Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  “Monsieur,” replied Desmarets, “I know not how to thank you for this confidence. You say that you can obtain proofs and witnesses; I shall await them. I shall seek the truth of this strange affair courageously; but you must permit me to doubt everything until the evidence of the facts you state is proved to me. In any case you shall have satisfaction, for, as you will certainly understand, we both require it.”

  Jules returned home.

  “What is the matter, Jules?” asked his wife, when she saw him. “You look so pale you frighten me!”

  “The day is cold,” he answered, walking with slow steps across the room where all things spoke to him of love and happiness, — that room so calm and peaceful where a deadly storm was gathering.

  “Did you go out to-day?” he asked, as though mechanically.

  He was impelled to ask the question by the last of a myriad of thoughts which had gathered themselves together into a lucid meditation, though jealousy was actively prompting them.

  “No,” she answered, in a tone that was falsely candid.

  At that instant Jules saw through the open door of the dressing-room the velvet bonnet which his wife wore in the mornings; on it were drops of rain. Jules was a passionate man, but he was also full of delicacy. It was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. When such a situation occurs, all has come to an end forever between certain beings. And yet those drops of rain were like a flash tearing through his brain.

  He left the room, went down to the porter’s lodge, and said to the porter, after making sure that they were alone: —

  “Fouguereau, a hundred crowns if you tell me the truth; dismissal if you deceive me; and nothing at all if you ever speak of my question and your answer.”

  He stopped to examine the man’s face, leading him under the window. Then he continued: —

  “Did madame go out this morning?”

  “Madame went out at a quarter to three, and I think I saw her come in about half an hour ago.”

  “That is true, upon your honor?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “You will have the money; but if you speak of this, remember, you will lose all.”

  Jules returned to his wife.

  “Clemence,” he said, “I find I must put my accounts in order. Do not be offended at the inquiry I am going to make. Have I not given you forty thousand francs since the beginning of the year?”

  “More,” she said, — ”forty-seven.”

  “Have you spent them?”

  “Nearly,” she replied. “In the first place, I had to pay several of our last year’s bills — ”

  “I shall never find out anything in this way,” thought Jules. “I am not taking the best course.”

  At this moment Jules’ own valet entered the room with a letter for his master, who opened it indifferently, but as soon as his eyes had lighted on the signature he read it eagerly. The letter was as follows: —

  Monsieur, — For the sake of your peace of mind as well as ours, I

  take the course of writing you this letter without possessing the

  advantage of being known to you; but my position, my age, and the

  fear of some misfortune compel me to entreat you to show

  indulgence in the trying circumstances under which our afflicted

  family is placed. Monsieur Auguste de Maulincour has for the last

  few days shown signs of mental derangement, and we fear that he

  may trouble your happiness by fancies which he confided to

  Monsieur le Vidame de Pamiers and myself during his first attack

  of frenzy. We think it right, therefore, to warn you of his

  malady, which is, we hope, curable; but it will have such serious

  and important effects on the honor of our family and the career of

  my grandson that we must rely, monsieur, on your entire

  discretion.

  If Monsieur le Vidame or I could have gone to see you we would not

  have written. But I make no doubt that you will regard this prayer

  of a mother, who begs you to destroy this letter.

  Accept the assurance of my perfect consideration.

  Baronne de Maulincour, nee de Rieux.

  “Oh! what torture!” cried Jules.

  “What is it? what is in your mind?” asked his wife, exhibiting the deepest anxiety.

  “I have come,” he answered, slowly, as he threw her the letter, “to ask myself whether it can be you who have sent me that to avert my suspicions. Judge, therefore, what I suffer.”

  “Unhappy man!” said Madame Jules, letting fall the paper. “I pity him; though he has done me great harm.”

  “Are you aware that he has spoken to me?”

  “Oh! have you been to see him, in spite of your promise?” she cried in terror.

  “Clemence, our love is in danger of perishing; we stand outside of the ordinary rules of life; let us lay aside all petty considerations in presence of this great peril. Explain to me why you went out this morning. Women think they have the right to tell us little falsehoods. Sometimes they like to hide a pleasure they are preparing for us. Just now you said a word to me, by mistake, no doubt, a no for a yes.”

  He went into the dressing-room and brought out the bonnet.

  “See,” he said, “your bonnet has betrayed you; these spots are raindrops. You must, therefore, have gone out in a street cab, and these drops fell upon it as you went to find one, or as you entered or left the house where you went. But a woman can leave her own home for many innocent purposes, even after she has told her husband that she did not mean to go out. There are so many reasons for changing our plans! Caprices, whims, are they not your right? Women are not required to be consistent with themselves. You had forgotten something, — a service to render, a visit, some kind action. But nothing hinders a woman from telling her husband what she does. Can we ever blush on the breast of a friend? It is not a jealous husband who speaks to you, my Clemence; it is your lover, your friend, your brother.” He flung himself passionately at her feet. “Speak, not to justify yourself, but to calm my horrible sufferings. I know that you went out. Well — what did you do? where did you go?”

  “Yes, I went out, Jules,” she answered in a strained voice, though her face was calm. “But ask me nothing more. Wait; have confidence; without which you will lay up for yourself terrible remorse. Jules, my Jules, trust is the virtue of love. I owe to you that I am at this moment too troubled to answer you: but I am not a false woman; I love you, and you know it.”

  “In the midst of all that can shake the faith of man and rouse his jealousy, for I see I am not first in your heart, I am no longer thine own self — well, Clemence, even so, I prefer to believe you, to believe that voice, to believe those eyes. If you deceive me, you deserve — ”

  “Ten thousand deaths!” she cried, interrupting him.

  “I have never hidden a thought from you, but you — ”

  “Hush!” she said, “our happiness depends upon our mutual silence.”

  “Ha! I will know all!” he exclaimed, with sudden violence.

  At that moment the cries of a woman were heard, — the yelping of a shrill little voice came from the antechamber.

  “I tell you I will go in!” it cried. “Yes, I shall go in; I will see her! I shall see her!”

  Jules and Clemence both ran to the salon as the door from the antechamber was violently burst open. A young woman entered hastily, followed by two servants, who said to their master: —

  “Monsieur, this person would come in in spite of us. We told her that madame was not at home. She answered that she knew very well madame had been out, but she saw her come in. She threatened to stay at the door of the house till she could speak to madame.”

  “You can go,” said Monsieur Desmarets to the two men. “What do you want, mademoiselle?” he added, turning to the strange woman.

  This “demoiselle” was the type of a woman who is never to be m
et with except in Paris. She is made in Paris, like the mud, like the pavement, like the water of the Seine, such as it becomes in Paris before human industry filters it ten times ere it enters the cut-glass decanters and sparkles pure and bright from the filth it has been. She is therefore a being who is truly original. Depicted scores of times by the painter’s brush, the pencil of the caricaturist, the charcoal of the etcher, she still escapes analysis, because she cannot be caught and rendered in all her moods, like Nature, like this fantastic Paris itself. She holds to vice by one thread only, and she breaks away from it at a thousand other points of the social circumference. Besides, she lets only one trait of her character be known, and that the only one which renders her blamable; her noble virtues are hidden; she prefers to glory in her naive libertinism. Most incompletely rendered in dramas and tales where she is put upon the scene with all her poesy, she is nowhere really true but in her garret; elsewhere she is invariably calumniated or over-praised. Rich, she deteriorates; poor, she is misunderstood. She has too many vices, and too many good qualities; she is too near to pathetic asphyxiation or to a dissolute laugh; too beautiful and too hideous. She personifies Paris, to which, in the long run, she supplies the toothless portresses, washerwomen, street-sweepers, beggars, occasionally insolent countesses, admired actresses, applauded singers; she has even given, in the olden time, two quasi-queens to the monarchy. Who can grasp such a Proteus? She is all woman, less than woman, more than woman. From this vast portrait the painter of manners and morals can take but a feature here and there; the ensemble is infinite.

  She was a grisette of Paris; a grisette in all her glory; a grisette in a hackney-coach, — happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette; a grisette with claws, scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling as a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish as a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a perfect lionne in her way; issuing from the little apartment of which she had dreamed so often, with its red-calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet furniture, its tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the sofa, the little moquette carpet, the alabaster clock and candlesticks (under glass cases), the yellow bedroom, the eider-down quilt, — in short, all the domestic joys of a grisette’s life; and in addition, the woman-of-all-work (a former grisette herself, now the owner of a moustache), theatre-parties, unlimited bonbons, silk dresses, bonnets to spoil, — in fact, all the felicities coveted by the grisette heart except a carriage, which only enters her imagination as a marshal’s baton into the dreams of a soldier. Yes, this grisette had all these things in return for a true affection, or in spite of a true affection, as some others obtain it for an hour a day, — a sort of tax carelessly paid under the claws of an old man.

  The young woman who now entered the presence of Monsieur and Madame Jules had a pair of feet so little covered by her shoes that only a slim black line was visible between the carpet and her white stockings. This peculiar foot-gear, which Parisian caricaturists have well-rendered, is a special attribute of the grisette of Paris; but she is even more distinctive to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her garments are made to adhere to her form, which they clearly define. On this occasion she was trigly dressed in a green gown, with a white chemisette, which allowed the beauty of her bust to be seen; her shawl, of Ternaux cashmere, had fallen from her shoulders, and was held by its two corners, which were twisted round her wrists. She had a delicate face, rosy cheeks, a white skin, sparkling gray eyes, a round, very promising forehead, hair carefully smoothed beneath her little bonnet, and heavy curls upon her neck.

  “My name is Ida,” she said, “and if that’s Madame Jules to whom I have the advantage of speaking, I’ve come to tell her all I have in my heart against her. It is very wrong, when a woman is set up and in her furniture, as you are here, to come and take from a poor girl a man with whom I’m as good as married, morally, and who did talk of making it right by marrying me before the municipality. There’s plenty of handsome young men in the world — ain’t there, monsieur? — to take your fancy, without going after a man of middle age, who makes my happiness. Yah! I haven’t got a fine hotel like this, but I’ve got my love, I have. I hate handsome men and money; I’m all heart, and — ”

  Madame Jules turned to her husband.

  “You will allow me, monsieur, to hear no more of all this,” she said, retreating to her bedroom.

  “If the lady lives with you, I’ve made a mess of it; but I can’t help that,” resumed Ida. “Why does she come after Monsieur Ferragus every day?”

  “You are mistaken, mademoiselle,” said Jules, stupefied; “my wife is incapable — ”

  “Ha! so you’re married, you two,” said the grisette showing some surprise. “Then it’s very wrong, monsieur, — isn’t it? — for a woman who has the happiness of being married in legal marriage to have relations with a man like Henri — ”

  “Henri! who is Henri?” said Jules, taking Ida by the arm and pulling her into an adjoining room that his wife might hear no more.

  “Why, Monsieur Ferragus.”

  “But he is dead,” said Jules.

  “Nonsense; I went to Franconi’s with him last night, and he brought me home — as he ought. Besides, your wife can tell you about him; didn’t she go there this very afternoon at three o’clock? I know she did, for I waited in the street, and saw her, — all because that good-natured fellow, Monsieur Justin, whom you know perhaps, — a little old man with jewelry who wears corsets, — told me that Madame Jules was my rival. That name, monsieur, sounds mighty like a feigned one; but if it is yours, excuse me. But this I say, if Madame Jules was a court duchess, Henri is rich enough to satisfy all her fancies, and it is my business to protect my property; I’ve a right to, for I love him, that I do. He is my first inclination; my happiness and all my future fate depends on it. I fear nothing, monsieur; I am honest; I never lied, or stole the property of any living soul, no matter who. If an empress was my rival, I’d go straight to her, empress as she was; because all pretty women are equals, monsieur — ”

  “Enough! enough!” said Jules. “Where do you live?”

  “Rue de la Corderie-du-Temple, number 14, monsieur, — Ida Gruget, corset-maker, at your service, — for we make lots of corsets for men.”

  “Where does the man whom you call Ferragus live?”

  “Monsieur,” she said, pursing up her lips, “in the first place, he’s not a man; he is a rich monsieur, much richer, perhaps, than you are. But why do you ask me his address when your wife knows it? He told me not to give it. Am I obliged to answer you? I’m not, thank God, in a confessional or a police-court; I’m responsible only to myself.”

  “If I were to offer you ten thousand francs to tell me where Monsieur Ferragus lives, how then?”

  “Ha! n, o, no, my little friend, and that ends the matter,” she said, emphasizing this singular reply with a popular gesture. “There’s no sum in the world could make me tell you. I have the honor to bid you good-day. How do I get out of here?”

  Jules, horror-struck, allowed her to go without further notice. The whole world seemed to crumble beneath his feet, and above him the heavens were falling with a crash.

  “Monsieur is served,” said his valet.

  The valet and the footman waited in the dining-room a quarter of an hour without seeing master or mistress.

  “Madame will not dine to-day,” said the waiting-maid, coming in.

  “What’s the matter, Josephine?” asked the valet.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Madame is crying, and is going to bed. Monsieur has no doubt got some love-affair on hand, and it has been discovered at a very bad time. I wouldn’t answer for madame’s life. Men are so clumsy; they’ll make you scenes without any precaution.”

  “That’s not so,” said the valet, in a low voice. “On the contrary, madame is the one who — you understand? What times does monsieur have to go after pleasures, he, who hasn’t slept out of madame’s room for five yea
rs, who goes to his study at ten and never leaves it till breakfast, at twelve. His life is all known, it is regular; whereas madame goes out nearly every day at three o’clock, Heaven knows where.”

  “And monsieur too,” said the maid, taking her mistress’s part.

  “Yes, but he goes straight to the Bourse. I told him three times that dinner was ready,” continued the valet, after a pause. “You might as well talk to a post.”

  Monsieur Jules entered the dining-room.

  “Where is madame?” he said.

  “Madame is going to bed; her head aches,” replied the maid, assuming an air of importance.

  Monsieur Jules then said to the footmen composedly: “You can take away; I shall go and sit with madame.”

  He went to his wife’s room and found her weeping, but endeavoring to smother her sobs with her handkerchief.

  “Why do you weep?” said Jules; “you need expect no violence and no reproaches from me. Why should I avenge myself? If you have not been faithful to my love, it is that you were never worthy of it.”

  “Not worthy?” The words were repeated amid her sobs and the accent in which they were said would have moved any other man than Jules.

  “To kill you, I must love more than perhaps I do love you,” he continued. “But I should never have the courage; I would rather kill myself, leaving you to your — happiness, and with — whom! — ”

  He did not end his sentence.

  “Kill yourself!” she cried, flinging herself at his feet and clasping them.

  But he, wishing to escape the embrace, tried to shake her off, dragging her in so doing toward the bed.

  “Let me alone,” he said.