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

do nothing."

 

"Your intention," said Brigitte, scarlet with anger, "is something

new."

 

"That is my intention," was all the rebel replied.

 

"At least you will give your reasons?"

 

"The marriage does not please me."

 

"Ha! and since when?"

 

"It is not necessary that monsieur should listen to our discussion,"

said Madame Thuillier; "it will not appear in the contract."

 

"No wonder you are ashamed of it," said Brigitte; "the appearance you

are making is not very flattering to you--Monsieur," she continued,

addressing the clerk, "it is easier, is it not, to mark out passages

in a contract than to add them?"

 

The clerk made an affirmative sign.

 

"Then put in what you were told to write; later, if madame persists,

the clause can be stricken out."

 

The clerk bowed and left the room.

 

When the two sisters-in-law were alone together, Brigitte began.

 

"Ah ca!" she cried, "have you lost your head? What is this crotchet

you've taken into it?"

 

"It is not a crotchet; it is a fixed idea."

 

"Which you got from the Abbe Gondrin; you dare not deny that you went

to see him with Celeste."

 

"It is true that Celeste and I saw our director this morning, but I

did not open my lips to him about what I intended to do."

 

"So, then, it is in your own empty head that this notion sprouted?"

 

"Yes. As I told you yesterday, I think Celeste can be more suitably

married, and my intention is not to rob myself for a marriage of which

I disapprove."

 

"_You_ disapprove! Upon my word! are we all to take madame's advice?"

 

"I know well," replied Madame Thuillier, "that I count for nothing in

this house. So far as I am concerned, I have long accepted my

position; but, when the matter concerns the happiness of a child I

regard as my own--"

 

"Parbleu!" cried Brigitte, "you never knew how to have one; for,

certainly, Thuillier--"

 

"Sister," said Madame Thuillier, with dignity, "I took the sacrament

this morning, and there are some things I cannot listen to."

 

"There's a canting hypocrite for you!" cried Brigitte; "playing the

saint, and bringing trouble into families! And you think to succeed,

do you? Wait till Thuillier comes home, and he'll shake this out of

you."

 

By calling in the marital authority in support of her own, Brigitte

showed weakness before the unexpected resistance thus made to her

inveterate tyranny. Madame Thuillier's calm words, which became every

moment more resolute, baffled her completely, and she found no

resource but insolence.

 

"A drone!" she cried; "a helpless good-for-nothing! who can't even

pick up her own handkerchief! that thing wants to be mistress of this

house!"

 

"I wish so little to be its mistress," said Madame Thuillier, "that

last night I allowed you to silence me after the first words I said in

behalf of Celeste. But I am mistress of my own property, and as I

believe that Celeste will be wretched in this marriage, I keep it to

use as may seem best to me."

 

"Your property, indeed!" said Brigitte, with a sneer.

 

"Yes, that which I received from my father and my mother, and which I

brought as my 'dot' to Monsieur Thuillier."

 

"And pray who invested it, this property, and made it give you twelve

thousand francs a year?"

 

"I have never asked you for any account of it," said Madame Thuillier,

gently. "If it had been lost in the uses you made of it, you would

never have heard a single word from me; but it has prospered, and it

is just that I should have the benefit. It is not for myself that I

reserve it."

 

"Perhaps not; if this is the course you take, it is not at all sure

that you and I will go out of the same door long."

 

"Do you mean that Monsieur Thuillier will send me away? He must have

reasons for doing that, and, thank God! I have been a wife above

reproach."

 

"Viper! hypocrite! heartless creature!" cried Brigitte, coming to an

end of her arguments.

 

"Sister," said Madame Thuillier, "you are in my apartment--"

 

"Am I, you imbecile?" cried the old maid, in a paroxysm of anger. "If

I didn't restrain myself--"

 

And she made a gesture both insulting and threatening.

 

Madame Thuillier rose to leave the room.

 

"No! you shall not go out," cried Brigitte, pushing her down into her

chair; "and till Thuillier comes home and decides what he will do with

you you'll stay locked up here."

 

Just as Brigitte, her face on fire, returned to the room where she had

left Madame Colleville, her brother came in. He was radiant.

 

"My dear," he said to the Megaera, not observing her fury, "everything

is going on finely; the conspiracy of silence is broken; two papers,

the 'National' and a Carlist journal, have copied articles from us,

and there's a little attack in a ministerial paper."

 

"Well, all is not going on finely here," said Brigitte, "and if it

continues, I shall leave the barrack."

 

"Whom are you angry with now?" asked Thuillier.

 

"With your insolent wife, who has made me a scene; I am trembling all

over."

 

"Celeste make you a scene!" said Thuillier; "then it is the very first

time in her life."

 

"There's a beginning to everything, and if you don't bring her to

order--"

 

"But what was it about--this scene?"

 

"About madame's not choosing that la Peyrade should marry her

goddaughter; and out of spite, to prevent the marriage, she refused to

give anything in the contract."

 

"Come, be calm," said Thuillier, not disturbed himself, the admission

of the "Echo" into the polemic making another Pangloss of him. "I'll

settle all that."

 

"You, Flavie," said Brigitte, when Thuillier had departed to his wife,

"you will do me the pleasure to go down to your own apartment, and

tell Mademoiselle Celeste that I don't choose to see her now, because

if she made me any irritating answer I might box her ears. You'll tell

her that I don't like conspiracies; that she was left at liberty to

choose Monsieur Phellion junior if she wanted him, and she did not

want him; that the matter is now all arranged, and that if she does

not wish to see her 'dot' reduced to what you are able to give her,

which isn't as much as a bank-messenger could carry in his waistcoat

pocket--"

 

"But, my dear Brigitte," interrupted Flavie, turning upon her at this

impertinence, "you may dispense with reminding us in this harsh way of

our poverty; for, after all, we have never asked you for anything, and

we pay our rent punctually; and as for the 'dot,' Monsieur Felix

Phellion is quite ready to take Celeste with no more than a

bank-messenger could carry in his _bag_."

 

And she emphasized the last word by her way of pronouncing it.

 

"Ha! so you too are going to meddle in this, are you?" cried Brigitte.

"Very good; go and fetch him, your Felix. I know, my little woman,

that this marriage has never suited you; it IS disagreeable to be

nothing more than a mother to your son-in-law."

 

Flavie had recovered the coolness she had lost for an instant, and

without replying to this speech she merely shrugged her shoulders.

 

At this moment Thuillier returned; his air of beatitude had deserted

him.

 

"My dear Brigitte," he said to his sister, "you have a most excellent

heart, but at times you are so violent--"

 

"Ho!" said the old maid, "am I to be arraigned on this side too?"

 

"I certainly do not blame you for the cause of the trouble, and I have

just rebuked Celeste for her assumption; but there are proper forms

that must be kept."

 

"Forms! what are you talking about? What forms have I neglected?"

 

"But, my dear friend, to raise your hand against your sister!"

 

"I, raise my hand against that imbecile? What nonsense you talk!"

 

"And besides," continued Thuillier, "a woman of Celeste's age can't be

kept in prison."

 

"Your wife!--have I put her in prison?"

 

"You can't deny it, for I found the door of her room double-locked."

 

"Parbleu! all this because in my anger at the infamous things she was

spitting at me I may have turned the key of the door without intending

it."

 

"Come, come," said Thuillier, "these are not proper actions for people

of our class."

 

"Oh! so it is I who am to blame, is it? Well, my lad, some day you'll

remember this, and we shall see how your household will get along when

I have stopped taking care of it."

 

"You'll always take care of it," said Thuillier. "Housekeeping is your

very life; you will be the first to get over this affair."

 

"We'll see about that," said Brigitte; "after twenty years of

devotion, to be treated like the lowest of the low!"

 

And rushing to the door, which she slammed after her with violence,

she went away.

 

Thuillier was not disturbed by this exit.

 

"Were you there, Flavie," he asked, "when the scene took place?"

 

"No, it happened in Celeste's room. What did she do to her?"

 

"What I said,--raised her hand to her and locked her in like a child.

Celeste may certainly be rather dull-minded, but there are limits that

must not be passed."

 

"She is not always pleasant, that good Brigitte," said Flavie; "she

and I have just had a little set-to."

 

"Oh, well," said Thuillier, "it will all pass off. I want to tell you,

my dear Flavie, what fine success we have had this morning. The

'National' quotes two whole paragraphs of an article in which there

were several sentences of mine."

 

Thuillier was again interrupted in the tale of his great political and

literary success,--this time by the entrance of Josephine the cook.

 

"Can monsieur tell me where to find the key of the great trunk?" she

said.

 

"What do you want with it?" asked Thuillier.

 

"Mademoiselle told me to take it to her room."

 

"What for?"

 

"Mademoiselle must be going to make a journey. She is getting her

linen out of the drawers, and her gowns are on the bed."

 

"Another piece of nonsense!" said Thuillier. "Flavie, go and see what

she has in her head."

 

"Not I," said Madame Colleville; "go yourself. In her present state of

exasperation she might beat me."

 

"And my stupid wife, who must needs raise a fuss about the contract!"

cried Thuillier. "She really must have said something pretty sharp to

turn Brigitte off her hinges like this."

 

"Monsieur has not told me where to find the key," persisted Josephine.

 

"I don't know anything about it," said Thuillier, crossly; "go and

look for it, or else tell her it is lost."

 

"Oh, yes!" said Josephine, "it is likely I'd dare to go and tell her

that."

 

Just then the outer door-bell rang.

 

"No doubt that's la Peyrade," said Thuillier, in a tone of

satisfaction.

 

The Provencal appeared a moment later.

 

"Faith, my dear friend," cried Thuillier, "it is high time you came;

the house is in revolution, all about you, and it needs your silvery

tongue to bring it back to peace and quietness."

 

Then he related to his assistant editor the circumstances of the civil

war which had broken out.

 

La Peyrade turned to Madame Colleville.

 

"I think," he said, "that under the circumstances in which we now

stand there is no impropriety in my asking for an interview of a few

moments with Mademoiselle Colleville."

 

In this the Provencal showed his usual shrewd ability; he saw that in

the mission of pacification thus given to him Celeste Colleville was

the key of the situation.

 

"I will send for her, and we will leave you alone together," said

Flavie.

 

"My dear Thuillier," said la Peyrade, "you must, without any violence,

let Mademoiselle Celeste know that her consent must be given without

further delay; make her think that this was the purpose for which you

have sent for her; then leave us; I will do the rest."

 

The man-servant was sent down to the entresol with orders to tell

Celeste that her godfather wished to speak to her. As soon as she

appeared, Thuillier said, to carry out the programme which had been

dictated to him:--

 

"My dear, your mother has told us things that astonish us. Can it be

true that with your contract almost signed, you have not yet decided

to accept the marriage we have arranged for you?"

 

"Godfather," said Celeste, rather surprised at this abrupt summons, "I

think I did not say that to mamma."

 

"Did you not just now," said Flavie, "praise Monsieur Felix Phellion

to me in the most extravagant manner?"

 

"I spoke of Monsieur Phellion as all the world is speaking of him."

 

"Come, come," said Thuillier, with authority, "let us have no

equivocation; do you refuse, yes or no, to marry Monsieur de la

Peyrade?"

 

"Dear, good friend," said la Peyrade, intervening, "your way of

putting the question is rather too abrupt, and, in my presence,

especially, it seems to me out of place. In my position as the most

interested person, will you allow me to have an interview with

mademoiselle, which, indeed, has now become necessary? This favor I am

sure will not be refused by Madame Colleville. Under present

circumstances, there can surely be