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

remarkable report, clumsily as the pillage was managed. When

read before the council it obtained a very great success, and

Thuillier returned home radiant and much elated by the congratulations

he had received. From that moment--a moment that was marked in his

life, for even to advanced old age he still talked of the "report he

had had the honor of making to the Council-general of the Seine"--la

Peyrade went down considerably in his estimation; he felt then that he

could do very well without the barrister, and this thought of

emancipation was strengthened by another happiness which came to him

at almost the same time.

 

A parliamentary crisis was imminent,--a fact that caused the ministry

to think about depriving its adversaries of a theme of opposition

which always has great influence on public opinion. It resolved

therefore to relax its rigor, which of late had been much increased

against the press. Being included in this species of hypocritical

amnesty, Thuillier received one morning a letter from the barrister

whom he had chosen in place of la Peyrade. This letter announced that

the Council of State had dismissed the complaint, and ordered the

release of the pamphlet.

 

Then Dutocq's prediction was realized. That weight the less within his

bosom, Thuillier took a swing toward insolence; he chorused Brigitte,

and came at last to speak of la Peyrade as a sort of adventurer whom

he had fed and clothed, a tricky fellow who had _extracted_ much money

from him, and had finally behaved with such ingratitude that he was

thankful not to count him any longer among his friends. Orgon, in

short, was in full revolt, and like Dorine, he was ready to cry out:

"A beggar! who, when he came, had neither shoes nor coat worth a brass

farthing."

 

Cerizet, to whom these indignities were reported by Dutocq, would

gladly have served them up hot to la Peyrade; but the interview in

which the copying clerk was to furnish information about Madame de

Godollo did not take place at the time fixed. La Peyrade made his own

discoveries in this wise:

 

Pursued by the thought of the beautiful Hungarian, and awaiting, or

rather not awaiting the result of Cerizet's inquiry, he scoured Paris

in every direction, and might have been seen, like the idlest of

loungers, in the most frequented places, his heart telling him that

sooner or later he must meet the object of his ardent search.

 

One evening--it was towards the middle of October--the autumn, as

frequently happens in Paris, was magnificent, and along the

boulevards, where the Provencal was airing his love and his

melancholy, the out-door life and gaiety were as animated as in

summer. On the boulevard des Italiens, formerly known as the boulevard

de Gand, as he lounged past the long line of chairs before the Cafe de

Paris, where, mingled with a few women of the Chaussee d'Antin

accompanied by their husbands and children, may be seen toward evening

a cordon of nocturnal beauties waiting only a gloved hand to gather

them, la Peyrade's heart received a cruel shock. From afar, he thought

he saw his adored countess.

 

She was alone, in a dazzling toilet scarcely authorized by the place

and her isolation; before her, mounted on a chair, trembled a tiny

lap-dog, which she stroked from time to time with her beautiful hands.

After convincing himself that he was not mistaken, la Peyrade was

about to dart upon that celestial vision, when he was forestalled by a

dandy of the most triumphant type. Without throwing aside his cigar,

without even touching his hat, this handsome young man began to

converse with the barrister's ideal; but when she saw la Peyrade

making towards her the siren must have felt afraid, for she rose

quickly, and taking the arm of the man who was talking to her, she

said aloud:--

 

"Is your carriage here, Emile? Mabille closes to-night, and I should

like to go there."

 

The name of that disreputable place thus thrown in the face of the

unhappy barrister, was a charity, for it saved him from a foolish

action, that of addressing, on the arm of the man who had suddenly

made himself her cavalier, the unworthy creature of whom he was

thinking a few seconds earlier with so much tenderness.

 

"She is not worth insulting," he said to himself.

 

But, as lovers are beings who will not allow their foothold to be

taken from them easily, the Provencal was neither convinced nor

resigned as yet. Not far from the place which his countess had left,

sat another woman, also alone; but this one was ripe with years, with

feathers on her head, and beneath the folds of a cashmere shawl she

concealed the plaintive remains of tarnished elegance and long past

luxury. There was nothing imposing about this sight, nor did it

command respect, but the contrary. La Peyrade went up to the woman

without ceremony and addressed her.

 

"Madame," he said, "do you know that woman who has just gone away on

the arm of a gentleman?"

 

"Certainly, monsieur; I know nearly all the women who come here."

 

"And her name is?--"

 

"Madame Komorn."

 

"Is she as impregnable as the fortress of that name?"

 

Our readers will doubtless remember that at the time of the

insurrection in Hungary our ears were battered by the press and by

novelists about the famous citadel of Komorn; and la Peyrade knew that

by assuming a tone of indifference or flippancy he was more likely to

succeed with his inquiries.

 

"Has monsieur any idea of making her acquaintance?"

 

"I don't know," replied la Peyrade, "but she is a woman who makes

people think of her."

 

"And a very dangerous woman, monsieur," added his companion; "a

fearful spendthrift, but with no inclination to return generously what

is done for her. I can speak knowingly of that; when she first arrived

here from Berlin, six months ago, she was very warmly recommended to

me."

 

"Ah!" exclaimed la Peyrade.

 

"Yes, at that time I had in the environs of Ville d'Avray a very

beautiful place, with park and coverts and a stream for fishing; but

as I was alone I found it dull, and several of these ladies and

gentlemen said to me, 'Madame Louchard, why don't you organize parties

in the style of picnics?'"

 

"Madame Louchard!" repeated la Peyrade, "are you any relation to

Monsieur Louchard of the commercial police?"

 

"His wife, monsieur, but legally separated from him. A horrid man who

wants me to go back to him; but I, though I'm ready to forgive most

things, I can't forgive a want of respect; just imagine that he dared

to raise his hand against me!"

 

"Well," said la Peyrade, trying to bring her back to the matter in

hand; "you organized those picnics, and Madame de Godo--I mean Madame

Komorn--"

 

"Was one of my first lodgers. It was there she made acquaintance with

an Italian, a handsome man, and rich, a political refugee, but one of

the lofty kind. You understand it didn't suit my purposes to have

intrigues going on in my house; still the man was so lovable, and so

unhappy because he couldn't make Madame Komorn like him, that at last

I took an interest in this particular love affair; which produced a

pot of money for madame, for she managed to get immense sums out of

that Italian. Well, would you believe that when--being just then in

great need--I asked her to assist me with a trifling little sum, she

refused me point-blank, and left my house, taking her lover with her,

who, poor man, can't be thankful for the acquaintance now."

 

"Why not? What happened to him?" asked la Peyrade.

 

"It happened to him that this serpent knows every language in Europe;

she is witty and clever to the tips of her fingers, but more

manoeuvring than either; so, being, as it appears, in close relations

to the police, she gave the government a lot of papers the Italian

left about carelessly, on which they expelled him from France."

 

"Well, after his departure, Madame Komorn--"

 

"Since then, she has had a good many adventures and upset several

fortunes, and I thought she had left Paris. For the last two months

she was nowhere to be seen, but three days ago she reappeared, more

brilliant than ever. My advice to monsieur is not to trust himself in

that direction; and yet, monsieur looks to me a Southerner, and

Southerners have passions; perhaps what I have told him will only

serve to spur them up. However, being warned, there's not so much

danger, and she is a most fascinating creature--oh! very fascinating.

She used to love me very much, though we parted such ill-friends; and

just now, seeing me here, she came over and asked my address, and said

she should come and see me."

 

"Well, madame, I'll think about it," said la Peyrade, rising and

bowing to her.

 

The bow was returned with extreme coldness; his abrupt departure did

not show him to be a man of _serious_ intentions.

 

It might be supposed from the lively manner in which la Peyrade made

these inquiries that his cure though sudden was complete; but this

surface of indifference and cool self-possession was only the

stillness of the atmosphere that precedes a storm. On leaving Madame

Louchard, la Peyrade flung himself into a street-cab and there gave

way to a passion of tears like that Madame Colleville had witnessed on

the day he believed that Cerizet had got the better of him in the sale

of the house.

 

What was his position now? The investment of the Thuilliers, prepared

with so much care, all useless; Flavie well avenged for the odious

comedy he had played with her; his affairs in a worse state than they

were when Cerizet and Dutocq had sent him, like a devouring wolf, into

the sheepfold from which he had allowed the stupid sheep to drive him;

his heart full of revengeful projects against the woman who had so

easily got the better of what he thought his cleverness; and the

memory, still vivid, of the seductions to which he had succumbed,

--such were the thoughts and emotions of his sleepless night,

sleepless except for moments shaken by agitated dreams.

 

The next day la Peyrade could think no more; he was a prey to fever,

the violence of which became sufficiently alarming for the physician

who attended him to take all precautions against the symptoms now

appearing of brain fever: bleeding, cupping, leeches, and ice to his

head; these were the agreeable finale to his dream of love. We must

hasten to add, however, that this violent crisis in the physical led

to a perfect cure of the mental being. The barrister came out of his

illness with no other sentiment than cold contempt for the treacherous

Hungarian, a sentiment which did not even rise to a desire for

vengeance. 

CHAPTER IX (GIVE AND TAKE)

Once more afoot, and reckoning with his future, on which he had lost

so much ground, la Peyrade asked himself if he had not better try to

renew his relations with the Thuilliers, or whether he should be

compelled to fall back on the rich crazy woman who had bullion where

others have brains. But everything that reminded him of his disastrous

campaign was repulsive to him; besides, what safety was there in

dealing with this du Portail, a man who could use such instruments for

his means of action?

 

Great commotions of the soul are like those storms which purify the

atmosphere; they induce reflection, they counsel good and strong

resolutions. La Peyrade, as the result of the cruel disappointment he

had just endured, examined his own soul. He asked himself what sort of

existence was this, of base and ignoble intrigue, which he had led for

the past year? Was there for him no better, no nobler use to make of

the faculties he felt within him? The bar was open to him as to

others; that was a broad, straight path which could lead him to all

the satisfaction of legitimate ambition. Like Figaro, who displayed

more science and calculation in merely getting a living than statesmen

had shown in governing Spain for a hundred years, he, la Peyrade, in

order to install and maintain himself in the Thuillier