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

she did not fear to leave them together. Now that

the great success of the morning was secured, Theodose felt the

necessity of beginning his courtship of Celeste. It was high time, he

thought, to bring about a quarrel between the lovers. He did not,

therefore, hesitate to apply his ear to the door of the salon before

entering it, in order to discover what letters of the alphabet of love

they were spelling; he was even invited to commit this domestic

treachery by sounds from within, which seemed to say that they were

disputing. Love, according to one of our poets, is a privilege which

two persons mutually take advantage of to cause each other,

reciprocally, a great deal of sorrow about nothing at all.

 

When Celeste knew that Felix was elected by her heart to be the

companion of her life, she felt a desire, not so much to study him as

to unite herself closely with him by that communion of souls which is

the basis of all affections, and leads, in youthful minds, to

involuntary examination. The dispute to which Theodose was now to

listen took its rise in a disagreement which had sprung up within the

last few days between the mathematician and Celeste. The young girl's

piety was real; she belonged to the flock of the truly faithful, and

to her, Catholicism, tempered by that mysticism which attracts young

souls, was an inward poem, a life within her life. From this point

young girls are apt to develop into either extremely high-minded women

or saints. But, during this beautiful period of their youth they have

in their heart, in their ideas, a sort of absolutism: before their

eyes is the image of perfection, and all must be celestial, angelic,

or divine to satisfy them. Outside of their ideal, nothing of good can

exist; all is stained and soiled. This idea causes the rejection of

many a diamond with a flaw by girls who, as women, fall in love with

paste.

 

Now, Celeste had seen in Felix, not irreligion, but indifference to

matters of religion. Like most geometricians, chemists,

mathematicians, and great naturalists, he had subjected religion to

reason; he recognized a problem in it as insoluble as the squaring of

the circle. Deist "in petto," he lived in the religion of most

Frenchmen, not attaching more importance to it than he did to the new

laws promulgated in July. It was necessary to have a God in heaven,

just as they set up a bust of the king at the mayor's office. Felix

Phellion, a worthy son of his father, had never drawn the slightest

veil over his opinions or his conscience; he allowed Celeste to read

into them with the candor and the inattention of a student of

problems. The young girl, on her side, professed a horror for atheism,

and her conscience assured her that a deist was cousin-germain to an

atheist.

 

"Have you thought, Felix, of doing what you promised me?" asked

Celeste, as soon as Madame Colleville had left them alone.

 

"No, my dear Celeste," replied Felix.

 

"Oh! to have broken his word!" she cried, softly.

 

"But to have kept it would have been a profanation," said Felix. "I

love you so deeply, with a tenderness so little proof against your

wishes, that I promised a thing contrary to my conscience. Conscience,

Celeste, is our treasure, our strength, our mainstay. How can you ask

me to go into a church and kneel at the feet of a priest, in whom I

can see only a man? You would despise me if I obeyed you."

 

"And so, my dear Felix, you refuse to go to church," said Celeste,

casting a tearful glance at the man she loved. "If I were your wife

you would let me go alone? You do not love me as I love you! for,

alas! I have a feeling in my heart for an atheist contrary to that

which God commands."

 

"An atheist!" cried Felix. "Oh, no! Listen to me, Celeste. There is

certainly a God; I believe in that; but I have higher ideas of Him

than those of your priests; I do not wish to bring Him down to my

level; I want to rise to Him. I listen to the voice He has put within

me,--a voice which honest men call conscience, and I strive not to

darken that divine ray as it comes to me. For instance, I will never

harm others; I will do nothing against the commandments of universal

morality, which was that of Confucius, Moses, Pythagoras, Socrates, as

well as of Jesus Christ. I will stand in the presence of God; my

actions shall be my prayers; I will never be false in word or deed;

never will I do a base or shameful thing. Those are the precepts I

have learned from my virtuous father, and which I desire to bequeath

to my children. All the good that I can do I shall try to accomplish,

even if I have to suffer for it. What can you ask more of a man than

that?"

 

This profession of the Phellion faith caused Celeste to sadly shake

her head.

 

"Read attentively," she replied, "'The Imitation of Jesus Christ.'

Strive to convert yourself to the holy Catholic, apostolic, and Roman

Church, and you will see how empty your words are. Hear me, Felix;

marriage is not, the Church says, the affair of a day, the mere

satisfaction of our own desires; it is made for eternity. What! shall

we be united day and night, shall we form one flesh, one word, and yet

have two languages, two faiths in our heart, and a cause of perpetual

dissension? Would you condemn me to weep tears over the state of your

soul,--tears that I must ever conceal from you? Could I address myself

in peace to God when I see his arm stretched out in wrath against you?

Must my children inherit the blood of a deist and his convictions? Oh!

God, what misery for a wife! No, no, these ideas are intolerable.

Felix! be of my faith, for I cannot share yours. Do not put a gulf

between us. If you loved me, you would already have read 'The

Imitation of Jesus Christ.'"

 

The Phellion class, sons of the "Constitutionnel," dislike the

priestly mind. Felix had the imprudence to reply to this sort of

prayer from the depths of an ardent heart:--

 

"You are repeating, Celeste, the lessons your confessor teaches you;

nothing, believe me, is more fatal to happiness than the interference

of priests in a home."

 

"Oh!" cried Celeste, wounded to the quick, for love alone inspired

her, "you do not love! The voice of my heart is not in unison with

yours! You have not understood me, because you have not listened to

me; but I forgive you, for you know not what you say."

 

She wrapped herself in solemn silence, and Felix went to the window

and drummed upon the panes,--music familiar to those who have indulged

in poignant reflections. Felix was, in fact, presenting the following

delicate and curious questions to the Phellion conscience.

 

"Celeste is a rich heiress, and, in yielding against the voice of

natural religion, to her ideas, I should have in view the making of

what is certainly an advantageous marriage,--an infamous act. I ought

not, as father of a family, to allow the priesthood to have an

influence in my home. If I yield to-day, I do a weak act, which will

be followed by many others equally pernicious to the authority of a

husband and father. All this is unworthy of a philosopher."

 

Then he returned to his beloved.

 

"Celeste, I entreat you on my knees," he said, "not to mingle that

which the law, in its wisdom, has separated. We live in two worlds,

--society and heaven. Each has its own way of salvation; but as to

society, is it not obeying God to obey the laws? Christ said: 'Render

unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.' Caesar is the body politic. Dear,

let us forget our little quarrel."

 

"Little quarrel!" cried the young enthusiast; "I want you to have my

whole heart as I want to have the whole of yours; and you make it into

two parts! Is not that an evil? You forget that marriage is a

sacrament."

 

"Your priesthood have turned your head," exclaimed the mathematician,

impatiently.

 

"Monsieur Phellion," said Celeste, interrupting him hastily, "enough

of this!"

 

It was at this point of the quarrel that Theodose considered it

judicious to enter the room. He found Celeste pale, and the young

professor as anxious as a lover should be who has just irritated his

mistress.

 

"I heard the word 'enough'; then something is too much?" he said,

inquiringly, looking in turn from Celeste to Felix.

 

"We were talking religion," replied Felix, "and I was saying to

mademoiselle how dangerous ecclesiastical influence is in the bosom of

families."

 

"That was not the point, monsieur," said Celeste, sharply; "it was to

know if husband and wife could be of one heart when the one is an

atheist and the other Catholic."

 

"Can there be such a thing as atheists?" cried Theodose, with all the

signs of extreme wonderment. "Could a true Catholic marry a

Protestant? There is no safety possible for a married pair unless they

have perfect conformity in the matter of religious opinions. I, who

come from the Comtat, of a family which counts a pope among its

ancestors--for our arms are: gules, a key argent, with supporters, a

monk holding a church, and a pilgrim with a staff, or, and the motto,

'I open, I shut'--I am, of course, intensely dogmatic on such points.

But in these days, thanks to our modern system of education, it does

not seem to me strange that religion should be called into question. I

myself would never marry a Protestant, had she millions, even if I

loved her distractedly. Faith is a thing that cannot be tampered with.

'Una fides, unus Dominus,' that is my device in life."

 

"You hear that!" cried Celeste, triumphantly, looking at Felix

Phellion.

 

"I am not openly devout," continued la Peyrade. "I go to mass at six

every morning, that I may not be observed; I fast on Fridays; I am, in

short, a son of the Church, and I would not undertake any serious

enterprise without prayer, after the ancient fashion of our ancestors;

but no one is able to notice my religion. A singular thing happened to

our family during the Revolution of 1789, which attached us more

closely than ever to our holy mother the Church. A poor young lady of

the elder branch of the Peyrades, who owned the little estate of la

Peyrade,--for we ourselves are Peyrades of Canquoelle, but the two

branches inherit from one another,--well, this young lady married, six

years before the Revolution, a barrister who, after the fashion of the

times, was Voltairean, that is to say, an unbeliever, or, if you

choose, a deist. He took up all the revolutionary ideas, and practised

the charming rites that you know of in the worship of the goddess

Reason. He came into our part of the country imbued with the ideas of

the Convention, and fanatical about them. His wife was very handsome;

he compelled her to play the part of Liberty; and the poor unfortunate

creature went mad. She died insane! Well, as things are going now it

looks as if we might have another 1793."

 

This history, invented on the spot, made such an impression on

Celeste's fresh and youthful imagination that she rose, bowed to the

young men and hastened to her chamber.

 

"Ah! monsieur, why did you tell her that?" cried Felix, struck to the

heart by the cold look the young girl, affecting profound

indifference, cast upon him. She fancied herself transformed into a

goddess of Reason.

 

"Why not? What were you talking about?" asked Theodose.

 

"About my indifference to religion."

 

"The great sore of this century," replied Theodose, gravely.

 

"I am ready," said Madame Colleville, appearing in a toilet of much

taste. "But what is the matter with my poor daughter? She is crying!"

 

"Crying? madame," exclaimed Felix; "please tell her that I will study

'The Imitation of Christ' at once."

 

Felix left the house with Theodose and Flavie, whose arm the barrister

pressed to let her know he would explain in the carriage the apparent

dementia of the young professor.

 

An hour later, Madame Colleville and Celeste, Colleville and Theodose

were entering the Thuilliers' apartment to dine there. Theodose and

Flavie took Thuillier into the garden, where the former said to him:--

 

"Dear, good friend! you will have the cross within a week. Our

charming friend here will tell you about our visit to the Comtesse du

Bruel."

 

And Theodose left Thuillier, having caught sight of Desroches in the

act of being brought by Mademoiselle Thuillier into the garden; he

went, driven by a terrible and glacial presentiment, to meet him.

 

"My good friend," said Desroches in his ear, "I have come to see if

you can procure at once