter what may be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of such judgment, Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew, too, that he was crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now sought for the best course to follow under the circumstances; and with such thoughts in his mind he was necessarily aloof from the excitement caused in the division by the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere; in fact he did not hear of it until young La Briere, who was able to appreciate his sterling value, came to tell him. About ten o'clock, in the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou was relating the last moments of the life of the director to Minard, Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had called from his private office, and Dutocq, who had rushed in with private motives of his own. Colleville and Chazelle were absent.

Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole of each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. "This morning, at half-past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes, gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day he is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of his nurse. She told me that this morning at five o'clock he became uneasy about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the clerks who had called to inquire after him; and then he said: 'Fill my snuff-box, give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my ribbon of the Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.' I suppose you know he always wore his orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his senses and all his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the water rose, rose, rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for he felt the cysts break. At that fatal moment he gave evident proof of his powerful mind and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated him! We used to laugh at him and call him a booby--didn't you, Monsieur Godard?"

Godard. "I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere's talents higher than the rest of you."

Bixiou. "You and he could understand each other!"

Godard. "He wasn't a bad man; he never harmed any one."

Bixiou. "To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything. If it wasn't you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard."

Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. "I!"

Bixiou. "Well, then it was you, Dutocq!" [Dutocq made a vehement gesture of denial.] "Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in this office knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He ended, as I have said, like the great man that he was."

Desroys [impatiently]. "Pray what did he do that was so great? he had the weakness to confess himself."

Bixiou. "Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would have his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There are eight of us here, and I don't believe one among us is capable of such an act. But that's not all; he said,--for you know all celebrated men make a dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say? Ah! he said, 'I must attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who have so often dressed in my best for audience with the kings of earth.' That's how Monsieur de la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon himself to justify the saying of Pythagoras, 'No man is known until he dies.'"

Colleville [rushing in]. "Gentlemen, great news!"

All. "We know it."

Colleville. "I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of