“And,” continued the Italian, more excitedly, “we had lived two years under the same roof, you and I alone.”
“Yes, and I found my comfort in it.”
“Did you think me ugly?”
“You know better than that, for I made my finest statue from you.”
“Foolish?”
“No one was ever foolish who could act such a part as you did to-night.”
“Then you must see that you despised me.”
Sallenauve seemed wholly surprised by this deduction; he thought himself very clever in replying, —
“It seems to me that if I had behaved to you in any other manner you would have the right to say that I despised you.”
But he had to do with a woman who in everything, in her friendships, her hatreds, her actions, as in her words, went straight to her point. As if she feared not to be fully understood, she went on: —
“To-day, monsieur, I can tell you all, for I speak of the past; the future has opened before me, as you see. From the day you were good to me and by your generous protection I escaped an infamous outrage, my heart has been wholly yours.”
Sallenauve, who had never suspected that feeling, and, above all, was unable to understand how so artlessly crude an avowal of it could be made, knew not what to answer.
“I am not ignorant,” continued the strange woman, “that I should have difficulty in rising from the degradation in which I appeared to you at our first meeting. If, at the time you consented to take me with you to Paris, I had seen you incline to treat me with gallantry, had you shown any sign of turning to your profit the dangerous situation in which I had placed myself, my heart would instantly have retired; you would have seemed to me an ordinary man — ”
“So,” remarked Sallenauve, “to love you would have been insulting; not to love you was cruel! What sort of woman are you, that either way you are displeased?”
“You ought not to have loved me,” she replied, “while the mud was still on my skirts and you scarcely knew me; because then your love would have been the love of the eyes and not of the soul. But when, after two years passed beside you, you had seen by my conduct that I was an honorable woman; when, without ever accepting a pleasure, I devoted myself to the care of the house and your comfort without other relaxation than the study of my art; and when, above all, I sacrificed to you that modesty you had seen me defend with such energy, — then you were cruel not to comprehend, and never, never will your imagination tell you what I have suffered, and all the tears you have made me shed.”
“But, my dear Luigia, I was your host, and even had I suspected what you now reveal to me, my duty as an honorable man would have commanded me to see nothing of it, and to take no advantage of you.”
“Ah! that is not the reason; it is simpler than that. You saw nothing because your fancy turned elsewhere.”
“Well, and if it were so?”
“It ought not to be so,” replied Luigia, vehemently. “That woman is not free; she has a husband and children, and though you did make a saint of her, I presume to say, ridiculous as it may seem, that she is not worth me!”
Sallenauve could not help smiling, but he answered very seriously, —
“You are totally mistaken as to your rival. Madame de l’Estorade was never anything to me but a model, without other value than the fact that she resembled another woman. That one I knew in Rome before I knew you. She had beauty, youth, and a glorious inclination for art. To-day she is confined in a convent; like you, she has paid her tribute to sorrow; therefore, you see — ”
“What, three hearts devoted to you,” cried Luigia, “and not one accepted? A strange star is yours! No doubt I suffer from its fatal influence, and therefore I must pardon you.”
“You are good to be merciful; will you now let me ask you a question? Just now you spoke of your future, and I see it with my own eyes. Who are the friends who have suddenly advanced you so far and so splendidly in your career? Have you made any compact with the devil?”
“Perhaps,” said Luigia, laughing.
“Don’t laugh,” said Sallenauve; “you chose to rush alone and unprotected into that hell called Paris, and I dread lest you have made some fatal acquaintance. I know the immense difficulties and the immense dangers that a woman placed as you are now must meet. Who is this lady that you spoke of? and how did you ever meet her while living under my roof?”
“She is a pious and charitable woman, who came to see me during your absence at Arcis. She had noticed my voice at Saint-Sulpice, during the services of the Month of Mary, and she tried to entice me away to her own parish church of Notre-Dame de Lorette, — it was for that she came to see me.”
“Tell me her name.”
“Madame de Saint-Esteve.”
Though far from penetrating the many mysteries that surrounded Jacqueline Collin, Sallenauve knew Madame de Saint-Esteve to be a woman of doubtful character and a matrimonial agent, having at times heard Bixiou tell tales of her.
“But that woman,” he said, “has a shocking notoriety in Paris. She is an adventuress of the worst kind.”
“I suspected it,” said Luigia. “But what of that?”
“And the man to whom she introduced you?”
“He an adventurer? No, I think not. At any rate, he did me a great service.”
“But he may have designs upon you.”
“Yes, people may have designs upon me,” replied Luigia, with dignity, “but they cannot execute them: between those designs and me, there is myself.”
“But your reputation?”
“That was lost before I left your house. I was said to be your mistress; you had yourself to contradict that charge before the electoral college; you contradicted it, but you could not stop it.”
“And my esteem, for which you profess to care?”
“I no longer want it. You did not love me when I wished for it; you shall not love me now that I no longer wish it.”
“Who knows?” exclaimed Sallenauve.
“There are two reasons why it cannot be,” said the singer. “In the first place, it is too late; and in the second, we are no longer on the same path.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I am an artist and you have ceased to be one. I rise; you fall.”
“Do you call it falling to rise, perhaps, to the highest dignities of the State?”
“To whatever height you rise,” said Luigia, passionately, “you will ever be below your past and the noble future that was once before you — Ah! stay; I think that I have lied to you; had you remained a sculptor, I believe I should have borne still longer your coldness and your disdain; I should have waited until I entered my vocation, until the halo round a singer’s head might have shown you, at last, that I was there beside you. But on the day that you apostatized I would no longer continue my humiliating sacrifice. There is no future possible between us.”
“Do you mean,” said Sallenauve, holding out his hand, which she did not take, “that we cannot even be friends?”
“No,” she replied; “all is over — past and gone. We shall hear of each other; and from afar, as we pass in life, we can wave our hands in recognition, but nothing further.”
“So,” said Sallenauve, sadly, “this is how it all ends!”
La Luigia looked at him a moment, her eyes shining with tears.
“Listen,” she said in a resolute and sincere tone: “this is possible. I have loved you, and after you, no one can enter the heart you have despised. You will hear that I have lovers; believe it not; you will not believe it, remembering the woman that I am. But who knows? Later your life may be swept clean of the other sentiments that have stood in my way; the freedom, the strangeness of the avowal I have just made to you will remain in your memory, and then it is not impossible that after this long rejection you may end by desiring me. If that should happen, — if at the end of many sad deceptions you should return, in sheer remorse, to the religion of art, — then, then, supposing that long years have no
t made love ridiculous between us, remember this evening. Now, let us part; it is already too late for a tete-a-tete.”
So saying, she took a light and passed into an inner room, leaving Sallenauve in a state of mind we can readily imagine after the various shocks and surprises of this interview.
On returning to his hotel he found Jacques Bricheteau awaiting him.
“Where the devil have you been?” cried the organist, impatiently. “It is too late now to take the steamboat.”
“Well,” said Sallenauve, carelessly, “then I shall have a few hours longer to play truant.”
“But during that time your enemies are tunnelling their mine.”
“I don’t care. In that cave called political life one has to be ready for anything.”
“I thought as much!” exclaimed Bricheteau. “You have been to see Luigia; her success has turned your head, and the deputy is thinking of his statues.”
“How often have I heard you say yourself that Art alone is great?”
“But an orator,” replied Bricheteau, “is also an artist, and the greatest of all. Others speak to the heart and the mind, but he to the conscience and the will of others. At any rate, this is no time to look back; you are engaged in a duel with your adversaries. Are you an honest man, or a scoundrel who has stolen a name? There is the question which may, in consequence of your absence, be answered against you in the Chamber.”
“I begin to feel that you have led me into a mistaken path; I had in my hands a treasure, and I have flung it away!”
“Happily,” said the organist, “that’s only an evening mist which the night will dissipate. To-morrow you will remember the engagement you are under to your father, and the great future which is before you.”
IX. IN THE CHAMBER
The king had opened the Chamber, but Sallenauve was not present, and his absence was causing a certain sensation in the democratic ranks. The “National” was particularly disturbed. As a stockholder of the paper, coming frequently to its office before the election, and even consenting to write articles for it, how strange that on the eve of the opening of the session the newly elected deputy should not come near it!
“Now that he is elected,” said some of the editorial staff, remarking on the total disappearance of the man whom they considered they had done their part to elect, “does monsieur think he can treat us scurvily? It is getting too much the habit of these lordly deputies to be very obsequious as long as they are candidates, and throw us away, after they have climbed the tree, like an old coat.”
Less excitable, the editor-in-chief calmed this first ebullition, but Sallenauve’s absence from the royal session seemed to him very strange.
The next day, when the bureaus are constituted, presidents and secretaries appointed, and committees named, Sallenauve’s absence was still more marked. In the bureau for which his name was drawn, it happened that the election of its president depended on one vote; through the absence of the deputy of Arcis, the ministry gained that advantage and the Opposition lost it. Much discontent was expressed by the newspapers of the latter party; they did not, as yet, openly attack the conduct of the defaulter, but they declared that they could not account for it.
Maxime de Trailles, on the other hand, fully prepared and on the watch, was waiting only until the routine business of the bureaus and the appointment of the committees was disposed of to send in the petition of the Romilly peasant-woman, which had been carefully drawn up by Massol, under whose clever pen the facts he was employed to make the most of assumed that degree of probability which barristers contrive to communicate to their sayings and affirmations. But when Maxime had the joy of seeing that Sallenauve’s absence in itself was creating a prejudice against him, he went again to Rastignac and asked him if he did not think it better to hasten the moment of attack, since everything seemed so favorable.
This time Rastignac was much more explicit: Sallenauve’s absence abroad seemed to him the conduct of a man who feared exposure and had lost his head. He therefore advised de Trailles to have the petition sent in at once, and he made no difficulty about promising his assistance to a conspiracy which appeared to be taking color, the result of which must be, in any case, a very pretty scandal. The next day the first trace of his subterranean influence was visible. The order of the day in the Chamber was the verification of powers, — that is, the admission of newly elected members. The deputy appointed to report on the elections in the department of the Aube was a strong partisan of the ministry, and, in consequence of a confidential communication made to him that morning, the following paragraph appeared in his report: —
The action of the electoral college of Arcis was regular. Monsieur
de Sallenauve produced in proper time all the necessary papers
proving his eligibility; his admission therefore would seem to
present no difficulty. But rumors of a singular nature have been
current since the election as to the name and identity of the new
deputy; and, in support of these rumors, a petition to authorize a
criminal prosecution has been laid before the president of the
Chamber. This petition states an extremely serious fact, namely:
that Monsieur de Sallenauve has usurped the name he bears; and
this usurpation, being made by means of an official document,
assumes the character of forgery committed by substitution of
person. A most regrettable circumstance,
continued the report,
is the absence of Monsieur de Sallenauve, who instead of instantly
contradicting the accusation made against him, has not appeared
since the opening of the Chamber at any of its sessions, and it is
not even known where he is. Under these circumstances, his
admission, the committee think, cannot be granted; and they feel
it therefore their duty to refer the matter to the Chamber.
Daniel d’Arthez, a deputy of the legitimist opposition, who had been favorable to the election of Sallenauve, hastened, after the reading of this report, to ask for the floor, and entreated the Chamber to remark that its adoption would be wholly unjustifiable.
“The point for the committee to decide,” he said, “was the regularity of the election. The report distinctly states that this is not called in question. The Chamber can, therefore, do only one thing; namely, admit by an immediate vote the validity of an election about which no irregularity is alleged. To bring in the question of authorizing a criminal investigation would be an abuse of power; because by not allowing discussion or defence, and by dispensing with the usual forms of procedure which guarantee certain rights to a party implicated, the Chamber would be virtually rejecting the action of the electors in the exercise of their sovereign functions. Every one can see, moreover,” added the orator, “that to grant the right of criminal investigation in this connection is to prejudge the merits of the case; the presumption of innocence, which is the right of every man, is ignored — whereas in this case the person concerned is a man whose integrity has never been doubted, and who has just been openly honored by the suffrages of his fellow citizens.”
The discussion was prolonged for some time, the ministerial orators, of course, taking the other side, until an unfortunate event occurred. The senior deputy, acting as president (for the Chamber was not yet constituted), was a worn-out old man, very absent-minded, and wholly unaccustomed to the functions which his age devolved upon him. He had duly received Monsieur de Sallenauve’s letter requesting leave of absence; and had he recollected to communicate it, as in duty bound, to the Chamber at the proper time, the discussion would probably have been nipped in the bud. But parliamentary matters are apt to go haphazard; when, reminded of the letter by the discussion, he produced it, and when the Chamber learned that the request for leave of absence was made for an indefinite period and for the vague purpose of “urgent affairs,” the effect was lamentable.
“It is plain,” said all the ministerial party, “that he has gone to England to escape an investigation; he feared the result; he feels himself unmasked.”
This view, setting aside political prejudices, was shared by the sterner minds of all parties, who refused to conceive of a man not hastening to defend himself from such a blasting accusation. In short, after a very keen and able argument from the attorney-general, Vinet, who had taken heart on finding that the accused was likely to be condemned by default, the question of adjournment was put to the vote and passed, but by a very small majority; eight days being granted to the said deputy to appear and defend himself.
The day after the vote was passed Maxime de Trailles wrote to Madame Beauvisage as follows: —
Madame, — The enemy received a severe check yesterday. In the
opinion of my friend Rastignac, a very intelligent and experienced
judge in parliamentary matters, Dorlange can never recover from
the blow, no matter what may happen later. If we cannot succeed in
producing positive proof to support the statement of our good
peasant-woman, it is possible that this rascal, supposing always
that he ventures to return to France, may be admitted to the
Chamber. But if he is, he can only drag on a despised and
miserable existence; he will be driven to resign, and then the
election of Monsieur Beauvisage is beyond all doubt; for the
electors, ashamed to have forsaken him for such a rascal, will be
only too glad to reinstate themselves in public opinion by the
choice of an honorable man — who was, in fact, their first choice.
It is to your rare sagacity, madame, that this result is due; for
without that species of second sight which showed you the chances
hidden in the revelation of that woman, we should have missed our
best weapon. I must tell you though you may think this vanity,
that neither Rastignac nor the attorney-general, in spite of their
great political acumen, perceived the true value of your
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 933
