Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  Raoul left the house after again straining the countess to his heart with dreadful pressure, leaving her stupefied and distressed.

  “What is the matter, my dear?” said Madame d’Espard, coming to look for her. “What has Monsieur Nathan been saying to you? He has just left us in a most melodramatic way. Perhaps you are too reasonable or too unreasonable with him.”

  The countess got into a hackney-coach and was driven rapidly to the newspaper office. At that hour the huge apartments which they occupied in an old mansion in the rue Feydeau were deserted; not a soul was there but the watchman, who was greatly surprised to see a young and pretty woman hurrying through the rooms in evident distress. She asked him to tell her where was Monsieur Nathan.

  “At Mademoiselle Florine’s, probably,” replied the man, taking Marie for a rival who intended to make a scene.

  “Where does he work?”

  “In his office, the key of which he carries in his pocket.”

  “I wish to go there.”

  The man took her to a dark little room looking out on a rear court-yard. The office was at right angles. Opening the window of the room she was in, the countess could look through into the window of the office, and she saw Nathan sitting there in the editorial arm-chair.

  “Break in the door, and be silent about all this; I’ll pay you well,” she said. “Don’t you see that Monsieur Nathan is dying?”

  The man got an iron bar from the press-room, with which he burst in the door. Raoul had actually smothered himself, like any poor work-girl, with a pan of charcoal. He had written a letter to Blondet, which lay on the table, in which he asked him to ascribe his death to apoplexy. The countess, however, had arrived in time; she had Raoul carried to her coach, and then, not knowing where else to care for him, she took him to a hotel, engaged a room, and sent for a doctor. In a few hours Raoul was out of danger; but the countess did not leave him until she had obtained a general confession of the causes of his act. When he had poured into her heart the dreadful elegy of his woes, she said, in order to make him willing to live: —

  “I can arrange all that.”

  But, nevertheless, she returned home with a heart oppressed with the same anxieties and ideas that had darkened Nathan’s brow the night before.

  “Well, what was the matter with your sister?” said Felix, when his wife returned. “You look distressed.”

  “It is a dreadful history about which I am bound to secrecy,” she said, summoning all her nerve to appear calm before him.

  In order to be alone and to think at her ease, she went to the Opera in the evening, after which she resolved to go (as we have seen) and discharge her heart into that of her sister, Madame du Tillet; relating to her the horrible scene of the morning, and begging her advice and assistance. Neither the one nor the other could then know that du Tillet himself had lighted the charcoal of the vulgar brazier, the sight of which had so justly terrified the countess.

  “He has but me in all the world,” said Marie to her sister, “and I will not fail him.”

  That speech contains the secret motive of most women; they can be heroic when they are certain of being all in all to a grand and irreproachable being.

  CHAPTER VIII. A LOVER SAVED AND LOST

  Du Tillet had heard some talk even in financial circles of the more or less possible adoration of his sister-in-law for Nathan; but he was one of those who denied it, thinking it incompatible with Raoul’s known relations with Florine. The actress would certainly drive off the countess, or vice versa. But when, on coming home that evening, he found his sister-in-law with a perturbed face, in consultation with his wife about money, it occurred to him that Raoul had, in all probability, confided to her his situation. The countess must therefore love him; she had doubtless come to obtain from her sister the sum due to old Gigonnet. Madame du Tillet, unaware, of course, of the reasons for her husband’s apparently supernatural penetration, had shown such stupefaction when he told her the sum wanted, that du Tillet’s suspicions became certainties. He was sure now that he held the thread of all Nathan’s possible manoeuvres.

  No one knew that the unhappy man himself was in bed in a small hotel in the rue du Mail, under the name of the office watchman, to whom Marie had promised five hundred francs if he kept silence as to the events of the preceding night and morning. Thus bribed, the man, whose name was Francois Quillet, went back to the office and left word with the portress that Monsieur Nathan had been taken ill in consequence of overwork, and was resting. Du Tillet was therefore not surprised at Raoul’s absence. It was natural for the journalist to hide under any such pretence to avoid arrest. When the sheriff’s spies made inquiries they learned that a lady had carried him away in a public coach early in the morning; but it took three days to ferret out the number of the coach, question the driver, and find the hotel where the debtor was recovering his strength. Thus Marie’s prompt action had really gained for Nathan a truce of four days.

  Both sisters passed a cruel night. Such a catastrophe casts the lurid gleams of its charcoal over the whole of life, showing reefs, pools, depths, where the eye has hitherto seen only summits and grandeurs. Struck by the horrible picture of a young man lying back in his chair to die, with the last proofs of his paper before him, containing in type his last thoughts, poor Madame du Tillet could think of nothing else than how to save him and restore a life so precious to her sister. It is the nature of our mind to see effects before we analyze their causes. Eugenie recurred to her first idea of consulting Madame Delphine de Nucingen, with whom she was to dine, and she resolved to make the attempt, not doubting of success. Generous, like all persons who are not bound in the polished steel armor of modern society, Madame du Tillet resolved to take the whole matter upon herself.

  The countess, on the other hand, happy in the thought that she had saved Raoul’s life, spent the night in devising means to obtain the forty thousand francs. In emergencies like these women are sublime; they find contrivances which would astonish thieves, business men, and usurers, if those three classes of industrials were capable of being astonished. First, the countess sold her diamonds and decided on wearing paste; then she resolved to ask the money from Vandenesse on her sister’s account; but these were dishonorable means, and her soul was too noble not to recoil at them; she merely conceived them, and cast them from her. Ask money of Vandenesse to give to Nathan! She bounded in her bed with horror at such baseness. Wear false diamonds to deceive her husband! Next she thought of borrowing the money from the Rothschilds, who had so much, or from the archbishop of Paris, whose mission it was to help persons in distress; darting thus from thought to thought, seeking help in all. She deplored belonging to a class opposed to the government. Formerly, she could easily have borrowed the money on the steps of the throne. She thought of appealing to her father, the Comte de Granville. But that great magistrate had a horror of illegalities; his children knew how little he sympathized with the trials of love; he was now a misanthrope and held all affairs of the heart in horror. As for the Comtesse de Granville, she was living a retired life on one of her estates in Normandy, economizing and praying, ending her days between priests and money-bags, cold as ever to her dying moment. Even supposing that Marie had time to go to Bayeux and implore her, would her mother give her such a sum unless she explained why she wanted it? Could she say she had debts? Yes, perhaps her mother would be softened by the wants of her favorite child. Well, then! in case all other means failed, she would go to Normandy. The dreadful sight of the morning, the effects she had made to revive Nathan, the hours passed beside his pillow, his broken confession, the agony of a great soul, a vast genius stopped in its upward flight by a sordid vulgar obstacle, — all these things rushed into her memory and stimulated her love. She went over and over her emotions, and felt her love to be deeper in these days of misery than in those of Nathan’s fame and grandeur. She felt the nobility of his last words said to her in Lady Dudley’s boudoir. What sacredness in that farewell! What grandeur in th
e immolation of a selfish happiness which would have been her torture! The countess had longed for emotions, and now she had them, — terrible, cruel, and yet most precious. She lived a deeper life in pain than in pleasure. With what delight she said to herself: “I have saved him once, and I will save him again.” She heard him cry out when he felt her lips upon his forehead, “Many a poor wretch does not know what love is!”

  “Are you ill?” said her husband, coming into her room to take her to breakfast.

  “I am dreadfully worried about a matter that is happening at my sister’s,” she replied, without actually telling a lie.

  “Your sister has fallen into bad hands,” replied Felix. “It is a shame for any family to have a du Tillet in it, — a man without honor of any kind. If disaster happened to her she would get no pity from him.”

  “What woman wants pity?” said the countess, with a convulsive motion. “A man’s sternness is to us our only pardon.”

  “This is not the first time that I read your noble heart,” said the count. “A woman who thinks as you do needs no watching.”

  “Watching!” she said; “another shame that recoils on you.”

  Felix smiled, but Marie blushed. When women are secretly to blame they often show ostensibly the utmost womanly pride. It is a dissimulation of mind for which we ought to be obliged to them. The deception is full of dignity, if not of grandeur. Marie wrote two lines to Nathan under the name of Monsieur Quillet, to tell him that all went well, and sent them by a street porter to the hotel du Mail. That night, at the Opera, Felix thought it very natural that she should wish to leave her box and go to that of her sister, and he waited till du Tillet had left his wife to give Marie his arm and take her there. Who can tell what emotions agitated her as she went through the corridors and entered her sister’s box with a face that was outwardly serene and calm!

  “Well?” she said, as soon as they were alone.

  Eugenie’s face was an answer; it was bright with a joy which some persons might have attributed to the satisfaction of vanity.

  “He can be saved, dear; but for three months only; during which time we must plan some other means of doing it permanently. Madame de Nucingen wants four notes of hand, each for ten thousand francs, endorsed by any one, no matter who, so as not to compromise you. She explained to me how they were made, but I couldn’t understand her. Monsieur Nathan, however, can make them for us. I thought of Schmucke, our old master. I am sure he could be very useful in this emergency; he will endorse the notes. You must add to the four notes a letter in which you guarantee their payment to Madame de Nucingen, and she will give you the money to-morrow. Do the whole thing yourself; don’t trust it to any one. I feel sure that Schmucke will make no objection. To divert all suspicion I told Madame de Nucingen you wanted to oblige our old music-master who was in distress, and I asked her to keep the matter secret.”

  “You have the sense of angels! I only hope Madame de Nucingen won’t tell of it until after she gives me the money,” said the countess.

  “Schmucke lives in the rue de Nevers on the quai Conti; don’t forget the address, and go yourself.”

  “Thanks!” said the countess, pressing her sister’s hand. “Ah! I’d give ten years of life — ”

  “Out of your old age — ”

  “If I could put an end to these anxieties,” said the countess, smiling at the interruption.

  The persons who were at that moment levelling their opera-glasses at the two sisters might well have supposed them engaged in some light-hearted talk; but any observer who had come to the Opera more for the pleasure of watching faces than for mere idle amusement might have guessed them in trouble, from the anxious look which followed the momentary smiles on their charming faces. Raoul, who did not fear the bailiffs at night, appeared, pale and ashy, with anxious eye and gloomy brow, on the step of the staircase where he regularly took his stand. He looked for the Countess in her box and, finding it empty, buried his face in his hands, leaning his elbows on the balustrade.

  “Can she be here!” he thought.

  “Look up, unhappy hero,” whispered Mme. du Tillet.

  As for Marie, at all risks she fixed on him that steady magnetic gaze, in which the will flashes from the eye, as rays of light from the sun. Such a look, mesmerizers say, penetrates to the person on whom it is directed, and certainly Raoul seemed as though struck by a magic wand. Raising his head, his eyes met those of the sisters. With that charming feminine readiness which is never at fault, Mme. de Vandenesse seized a cross, sparkling on her neck, and directed his attention to it by a swift smile, full of meaning. The brilliance of the gem radiated even upon Raoul’s forehead, and he replied with a look of joy; he had understood.

  “Is it nothing then, Eugenie,” said the Countess, “thus to restore life to the dead?”

  “You have a chance yet with the Royal Humane Society,” replied Eugenie, with a smile.

  “How wretched and depressed he looked when he came, and how happy he will go away!”

  At this moment du Tillet, coming up to Raoul with every mark of friendliness, pressed his hand, and said:

  “Well, old fellow, how are you?”

  “As well as a man is likely to be who has just got the best possible news of the election. I shall be successful,” replied Raoul, radiant.

  “Delighted,” said du Tillet. “We shall want money for the paper.”

  “The money will be found,” said Raoul.

  “The devil is with these women!” exclaimed du Tillet, still unconvinced by the words of Raoul, whom he had nicknamed Charnathan.

  “What are you talking about?” said Raoul.

  “My sister-in-law is there with my wife, and they are hatching something together. You seem in high favor with the Countess; she is bowing to you right across the house.”

  “Look,” said Mme. du Tillet to her sister, “they told us wrong. See how my husband fawns on M. Nathan, and it is he who they declared was trying to get him put in prison!”

  “And men call us slanderers!” cried the Countess. “I will give him a warning.”

  She rose, took the arm of Vandenesse, who was waiting in the passage, and returned jubilant to her box; by and by she left the Opera and ordered her carriage for the next morning before eight o’clock.

  The next morning, by half-past eight, Marie had driven to the quai Conti, stopping at the hotel du Mail on her way. The carriage could not enter the narrow rue de Nevers; but as Schmucke lived in a house at the corner of the quai she was not obliged to walk up its muddy pavement, but could jump from the step of her carriage to the broken step of the dismal old house, mended like porter’s crockery, with iron rivets, and bulging out over the street in a way that was quite alarming to pedestrians. The old chapel-master lived on the fourth floor, and enjoyed a fine view of the Seine from the pont Neuf to the heights of Chaillot.

  The good soul was so surprised when the countess’s footman announced the visit of his former scholar that in his stupefaction he let her enter without going down to receive her. Never did the countess suspect or imagine such an existence as that which suddenly revealed itself to her eyes, though she had long known Schmucke’s contempt for dress, and the little interest he held in the affairs of this world. But who could have believed in such complete indifference, in the utter laisser-aller of such a life? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes, and he felt no shame whatever in his untidiness; in fact, he was so accustomed to it that he would probably have denied its existence. The incessant smoking of a stout German pipe had spread upon the ceiling and over a wretched wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge. The cat, a magnificently long-furred, fluffy animal, the envy of all portresses, presided there like the mistress of the house, grave and sedate, and without anxieties. On the top of an excellent Viennese piano he sat majestically, and cast upon the countess, as she entered, that coldly gracious look which a woman, surprised by the beauty of another woman, might have given. He did not move, and merely waved th
e two silver threads of his right whisker as he turned his golden eyes on Schmucke.

  The piano, decrepit on its legs, though made of good wood painted black and gilded, was dirty, defaced, and scratched; and its keys, worn like the teeth of old horses, were yellowed with the fuliginous colors of the pipe. On the desk, a little heap of ashes showed that the night before Schmucke had bestrode the old instrument to some musical Walhalla. The floor, covered with dried mud, torn papers, tobacco-dust, fragments indescribable, was like that of a boy’s school-room, unswept for a week, on which a mound of things accumulate, half rags, half filth.

  A more practised eye than that of the countess would have seen certain other revelations of Schmucke’s mode of life, — chestnut-peels, apple-parings, egg-shells dyed red in broken dishes smeared with sauer-kraut. This German detritus formed a carpet of dusty filth which crackled under foot, joining company near the hearth with a mass of cinders and ashes descending majestically from the fireplace, where lay a block of coal, before which two slender twigs made a show of burning. On the chimney-piece was a mirror in a painted frame, adorned with figures dancing a saraband; on one side hung the glorious pipe, on the other was a Chinese jar in which the musician kept his tobacco. Two arm-chairs bought at auction, a thin and rickety cot, a worm-eaten bureau without a top, a maimed table on which lay the remains of a frugal breakfast, made up a set of household belongings as plain as those of an Indian wigwam. A shaving-glass, suspended to the fastening of a curtainless window, and surmounted by a rag striped by many wipings of a razor, indicated the only sacrifices paid by Schmucke to the Graces and society. The cat, being the feebler and protected partner, had rather the best of the establishment; he enjoyed the comforts of an old sofa-cushion, near which could be seen a white china cup and plate. But what no pen can describe was the state into which Schmucke, the cat, and the pipe, that existing trinity, had reduced these articles. The pipe had burned the table. The cat and Schmucke’s head had greased the green Utrecht velvet of the two arm-chairs and reduced it to a slimy texture. If it had not been for the cat’s magnificent tail, which played a useful part in the household, the uncovered places on the bureau and the piano would never have been dusted. In one corner of the room were a pile of shoes which need an epic to describe them. The top of the bureau and that of the piano were encumbered by music-books with ragged backs and whitened corners, through which the pasteboard showed its many layers. Along the walls the names and addresses of pupils written on scraps of paper were stuck on by wafers, — the number of wafers without paper indicating the number of pupils no longer taught. On the wall-papers were many calculations written with chalk. The bureau was decorated with beer-mugs used the night before, their newness appearing very brilliant in the midst of this rubbish of dirt and age. Hygiene was represented by a jug of water with a towel laid upon it, and a bit of common soap. Two ancient hats hung to their respective nails, near which also hung the self-same blue box-coat with three capes, in which the countess had always seen Schmucke when he came to give his lessons. On the window-sill were three pots of flowers, German flowers, no doubt, and near them a stout holly-wood stick.