“So,” said the countess, hastily, “in a given case you would not be averse to a rupture? And,” she added, in a more decided tone, “there would be some chance of making you see that in taking your first opportunity you cut yourself off from a better future, in which a more suitable marriage may present itself?”
“But, at least, madame, I must be enabled to foresee it definitely.”
This persistence in demanding pledges seemed to irritate the countess.
“Faith,” she said, “is only a virtue when it believes without seeing. You doubt yourself, and that is another form of stupidity. I am not happy, it seems, in my selection of those I desire to benefit.”
“But, madame, it cannot be indiscreet to ask to know in some remote way at least, what future your kind good-will has imagined for me.”
“It is very indiscreet,” replied the countess, coldly, “and it shows plainly that you offer me only a conditional confidence. Let us say no more. You are certainly far advanced with Mademoiselle Colleville; she suits you, you say, in many ways; therefore marry her. I say again, you will no longer find me in your way.”
“But does Mademoiselle Colleville really suit me?” resumed la Peyrade; “that is the very point on which you have lately raised my doubts. Do you not think there is something cruel in casting me first in one direction and then in the other without affording me any ground to go upon?”
“Ah!” said the countess, in a tone of impatience, “you want my opinion on the premises! Well, monsieur, there is one very conclusive fact to which I can bring proof: Celeste does not love you.”
“So I have thought,” said la Peyrade, humbly. “I felt that I was making a marriage of mere convenience.”
“And she cannot love you, because,” continued Madame de Godollo, with animation, “she cannot comprehend you. Her proper husband is that blond little man, insipid as herself; from the union of those two natures without life or heat will result in that lukewarm existence which, in the opinion of the world where she was born and where she has lived, is the ne plus ultra of conjugal felicity. Try to make that little simpleton understand that when she had a chance to unite herself with true talent she ought to have felt highly honored! But, above all, try to make her miserable, odious family and surroundings understand it! Enriched bourgeois, parvenus! there’s the roof beneath which you think to rest from your cruel labor and your many trials! And do you believe that you will not be made to feel, twenty times a day, that your share in the partnership is distressingly light in the scale against their money? On one side, the Iliad, the Cid, Der Freyschutz, and the frescos of the Vatican; on the other, three hundred thousand francs in good, ringing coin! Tell me which side they will trust and admire! The artist, the man of imagination who falls into the bourgeois atmosphere — shall I tell you to what I compare him? To Daniel cast into the lion’s den, less the miracle of Holy Writ.”
This invective against the bourgeoisie was uttered in a tone of heated conviction which could scarcely fail to be communicated.
“Ah! madame,” cried la Peyrade, “how eloquently you say things which again and again have entered my troubled and anxious mind! But I have felt myself lashed to that most cruel fate, the necessity of gaining a position — ”
“Necessity! position!” interrupted the countess, again raising the temperature of her speech, — ”words void of meaning! which have not even sound to able men, though they drive back fools as though they were formidable barriers. Necessity! does that exist for noble natures, for those who know how to will? A Gascon minister uttered a saying which ought to be engraved on the doors of all careers: ‘All things come to him who knows how to wait.’ Are you ignorant that marriage, to men of a high stamp, is either a chain which binds them to the lowest vulgarities of existence, or a wing on which to rise to the highest summits of the social world? The wife you need, monsieur, — and she would not be long wanting to your career if you had not, with such incredible haste, accepted the first ‘dot’ that was offered you, — the wife you should have chosen is a woman capable of understanding you, able to divine your intellect; one who could be to you a fellow-worker, an intellectual confidant, and not a mere embodiment of the ‘pot-au-feu’; a woman capable of being now your secretary, but soon the wife of a deputy, a minister, an ambassador; one, in short, who could offer you her heart as a mainspring, her salon for a stage, her connections for a ladder, and who, in return for all she would give you of ardor and strength, asks only to shine beside your throne in the rays of the glory she predicts for you!”
Intoxicated, as it were, with the flow of her own words, the countess was really magnificent; her eyes sparkled, her nostrils dilated; the prospect her vivid eloquence thus unrolled she seemed to see, and touch with her quivering fingers. For a moment, la Peyrade was dazzled by this sunrise which suddenly burst upon his life.
However, as he was a man most eminently prudent, who had made it his rule of life never to lend except on sound and solvent security, he was still impelled to weigh the situation.
“Madame la comtesse,” he said, “you reproached me just now for speaking like a bourgeois, and I, in return, am afraid that you are talking like a goddess. I admire you, I listen to you, but I am not convinced. Such devotions, such sublime abnegations may be met with in heaven, but in this low world who can hope to be the object of them?”
“You are mistaken, monsieur,” replied the countess, with solemnity; “such devotions are rare, but they are neither impossible nor incredible; only, it is necessary to have the heart to find them, and, above all, the hand to take them when they are offered to you.”
So saying, the countess rose majestically.
La Peyrade saw that he had ended by displeasing her, and he felt that she dismissed him. He rose himself, bowed respectfully, and asked to be received again.
“Monsieur,” said Madame de Godollo, “we Hungarians, primitive people and almost savages that we are, have a saying that when our door is open both sides of it are opened wide; when we close it it is double-locked and bolted.”
That dignified and ambiguous speech was accompanied by a slight inclination of the head. Bewildered, confounded by this behavior, to him so new, which bore but little resemblance to that of Flavie, Brigitte, and Madame Minard, la Peyrade left the house, asking himself again and again whether he had played his game properly.
CHAPTER V. SHOWING HOW NEAR THE TARPEIAN ROCK IS TO THE CAPITOL
On leaving Madame de Godollo, la Peyrade felt the necessity of gathering himself together. Beneath the conversation he had just maintained with this strange woman, what could he see, — a trap, or a rich and distinguished marriage offered to him. Under such a doubt as this, to press Celeste for an immediate answer was neither clever nor prudent; it was simply to bind himself, and close the door to the changes, still very ill-defined, which seemed offered to him. The result of the consultation which Theodose held with himself as he walked along the boulevard was that he ought, for the moment, to think only of gaining time. Consequently, instead of going to the Thuilliers’ to learn Celeste’s decision, he went home, and wrote the following little note to Thuillier: —
My dear Thuillier, — You will certainly not think it extraordinary
that I should not present myself at your house to-day, — partly
because I fear the sentence which will be pronounced upon me, and
partly because I do not wish to seem an impatient and unmannerly
creditor. A few days, more or less, will matter little under such
circumstances, and yet Mademoiselle Colleville may find them
desirable for the absolute freedom of her choice. I shall,
therefore, not go to see you until you write for me.
I am now more calm, and I have added a few more pages to our
manuscript; it will take but little time to hand in the whole to
the printer.
Ever yours,
Theodose de la Peyrade.
Two hours later a
servant, dressed in what was evidently the first step towards a livery, which the Thuilliers did not as yet venture to risk, the “male domestic,” whom Minard had mentioned to the Phellions, arrived at la Peyrade’s lodgings with the following note: —
Come to-night, without fail. We will talk over the whole affair
with Brigitte.
Your most affectionately devoted Jerome Thuillier.
“Good!” said la Peyrade; “evidently there is some hindrance on the other side; I shall have time to turn myself round.”
That evening, when the servant announced him in the Thuillier salon, the Comtesse de Godollo, who was sitting with Brigitte, hastened to rise and leave the room. As she passed la Peyrade she made him a very ceremonious bow. There was nothing conclusive to be deduced from this abrupt departure, which might signify anything, either much or nothing.
After talking of the weather and so forth for a time, as persons do who have met to discuss a delicate subject about which they are not sure of coming to an understanding, the matter was opened by Brigitte, who had sent her brother to take a walk on the boulevard, telling him to leave her to manage the affair.
“My dear boy,” she said to Theodose, “it was very nice of you not to come here to-day like a grasp-all, to put your pistol at our throats, for we were not, as it happened, quite ready to answer you. I think,” she added, “that our little Celeste needs a trifle more time.”
“Then,” said la Peyrade, quickly, “she has not decided in favor of Monsieur Felix Phellion?”
“Joker!” replied the old maid, “you know very well you settled that business last night; but you also know, of course, that her own inclinations incline her that way.”
“Short of being blind, I must have seen that,” replied la Peyrade.
“It is not an obstacle to my projects,” continued Mademoiselle Thuillier; “but it serves to explain why I ask for Celeste a little more time; and also why I have wished all along to postpone the marriage to a later date. I wanted to give you time to insinuate yourself into the heart of my dear little girl — but you and Thuillier upset my plans.”
“Nothing, I think, has been done without your sanction,” said la Peyrade, “and if, during these fifteen days, I have not talked with you on the subject, it was out of pure delicacy. Thuillier told me that everything was agreed upon with you.”
“On the contrary, Thuillier knows very well that I refused to mix myself up on your new arrangements. If you had not made yourself so scarce lately, I might have been the first to tell you that I did not approve of them. However, I can truly say I did nothing to hinder their success.”
“But that was too little,” said la Peyrade; “your active help was absolutely necessary.”
“Possibly; but I, who know women better than you, being one of them, — I felt very sure that if Celeste was told to choose between two suitors she would consider that a permission to think at her ease of the one she liked best. I myself had always left her in the vague as to Felix, knowing as I did the proper moment to settle her mind about him.”
“So,” said la Peyrade, “you mean that she refuses me.”
“It is much worse than that,” returned Brigitte; “she accepts you, and is willing to pledge her word; but it is so easy to see she regards herself as a victim, that if I were in your place I should feel neither flattered nor secure in such a position.”
In any other condition of mind la Peyrade would probably have answered that he accepted the sacrifice, and would make it his business to win the heart which at first was reluctantly given; but delay now suited him, and he replied to Brigitte with a question: —
“Then what do you advise? What course had I better take?”
“Finish Thuillier’s pamphlet, in the first place, or he’ll go crazy; and leave me to work the other affair in your interests,” replied Brigitte.
“But am I in friendly hands? For, to tell you the truth, little aunt, I have not been able to conceal from myself that you have, for some time past, changed very much to me.”
“Changed to you! What change do you see in me, addled-pate that you are?”
“Oh! nothing very tangible,” said la Peyrade; “but ever since that Countess Torna has had a footing in your house — ”
“My poor boy, the countess has done me many services, and I am very grateful to her; but is that any reason why I should be false to you, who have done us still greater services?”
“But you must admit,” said la Peyrade, craftily, “that she has told you a great deal of harm of me.”
“Naturally she has; these fine ladies are all that way; they expect the whole world to adore them, and she sees that you are thinking only of Celeste; but all she has said to me against you runs off my mind like water from varnished cloth.”
“So, then, little aunt, I may continue to count on you?” persisted la Peyrade.
“Yes; provided you are not tormenting, and will let me manage this affair.”
“Tell me how you are going to do it?” asked la Peyrade, with an air of great good-humor.
“In the first place, I shall signify to Felix that he is not to set foot in this house again.”
“Is that possible?” said the barrister; “I mean can it be done civilly?”
“Very possible; I shall make Phellion himself tell him. He’s a man who is always astride of principles, and he’ll be the first to see that if his son will not do what is necessary to obtain Celeste’s hand he ought to deprive us of his presence.”
“What next?” asked la Peyrade.
“Next, I shall signify to Celeste that she was left at liberty to choose one husband or the other, and as she did not choose Felix she must make up her mind to take you, a pious fellow, such as she wants. You needn’t be uneasy; I’ll sing your praises, especially your generosity in not profiting by the arrangement she agreed to make to-day. But all that will take a week at least, and if Thuillier’s pamphlet isn’t out before then, I don’t know but what we shall have to put him in a lunatic asylum.”
“The pamphlet can be out in two days. But is it very certain, little aunt, that we are playing above-board? Mountains, as they say, never meet, but men do; and certainly, when the time comes to promote the election, I can do Thuillier either good or bad service. Do you know, the other day I was terribly frightened. I had a letter from him in my pocket, in which he spoke of the pamphlet as being written by me. I fancied for a moment that I had dropped it in the Luxembourg. If I had, what a scandal it would have caused in the quarter.”
“Who would dare to play tricks with such a wily one as you?” said Brigitte, fully comprehending the comminatory nature of la Peyrade’s last words, interpolated into the conversation without rhyme or reason. “But really,” she added, “why should you complain of us? It is you who are behindhand in your promises. That cross which was to have been granted within a week, and that pamphlet, which ought to have appeared a long time ago — ”
“The pamphlet and the cross will both appear in good time; the one will bring the other,” said la Peyrade, rising. “Tell Thuillier to come and see me to-morrow evening, and I think we can then correct the last sheet. But, above all, don’t listen to the spitefulness of Madame de Godollo; I have an idea that in order to make herself completely mistress of this house she wants to alienate all your old friends, and also that she is casting her net for Thuillier.”
“Well, in point of fact,” said the old maid, whom the parting shot of the infernal barrister had touched on the ever-sensitive point of her authority, “I must look into that matter you speak of there; she is rather coquettish, that little woman.”
La Peyrade gained a second benefit out of that speech so adroitly flung out; he saw by Brigitte’s answer to it that the countess had not mentioned to her the visit he had paid her during the day. This reticence might have a serious meaning.
Four days later, the printer, the stitcher, the paper glazier having fulfilled their offices, Thuillier had the inexpressible happiness of begin
ning on the boulevards a promenade, which he continued through the Passages, and even to the Palais-Royal, pausing before all the book-shops where he saw, shining in black letters on a yellow poster, the famous title: —
TAXATION AND THE SLIDING-SCALE by J. Thuillier, Member of the Council-General of the Seine.
Having reached the point of persuading himself that the care he had bestowed upon the correction of proofs made the merit of the work his own, his paternal heart, like that of Maitre Corbeau, could not contain itself for joy. We ought to add that he held in very low esteem those booksellers who did not announce the sale of the new work, destined to become, as he believed, a European event. Without actually deciding the manner in which he would punish their indifference, he nevertheless made a list of these rebellious persons, and wished them as much evil as if they had offered him a personal affront.
The next day he spent a delightful morning in writing a certain number of letters, sending the publication to friends, and putting into paper covers some fifty copies, to which the sacramental phrase, “From the author,” imparted to his eyes an inestimable value.
But the third day of the sale brought a slight diminution of his happiness. He had chosen for his editor a young man, doing business at a breakneck pace, who had lately established himself in the Passage des Panoramas, where he was paying a ruinous rent. He was the nephew of Barbet the publisher, whom Brigitte had had as a tenant in the rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer. This Barbet junior was a youth who flinched at nothing; and when he was presented to Thuillier by his uncle, he pledged himself, provided he was not shackled in his advertising, to sell off the first edition and print a second within a week.
Now, Thuillier had spent about fifteen hundred francs himself on costs of publication, such, for instance, as copies sent in great profusion to the newspapers; but at the close of the third day seven copies only had been sold, and three of those on credit. It might be believed that in revealing to the horror-stricken Thuillier this paltry result the young publisher would have lost at least something of his assurance. On the contrary, this Guzman of the book-trade hastened to say: —
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