Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  “Then the thing is really serious — this tale of a crazy woman you want him to marry? I must say that in his place, with these money-matters evidently on the rise, I should have backed out of your proposals just as he did. Ninas and Ophelias are all very well on the stage, but in a home — ”

  “In a home, when they bring a ‘dot,’ we can be their guardian,” replied Cerizet, sententiously. “In point of fact, we get a fortune and not a wife.”

  “Well,” said Dutocq, “that’s one way to look at it.”

  “If you are willing,” said Cerizet, “let us go and take our coffee somewhere else. This dinner has turned out so foolishly that I want to get out of this room, where there’s no air.” He rang for the waiter. “Garcon!” he said, “the bill.”

  “Monsieur, it is paid.”

  “Paid! by whom?”

  “By the gentleman who just went out.”

  “But this is outrageous,” cried Cerizet. “I ordered the dinner, and you allow some one else to pay for it!”

  “It wasn’t I, monsieur,” said the waiter; “the gentleman went and paid the ‘dame du comptoir’; she must have thought it was arranged between you. Besides, it is not so uncommon for gentlemen to have friendly disputes about paying.”

  “That’s enough,” said Cerizet, dismissing the waiter.

  “Won’t these gentlemen take their coffee? — it is paid for,” said the man before he left the room.

  “A good reason for not taking it,” replied Cerizet, angrily. “It is really inconceivable that in a house of this kind such an egregious blunder should be committed. What do you think of such insolence?” he added, when the waiter had left the room.

  “Bah!” exclaimed Dutocq, taking his hat, “it is a schoolboy proceeding; he wanted to show he had money; it is easy to see he never had any before.”

  “No, no! that’s not it,” said Cerizet; “he meant to mark the rupture. ‘I will not owe you even a dinner,’ is what he says to me.”

  “But, after all,” said Dutocq, “this banquet was given to celebrate your enthronement as principal tenant of the grand house. Well, he has failed to get you the lease, and I can understand that his conscience was uneasy at letting you pay for a dinner which, like those notes of mine, were an ‘obligation without cause.’”

  Cerizet made no reply to this malicious observation. They had reached the counter where reigned the dame who had permitted the improper payment, and, for the sake of his dignity, the usurer thought it proper to make a fuss. After which the two men departed, and the copying-clerk took his employer to a low coffee-house in the Passage du Saumon. There Cerizet recovered his good-humor; he was like a fish out of water suddenly returned to his native element; for he had reached that state of degradation when he felt ill at ease in places frequented by good society; and it was with a sort of sensuous pleasure that he felt himself back in the vulgar place where they were noisily playing pool for the benefit of a “former conqueror of the Bastille.”

  In this establishment Cerizet enjoyed the fame of being a skilful billiard-player, and he was now entreated to take part in a game already begun. In technical language, he “bought his ball”; that is, one of the players sold him his turn and his chances. Dutocq profited by this arrangement to slip away, on pretence of inquiring for a sick friend.

  Presently, in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe between his lips, Cerizet made one of those masterly strokes which bring down the house with frantic applause. As he waited a moment, looking about him triumphantly, his eye lighted on a terrible kill-joy. Standing among the spectators with his chin on his cane, du Portail was steadily watching him.

  A tinge of red showed itself in Cerizet’s cheeks. He hesitated to bow or to recognize the old gentleman, a most unlikely person to meet in such a place. Not knowing how to take the unpleasant encounter, he went on playing; but his hand betrayed his uneasiness, and presently an unlucky stroke threw him out of the game. While he was putting on his coat in a tolerably ill-humor, du Portail passed, almost brushing him, on his way to the door.

  “Rue Montmartre, at the farther end of the Passage,” said the old man, in a low tone.

  When they met, Cerizet had the bad taste to try to explain the disreputable position in which he had just been detected.

  “But,” said du Portail, “in order to see you there, I had to be there myself.”

  “True,” returned Cerizet. “I was rather surprised to see a quiet inhabitant of the Saint-Sulpice quarter in such a place.”

  “It merely proves to you,” said the little old man, in a tone which cut short all explanation, and all curiosity, “that I am in the habit of going pretty nearly everywhere, and that my star leads me into the path of those persons whom I wish to meet. I was thinking of you at the very moment you came in. Well, what have you done?”

  “Nothing good,” replied Cerizet. “After playing me a devilish trick which deprived me of a magnificent bit of business, our man rejected your overture with scorn. There is no hope whatever in that claim of Dutocq’s; for la Peyrade is chock-full of money; he wanted to pay the notes just now, and to-morrow morning he will certainly do so.”

  “Does he regard his marriage to this Demoiselle Colleville as a settled thing?”

  “He not only considers it settled, but he is trying now to make people believe it is a love-match. He rattled off a perfect tirade to convince me that he is really in love.”

  “Very well,” said du Portail, wishing, perhaps, to show that he could, on occasion, use the slang of a low billiard-room, “‘stop the charge’” (meaning: Do nothing more); “I will undertake to bring monsieur to reason. But come and see me to-morrow, and tell me all about the family he intends to enter. You have failed in this affair; but don’t mind that; I shall have others for you.”

  So saying, he signed to the driver of an empty citadine, which was passing, got into it, and, with a nod to Cerizet, told the man to drive to the rue Honore-Chevalier.

  As Cerizet walked down the rue Montmartre to regain the Estrapade quarter, he puzzled his brains to divine who that little old man with the curt speech, the imperious manner, and a tone that seemed to cast upon all those with whom he spoke a boarding-grapnel, could be; a man, too, who came from such a distance to spend his evening in a place where, judging by his clothes alone, he had no business to be.

  Cerizet had reached the Market without finding any solution to that problem, when he was roughly shaken out of it by a heavy blow in the back. Turning hastily, he found himself in presence of Madame Cardinal, an encounter with whom, at a spot where she came every morning to get fish to peddle, was certainly not surprising.

  Since that evening in Toupillier’s garret, the worthy woman, in spite of the clemency so promptly shown to her, had judged it imprudent to make other than very short apparitions in her own domicile, and for the last two days she had been drowning among the liquor-dealers (called “retailers of comfort”) the pangs of her defeat. With flaming face and thickened voice she now addressed her late accomplice: —

  “Well, papa,” she said, “what happened after I left you with that little old fellow?”

  “I made him understand in a very few words,” replied the banker of the poor, “that it was all a mistake as to me. In this affair, my dear Madame Cardinal, you behaved with a really unpardonable heedlessness. How came you to ask my assistance in obtaining your inheritance from your uncle, when with proper inquiry you might have known there was a natural daughter, in whose favor he had long declared he should make a will? That little old man, who interrupted you in your foolish attempt to anticipate your legacy, was no other than the guardian of the daughter to whom everything is left.”

  “Ha! guardian, indeed! a fine thing, guardian!” cried the Cardinal. “To talk of a woman of my age, just because I wanted to see if my uncle owned anything at all, to talk to me of the police! It’s hateful! it’s disgusting!”

  “Come, come!” said Cerizet, “you needn’t complain; you got off cheaply.”

&n
bsp; “Well, and you, who broke the locks and said you were going to take the diamonds, under color of marrying my daughter! Just as if she would have you, — a legitimate daughter like her! ‘Never, mother,’ said she; ‘never will I give my heart to a man with such a nose.’”

  “So you’ve found her, have you?” said Cerizet.

  “Not until last night. She has left her blackguard of a player, and she is now, I flatter myself, in a fine position, eating money; has her citadine by the month, and is much respected by a barrister who would marry her at once, but he has got to wait till his parents die, for the father happens to be mayor, and the government wouldn’t like it.”

  “What mayor?”

  “11th arrondissement, — Minard, powerfully rich, used to do a business in cocoa.”

  “Ah! very good! very good! I know all about him. You say Olympe is living with his son?”

  “Well, not to say living together, for that would make talk, though he only sees her with good motives. He lives at home with his father, but he has bought their furniture, and has put it, and my daughter, too, into a lodging in the Chausee d’Antin; stylish quarter, isn’t it?”

  “It seems to me pretty well arranged,” said Cerizet; “and as Heaven, it appears, didn’t destine us for each other — ”

  “No, yes, well, that’s how it was; and I think that girl is going to give me great satisfaction; and there’s something I want to consult you about.”

  “What?” demanded Cerizet.

  “Well, my daughter being in luck, I don’t think I ought to continue to cry fish in the streets; and now that my uncle has disinherited me, I have, it seems to me, a right to an ‘elementary allowance.’”

  “You are dreaming, my poor woman; your daughter is a minor; it is you who ought to be feeding her; the law doesn’t require her to give you aliment.”

  “Then do you mean,” said Madame Cardinal, “that those who have nothing are to give to those who have much? A fine thing such a law as that! It’s as bad as guardians who, for nothing at all, talk about calling the police. Yes! I’d like to see ‘em calling the police to me! Let ‘em guillotine me! It won’t prevent my saying that the rich are swindlers; yes, swindlers! and the people ought to make another revolution to get their rights; and then, my lad, you, and my daughter, and barrister Minard, and that little old guardian, you’ll all come down under it — ”

  Perceiving that his ex-mother-in-law was reaching stage of exaltation that was not unalarming, Cerizet hastened to get away, her epithets pursuing him for more than a hundred feet; but he comforted himself by thinking that he would make her pay for them the next time she came to his back to ask for a “convenience.”

  CHAPTER XVIII. SET A SAINT TO CATCH A SAINT

  As he approached his own abode, Cerizet, who was nothing so little as courageous, felt an emotion of fear. He perceived a form ambushed near the door, which, as he came nearer, detached itself as if to meet him. Happily, it was only Dutocq. He came for his notes. Cerizet returned them in some ill-humor, complaining of the distrust implied in a visit at such an hour. Dutocq paid no attention to this sensitiveness, and the next morning, very early, he presented himself at la Peyrade’s.

  La Peyrade paid, as he had promised, on the nail, and to a few sentinel remarks uttered by Dutocq as soon as the money was in his pocket, he answered with marked coldness. His whole external appearance and behavior was that of a slave who has burst his chain and has promised himself not to make a gospel use of his liberty.

  As he conducted his visitor to the door, the latter came face to face with a woman in servant’s dress, who was just about to ring the bell. This woman was, apparently, known to Dutocq, for he said to her: —

  “Ha ha! little woman; so we feel the necessity of consulting a barrister? You are right; at the family council very serious matters were brought up against you.”

  “Thank God, I fear no one. I can walk with my head up,” said the person thus addressed.

  “So much the better for you,” replied the clerk of the justice-of-peace; “but you will probably be summoned before the judge who examines the affair. At any rate, you are in good hands here; and my friend la Peyrade will advise you for the best.”

  “Monsieur is mistaken,” said the woman; “it is not for what he thinks that I have come to consult a lawyer.”

  “Well, be careful what you say and do, my dear woman, for I warn you you are going to be finely picked to pieces. The relations are furious against you, and you can’t get the idea out of their heads that you have got a great deal of money.”

  While speaking thus, Dutocq kept his eye on Theodose, who bore the look uneasily, and requested his client to enter.

  Here follows a scene which had taken place the previous afternoon between this woman and la Peyrade.

  La Peyrade, we may remember, was in the habit of going to early mass at his parish church. For some little time he had felt himself the object of a singular attention which he could not explain on the part of the woman whom we have just seen entering his office, who daily attended the church at, as Dorine says, his “special hour.” Could it be for love? That explanation was scarcely compatible with the maturity and the saintly, beatific air of this person, who, beneath a plain cap, called “a la Janseniste,” by which fervent female souls of that sect were recognized, affected, like a nun, to hide her hair. On the other hand, the rest of her clothing was of a neatness that was almost dainty, and the gold cross at her throat, suspended by a black velvet ribbon, excluded the idea of humble and hesitating mendicity.

  The morning of the day on which the dinner at the Rocher de Cancale was to take place, la Peyrade, weary of a performance which had ended by preoccupying his mind, went up to the woman and asked her pointblank if she had any request to make of him.

  “Monsieur,” she answered, in a tone of solemnity, “is, I think, the celebrated Monsieur de la Peyrade, the advocate of the poor?”

  “I am la Peyrade; and I have had, it is true, an opportunity to render services to the indigent persons of this quarter.”

  “Would it, then, be asking too much of monsieur’s goodness that he should suffer me to consult him?”

  “This place,” replied la Peyrade, “is not well chosen for such consultation. What you have to say to me seems important, to judge by the length of time you have been hesitating to speak to me. I live near here, rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer, and if you will take the trouble to come to my office — ”

  “It will not annoy monsieur?”

  “Not in the least; my business is to hear clients.”

  “At what hour — lest I disturb monsieur — ?”

  “When you choose; I shall be at home all the morning.”

  “Then I will hear another mass, at which I can take the communion. I did not dare to do so at this mass, for the thought of speaking to monsieur so distracted my mind. I will be at monsieur’s house by eight o’clock, when I have ended my meditation, if that hour does not inconvenience him.”

  “No; but there is no necessity for all this ceremony,” replied la Peyrade, with some impatience.

  Perhaps a little professional jealousy inspired his ill-humor, for it was evident that he had to do with an antagonist who was capable of giving him points.

  At the hour appointed, not a minute before nor a minute after, the pious woman rang the bell, and the barrister having, not without some difficulty, induced her to sit down, he requested her to state her case. She was then seized with that delaying little cough with which we obtain a respite when brought face to face with a difficult subject. At last, however, she compelled herself to approach the object of her visit.

  “It is to ask monsieur,” she said, “if he would be so very good as to inform me whether it is true that a charitable gentleman, now deceased, has bequeathed a fund to reward domestic servants who are faithful to their masters.”

  “Yes,” replied la Peyrade; “that is to say, Monsieur de Montyon founded ‘prizes for virtue,’ which are frequently given
to zealous and exemplary domestic servants. But ordinary good conduct is not sufficient; there must be some act or acts of great devotion, and truly Christian self-abnegation.”

  “Religion enjoins humility upon us,” replied the pious woman, “and therefore I dare not praise myself; but inasmuch as for the last twenty years I have lived in the service of an old man of the dullest description, a savant, who has wasted his substance on inventions, so that I myself have had to feed and clothe him, persons have thought that I am not altogether undeserving of that prize.”

  “It is certainly under such conditions that the Academy selects its candidates,” said la Peyrade. “What is your master’s name?”

  “Pere Picot; he is never called otherwise in our quarter; sometimes he goes out into the streets as if dressed for the carnival, and all the little children crowd about him, calling out: ‘How d’ye do, Pere Picot! Good-morning, Pere Picot!’ But that’s how it is; he takes no care of his dignity; he goes about full of his own ideas; and though I kill myself trying to give him appetizing food, if you ask him what he has had for his dinner he can’t tell you. Yet he’s a man full of ability, and he has taught good pupils. Perhaps monsieur knows young Phellion, a professor in the College of Saint-Louis; he was one of his scholars, and he comes to see him very often.”

  “Then,” said la Peyrade, “your master is a mathematician?”

  “Yes, monsieur; mathematics have been his bane; they have flung him into a set of ideas which don’t seem to have any common-sense in them ever since he has been employed at the Observatory, near here.”

  “Well,” said la Peyrade, “you must bring testimony proving your long devotion to this old man, and I will then draw up a memorial to the Academy and take the necessary steps to present it.”

  “How good monsieur is!” said the pious woman, clasping her hands; “and if he would also let me tell him of a little difficulty — ”

  “What is it?”

  “They tell me, monsieur, that to get this prize persons must be really very poor.”