“A pretty hour,” said Phellion, sternly, “to present yourself.”
“Father,” said Felix, moving to the side of the room where Madame Thuillier and Celeste were seated, “I could not leave before the end of the phenomenon; and then I couldn’t find a carriage, and I have run the whole way.”
“Your ears ought to have burned as you came,” said la Peyrade, “for you have been for the last half-hour in the minds of these ladies, and a great problem has been started about you.”
Felix did not answer. He saw Brigitte entering the salon from the dining-room where she had gone to tell the man-servant not to bring in more trays, and he hurried to greet her.
After listening to a few reproaches for the rarity of his visits and receiving forgiveness in a very cordial “Better late than never,” he turned towards his pole, and was much astonished to hear himself addressed by Madame de Godollo as follows: —
“Monsieur,” she said, “I hope you will pardon the indiscretion I have, in the heat of conversation, committed about you. I have told these ladies where I met you this morning.”
“Met me?” said Felix; “if I had the honor to meet you, madame, I did not see you.”
An almost imperceptible smile flickered on la Peyrade’s lips.
“You saw me well enough to ask me to keep silence as to where I had met you; but, at any rate, I did not go beyond a simple statement; I said you saw Pere Anselme sometimes, and had certain scientific relations with him; also that you defended your religious doubts to him as you do to Celeste.”
“Pere Anselme!” said Felix, stupidly.
“Yes, Pere Anselme,” said la Peyrade, “a great mathematician who does not despair of converting you. Mademoiselle Celeste wept for joy.”
Felix looked around him with a bewildered air. Madame de Godollo fixed upon him a pair of eyes the language of which a poodle could have understood.
“I wish,” he said finally, “I could have given that joy to Mademoiselle Celeste, but I think, madame, you are mistaken.”
“Ah! monsieur, then I must be more precise,” said the countess, “and if your modesty still induces you to hide a step that can only honor you, you can contradict me; I will bear the mortification of having divulged a secret which, I acknowledge, you trusted implicitly to my discretion.”
Madame Thuillier and Celeste were truly a whole drama to behold; never were doubt and eager expectation more plainly depicted on the human face. Measuring her words deliberately, Madame de Godollo thus continued: —
“I said to these ladies, because I know how deep an interest they take in your salvation, and because you are accused of boldly defying the commandments of God by working on Sundays, that I had met you this morning at the house of Pere Anselme, a mathematician like yourself, with whom you were busy in solving a problem; I said that your scientific intercourse with that saintly and enlightened man had led to other explanations between you; that you had submitted to him your religious doubts, and he did not despair of removing them. In the confirmation you can give of my words there is nothing, I am sure, to wound your self-esteem. The matter was simply a surprise you intended for Celeste, and I have had the stupidity to divulge it. But when she hears you admit the truth of my words you will have given her such happiness that I shall hope to be forgiven.”
“Come, monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “there’s nothing absurd or mortifying in having sought for light; you, so honorable and so truly an enemy to falsehood, you cannot deny what madame affirms with such decision.”
“Well,” said Felix, after a moment’s hesitation, “will you, Mademoiselle Celeste, allow me to say a few words to you in private, without witnesses?”
Celeste rose, after receiving an approving sign from Madame Thuillier. Felix took her hand and led her to the recess of the nearest window.
“Celeste,” he said, “I entreat you: wait! See,” he added, pointing to the constellation of Ursa Minor, “beyond those visible stars a future lies before us; I will place you there. As for Pere Anselme, I cannot admit what has been said, for it is not true. It is an invented tale. But be patient with me; you shall soon know all.”
“He is mad!” said the young girl, in tones of despair, as she resumed her place beside Madame Thuillier.
Felix confirmed this judgment by rushing frantically from the salon, without perceiving the emotion in which his father and his mother started after him. After this sudden departure, which stupefied everybody, la Peyrade approached Madame de Godollo very respectfully, and said to her: —
“You must admit, madame, that it is difficult to drag a man from the water when he persists in being drowned.”
“I had no idea until this moment of such utter simplicity,” replied the countess; “it is too silly. I pass over to the enemy; and with that enemy I am ready and desirous to have, whenever he pleases, a frank and honest explanation.”
CHAPTER IV. HUNGARY VERSUS PROVENCE
The next day Theodose felt himself possessed by two curiosities: How would Celeste behave as to the option she had accepted? and this Comtesse Torna de Godollo, what did she mean by what she had said; and what did she want with him?
The first of these questions seemed, undoubtedly, to have the right of way, and yet, by some secret instinct, la Peyrade felt more keenly drawn toward the conclusion of the second problem. He decided, therefore, to take his first step in that direction, fully understanding that he could not too carefully arm himself for the interview to which the countess had invited him.
The morning had been rainy, and this great calculator was, of course, not ignorant how much a spot of mud, tarnishing the brilliancy of varnished boots, could lower a man in the opinion of some. He therefore sent his porter for a cabriolet, and about three o’clock in the afternoon he drove from the rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer toward the elegant latitudes of the Madeleine. It may well be believed that certain cares had been bestowed upon his toilet, which ought to present a happy medium between the negligent ease of a morning costume and the ceremonious character of an evening suit. Condemned by his profession to a white cravat, which he rarely laid aside, and not venturing to present himself in anything but a dress-coat, he felt himself being drawn, of necessity, to one of the extremes he desired to avoid. However by buttoning up his coat and wearing tan instead of straw-colored gloves, he managed to unsolemnize himself, and to avoid that provincial air which a man in full dress walking the streets of Paris while the sun is above the horizon never fails to convey.
The wary diplomatist was careful not to drive to the house where he was going. He was unwilling to be seen from the countess’ entresol issuing from a hired cab, and from the first floor he feared to be discovered stopping short on his way up at the lower floor, — a proceeding which could not fail to give rise to countless conjectures.
He therefore ordered the driver to pull up at the corner of the rue Royale, whence, along a pavement that was now nearly dry, he picked his way on tiptoe to the house. It so chanced that he was not seen by either the porter or his wife; the former being beadle of the church of the Madeleine, was absent at a service, and the wife had just gone up to show a vacant apartment to a lodger. Theodose was therefore able to glide unobserved to the door of the sanctuary he desired to penetrate. A soft touch of his hand to the silken bell-rope caused a sound which echoed from the interior of the apartment. A few seconds elapsed, and then another and more imperious bell of less volume seemed to him a notification to the maid that her delay in opening the door was displeasing to her mistress. A moment later, a waiting-woman, of middle age, and too well trained to dress like a “soubrette” of comedy, opened the door to him.
The lawyer gave his name, and the woman ushered him into a dining-room, severely luxurious, where she asked him to wait. A moment later, however, she returned, and admitted him into the most coquettish and splendid salon it was possible to insert beneath the low ceilings of an entresol. The divinity of the place was seated before a writing-table covered with a Venetian cloth,
in which gold glittered in little spots among the dazzling colors of the tapestry.
“Will you allow me, monsieur, to finish a letter of some importance?” she said.
The barrister bowed in sign of assent. The handsome Hungarian then concluded a note on blue English paper, which she placed in an envelope; after sealing it carefully, she rang the bell. The maid appeared immediately and lighted a little spirit lamp; above the lamp was suspended a sort of tiny crucible, in which was a drop of sealing-wax; as soon as this had melted, the maid poured it on the envelope, presenting to her mistress a seal with armorial bearings. This the countess imprinted on the wax with her own beautiful hands, and then said: —
“Take the letter at once to that address.”
The woman made a movement to take the letter, but, either from haste or inadvertence, the paper fell from her hand close to la Peyrade’s feet. He stooped hastily to pick it up, and read the direction involuntarily. It bore the words, “His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs”; the significant words, “For him only,” written higher up, seemed to give this missive a character of intimacy.
“Pardon, monsieur,” said the countess, receiving the paper, which he had the good taste to return to her own hands in order to show his eagerness to serve her. “Be so good, mademoiselle, as to carry that in a way not to lose it,” she added in a dry tone to the unlucky maid. The countess then left her writing-table and took her seat on a sofa covered with pearl-gray satin.
During these proceedings la Peyrade had the satisfaction of making an inventory of all the choice things by which he was surrounded. Paintings by good masters detached themselves from walls of even tone; on a pier-table stood a very tall Japanese vase; before the windows the jardinieres were filled with lilium rubrum, showing its handsome reversely curling petals surmounted by white and red camellias and a dwarf magnolia from China, with flowers of sulphur white with scarlet edges. In a corner was a stand of arms, of curious shapes and rich construction, explained, perhaps, by the lady’s Hungarian nationality — always that of the hussar. A few bronzes and statuettes of exquisite selection, chairs rolling softly on Persian carpets, and a perfect anarchy of stuffs of all kinds completed the arrangement of this salon, which the lawyer had once before visited with Brigitte and Thuillier before the countess moved into it. It was so transformed that it seemed to him unrecognizable. With a little more knowledge of the world la Peyrade would have been less surprised at the marvellous care given by the countess to the decoration of the room. A woman’s salon is her kingdom, and her absolute domain; there, in the fullest sense of the word, she reigns, she governs; there she offers battle, and nearly always comes off victorious.
Coquettishly lying back in a corner of the sofa, her head carelessly supported by an arm the form and whiteness of which could be seen nearly to the elbow through the wide, open sleeve of a black velvet dressing-gown, her Cinderella foot in its dainty slipper of Russia leather resting on a cushion of orange satin, the handsome Hungarian had the look of a portrait by Laurence or Winterhalter, plus the naivete of the pose.
“Monsieur,” she said, with the slightly foreign accent which lent an added charm to her words, “I cannot help thinking it rather droll that a man of your mind and rare penetration should have thought you had an enemy in me.”
“But, Madame la comtesse,” replied la Peyrade, allowing her to read in his eyes an astonishment mingled with distrust, “all the appearances, you must admit, were of that nature. A suitor interposes to break off a marriage which has been offered to me with every inducement; this rival does me the service of showing himself so miraculously stupid and awkward that I could easily have set him aside, when suddenly a most unlooked-for and able auxiliary devotes herself to protecting him on the very ground where he shows himself most vulnerable.”
“You must admit,” said the countess, laughing, “that the protege showed himself a most intelligent man, and that he seconded my efforts valiantly.”
“His clumsiness could not have been, I think, very unexpected to you,” replied la Peyrade; “therefore the protection you have deigned to give him is the more cruel to me.”
“What a misfortune it would be,” said the countess, with charmingly affected satire, “if your marriage with Mademoiselle Celeste were prevented! Do you really care so much, monsieur, for that little school-girl?”
In that last word, especially the intonation with which it was uttered, there was more than contempt, there was hatred. This expression did not escape an observer of la Peyrade’s strength, but not being a man to advance very far on a single remark he merely replied: —
“Madame, the vulgar expression, to ‘settle down,’ explains this situation, in which a man, after many struggles and being at an end of his efforts and his illusions, makes a compromise with the future. When this compromise takes the form of a young girl with, I admit, more virtue than beauty, but one who brings to a husband the fortune which is indispensable to the comfort of married life, what is there so astonishing in the fact that his heart yields to gratitude and that he welcomes the prospect of a placid happiness?”
“I have always thought,” replied the countess, “that the power of a man’s intellect ought to be the measure of his ambition; and I imagined that one so wise as to make himself, at first, the poor man’s lawyer, would have in his heart less humble and less pastoral aspirations.”
“Ah! madame,” returned la Peyrade, “the iron hand of necessity compels us to strange resignations. The question of daily bread is one of those before which all things bend the knee. Apollo was forced to ‘get a living,’ as the shepherd of Admetus.”
“The sheepfold of Admetus,” said Madame de Godollo, “was at least a royal fold; I don’t think Apollo would have resigned himself to be the shepherd of a — bourgeois.”
The hesitation that preceded that last word seemed to convey in place of it a proper name; and la Peyrade understood that Madame de Godollo, out of pure clemency, had suppressed that of Thuillier, had turned her remark upon the species and not the individual.
“I agree, madame, that your distinction is a just one,” he replied, “but in this case Apollo has no choice.”
“I don’t like persons who charge too much,” said the countess, “but still less do I like those who sell their merchandise below the market price; I always suspect such persons of trying to dupe me by some clever and complicated trick. You know very well, monsieur, your own value, and your hypocritical humility displeases me immensely. It proves to me that my kindly overtures have not produced even a beginning of confidence between us.”
“I assure you, madame, that up to the present time life has never justified the belief in any dazzling superiority in me.”
“Well, really,” said the Hungarian, “perhaps I ought to believe in the humility of a man who is willing to accept the pitiable finale of his life which I threw myself into the breach to prevent.”
“Just as I, perhaps,” said la Peyrade, with a touch of sarcasm, “ought to believe in the reality of a kindness which, in order to save me, has handled me so roughly.”
The countess cast a reproachful look upon her visitor; her fingers crumpled the ribbons of her gown; she lowered her eyes, and gave a sigh, so nearly imperceptible, so slight, that it might have passed for an accident in the most regular breathing.
“You are rancorous,” she said, “and you judge people by one aspect only. After all,” she added, as if on reflection, “you are perhaps right in reminding me that I have taken the longest way round by meddling, rather ridiculously, in interests that do not concern me. Go on, my dear monsieur, in the path of this glorious marriage which offers you so many combined inducements; only, let me hope that you may not repent a course with which I shall no longer interfere.”
The Provencal had not been spoilt by an experience of “bonnes fortunes.” The poverty against which he had struggled so long never leads to affairs of gallantry, and since he had thrown off its harsh restraint, his mind being wholly giv
en up to the anxious work of creating his future, the things of the heart had entered but slightly into his life; unless we must except the comedy he had played on Flavie. We can therefore imagine the perplexity of this novice in the matter of adventures when he saw himself placed between the danger of losing what seemed to be a delightful opportunity, and the fear of finding a serpent amid the beautiful flowers that were offered to his grasp. Too marked a reserve, too lukewarm an eagerness, might wound the self-love of that beautiful foreigner, and quench the spring from which he seemed invited to draw. On the other hand, suppose that appearance of interest were only a snare? Suppose this kindness (ill-explained, as it seemed to him), of which he was so suddenly the object, had no other purpose than to entice him into a step which might be used to compromise him with the Thuilliers? What a blow to his reputation for shrewdness, and what a role to play! — that of the dog letting go the meat for the shadow!
We know that la Peyrade was trained in the school of Tartuffe, and the frankness with which that great master declares to Elmire that without receiving a few of the favors to which he aspired he could not trust in her tender advances, seemed to the barrister a suitable method to apply to the present case, adding, however, a trifle more softness to the form.
“Madame la comtesse,” he said, “you have turned me into a man who is much to be pitied. I was cheerfully advancing to this marriage, and you take all faith in it away from me. Suppose I break it off, what use can I — with that great capacity you see in me — make of the liberty I thus recover?”
“La Bruyere, if I am not mistaken, said that nothing freshens the blood so much as to avoid committing a folly.”
“That may be; but it is, you must admit, a negative benefit; and I am of an age and in a position to desire more serious results. The interest that you deign to show to me cannot, I think, stop short at the idea of merely putting an end to my present prospects. I love Mademoiselle Colleville with a love, it is true, which has nothing imperative about it; but I certainly love her, her hand is promised to me, and before renouncing it — ”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 826
