Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  leave Havre. My intention is to buy back the estate of La Bastie,

  and to entail it, so as to establish an estate yielding at least a

  hundred thousand francs a year, and then to ask the king to grant

  that one of my sons-in-law may succeed to my name and title. You

  know, my poor Dumay, what a terrible misfortune overtook us

  through the fatal reputation of a large fortune, — my daughter’s

  honor was lost. I have therefore resolved that the amount of my

  present fortune shall not be known. I shall not disembark at

  Havre, but at Marseilles. I shall sell my indigo, and negotiate

  for the purchase of La Bastie through the house of Mongenod in

  Paris. I shall put my funds in the Bank of France and return to

  the Chalet giving out that I have a considerable fortune in

  merchandise. My daughters will be supposed to have two or three

  hundred thousand francs. To choose which of my sons-in-law is

  worthy to succeed to my title and estates and to live with us, is

  now the object of my life; but both of them must be, like you and

  me, honest, loyal, and firm men, and absolutely honorable.

  My dear old fellow, I have never doubted you for a moment. We have

  gone through wars and commerce together and now we will undertake

  agriculture; you shall be my bailiff. You will like that, will you

  not? And so, old friend, I leave it to your discretion to tell

  what you think best to my wife and daughters; I rely upon your

  prudence. In four years great changes may have taken place in

  their characters.

  Adieu, my old Dumay. Say to my daughters and to my wife that I

  have never failed to kiss them in my thoughts morning and evening

  since I left them. The second check for forty thousand francs

  herewith enclosed is for my wife and children.

  Till we meet. — Your colonel and friend,

  Charles Mignon.

  “Your father is coming,” said Madame Mignon to her daughter.

  “What makes you think so, mamma?” asked Modeste.

  “Nothing else could make Dumay hurry himself.”

  “Victory! victory!” cried the lieutenant as soon as he reached the garden gate. “Madame, the colonel has not been ill a moment; he is coming back — coming back on the ‘Mignon,’ a fine ship of his own, which together with its cargo is worth, he tells me, eight or nine hundred thousand francs. But he requires secrecy from all of us; his heart is still wrung by the misfortunes of our dear departed girl.”

  “He has still to learn her death,” said Madame Mignon.

  “He attributes her disaster, and I think he is right, to the rapacity of young men after great fortunes. My poor colonel expects to find the lost sheep here. Let us be happy among ourselves but say nothing to any one, not even to Latournelle, if that is possible. Mademoiselle,” he whispered in Modeste’s ear, “write to your father and tell him of his loss and also the terrible results on your mother’s health and eyesight; prepare him for the shock he has to meet. I will engage to get the letter into his hands before he reaches Havre, for he will have to pass through Paris on his way. Write him a long letter; you have plenty of time. I will take the letter on Monday; Monday I shall probably go to Paris.”

  Modeste was so afraid that Canalis and Dumay would meet that she started hastily for the house to write to her poet and put off the rendezvous.

  “Mademoiselle,” said Dumay, in a very humble manner and barring Modeste’s way, “may your father find his daughter with no other feelings in her heart than those she had for him and for her mother before he was obliged to leave her.”

  “I have sworn to myself, to my sister, and to my mother to be the joy, the consolation, and the glory of my father, and I shall keep my oath!” replied Modeste with a haughty and disdainful glance at Dumay. “Do not trouble my delight in the thought of my father’s return with insulting suspicions. You cannot prevent a girl’s heart from beating — you don’t want me to be a mummy, do you?” she said. “My hand belongs to my family, but my heart is my own. If I love any one, my father and my mother will know it. Does that satisfy you, monsieur?”

  “Thank you, mademoiselle; you restore me to life,” said Dumay, “but you might still call me Dumay, even when you box my ears!”

  “Swear to me,” said her mother, “that you have not engaged a word or a look with any young man.”

  “I can swear that, my dear mother,” said Modeste, laughing, and looking at Dumay who was watching her and smiling to himself like a mischievous girl.

  “She must be false indeed if you are right,” cried Dumay, when Modeste had left them and gone into the house.

  “My daughter Modeste may have faults,” said her mother, “but falsehood is not one of them; she is incapable of saying what is not true.”

  “Well! then let us feel easy,” continued Dumay, “and believe that misfortune has closed his account with us.”

  “God grant it!” answered Madame Mignon. “You will see him, Dumay; but I shall only hear him. There is much of sadness in my joy.”

  CHAPTER XII. A DECLARATION OF LOVE, — SET TO MUSIC

  At this moment Modeste, happy as she was in the return of her father, was, nevertheless, pacing her room disconsolate as Perrette on seeing her eggs broken. She had hoped her father would bring back a much larger fortune than Dumay had mentioned. Nothing could satisfy her new-found ambition on behalf of her poet less than at least half the six millions she had talked of in her second letter. Trebly agitated by her two joys and the grief caused by her comparative poverty, she seated herself at the piano, that confidant of so many young girls, who tell out their wishes and provocations on the keys, expressing them by the notes and tones of their music. Dumay was talking with his wife in the garden under the windows, telling her the secret of their own wealth, and questioning her as to her desires and her intentions. Madame Dumay had, like her husband, no other family than the Mignons. Husband and wife agreed, therefore, to go and live in Provence, if the Comte de La Bastie really meant to live in Provence, and to leave their money to whichever of Modeste’s children might need it most.

  “Listen to Modeste,” said Madame Mignon, addressing them. “None but a girl in love can compose such airs without having studied music.”

  Houses may burn, fortunes be engulfed, fathers return from distant lands, empires may crumble away, the cholera may ravage cities, but a maiden’s love wings its way as nature pursues hers, or that alarming acid which chemistry has lately discovered, and which will presently eat through the globe, if nothing stops it.

  Modeste, under the inspiration of her present situation, was putting to music certain stanzas which we are compelled to quote here — albeit they are printed in the second volume of the edition Dauriat had mentioned — because, in order to adapt them to her music, which had the inexpressible charm of sentiment so admired in great singers, Modeste had taken liberties with the lines in a manner that may astonish the admirers of a poet so famous for the correctness, sometimes too precise, of his measures.

  THE MAIDEN’S SONG

  Hear, arise! the lark is shaking

  Sunlit wings that heavenward rise;

  Sleep no more; the violet, waking,

  Wafts her incense to the skies.

  Flowers revived, their eyes unclosing,

  See themselves in drops of dew

  In each calyx-cup reposing,

  Pearls of a day their mirror true.

  Breeze divine, the god of roses,

  Passed by night to bless their bloom;

  See! for him each bud uncloses,

  Glows, and yields its rich perfume.

  Then arise! the lark is shaking

  Sunlit wings that heavenward rise;

  Nought is sleeping — Heart, awaking,

  Lift thine incense to th
e skies.

  “It is very pretty,” said Madame Dumay. “Modeste is a musician, and that’s the whole of it.”

  “The devil is in her!” cried the cashier, into whose heart the suspicion of the mother forced its way and made him shiver.

  “She loves,” persisted Madame Mignon.

  By succeeding, through the undeniable testimony of the song, in making the cashier a sharer in her belief as to the state of Modeste’s heart, Madame Mignon destroyed the happiness the return and the prosperity of his master had brought him. The poor Breton went down the hill to Havre and to his desk in Gobenheim’s counting-room with a heavy heart; then, before returning to dinner, he went to see Latournelle, to tell his fears, and beg once more for the notary’s advice and assistance.

  “Yes, my dear friend,” said Dumay, when they parted on the steps of the notary’s door, “I now agree with madame; she loves, — yes, I am sure of it; and the devil knows the rest. I am dishonored.”

  “Don’t make yourself unhappy, Dumay,” answered the little notary. “Among us all we can surely get the better of the little puss; sooner or later, every girl in love betrays herself, — you may be sure of that. But we will talk about it this evening.”

  Thus it happened that all those devoted to the Mignon family were fully as disquieted and uncertain as they were before the old soldier tried the experiment which he expected would be so decisive. The ill-success of his past efforts so stimulated Dumay’s sense of duty, that he determined not to go to Paris to see after his own fortune as announced by his patron, until he had guessed the riddle of Modeste’s heart. These friends, to whom feelings were more precious than interests, well knew that unless the daughter were pure and innocent, the father would die of grief when he came to know the death of Bettina and the blindness of his wife. The distress of poor Dumay made such an impression on the Latournelles that they even forgot their parting with Exupere, whom they had sent off that morning to Paris. During dinner, while the three were alone, Monsieur and Madame Latournelle and Butscha turned the problem over and over in their minds, and discussed every aspect of it.

  “If Modeste loved any one in Havre she would have shown some fear yesterday,” said Madame Latournelle; “her lover, therefore, lives somewhere else.”

  “She swore to her mother this morning,” said the notary, “in presence of Dumay, that she had not exchanged a look or a word with any living soul.”

  “Then she loves after my fashion!” exclaimed Butscha.

  “And how is that, my poor lad?” asked Madame Latournelle.

  “Madame,” said the little cripple, “I love alone and afar — oh! as far as from here to the stars.”

  “How do you manage it, you silly fellow?” said Madame Latournelle, laughing.

  “Ah, madame!” said Butscha, “what you call my hump is the socket of my wings.”

  “So that is the explanation of your seal, is it?” cried the notary.

  Butscha’s seal was a star, and under it the words “Fulgens, sequar,” — ”Shining One, I follow thee,” — the motto of the house of Chastillonest.

  “A beautiful woman may feel as distrustful as the ugliest,” said Butscha, as if speaking to himself; “Modeste is clever enough to fear she may be loved only for her beauty.”

  Hunchbacks are extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for, according to Nature’s plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish. The curvature or distortion of the spinal column creates in these outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where the nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal conditions, — where they develop, and whence they are emitted, so to say, in lightning flashes, to energize the interior being. From this, forces result which are sometimes brought to light by magnetism, though they are far more frequently lost in the vague spaces of the spiritual world. It is rare to find a deformed person who is not gifted with some special faculty, — a whimsical or sparkling gaiety perhaps, an utter malignity, or an almost sublime goodness. Like instruments which the hand of art can never fully waken, these beings, highly privileged though they know it not, live within themselves, as Butscha lived, provided their natural forces so magnificently concentrated have not been spent in the struggle they have been forced to maintain, against tremendous odds, to keep alive. This explains many superstitions, the popular legends of gnomes, frightful dwarfs, deformed fairies, — all that race of bottles, as Rabelais called them, containing elixirs and precious balms.

  Butscha, therefore, had very nearly found the key to the puzzle. With all the anxious solicitude of a hopeless lover, a vassal ever ready to die, — like the soldiers alone and abandoned in the snows of Russia, who still cried out, “Long live the Emperor,” — he meditated how to capture Modeste’s secret for his own private knowledge. So thinking, he followed his patrons to the Chalet that evening, with a cloud of care upon his brow: for he knew it was most important to hide from all these watchful eyes and ears the net, whatever it might be, in which he should entrap his lady. It would have to be, he thought, by some intercepted glance, some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon lays his finger on a hidden sore. That evening Gobenheim did not appear, and Butscha was Dumay’s partner against Monsieur and Madame Latournelle. During the few moment’s of Modeste’s absence, about nine o’clock, to prepare for her mother’s bedtime, Madame Mignon and her friends spoke openly to one another; but the poor clerk, depressed by the conviction of Modeste’s love, which had now seized upon him as upon the rest, seemed as remote from the discussion as Gobenheim had been the night before.

  “Well, what’s the matter with you, Butscha?” cried Madame Latournelle; “one would really think you hadn’t a friend in the world.”

  Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was the son of a Swedish sailor, and whose mother was dead.

  “I have no one in the world but you,” he answered with a troubled voice; “and your compassion is so much a part of your religion that I can never lose it — and I will never deserve to lose it.”

  This answer struck the sensitive chord of true delicacy in the minds of all present.

  “We love you, Monsieur Butscha,” said Madame Mignon, with much feeling in her voice.

  “I’ve six hundred thousand francs of my own, this day,” cried Dumay, “and you shall be a notary and the successor of Latournelle.”

  The American wife took the hand of the poor hunchback and pressed it.

  “What! you have six hundred thousand francs!” exclaimed Latournelle, pricking up his ears as Dumay let fall the words; “and you allow these ladies to live as they do! Modeste ought to have a fine horse; and why doesn’t she continue to take lessons in music, and painting, and — ”

  “Why, he has only had the money a few hours!” cried the little wife.

  “Hush!” murmured Madame Mignon.

  While these words were exchanged, Butscha’s august mistress turned towards him, preparing to make a speech: —

  “My son,” she said, “you are so surrounded by true affection that I never thought how my thoughtless use of that familiar phrase might be construed; but you must thank me for my little blunder, because it has served to show you what friends your noble qualities have won.”

  “Then you must have news from Monsieur Mignon,” resumed the notary.

  “He is on his way home,” said Madame Mignon; “but let us keep the secret to ourselves. When my husband learns how faithful Butscha has been to us, how he has shown us the warmest and the most disinterested friendship when others have given us the cold shoulder, he will not let you alone provide for him, Dumay. And so, my friend,” she added, turning her blind face toward Butscha; “you can begin at once to negotiate with Latournelle.”

  “He’s of legal age, twenty-five and a half years. As for me, it will be paying a debt, my boy, to make the purchase easy for you,” said the notary.

  Butscha was kissing Madame Mignon’s hand, and his face was wet with tears as Modeste opened the door of the salon.


  “What are you doing to my Black Dwarf?” she demanded. “Who is making him unhappy?”

  “Ah! Mademoiselle Mignon, do we luckless fellows, cradled in misfortune, ever weep for grief? They have just shown me as much affection as I could feel for them if they were indeed my own relations. I’m to be a notary; I shall be rich. Ha! ha! the poor Butscha may become the rich Butscha. You don’t know what audacity there is in this abortion,” he cried.

  With that he gave himself a resounding blow on the cavity of his chest and took up a position before the fireplace, after casting a glance at Modeste, which slipped like a ray of light between his heavy half-closed eyelids. He perceived, in this unexpected incident, a chance of interrogating the heart of his sovereign. Dumay thought for a moment that the clerk dared to aspire to Modeste, and he exchanged a rapid glance with the others, who understood him, and began to eye the little man with a species of terror mingled with curiosity.

  “I, too, have my dreams,” said Butscha, not taking his eyes from Modeste.

  The young girl lowered her eyelids with a movement that was a revelation to the young man.

  “You love romance,” he said, addressing her. “Let me, in this moment of happiness, tell you mine; and you shall tell me in return whether the conclusion of the tale I have invented for my life is possible. To me wealth would bring greater happiness than to other men; for the highest happiness I can imagine would be to enrich the one I loved. You, mademoiselle, who know so many things, tell me if it is possible for a man to make himself beloved independently of his person, be it handsome or ugly, and for his spirit only?”

  Modeste raised her eyes and looked at Butscha. It was a piercing and questioning glance; for she shared Dumay’s suspicion of Butscha’s motive.

  “Let me be rich, and I will seek some beautiful poor girl, abandoned like myself, who has suffered, who knows what misery is. I will write to her and console her, and be her guardian spirit; she shall read my heart, my soul; she shall possess by double wealth, my two wealths, — my gold, delicately offered, and my thought robed in all the splendor which the accident of birth has denied to my grotesque body. But I myself shall remain hidden like the cause that science seeks. God himself may not be glorious to the eye. Well, naturally, the maiden will be curious; she will wish to see me; but I shall tell her that I am a monster of ugliness; I shall picture myself hideous.”