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

them to Monsieur le commandeur,

the little old gentlemen who came to see her so often; monsieur must

have met him."

 

"Yes, yes, certainly," said la Peyrade, keeping his presence of mind

in the midst of the successive shocks which came upon him,--"the

powered little man who was here every day."

 

"I couldn't say every day; but he came often. Well, I am told to give

the countess's letters to him."

 

"And for other persons of her acquaintance," said la Peyrade,

carelessly, "did she leave no message?"

 

"None, monsieur."

 

"Very well," said la Peyrade, "good-morning." And he turned to go out.

 

"But I think," said the porter, "that Mademoiselle Thuillier knows

more about it than I do. Won't monsieur go up? She is at home; and so

is Monsieur Thuillier."

 

"No, never mind," said la Peyrade, "I only came to tell Madame de

Godollo about a commission she asked me to execute; I haven't time to

stop now."

 

"Well, as I told you, she left with post-horses this morning. Two

hours earlier monsieur might still have found her; but now, with

post-horses, she must by this time have gone a good distance."

 

La Peyrade departed, with a sense of despair in his heart. Added to

the anxiety caused by this hasty departure, jealousy entered his soul,

and in this agonizing moment of disappointment the most distressing

explanations crowded on his mind.

 

Then, after further reflection, he said to himself:--

 

"These clever diplomatic women are often sent on secret missions which

require the most absolute silence, and extreme rapidity of movement."

 

But here a sudden revulsion of thought overcame him:--

 

"Suppose she were one of those intriguing adventurers whom foreign

governments employ as agents? Suppose the tale, more or less probable,

of that Russian princess forced to sell her furniture to Brigitte were

also that of this Hungarian countess? And yet," he continued, as his

brain made a third evolution in this frightful anarchy of ideas and

feelings, "her education, her manners, her language, all bespoke a

woman of the best position. Besides, if she were only a bird of

passage, why have given herself so much trouble to win me over?"

 

La Peyrade might have continued to plead thus for and against for a

long time had he not been suddenly grasped round the shoulders by a

strong arm and addressed in a well-known voice.

 

"Take care! my dear barrister; a frightful danger threatens you; you

are running right into it."

 

La Peyrade, thus arrested, looked round and found himself in the arms

of Phellion.

 

The scene took place in front of a house which was being pulled down

at the corner of the rues Duphot and Saint-Honore. Posted on the

pavement of the other side of the street, Phellion, whose taste for

watching the process of building our readers may remember, had been

witnessing for the last fifteen minutes the drama of a wall about to

fall beneath the united efforts of a squadron of workmen. Watch in

hand, the great citizen was estimating the length of the resistance

which that mass of freestone would present to the destructive labor of

which it was the object. Precisely at the crucial moment of the

impending catastrophe la Peyrade, lost in the tumult of his thoughts,

was entering, heedless of the shouts addressed to him on all sides,

the radius within which the stones would fall. Seen by Phellion (who,

it must be said, would have done the same for a total stranger) la

Peyrade undoubtedly owed his life to him; for, at the moment when he

was violently flung back by the vigorous grasp of the worthy citizen,

the wall fell with the noise of a cannon-shot, and the stones rolled

in clouds of dust almost to his very feet.

 

"Are you blind and deaf?" said the workman whose business it was to

warn the passers, in a tone of amenity it is easy to imagine.

 

"Thank you, my dear friend," said la Peyrade, recalled to earth. "I

should certainly have been crushed like an idiot if it hadn't been for

you."

 

And he pressed Phellion's hand.

 

"My reward," replied the latter, "lies in the satisfaction of knowing

that you are saved from an imminent peril. And I may say that that

satisfaction is mingled, for me, with a certain pride; for I was not

mistaken by a single second in the calculation which enabled me to

foresee the exact moment when that formidable mass would be displaced

from its centre of gravity. But what were you thinking of, my dear

monsieur? Probably of the plea you are about to make in the Thuillier

affair. The public prints have informed me of the danger of

prosecution by the authorities which hangs above the head of our

estimable friend. You have a noble cause to defend, monsieur.

Habituated as I am, through my labors as a member of the reading

committee of the Odeon, to judge of works of intellect, and with my

hand upon my conscience, I declare that after reading the incriminated

passages, I can find nothing in the tone of that pamphlet which

justifies the severe measures of which it is the object. Between

ourselves," added the great citizen, lowering his voice, "I think the

government has shown itself petty."

 

"So I think," said la Peyrade, "but I am not employed for the defence.

I have advised Thuillier to engage some noted lawyer."

 

"It may be good advice," said Phellion; "at any rate, it speaks well

for your modesty. Poor man! I went to him at once when the blow fell,

but I did not see him; I saw only Brigitte, who was having a

discussion with Madame de Godollo. There is a woman with strong

political views; it seems she predicted that the seizure would be

made."

 

"Did you know that the countess had left Paris?" said la Peyrade,

rushing at the chance of speaking on the subject of his present

monomania.

 

"Ah! left Paris, has she?" said Phellion. "Well, monsieur, I must tell

you that, although there was not much sympathy between us, I regard

her departure as a misfortune. She will leave a serious void in the

salon of our friends. I say this, because it is my belief, and I am

not in the habit of disguising my convictions."

 

"Yes," said la Peyrade, "she is certainly a very distinguished woman,

with whom in spite of her prejudice against me, I think I should have

come to an understanding. But this morning, without leaving any word

as to where she was going, she started suddenly with post-horses."

 

"Post-horses!" said Phellion. "I don't know whether you will agree

with me, monsieur, but I think that travelling by post is a most

agreeable method of conveyance. Certainly Louis XI., to whom we owe

the institution, had a fortunate inspiration in the matter; although,

on the other hand, his sanguinary and despotic government was not, to

my humble thinking, entirely devoid of reproach. Once only in my life

have I used that method of locomotion, and I can truly say I found it

far superior, in spite of its inferior relative rapidity, to the

headlong course of what in England are called _railways_; where speed

is attained only at the price of safety."

 

La Peyrade paid but little attention to Phellion's phraseology. "Where

can she have gone?"--round that idea he dug and delved in every

direction, an occupation that would have made him indifferent to a far

more interesting topic. However, once started, like the locomotive he

objected to, the great citizen went on:--

 

"I made that journey at the period of Madame Phellion's last

confinement. She was in Perche, with her mother, when I learned that

serious complications were feared from the milk-fever. Overcome with

terror at the danger which threatened my wife, I went instantly to the

post-office to obtain a seat in the mail-coach, but all were taken; I

found they had been engaged for more than a week. Upon that, I came to

a decision; I went to the rue Pigalle, and, for a very large sum in

gold a post-chaise and three horses were placed at my disposal, when

unfortunately the formality of a passport, with which I had neglected

to supply myself, and without which, in virtue of the decrees of the

consulate of 17 Nivose, year VII., the post agents were not permitted

to deliver horses to travellers--"

 

The last few words were like a flash of light to la Peyrade, and

without waiting for the end of the postal odyssey of the great

citizen, he darted away in the direction of the rue Pigalle, before

Phellion, in the middle of his sentence, perceived his departure.

 

Reaching the Royal postal establishment, la Peyrade was puzzled as to

whom to address himself in order to obtain the information he wanted.

He began by explaining to the porter that he had a letter to send to a

lady of his acquaintance that morning by post, neglecting, very

thoughtlessly, to send him her address, and that he thought he might

discover it by means of the passport which she must have presented in

order to obtain horses.

 

"Was it a lady accompanied by a maid whom I took up on the boulevard

de la Madeleine?" asked a postilion sitting in the corner of the room

where la Peyrade was making his preliminary inquiry.

 

"Exactly," said la Peyrade, going eagerly up to the providential

being, and slipping a five-franc piece into his hand.

 

"Ah! well, she's a queer traveller!" said the man, "she told me to

take her to the Bois de Boulogne, and there she made me drive round

and round for an hour. After that, we came back to the Barriere de

l'Etoile, where she gave me a good 'pourboire' and got into a hackney

coach, telling me to take the travelling carriage back to the man who

lets such carriages in the Cour des Coches, Faubourg Saint-Honore."

 

"Give me the name of that man?" said la Peyrade, eagerly.

 

"Simonin," replied the postilion.

 

Furnished with that information la Peyrade resumed his course, and

fifteen minutes later he was questioning the livery-stable keeper; but

that individual knew only that a lady residing on the Boulevard de la

Madeleine had hired, without horses, a travelling-carriage for half a

day; that he had sent out the said carriage at nine that morning, and

it was brought back at twelve by a postilion of the Royal Post house.

 

"Never mind," thought la Peyrade, "I am certain now she has not left

Paris, and is not avoiding me. Most probably, she wants to break

utterly with the Thuilliers, and so has invented this journey. Fool

that I am! no doubt there's a letter waiting for me at home,

explaining the whole thing."

 

Worn out with emotion and fatigue, and in order to verify as quickly

as possible this new supposition, la Peyrade flung himself into a

street cab, and in less than a quarter of an hour, having promised the

driver a good pourboire, he was deposited at the house in the rue

Saint-Dominique d'Enfer. There he was compelled to endure still longer

the tortures of waiting. Since Brigitte's departure, the duty of the

porter, Coffinet, had been very negligently performed, and when la

Peyrade rushed to the lodge to inquire for his letter, which he

thought he saw in the case that belonged to him, the porter and his

wife were both absent and their door was locked. The wife was doing

some household work in the building, and Coffinet himself, taking

advantage of that circumstance, had allowed a friend to entice him

into a neighboring wine-shop, where, between two glasses, he was

supporting, against a republican who was talking disrespectfully

against it, the cause of the owners of property.

 

It was twenty minutes before the worthy porter, remembering the

"property" entrusted to his charge, decided to return to his post. It

is easy to imagine the reproaches with which la Peyrade overwhelmed

him. He excused himself by saying that he had gone to do a commission

for Mademoiselle, and that he couldn't be at the door and where his

masters chose to send him at the same time. At last, however, he gave

the lawyer a letter bearing the Paris postmark.

 

With his heart rather than his eyes la Peyrade recognized the

handwriting, and, turning over the missive, the arms and motto

confirmed the hope that he had reached the end of the cruellest

emotion he had ever in his life experienced. To read that letter

before that odious porter seemed to him a profanation. With a

refinement of feeling which all lovers will understand, he gave

himself the pleasure of pausing before his happiness; he would not

even unseal that blissful note until the moment when, with closed

doors and no interruptions to distract him, he could enjoy at his ease

the delicious sensation of which his heart had a foretaste.

 

Rushing up the staircase two steps at a time, the now joyous lover

committed the childish absurdity of locking himself in; then, having

settled himself at his ease before his desk, and having broken