“Game.”
“In what month where you born?”
“September.”
“Put out your hand.”
Madame Fontaine looked attentively at the lines of the hand that was shown to her. It was all done seriously, with no pretence of sorcery; on the contrary, with the simplicity a notary might have shown when asking the intentions of a client about a deed. Presently she shuffled the cards, and asked Gazonal to cut them, and then to make three packs of them himself. After which she took the packs, spread them out before her, and examined them as a gambler examines the thirty-six numbers at roulette before he risks his stake. Gazonal’s bones were freezing; he seemed not to know where he was; but his amazement grew greater and greater when this hideous old woman in a green bonnet, stout and squat, whose false front was frizzed into points of interrogation, proceeded, in a thick voice, to relate to him all the particular circumstances, even the most secret, of his past life: she told him his tastes, his habits, his character; the thoughts of his childhood; everything that had influenced his life; a marriage broken off, why, with whom, the exact description of the woman he had loved; and, finally, the place he came from, his lawsuit, etc.
Gazonal at first thought it was a hoax prepared by his companions; but the absolute impossibility of such a conspiracy appeared to him almost as soon as the idea itself, and he sat speechless before that truly infernal power, the incarnation of which borrowed from humanity a form which the imagination of painters and poets has throughout all ages regarded as the most awful of created things, — namely, a toothless, hideous, wheezing hag, with cold lips, flattened nose, and whitish eyes. The pupils of those eyes had brightened, through them rushed a ray, — was it from the depths of the future or from hell?
Gazonal asked, interrupting the old creature, of what use the toad and the hen were to her.
“They predict the future. The consulter himself throws grain upon the cards; Bilouche comes and pecks it. Astaroth crawls over the cards to get the food the client holds for him, and those two wonderful intelligences are never mistaken. Will you see them at work? — you will then know your future. The cost is a hundred francs.”
Gazonal, horrified by the gaze of Astaroth, rushed into the antechamber, after bowing to the terrible old woman. He was moist from head to foot, as if under the incubation of some evil spirit.
“Let us get away!” he said to the two artists. “Did you ever consult that sorceress?”
“I never do anything important without getting Astaroth’s opinion,” said Leon, “and I am always the better for it.”
“I’m expecting the virtuous fortune which Bilouche has promised me,” said Bixiou.
“I’ve a fever,” cried Gazonal. “If I believed what you say I should have to believe in sorcery, in some supernatural power.”
“It may be only natural,” said Bixiou. “One-third of all the lorettes, one-fourth of all the statesmen, and one-half of all artists consult Madame Fontaine; and I know a minister to whom she is an Egeria.”
“Did she tell you about your future?” asked Leon.
“No; I had enough of her about my past. But,” added Gazonal, struck by a sudden thought, “if she can, by the help of those dreadful collaborators, predict the future, how came she to lose in the lottery?”
“Ah! you put your finger on one of the greatest mysteries of occult science,” replied Leon. “The moment that the species of inward mirror on which the past or the future is reflected to their minds become clouded by the breath of a personal feeling, by an idea foreign to the purpose of the power they are exerting, sorcerers and sorceresses can see nothing; just as an artist who blurs art with political combinations and systems loses his genius. Not long ago, a man endowed with the gift of divining by cards, a rival to Madame Fontaine, became addicted to vicious practices, and being unable to tell his own fate from the cards, was arrested, tried, and condemned at the court of assizes. Madame Fontaine, who predicts the future eight times out of ten, was never able to know if she would win or lose in a lottery.”
“It is the same thing in magnetism,” remarked Bixiou. “A man can’t magnetize himself.”
“Heavens! now we come to magnetism!” cried Gazonal. “Ah ca! do you know everything?”
“Friend Gazonal,” replied Bixiou, gravely, “to be able to laugh at everything one must know everything. As for me, I’ve been in Paris since my childhood; I’ve lived, by means of my pencil, on its follies and absurdities, at the rate of five caricatures a month. Consequently, I often laugh at ideas in which I have faith.”
“Come, let us get to something else,” said Leon. “We’ll go to the Chamber and settle the cousin’s affair.”
“This,” said Bixiou, imitating Odry in “Les Funambules,” “is high comedy, for we will make the first orator we meet pose for us, and you shall see that in those halls of legislation, as elsewhere, the Parisian language has but two tones, — Self-interest, Vanity.”
As they got into their citadine, Leon saw in a rapidly driven cabriolet a man to whom he made a sign that he had something to say to him.
“There’s Publicola Masson,” said Leon to Bixiou. “I’m going to ask for a sitting this evening at five o’clock, after the Chamber. The cousin shall then see the most curious of all the originals.”
“Who is he?” asked Gazonal, while Leon went to speak to Publicola Masson.
“An artist-pedicure,” replied Bixiou, “author of a ‘Treatise on Corporistics,’ who cuts your corns by subscription, and who, if the Republications triumph for six months, will assuredly become immortal.”
“Drives his carriage!” ejaculated Gazonal.
“But, my good Gazonal, it is only millionaires who have time to go afoot in Paris.”
“To the Chamber!” cried Leon to the coachman, getting back into the carriage.
“Which, monsieur?”
“Deputies,” replied Leon, exchanging a smile with Bixiou.
“Paris begins to confound me,” said Gazonal.
“To make you see its immensity, — moral, political, and literary, — we are now proceeding like the Roman cicerone, who shows you in Saint Peter’s the thumb of the statue you took to be life-size, and the thumb proves to be a foot long. You haven’t yet measured so much as a great toe of Paris.”
“And remark, cousin Gazonal, that we take things as they come; we haven’t selected.”
“This evening you shall sup as they feasted at Belshazzar’s; and there you shall see our Paris, our own particular Paris, playing lansquenet, and risking a hundred thousand francs at a throw without winking.”
A quarter of an hour later the citadine stopped at the foot of the steps going up to the Chamber of Deputies, at that end of the Pont de la Concorde which leads to discord.
“I thought the Chamber unapproachable?” said the provincial, surprised to find himself in the great lobby.
“That depends,” replied Bixiou; “materially speaking, it costs thirty sous for a citadine to approach it; politically, you have to spend rather more. The swallows thought, so a poet says, that the Arc de Triomphe was erected for them; we artists think that this public building was built for us, — to compensate for the stupidities of the Theatre-Francais and make us laugh; but the comedians on this stage are much more expensive; and they don’t give us every day the value of our money.”
“So this is the Chamber!” cried Gazonal, as he paced the great hall in which there were then about a dozen persons, and looked around him with an air which Bixiou noted down in his memory and reproduced in one of the famous caricatures with which he rivalled Gavarni.
Leon went to speak to one of the ushers who go and come continually between this hall and the hall of sessions, with which it communicates by a passage in which are stationed the stenographers of the “Moniteur” and persons attached to the Chamber.
“As for the minister,” replied the usher to Leon as Gazonal approached them, “he is there, but I don’t know if Monsieur Giraud has come. I’ll
see.”
As the usher opened one side of the double door through which none but deputies, ministers, or messengers from the king are allowed to pass, Gazonal saw a man come out who seemed still young, although he was really forty-eight years old, and to whom the usher evidently indicated Leon de Lora.
“Ha! you here!” he exclaimed, shaking hands with both Bixiou and Lora. “Scamps! what are you doing in the sanctuary of the laws?”
“Parbleu! we’ve come to learn how to blague,” said Bixiou. “We might get rusty if we didn’t.”
“Let us go into the garden,” said the young man, not observing that Gazonal belonged to the party.
Seeing that this new-comer was well-dressed, in black, the provincial did not know in which political category to place him; but he followed the others into the garden contiguous to the hall which follows the line of the quai Napoleon. Once in the garden the ci-devant young man gave way to a peal of laughter which he seemed to have been repressing since he entered the lobby.
“What is it?” asked Leon de Lora.
“My dear friend, to prove the sincerity of the constitutional government we are forced to tell the most frightful lies with incredible self-possession. But as for me, I’m freakish; some days I can lie like a prospectus; other days I can’t be serious. This is one of my hilarious days. Now, at this moment, the prime minister, being summoned by the Opposition to make known a certain diplomatic secret, is going through his paces in the tribune. Being an honest man who never lies on his own account, he whispered to me as he mounted the breach: ‘Heaven knows what I shall say to them.’ A mad desire to laugh overcame me, and as one mustn’t laugh on the ministerial bench I rushed out, for my youth does come back to me most unseasonably at times.”
“At last,” cried Gazonal, “I’ve found an honest man in Paris! You must be a very superior man,” he added, looking at the stranger.
“Ah ca! who is this gentleman?” said the ci-devant young man, examining Gazonal.
“My cousin,” said Leon, hastily. “I’ll answer for his silence and his honor as for my own. It is on his account we have come here now; he has a case before the administration which depends on your ministry. His prefect evidently wants to ruin him, and we have come to see you in order to prevent the Council of State from ratifying a great injustice.”
“Who brings up the case?”
“Massol.”
“Good.”
“And our friends Giraud and Claude Vignon are on the committee,” said Bixiou.
“Say just a word to them,” urged Leon; “tell them to come to-night to Carabine’s, where du Tillet gives a fete apropos of railways, — they are plundering more than ever on the roads.”
“Ah ca! but isn’t your cousin from the Pyrenees?” asked the young man, now become serious.
“Yes,” replied Gazonal.
“And you did not vote for us in the last elections?” said the statesman, looking hard at Gazonal.
“No; but what you have just said in my hearing has bribed me; on the word of a commandant of the National Guard I’ll have your candidate elected — ”
“Very good; will you guarantee your cousin?” asked the young man, turning to Leon.
“We are forming him,” said Bixiou, in a tone irresistibly comic.
“Well, I’ll see about it,” said the young man, leaving his friends and rushing precipitately back to the Chamber.
“Who is that?” asked Gazonal.
“The Comte de Rastignac; the minister of the department in which your affair is brought up.”
“A minister! Isn’t a minister anything more than that?”
“He is an old friend of ours. He now has three hundred thousand francs a year; he’s a peer of France; the king has made him a count; he married Nucingen’s daughter; and he is one of the two or three statesmen produced by the revolution of July. But his fame and his power bore him sometimes, and he comes down to laugh with us.”
“Ah ca! cousin; why didn’t you tell us you belonged to the Opposition?” asked Leon, seizing Gazonal by the arm. “How stupid of you! One deputy more or less to Right or Left and your bed is made.”
“We are all for the Others down my way.”
“Let ‘em go,” said Bixiou, with a facetious look; “they have Providence on their side, and Providence will bring them back without you and in spite of themselves. A manufacturer ought to be a fatalist.”
“What luck! There’s Maxime, with Canalis and Giraud,” said Leon.
“Come along, friend Gazonal, the promised actors are mustering on the stage,” said Bixiou.
And all three advanced to the above-named personages, who seemed to be sauntering along with nothing to do.
“Have they turned you out, or why are you idling about in this way?” said Bixiou to Giraud.
“No, while they are voting by secret ballot we have come out for a little air,” replied Giraud.
“How did the prime minister pull through?”
“He was magnificent!” said Canalis.
“Magnificent!” repeated Maxime.
“Magnificent!” cried Giraud.
“So! so! Right, Left, and Centre are unanimous!”
“All with a different meaning,” observed Maxime de Trailles.
Maxime was the ministerial deputy.
“Yes,” said Canalis, laughing.
Though Canalis had already been a minister, he was at this moment tending toward the Right.
“Ah! but you had a fine triumph just now,” said Maxime to Canalis; “it was you who forced the minister into the tribune.”
“And made him lie like a charlatan,” returned Canalis.
“A worthy victory,” said the honest Giraud. “In his place what would you have done?”
“I should have lied.”
“It isn’t called lying,” said Maxime de Trailles; “it is called protecting the crown.”
So saying, he led Canalis away to a little distance.
“That’s a great orator,” said Leon to Giraud, pointing to Canalis.
“Yes and no,” replied the councillor of state. “A fine bass voice, and sonorous, but more of an artist in words than an orator. In short, he’s a fine instrument but he isn’t music, consequently he has not, and he never will have, the ear of the Chamber; in no case will he ever be master of the situation.”
Canalis and Maxime were returning toward the little group as Giraud, deputy of the Left Centre, pronounced this verdict. Maxime took Giraud by the arm and led him off, probably to make the same confidence he had just made Canalis.
“What an honest, upright fellow that is,” said Leon to Canalis, nodding towards Giraud.
“One of those upright fellows who kill administrators,” replied Canalis.
“Do you think him a good orator?”
“Yes and no,” replied Canalis; “he is wordy; he’s long-winded, a plodder in argument, and a good logician; but he doesn’t understand the higher logic, that of events and circumstances; consequently he has never had, and never will have, the ear of the Chamber.”
At the moment when Canalis uttered this judgment on Giraud, the latter was returning with Maxime to the group; and forgetting the presence of a stranger whose discretion was not known to them like that of Leon and Bixiou, he took Canalis by the hand in a very significant manner.
“Well,” he said, “I consent to what Monsieur de Trailles proposes. I’ll put the question to you in the Chamber, but I shall do it with great severity.”
“Then we shall have the house with us, for a man of your weight and your eloquence is certain to have the ear of the Chamber,” said Canalis. “I’ll reply to you; but I shall do it sharply, to crush you.”
“You could bring about a change of the cabinet, for on such ground you can do what you like with the Chamber, and be master of the situation.”
“Maxime has trapped them both,” said Leon to his cousin; “that fellow is like a fish in water among the intrigues of the Chamber.”
“Who is
he?” asked Gazonal.
“An ex-scoundrel who is now in a fair way to become an ambassador,” replied Bixiou.
“Giraud!” said Leon to the councillor of state, “don’t leave the Chamber without asking Rastignac what he promised to tell you about a suit you are to render a decision on two days hence. It concerns my cousin here; I’ll go and see you to-morrow morning early about it.”
The three friends followed the three deputies, at a distance, into the lobby.
“Cousin, look at those two men,” said Leon, pointing out to him a former minister and the leader of the Left Centre. “Those are two men who really have ‘the ear of the Chamber,’ and who are called in jest ministers of the department of the Opposition. They have the ear of the Chamber so completely that they are always pulling it.”
“It is four o’clock,” said Bixiou, “let us go back to the rue de Berlin.”
“Yes; you’ve now seen the heart of the government, cousin, and you must next be shown the ascarides, the taenia, the intestinal worm, — the republican, since I must needs name him,” said Leon.
When the three friends were once more packed into their hackney-coach, Gazonal looked at his cousin and Bixiou like a man who had a mind to launch a flood of oratorical and Southern bile upon the elements.
“I distrusted with all my might this great hussy of a town,” he rolled out in Southern accents; “but since this morning I despise her! The poor little province you think so petty is an honest girl; but Paris is a prostitute, a greedy, lying comedian; and I am very thankful not to be robbed of my skin in it.”
“The day is not over yet,” said Bixiou, sententiously, winking at Leon.
“And why do you complain in that stupid way,” said Leon, “of a prostitution to which you will owe the winning of your lawsuit? Do you think you are more virtuous than we, less of a comedian, less greedy, less liable to fall under some temptation, less conceited than those we have been making dance for you like puppets?”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 795
