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

woman herself, who tells the whole story now she

is certain of being paid."

 

"Well," said Brigitte to her brother, "a pretty business you are

engaged in!"

 

"Mademoiselle," said Cerizet, "I only meant to warn Monsieur Thuillier

a little. I think myself that you are sure to be paid. Without knowing

the exact particulars of this new marriage, I am certain the family

would never allow him to owe you to such mortifying debts; if

necessary, I should be very glad to intervene."

 

"Monsieur," said Thuillier, stiffly, "thanking you for your officious

intervention, permit me to say that it surprises me a little, for the

manner in which we parted would not have allowed me to hope it."

 

"Ah ca!" said Cerizet; "you don't think I was angry with you for that,

do you? I pitied you, that was all. I saw you under the spell, and I

said to myself: 'Leave him to learn la Peyrade by experience.' I knew

very well that the day of justice would dawn for me, and before long,

too. La Peyrade is a man who doesn't make you wait for his

questionable proceedings."

 

"Allow me to say," remarked Thuillier, "that I do not consider the

rupture of the marriage we had proposed a questionable proceeding. The

matter was arranged, I may say, by mutual consent."

 

"And the trick he is going to play you by leaving the paper in the

lurch, and the debt he has saddled you with, what are they?"

 

"Monsieur Cerizet," continued Thuillier, still holding himself on the

reserve, "as I have said more than once to la Peyrade, no man is

indispensable; and if the editorship of my paper becomes vacant, I

feel confident that I shall at once meet with persons very eager to

offer me their services."

 

"Is it for me you say that?" asked Cerizet. "Well, you haven't hit the

nail; if you did me the honor to want my services it would be

impossible for me to grant them. I have long been disgusted with

journalism. I let la Peyrade, I hardly know why, persuade me to make

this campaign with you; it didn't turn out happily, and I have vowed

to myself to have no more to do with newspapers. It was about another

matter altogether than I came to speak to you."

 

"Ah!" said Thuillier.

 

"Yes," continued Cerizet, "remembering the business-like manner in

which you managed the affair of this house in which you do me the

honor to receive me, I thought I could not do better than to call your

attention to a matter of the same kind which I have just now in hand.

But I shall not do as la Peyrade did,--make a bargain for the hand of

your goddaughter, and profess great friendship and devotion to you

personally. This is purely business, and I expect to make my profit

out of it. Now, as I still desire to become the principal tenant of

this house,--the letting of which must be a care and a disappointment

to mademoiselle, for I saw as I came along that the shops were still

unrented,--I think that this lease to me, if you will make it, might

be reckoned in to my share of the profits. You see, monsieur, that the

object of my visit has nothing to do with the newspaper."

 

"What is this new affair?" said Brigitte; "that's the first thing to

know."

 

"It relates to a farm in Beauce, which has just been sold for a song,

and it is placed in my hands to resell, at an advance, but a small

one; you could really buy it, as the saying is, for a bit of bread."

 

And Cerizet went on to explain the whole mechanism of the affair,

which we need not relate here, as no one but Brigitte would take any

interest in it. The statement was clear and precise, and it took close

hold on the old maid's mind. Even Thuillier himself, in spite of his

inward distrust, was obliged to own that the affair had all the

appearance of a good speculation.

 

"Only," said Brigitte, "we must first see the farm ourselves."

 

This, the reader will remember, was her answer to la Peyrade when he

first proposed the purchase of the house at the Madeleine.

 

"Nothing is easier than that," said Cerizet. "I myself want to see it,

and I have been intending to make a little excursion there. If you

like, I'll be at your door this afternoon with a post-chaise, and

to-morrow morning, very early, we can examine the farm, breakfast at

some inn near by, and be back in time for dinner."

 

"A post-chaise!" said Brigitte, "that's very lordly; why not take the

diligence?"

 

"Diligences are so uncertain," replied Cerizet; "you never know at

what time they will get to a place. But you need not think about the

expense, for I should otherwise go alone, and I am only too happy to

offer you two seats in my carriage."

 

To misers, small gains are often determining causes in great matters;

after a little resistance "pro forma," Brigitte ended by accepting the

proposal, and three hours later the trio were on the road to Chartres,

Cerizet having advised Thuillier not to let la Peyrade know of his

absence, lest he might take some unfair advantage of it.

 

The next day, by five o'clock, the party had returned, and the brother

and sister, who kept their opinions to themselves in presence of

Cerizet, were both agreed that the purchase was a good one. They had

found the soil of the best quality, the buildings in perfect repair,

the cattle looked sound and healthy; in short, this idea of becoming

the mistress of rural property seemed to Brigitte the final

consecration of opulence.

 

"Minard," she remarked, "has only a town-house and invested capital,

whereas we shall have all that and a country-place besides; one can't

be really rich without it."

 

Thuillier was not sufficiently under the charm of that dream--the

realization of which was, in any case, quite distant--to forget, even

for a moment, the "Echo de la Bievre" and his candidacy. No sooner had

he reached home than he asked for the morning's paper.

 

"It has not come," said the "male domestic."

 

"That's a fine distribution, when even the owner of the paper is not

served!" cried Thuillier, discontentedly.

 

Although it was nearly dinner-time, and after his journey he would

much rather have taken a bath than rush to the rue Saint-Dominique,

Thuillier ordered a cab and drove at once to the office of the "Echo."

 

There a fresh disappointment met him. The paper "was made," as they

say, and all the employees had departed, even la Peyrade. As for

Coffinet, who was not to be found at his post of office-boy, nor yet

at his other post of porter, he had gone "of an errand," his wife

said, taking the key of the closet in which the remaining copies of

the paper were locked up. Impossible, therefore, to procure the number

which the unfortunate proprietor had come so far to fetch.

 

To describe Thuillier's indignation would be impossible. He marched up

and down the room, talking aloud to himself, as people do in moments

of excitement.

 

"I'll turn them all out!" he cried. And we are forced to omit the rest

of the furious objurgation.

 

As he ended his anathema a rap was heard on the door.

 

"Come in!" said Thuillier, in a tone that depicted his wrath and his

frantic impatience.

 

The door opened, and Minard rushed precipitately into his arms.

 

"My good, my excellent friend!" cried the mayor of the eleventh

arrondissement, concluding his embrace with a hearty shake of the

hand.

 

"Why! what is it?" said Thuillier, unable to comprehend the warmth of

this demonstration.

 

"Ah! my dear friend," continued Minard, "such an admirable proceeding!

really chivalrous! most disinterested! The effect, I assure you, is

quite stupendous in the arrondissement."

 

"But what, I say?" cried Thuillier, impatiently.

 

"The article, the whole action," continued Minard, "so noble, so

elevated!"

 

"But what article? what action?" said the proprietor of the "Echo,"

getting quite beside himself.

 

"The article of this morning," said Minard.

 

"The article of this morning?"

 

"Ah ca! did you write it when you were asleep; or, like Monsieur

Jourdain doing prose, do you do heroism without knowing it?"

 

"I! I haven't written any article!" cried Thuillier. "I have been away

from Paris for a day, and I don't even know what is in this morning's

paper; and the office-boy is not here to give me a copy."

 

"I have one," said Minard, pulling the much desired paper from his

pocket. "If the article is not years you have certainly inspired it;

in any case, the deed is done."

 

Thuillier hurriedly unfolded the sheet Minard had given him, and

devoured rather than read the following article:--

 

Long enough has the proprietor of this regenerated journal

submitted without complaint and without reply to the cowardly

insinuations with which a venal press insults all citizens who,

strong in their convictions, refuse to pass beneath the Caudine

Forks of power. Long enough has a man, who has already given

proofs of devotion and abnegation in the important functions of

the aedility of Paris, allowed these sheets to call him ambitious

and self-seeking. Monsieur Jerome Thuillier, strong in his

dignity, has suffered such coarse attacks to pass him with

contempt. Encouraged by this disdainful silence, the stipendiaries

of the press have dared to write that this journal, a work of

conviction and of the most disinterested patriotism, was but the

stepping-stone of a man, the speculation of a seeker for election.

Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has held himself impassible before these

shameful imputations because justice and truth are patient, and he

bided his time to scotch the reptile. That time has come.

 

"That deuce of a Peyrade!" said Thuillier, stopping short; "how he

does touch it off!"

 

"It is magnificent!" cried Minard.

 

Reading aloud, Thuillier continued:--

 

Every one, friends and enemies alike, can bear witness that

Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has done nothing to seek a candidacy

which was offered to him spontaneously.

 

"That's evident," said Thuillier, interrupting himself. Then he

resumed:--

 

But, since his sentiments are so odiously misrepresented, and his

intentions so falsely travestied, Monsieur Jerome Thuillier owes

it to himself, and above all to the great national party of which

he is the humblest soldier, to give an example which shall

confound the vile sycophants of power.

 

"It is fine, the way la Peyrade poses me!" said Thuillier, pausing

once more in his reading. "I see now why he didn't send me the paper;

he wanted to enjoy my surprise--'confound the vile sycophants of

power!' how fine that is!"

 

After which reflection, he continued:--

 

Monsieur Thuillier was so far from founding this journal of

dynastic opposition to support and promote his election that, at

the very moment when the prospects of that election seem most

favorable to himself and most disastrous to his rivals, he here

declares publicly, and in the most formal, absolute, and

irrevocable manner that he _renounces his candidacy_.

 

"What?" cried Thuillier, thinking he had read wrong, or had

misunderstood what he read.

 

"Go on! go on!" said the mayor of the eleventh.

 

Then, as Thuillier, with a bewildered air, seemed not disposed to

continue his reading, Minard took the paper from his hands and read

the rest of the article himself, beginning where the other had left

off:--

 

Renounces his candidacy; and he strongly urges the electors to

transfer to Monsieur Minard, mayor of the eleventh arrondissement

and his friend and colleague in his municipal functions, all the

votes with which they seemed about to honor him.

 

"But this is infamous!" cried Thuillier, recovering his speech; "you

have bought that Jesuit la Peyrade."

 

"So," said Minard, stupefied by Thuillier's attitude, "the article was

not agreed upon between you?"

 

"The wretch has profited by my absence to slip it into the paper; I

understand now why he prevented a copy from reaching me to-day."

 

"My dear friend," said Minard, "what you tell me will seem incredible

to the public."

 

"I tell you it is treachery; it is an abominable trap. Renounce my

candidacy!--why should I?"

 

"You understand, my dear friend," said Minard, "that I am truly sorry

if your confidence has been abused, but I have just issued my circular

manifesto; the die is cast, and luck to the lucky now."

 

"Leave me," said Thuillier; "it is a comedy for which you have paid."

 

"Monsieur Thuillier," said Minard, in a threatening voice, "I advise

you not to repeat those words, unless you are ready to give me

satisfaction for them."

 

Happily for Thuillier, who, we may remember, had made his profession

of faith as to civic courage some time before, he was relieved from

answering by Coffinet, who now opened the door of the editorial

sanctum, and announced:--

 

"Messieurs the electors of the twelfth arrondissement."

 

The arrondissement was represented on this occasion by five persons.

An apothecary, chairman of the deputation, proceeded to address

Thuillier in the following terms:--

 

"We have come, monsieur, after taking cognizance of an article

inserted this morning in the 'Echo de la Bievre,' to inquire of you

what may be precisely the origin and bearing