Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  “Did you sleep well?” asked Madame de la Chanterie.

  “So well that I did not wake up till ten o’clock,” replied Godefroid, bowing to the four men, who returned the bow with gravity.

  “We thought so,” said an old man named Alain, smiling.

  “Manon spoke of a second breakfast,” said Godefroid; “but I fear that I have already broken some rule. At what hour do you rise?”

  “Not quite so early as the old monks,” said Madame de la Chanterie, courteously, “but as early as the working-men, — six in winter, half-past three in summer. Our bed-time is ruled by that of the sun. We are always asleep by nine in winter and eleven in summer. On rising, we all take a little milk, which comes from our farm, after saying our prayers, except the Abbe de Veze, who says the first mass, at six o’clock in summer and seven o’clock in winter, at Notre-Dame, where these gentlemen are present daily, as well as your humble servant.”

  Madame de la Chanterie ended her explanation as the five lodgers took their seats at table.

  The dining-room, painted throughout in gray, the design of the woodwork being in the style of Louis XIV., adjoined the sort of antechamber in which Manon was usually stationed, and it seemed to be parallel with Madame de la Chanterie’s bedroom, which also opened into the salon. This room had no other ornament than a tall clock. The furniture consisted of six chairs with oval backs covered with worsted-work, done probably by Madame de la Chanterie’s own hand, two buffets and a table, all of Mahogany, on which Manon did not lay a cloth for breakfast. The breakfast, of monastic frugality, was composed of a small turbot with a white sauce, potatoes, a salad, and four dishes of fruit, — peaches, grapes, strawberries, and fresh almonds; also, for relishes, honey in the comb (as in Switzerland), radishes, cucumbers, sardines, and butter, — the whole served in the well-known china with tiny blue flowers and green leaves on a white ground, which was no doubt a luxury in the days of Louis XIV., but had now, under the growing demands of luxury, come to be regarded as common.

  “We keep the fasts,” said Monsieur Alain. “As we go to mass every morning, you will not be surprised to find us blindly following all the customs of the Church, even the severest.”

  “And you shall begin by imitating us,” said Madame de la Chanterie, with a glance at Godefroid, whom she had placed beside her.

  Of the five persons present Godefroid knew the names of three, — Madame de la Chanterie, the Abbe de Veze, and Monsieur Alain. He wished to know those of the other two; but they kept silence and ate their food with the attention which recluses appear to give to every detail of a meal.

  “Does this fine fruit come also from your farm, madame?” asked Godefroid.

  “Yes, monsieur,” she replied. “We have a little model farm, like the government itself; we call it our country house; it is twelve miles from here, on the road to Italy, near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges.”

  “It is a property that belongs to us all, and is to go to the survivor,” said the goodman Alain.

  “Oh, it is not very considerable!” added Madame de la Chanterie, rather hastily, as if she feared that Godefroid might think these remarks a bait.

  “There are thirty acres of tilled land,” said one of the two personages still unknown to Godefroid, “six of meadow, and an enclosure containing four acres, in which our house, which adjoins the farmhouse, stands.”

  “But such a property as that,” said Godefroid, “must be worth a hundred thousand francs.”

  “Oh, we don’t get anything out of it but our provisions!” said the same personage.

  He was a tall, grave, spare man, with all the appearance of having served in the army. His white hair showed him to be past sixty, and his face betrayed some violent grief controlled by religion.

  The second unnamed person, who seemed to be something between a master of rhetoric and a business agent, was of ordinary height, plump, but active withal. His face had the jovial expression which characterizes those of lawyers and notaries in Paris.

  The dress of these four personages revealed a neatness due to the most scrupulous personal care. The same hand, and it was that of Manon, could be seen in every detail. Their coats were perhaps ten years old, but they were preserved, like the coats of vicars, by the occult power of the servant-woman, and the constant care with which they were worn. These men seemed to wear on their backs the livery of a system of life; they belonged to one thought, their looks said the same word, their faces breathed a gentle resignation, a provoking quietude.

  “Is it an indiscretion, madame,” said Godefroid, “to ask the names of these gentlemen? I am ready to explain my life; can I know as much of theirs as custom will allow?”

  “That gentleman,” said Madame de la Chanterie, motioning to the tall, thin man, “is Monsieur Nicolas; he is a colonel of gendarmerie, retired with the rank of brigadier-general. And this,” she added, looking towards the stout little man, “is a former councillor of the royal courts of Paris, who retired from the magistracy in 1830. His name is Monsieur Joseph. Though you have only been with us one day, I will tell you that in the world Monsieur Nicolas once bore the name of the Marquis de Montauran, and Monsieur Joseph that of Lecamus, Baron de Tresnes; but for us, as for the world, those names no longer exist. These gentlemen are without heirs; they only advance by a little the oblivion which awaits their names; they are simply Monsieur Nicolas and Monsieur Joseph, as you will be Monsieur Godefroid.”

  As he heard those names, — one so celebrated in the annals of royalism by the catastrophe which put an end to the uprising of the Chouans; the other so revered in the halls of the old parliament of Paris, — Godefroid could not repress a quiver. He looked at these relics of the grandest things of the fallen monarchy, — the noblesse and the law, — and he could see no movement of the features, no change in the countenance, that revealed the presence of a worldly thought. Those men no longer remembered, or did not choose to remember, what they had been. This was Godefroid’s first lesson.

  “Each of your names, gentlemen, is a whole history in itself,” he said respectfully.

  “Yes, the history of my time, — ruins,” replied Monsieur Joseph.

  “You are in good company,” said Monsieur Alain.

  The latter can be described in a word: he was the small bourgeois of Paris, the worthy middle-class being with a kindly face, relieved by pure white hair, but made insipid by an eternal smile.

  As for the priest, the Abbe de Veze, his presence said all. The priest who fulfils his mission is known by the first glance he gives you, and by the glance that others who know him give to him.

  That which struck Godefroid most forcibly at first was the profound respect which the four lodgers manifested for Madame de la Chanterie. They all seemed, even the priest, in spite of the sacred character his functions gave him, to regard her as a queen. Godefroid also noticed their sobriety. Each seemed to eat only for nourishment. Madame de la Chanterie took, as did the rest, a single peach and half a bunch of grapes; but she told her new lodger, as she offered him the various dishes, not to imitate such temperance.

  Godefroid’s curiosity was excited to the highest degree by this first entrance on his new life. When they returned to the salon after breakfast, he was left alone; Madame de la Chanterie retired to the embrasure of a window and held a little private council with her four friends. This conference, entirely devoid of animation, lasted half an hour. They spoke together in a low voice, exchanging words which each of them appeared to have thought over. From time to time Monsieur Alain and Monsieur Joseph consulted a note-book, turning over its leaves.

  “See the faubourg,” said Madame de la Chanterie to Monsieur Joseph, who left the house.

  That was the only word Godefroid distinguished.

  “And you the Saint-Marceau quarter,” she continued, addressing Monsieur Nicolas. “Hunt through the faubourg Saint-Germain and see if you can find what we want;” this to the Abbe de Veze, who went away immediately. “And you, my dear Alain,” she added, smili
ng at the latter, “make an examination. There, those important matters are all settled,” she said, returning to Godefroid.

  She seated herself in her armchair, took a little piece of linen from the table before her, and began to sew as if she were employed to do so.

  Godefroid, lost in conjecture, and still thinking of a royalist conspiracy, took his landlady’s remark as an opening, and he began to study her as he seated himself beside her. He was struck by the singular dexterity with which she worked. Although everything about her bespoke the great lady, she showed the dexterity of a workwoman; for every one can see at a glance, by certain manipulations, the work of a workman or an amateur.

  “You do that,” said Godefroid, “as if you knew the trade.”

  “Alas!” she answered, without raising her head, “I did know it once out of necessity.”

  Two large tears came into her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks to the linen in her hand.

  “Forgive me, madame!” cried Godefroid.

  Madame de Chanterie looked at her new lodger, and saw such an expression of genuine regret upon his face, that she made him a friendly sign. After drying her eyes, she immediately recovered the calmness that characterized her face, which was less cold than chastened.

  “You are here, Monsieur Godefroid, — for you know already that we shall call you by your baptized name, — you are here in the midst of ruins caused by a great tempest. We have each been struck and wounded in our hearts, our family interests, or our fortunes, by that whirlwind of forty years, which overthrew religion and royalty, and dispersed the elements of all that made old France. Words that seem quite harmless do sometimes wound us all, and that is why we are so silent. We speak rarely of ourselves; we forget ourselves, and we have found a way to substitute another life for our lives. It is because, after hearing your confidence at Monsieur Mongenod’s, I thought there seemed a likeness between your situation and ours, that I induced my four friends to receive you among us; besides, we wanted another monk in our convent. But what are you going to do? No one can face solitude without some moral resources.”

  “Madame, I should be very glad, after hearing what you have said, if you yourself would be the guide of my destiny.”

  “You speak like a man of the world,” she answered, “and are trying to flatter me, — a woman of sixty! My dear child,” she went on, “let me tell you that you are here among persons who believe strongly in God; who have all felt his hand, and have yielded themselves to him almost as though they were Trappists. Have you ever remarked the profound sense of safety in a true priest when he has given himself to the Lord, when he listens to his voice, and strives to make himself a docile instrument in the hand of Providence? He has no longer vanity or self-love, — nothing of all that which wounds continually the hearts of the world. His quietude is equal to that of the fatalist; his resignation does truly enable him to bear all. The true priest, such a one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my dear Monsieur Godefroid, is a good mother. Well, a man can be a priest without the tonsure; all priests are not in orders. To vow one’s self to good, that is imitating a true priest; it is obedience to God. I am not preaching to you; I am not trying to convert you; I am explaining our lives to you.”

  “Instruct me, madame,” said Godefroid, deeply impressed, “so that I may not fail in any of your rules.”

  “That would be hard upon you; you will learn them by degrees. Never speak here of your misfortunes; they are slight compared to the catastrophes by which the lives of those you are now among were blasted.”

  While speaking thus, Madame de la Chanterie drew her needle and let her stitches with unbroken regularity; but here she paused, raised her head, and looked at Godefroid. She saw him charmed by the penetrating sweetness of her voice, which possessed, let us say it here, an apostolic unction. The sick soul contemplated with admiration the truly extraordinary phenomenon presented by this woman, whose face was now resplendent. Rosy tints were spreading on the waxen cheeks, her eyes shone, the youthfulness of her soul changed the light wrinkles into gracious lines, and all about her solicited affection. Godefroid in that one moment measured the gulf that separated this woman from common sentiments. He saw her inaccessible on a peak to which religion had led her; and he was still too worldly not to be keenly piqued, and to long to plunge through the gulf and up to the summit on which she stood, and stand beside her. Giving himself up to this desire, he related to her all the mistakes of his life, and much that he could not tell at Mongenod’s, where his confidences had been confined to his actual situation.

  “Poor child!”

  That exclamation, falling now and then from Madame de la Chanterie’s lips as he went on, dropped like balm upon the heart of the sufferer.

  “What can I substitute for so many hopes betrayed, so much affection wasted?” he asked, looking at his hostess, who had now grown thoughtful. “I came here,” he resumed, “to reflect and choose a course of action. I have lost my mother; will you replace her?”

  “Will you,” she said, “show a son’s obedience?”

  “Yes, if you will have the tenderness that commands it.”

  “I will try,” she said.

  Godefroid put out his hand to take that of his hostess, who gave it to him, guessing his intentions. He carried it respectfully to his lips. Madame de la Chanterie’s hand was exquisitely beautiful, — without a wrinkle; neither fat nor thin; white enough to be the envy of all young women, and shapely enough for the model of a sculptor. Godefroid had already admired those hands, conscious of their harmony with the spell of her voice, and the celestial blue of her glance.

  “Wait a moment,” said Madame de la Chanterie, rising and going into her own room.

  Godefroid was keenly excited; he did not know to what class of ideas her movement was to be attributed. His perplexity did not last long, for she presently returned with a book in her hand.

  “Here, my dear child,” she said, “are the prescriptions of a great physician of souls. When the things of ordinary life have not given us the happiness we expected of them, we must seek for happiness in a higher life. Here is the key of a new world. Read night and morning a chapter of this book; but bring your full attention to bear upon what you read; study the words as you would a foreign language. At the end of a month you will be another man. It is now twenty years that I have read a chapter every day; and my three friends, Messieurs Nicolas, Alain, and Joseph, would no more fail in that practice than they would fail in getting up and going to bed. Do as they do for love of God, for love of me,” she said, with a divine serenity, an august confidence.

  Godefroid turned over the book and read upon its back in gilt letters, IMITATION OF JESUS CHRIST. The simplicity of this old woman, her youthful candor, her certainty of doing a good deed, confounded the ex-dandy. Madame de la Chanterie’s face wore a rapturous expression, and her attitude was that of a woman who was offering a hundred thousand francs to a merchant on the verge of bankruptcy.

  “I have used that volume,” she said, “for twenty-six years. God grant its touch may be contagious. Go now and buy me another copy; for this is the hour when persons come here who must not be seen.”

  Godefroid bowed and went to his room, where he flung the book upon the table, exclaiming, —

  “Poor, good woman! Well, so be it!”

  V. THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS

  The book, like all books frequently read, opened in a particular place. Godefroid sat down as if to put his ideas in order, for he had gone through more emotion during this one morning than he had often done in the agitated months of his life; but above all, his curiosity was keenly excited. Letting his eyes fall by chance, as people will when their souls are launched in meditation, they rested mechanically on the two open pages of the book; almost unconsciously he read the following heading: —

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE ROYAL WAY OF THE HOLY CROSS

  He took up the book; a sentence of that noble chapter caught hi
s eye like a flash of light: —

  “He has walked before thee, bearing his cross; he died for thee,

  that thou mightest bear thy cross, and be glad to die upon it.

  “Go where thou wilt, seek what thou wilt, never canst thou find a

  nobler, surer path than the royal way of the holy cross.

  “Dispose and order all things according to thy desires and thine

  own judgment and still thou shalt find trials to suffer, whether

  thou wilt or no; and so the cross is there; be it pain of body or

  pain of mind.

  “Sometimes God will seem to leave thee, sometimes men will harass

  thee. But, far worse, thou wilt find thyself a burden to thyself,

  and no remedy will deliver thee, no consolation comfort thee:

  until it pleases God to end thy trouble thou must bear it; for it

  is God’s will that we suffer without consolation, that we may go

  to him without one backward look, humble through tribulation.”

  “What a strange book!” thought Godefroid, turning over the leaves. Then his eyes lighted on the following words: —

  “When thou hast reached the height of finding all afflictions

  sweet, since they have made thee love the love of Jesus Christ,

  then know thyself happy; for thou hast found thy paradise in this

  world.”

  Annoyed by this simplicity (the characteristic of strength), angry at being foiled by a book, he closed the volume; but even then he saw, in letters of gold on the green morocco cover, the words: —

  SEEK THAT WHICH IS ETERNAL, AND THAT ONLY.

  “Have they found it here?” he asked himself.

  He went out to buy the handsomest copy he could find of the “Imitation of Jesus Christ” thinking that Madame de la Chanterie would wish to read her chapter that night. When he reached the street he stood a moment near the door, uncertain which way to take and debating in what direction he was likely to find a bookseller. As he stood there he heard the heavy sound of the massive porte-cochere closing.