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

to which Rabourdin had

felt himself driven, Phellion alone, of all the clerks in the office,

had stood by him in his misfortunes. Being now in a position to bestow

a great number of places, Rabourdin, on meeting once more his faithful

subordinate, hastened to offer him a position both easy and lucrative.

 

"Mossieu," said Phellion, "your benevolence touches me and honors me,

but my frankness owes you an avowal, which I beg you not to take in

ill part: I do not believe in 'railways,' as the English call them."

 

"That's an opinion to which you have every right," said Rabourdin,

smiling; "but, meanwhile, until the contrary is proved, we pay the

employees in our office well, and I should be glad to have you with me

in that capacity. I know by experience that you are a man on whom I

can count."

 

"Mossieu," returned the great citizen, "I did my duty at that time,

and nothing more. As for the offer you have been so good as to make to

me, I cannot accept it; satisfied with my humble fortunes, I feel

neither the need nor the desire to re-enter an administrative career;

and, in common with the Latin poet, I may say, 'Claudite jam rivos,

pueri, sat prata biberunt.'"

 

Thus elevated in the character of its habitues, the salon Thuillier

still needed a new element of life. Thanks to the help of Madame de

Godollo, a born organizer, who successfully put to profit the former

connection of Colleville with the musical world, a few artists came to

make diversion from bouillotte and boston. Old-fashioned and

venerable, those two games were forced to beat a retreat before whist,

the only manner, said the Hungarian countess, in which respectable

people can kill time.

 

Like Louis XVI., who began by putting his own hand to reforms which

subsequently engulfed his throne, Brigitte had encouraged, at first,

this domestic revolution; the need of sustaining her position suitably

in the new quarter to which she had emigrated had made her docile to

all suggestions of comfort and elegance. But the day on which occurred

the scene we are about to witness, an apparently trivial detail had

revealed to her the danger of the declivity on which she stood. The

greater number of the new guests, recently imported by Thuillier, knew

nothing of his sister's supremacy in his home. On arrival, therefore,

they all asked Thuillier to present them to _Madame_, and, naturally,

Thuillier could not say to them that his wife was a figure-head who

groaned under the iron hand of a Richelieu, to whom the whole

household bent the knee. It was therefore not until the first homage

rendered to the sovereign "de jure" was paid, that the new-comers were

led up to Brigitte, and by reason of the stiffness which displeasure

at this misplacement of power gave to her greeting they were scarcely

encouraged to pay her any further attentions. Quick to perceive this

species of overthrow, Queen Elizabeth said to herself, with that

profound instinct of domination which was her ruling passion:--

 

"If I don't take care I shall soon be nobody in this house."

 

Burrowing into that idea, she came to think that if the project of

making a common household with la Peyrade, then Celeste's husband,

were carried out, the situation which was beginning to alarm her would

become even worse. From that moment, and by sudden intuition, Felix

Phellion, that good young man, with his head too full of mathematics

ever to become a formidable rival to her sovereignty, seemed to her a

far better match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first,

on seeing the Phellion father and mother arrive without the son, to

express regret at his absence. Brigitte, however, was not the only one

to feel the injury that the luckless professor was doing to his

prospects in thus keeping away from her reception. Madame Thuillier,

with simple candor, and Celeste with feigned reserve, both made

manifest their displeasure. As for Madame de Godollo, who, in spite of

a very remarkable voice, usually required much pressing before she

would sing (the piano having been opened since her reign began), she

now went up to Madame Phellion and asked her to accompany her, and

between two verses of a song she said in her ear:--

 

"Why isn't your son here?"

 

"He is coming," said Madame Phellion. "His father talked to him very

decidedly; but to-night there happens to be a conjunction of I don't

know what planets; it is a great night at the Observatory, and he did

not feel willing to dispense with--"

 

"It is inconceivable that a man should be so foolish!" exclaimed

Madame de Godollo; "wasn't theology bad enough, that he must needs

bring in astronomy too?"

 

And her vexation gave to her voice so vibrating a tone that her song

ended in the midst of what the English call a thunder of applause. La

Peyrade, who feared her extremely, was not one of the last, when she

returned to her place, to approach her, and express his admiration;

but she received his compliments with a coldness so near to incivility

that their mutual hostility was greatly increased. La Peyrade turned

away to console himself with Madame Colleville, who had still too many

pretensions to beauty not to be the enemy of a woman made to intercept

all homage.

 

"So you also, you think that woman sings well?" she said,

contemptuously, to Theodose.

 

"At any rate, I have been to tell her so," replied la Peyrade,

"because without her, in regard to Brigitte, there's no security. But

do just look at your Celeste; her eyes never leave that door, and

every time a tray is brought in, though it is an hour at least since

the last guest came, her face expresses disappointment."

 

We must remark, in passing, that since the reign of Madame de Godollo

trays were passed round on the Sunday reception days, and that without

scrimping; on the contrary, they were laden with ices, cakes, and

syrups, from Taurade's, then the best confectioner.

 

"Don't harass me!" cried Flavie. "I know very well what that foolish

girl has in her mind; and your marriage will take place only too

soon."

 

"But you know it is not for myself I make it," said la Peyrade; "it is

a necessity for the future of all of us. Come, come, there are tears

in your eyes! I shall leave you; you are not reasonable. The devil! as

that Prudhomme of a Phellion says, 'Whoso wants the end wants the

means.'"

 

And he went toward the group composed of Celeste, Madame Thuillier,

Madame de Godollo, Colleville, and Phellion. Madame Colleville

followed him; and, under the influence of the feeling of jealousy she

had just shown, she became a savage mother.

 

"Celeste," she said, "why don't you sing? These gentlemen wish to hear

you."

 

"Oh, mamma!" cried the girl, "how can I sing after Madame de Godollo,

with my poor thread of a voice? Besides, you know I have a cold."

 

"That is to say that, as usual, you make yourself pretentious and

disagreeable; people sing as they can sing; all voices have their own

merits."

 

"My dear," said Colleville, who, having just lost twenty francs at the

card-tables, found courage in his ill-humor to oppose his wife, "that

saying, 'People sing as they can sing' is a bourgeois maxim. People

sing with a voice, if they have one; but they don't sing after hearing

such a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my

part, I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her

sentimental little ditties."

 

"Then it is well worth while," said Flavie, leaving the group, "to

spend so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing."

 

"So," said Colleville, resuming the conversation which the invasion of

Flavie had interrupted, "Felix no longer inhabits this earth; he lives

among the stars?"

 

"My dear and former colleague," said Phellion, "I am, as you are,

annoyed with my son for neglecting, as he does, the oldest friends of

his family; and though the contemplation of those great luminous

bodies suspended in space by the hand of the Creator presents, in my

opinion, higher interest than it appears to have to your more eager

brain, I think that Felix, by not coming here to-night, as he promised

me he would, shows a want of propriety, about which, I can assure you

I shall speak my mind."

 

"Science," said la Peyrade, "is a fine thing, but it has,

unfortunately, the attribute of making bears and monomaniacs."

 

"Not to mention," said Celeste, "that it destroys all religious

sentiments."

 

"You are mistaken there, my dear child," said Madame de Godollo.

"Pascal, who was himself a great example of the falseness of your

point of view, says, if I am not mistaken, that a little science draws

us from religion, but a great deal draws us back to it."

 

"And yet, madame," said Celeste, "every one admits that Monsieur Felix

is really very learned; when he helped my brother with his studies

nothing could be, so Francois told me, clearer or more comprehensible

than his explanations; and you see, yourself, he is not the more

religious for that."

 

"I tell you, my dear child, that Monsieur Felix is not irreligious,

and with a little gentleness and patience nothing would be easier than

to bring him back."

 

"Bring back a savant to the duties of religion!" exclaimed la Peyrade.

"Really, madame, that seems to me very difficult. These gentlemen put

the object of their studies before everything else. Tell a

geometrician or a geologist, for example, that the Church demands,

imperatively, the sanctification of the Sabbath by the suspension of

all species of work, and they will shrug their shoulders, though God

Himself did not disdain to rest from His labors."

 

"So that in not coming here this evening," said Celeste, naively,

"Monsieur Felix commits not only a fault against good manners, but a

sin."

 

"But, my dearest," said Madame de Godollo, "do you think that our

meeting here this evening to sing ballads and eat ices and say evil of

our neighbor--which is the customary habit of salons--is more pleasing

to God than to see a man of science in his observatory busied in

studying the magnificent secrets of His creation?"

 

"There's a time for all things," said Celeste; "and, as Monsieur de la

Peyrade says, God Himself did not disdain to rest."

 

"But, my love," said Madame de Godollo, "God has time to do so; He is

eternal."

 

"That," said la Peyrade, "is one of the wittiest impieties ever

uttered; those are the reasons that the world's people put forth. They

interpret and explain away the commands of God, even those that are

most explicit and imperative; they take them, leave them, or choose

among them; the free-thinker subjects them to his lordly revision, and

from free-thinking the distance is short to free actions."

 

During this harangue of the barrister Madame de Godollo had looked at

the clock; it then said half-past eleven. The salon began to empty.

Only one card-table was still going on, Minard, Thuillier, and two of

the new acquaintances being the players. Phellion had just quitted the

group with which he had so far been sitting, to join his wife, who was

talking with Brigitte in a corner; by the vehemence of his pantomimic

action it was easy to see that he was filled with some virtuous

indignation. Everything seemed to show that all hope of seeing the

arrival of the tardy lover was decidedly over.

 

"Monsieur," said the countess to la Peyrade, "do you consider the

gentlemen attached to Saint-Jacques du Haut Pas in the rue des Postes

good Catholics?"

 

"Undoubtedly," replied the barrister, "religion has no more loyal

supporters."

 

"This morning," continued the countess, "I had the happiness to be

received by Pere Anselme. He is thought the model of all Christian

virtues, and yet the good father is a very learned mathematician."

 

"I have not said, madame, that the two qualities were absolutely

incompatible."

 

"But you did say that a true Christian could not attend to any species

of work on Sunday. If so, Pere Anselme must be an unbeliever; for when

I was admitted to his room I found him standing before a blackboard

with a bit of chalk in his hand, busy with a problem which was, no

doubt, knotty, for the board was three-parts covered with algebraic

signs; and I must add that he did not seem to care for the scandal

this ought to cause, for he had with him an individual whom I am not

allowed to name, a younger man of science, of great promise, who was

sharing his profane occupation."

 

Celeste and Madame Thuillier looked at each other, and both saw a

gleam of hope in the other's eyes.

 

"Why can't you tell us the name of that young man of science?" Madame

Thuillier ventured to say, for she never put any diplomacy into the

expression of her thoughts.

 

"Because he has not, like Pere Anselme, the saintliness which would

absolve him in the eyes of monsieur here