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

no reason why I

should be willing to give my name to the things they are capable of

writing. Do you wish me to give you a proof of the confidence I have

in you? Madame la Comtesse de Godollo, to whom I read a few pages last

night, told me that the pamphlet was likely to get me into trouble

with the authorities; but I wouldn't allow what she said to have any

influence upon me."

 

"Well," said la Peyrade, "I think that the oracle of the family sees

the matter clearly; and I've no desire to bring your head to the

scaffold."

 

"All that is nonsense," said Thuillier. "Have you, or have you not, an

intention to leave me in the lurch?"

 

"Literary questions make more quarrels among friends than political

questions," replied Theodose. "I wish to put an end to these

discussions between us."

 

"But, my dear Theodose, never have I assumed to be a literary man. I

think I have sound common-sense, and I say out my ideas; you can't be

angry at that; and if you play me this trick, and refuse to

collaborate any longer, it is because you have some other grudge

against me that I know nothing about."

 

"I don't see why you call it a trick. There's nothing easier for you

than not to write a pamphlet; you'll simply be Jerome Thuillier, as

before."

 

"And yet it was you yourself who declared that this publication would

help my election; besides, I repeat, I have read passages to all our

friends, I have announced the matter in the municipal council, and if

the work were not to appear I should be dishonored; people would be

sure to say the government had bought me up."

 

"You have only to say that you are the friend of Phellion, the

incorruptible; that will clear you. You might even give Celeste to his

booby of a son; that alliance would certainly protect you from all

suspicion."

 

"Theodose," said Thuillier, "there is something in your mind that you

don't tell me. It is not natural that for a simple quarrel about a

word you should wish to lose a friend like me."

 

"Well, yes, there is," replied la Peyrade, with the air of a man who

makes up his mind to speak out. "I don't like ingratitude."

 

"Nor I either; I don't like it," said Thuillier, hotly; "and if you

accuse me of so base an action, I summon you to explain yourself. We

must get out of these hints and innuendoes. What do you complain of?

What have you against a man whom only a few days ago you called your

friend?"

 

"Nothing and everything," replied la Peyrade. "You and your sister are

much too clever to break openly with a man who, at the risk of his

reputation, has put a million in your hands. But I am not so simple

that I don't know how to detect changes. There are people about you

who have set themselves, in an underhand way, to destroy me; and

Brigitte has only one thought, and that is, how to find a decent way

of not keeping her promises. Men like me don't wait till their claims

are openly protested, and I certainly do not intend to impose myself

on any family; still, I was far, I acknowledge, from expecting such

treatment."

 

"Come, come," said Thuillier, kindly, seeing in the barrister's eye

the glint of a tear of which he was completely the dupe, "I don't know

what Brigitte may have been doing to you, but one thing is very

certain: I have never ceased to be your most devoted friend."

 

"No," said la Peyrade, "since that mishap about the cross I am only

good, as the saying is, to throw to the dogs. How could I have

struggled against secret influences? Possibly it is that pamphlet,

about which you have talked a great deal too much, that has hindered

your appointment. The ministers are so stupid! They would rather wait

and have their hand forced by the fame of the publication than do the

thing with a good grace as the reward of your services. But these are

political mysteries which would never enter your sister's mind."

 

"The devil!" cried Thuillier. "I think I've got a pretty observing

eye, and yet I can't see the slightest change in Brigitte toward you."

 

"Oh, yes!" said la Peyrade, "your eyesight is so good that you have

never seen perpetually beside her that Madame de Godollo, whom she now

thinks she can't live without."

 

"Ha, ha!" said Thuillier, slyly, "so it is a little jealousy, is it,

in our mind?"

 

"Jealousy!" retorted la Peyrade. "I don't know if that's the right

word, but certainly your sister--whose mind is nothing above the

ordinary, and to whom I am surprised that a man of your intellectual

superiority allows a supremacy in your household which she uses and

abuses--"

 

"How can I help it, my dear fellow," interrupted Thuillier, sucking in

the compliment; "she is so absolutely devoted to me."

 

"I admit the weakness, but, I repeat, your sister doesn't fit into

your groove. Well, I say that when a man of the value which you are

good enough to recognize in me, does her the honor to consult her and

devote himself to her as I have done, it can hardly be agreeable to

him to find himself supplanted by a woman who comes from nobody knows

where--and all because of a few trumpery chairs and tables she has

helped her to buy!"

 

"With women, as you know very well," replied Thuillier, "household

affairs have the first place."

 

"And Brigitte, who wants a finger in everything, also assumes to carry

matters with a high hand in affairs of the heart. As you are so

extraordinarily clear-sighted you ought to have seen that in

Brigitte's mind nothing is less certain than my marriage with

Mademoiselle Colleville; and yet my love has been solemnly authorized

by you."

 

"Good gracious!" cried Thuillier, "I'd like to see any one attempt to

meddle with my arrangements!"

 

"Well, without speaking of Brigitte, I can tell you of another

person," said Theodose, "who is doing that very thing; and that person

is Mademoiselle Celeste herself. In spite of their quarrels about

religion, her mind is none the less full of that little Phellion."

 

"But why don't you tell Flavie to put a stop to it?"

 

"No one knows Flavie, my dear Thuillier, better than you. She is a

woman rather than a mother. I have found it necessary to do a little

bit of courting to her myself, and, you understand, while she is

willing for this marriage she doesn't desire it very much."

 

"Well," said Thuillier, "I'll undertake to speak to Celeste myself. It

shall never be said that a slip of a girl lays down the law to me."

 

"That's exactly what I don't want you to do," cried la Peyrade. "Don't

meddle in all this. Outside of your relations to your sister you have

an iron will, and I will never have it said that you exerted your

authority to put Celeste in my arms; on the contrary, I desire that

the child may have complete control over her own heart. The only thing

I request is that she shall decide positively between Felix Phellion

and myself; because I do not choose to remain any longer in this

doubtful position. It is true we agreed that the marriage should only

take place after you became a deputy; but I feel now that it is

impossible to allow the greatest event of my life to remain at the

mercy of doubtful circumstances. And, besides, such an arrangement,

though at first agreed upon, seems to me now to have a flavor of a

bargain which is unbecoming to both of us. I think I had better make

you a confidence, to which I am led by the unpleasant state of things

now between us. Dutocq may have told you, before you left the

apartment in the rue Saint-Dominique, that an heiress had been offered

to me whose immediate fortune is larger than that which Mademoiselle

Colleville will eventually inherit. I refused, because I have had the

folly to let my heart be won, and because an alliance with a family as

honorable as yours seemed to me more desirable; but, after all, it is

as well to let Brigitte know that if Celeste refuses me, I am not

absolutely turned out into the cold."

 

"I can easily believe that," said Thuillier; "but as for putting the

whole decision into the hands of that little girl, especially if she

has, as you tell me, a fancy for Felix--"

 

"I can't help it," said the barrister. "I must, at any price, get out

of this position; it is no longer tenable. You talk about your

pamphlet; I am not in a fit condition to finish it. You, who have been

a man of gallantry, you must know the dominion that women, fatal

creatures! exercise over our whole being."

 

"Bah!" said Thuillier, conceitedly, "they cared for me, but I did not

often care for them; I took them, and left them, you know."

 

"Yes, but I, with my Southern nature, love passionately; and Celeste

has other attractions besides fortune. Brought up in your household,

under your own eye, you have made her adorable. Only, I must say, you

have shown great weakness in letting that young fellow, who does not

suit her in any respect, get such hold upon her fancy."

 

"You are quite right; but the thing began in a childish friendship;

she and Felix played together. You came much later; and it is a proof

of the great esteem in which we hold you, that when you made your

offer we renounced our earlier projects."

 

"_You_ did, yes," said la Peyrade, "and with some literary manias

--which, after all, are frequently full of sense and wit--you have a

heart of gold; with you friendship is a sure thing, and you know what

you mean. But Brigitte is another matter; you'll see, when you propose

to her to hasten the marriage, what a resistance she will make."

 

"I don't agree with you. I think that Brigitte has always wanted you

and still wants you for son-in-law--if I may so express myself. But

whether she does or not, I beg you to believe that in all important

matters I know how to have my will obeyed. Only, let us come now to a

distinct understanding of what you wish; then we can start with the

right foot foremost, and you'll see that all will go well."

 

"I wish," replied la Peyrade, "to put the last touches to your

pamphlet; for, above all things, I think of you."

 

"Certainly," said Thuillier, "we ought not to sink in port."

 

"Well, in consequence of the feeling that I am oppressed, stultified

by the prospect of a marriage still so doubtful, I am certain that not

a page of manuscript could be got out of me in any form, until the

question is settled."

 

"Very good," said Thuillier; "then how do you present that question?"

 

"Naturally, if Celeste's decision be against me, I should wish an

immediate solution. If I am condemned to make a marriage of

convenience I ought to lose no time in taking the opportunity I

mentioned to you."

 

"So be it; but what time do you intend to allow us?"

 

"I should think that in fifteen days a girl might be able to make up

her mind."

 

"Undoubtedly," replied Thuillier; "but it is very repugnant to me to

let Celeste decide without appeal."

 

"For my part, I will take that risk; in any case, I shall be rid of

uncertainty; and that is really my first object. Between ourselves, I

am not risking as much as you think. It will take more than fifteen

days for a son of Phellion, in other words, obstinacy incarnate in

silliness, to have done with philosophical hesitations; and it is very

certain that Celeste will not accept him for a husband unless he gives

her some proofs of conversion."

 

"That's probable. But suppose Celeste tries to dawdle; suppose she

refuses to accept the alternative?"

 

"That's your affair," said the Provencal. "I don't know how you regard

the family in Paris; I only know that in my part of the country it is

an unheard-of thing that a girl should have such liberty. If you, your

sister (supposing she plays fair in the matter), and the father and

mother can't succeed in making a girl whom you dower agree to so

simple a thing as to make a perfectly free choice between two suitors,

then good-bye to you! You'll have to write upon your gate-post that

Celeste is queen and sovereign of the house."

 

"Well, we haven't got to that point yet," said Thuillier, with a

capable air.

 

"As for you, my old fellow," resumed la Peyrade, "I must postpone our

business until after Celeste's decision. Be that in my favor or not, I

will then go to work, and in three days