On the other hand, the cloud upon his life might at a given moment serve to neutralize his honor; and Rastignac, while rejecting the proposal of de Trailles and Franchessini to put the mystery into the hands of the police, did not himself renounce a means which, dangerous as it seemed to him, he might use if occasion warranted.
In this situation Madame de l’Estorade could be useful to him in two ways. Through her he could meet the new deputy accidentally, without appearing to seek him, and thus study him at his ease, in order to know if he had a vulnerable point accessible to persuasion. And, secondly, if he found him unpersuadable, he could let Madame de l’Estorade know in confidence of the secret inquiry about to be carried on into Sallenauve’s antecedents, which, conveyed by her to the deputy, would have the effect of making him cautious and, consequently, less aggressive.
However, his immediate plan suffered some modification; for Madame de l’Estorade was not at home, and he was just leaving the house when Monsieur de l’Estorade returned on foot.
“My wife will be here soon,” he said; “she has gone to Ville d’Avray with her daughter, and Monsieur and Madame Octave de Camps. Monsieur Marie-Gaston, one of our good friends, — you know, the charming poet who married Louise de Chaulieu, — has a country-house in that neighborhood, where his wife died. He returned there to-day for the first time since his misfortune; and these ladies have had the charity to meet him there, and so lessen the first shock of his recollections.”
“I can therefore hardly hope to see her to-day; and it was to her, and not to you, my dear count, that I came to offer my excuses for the scene of last night which seemed to annoy her much. Say to her, if you please, that I will take another opportunity of doing so, — By the bye,” he added, “the election of your friend Sallenauve is making a devilish talk; the king spoke to me about it this morning, and I did not please him by repeating the favorable opinion you expressed of the new deputy last night.”
“Well, but you know the tribune is a reef on which reputations are often wrecked. I am sorry you represented Sallenauve to the king as being on intimate terms with us. I have nothing to do with elections; but I may say that I did all I could to dissuade this objectionable candidate from presenting himself.”
“Of course the king cannot blame you for merely knowing an Opposition deputy.”
“No; but last night, in your salon, you seemed to imply that my wife was much interested in him. I did not wish to contradict you before witnesses; besides, really, one can’t repudiate a man to whom we are under a great obligation. But my wife, ever since the day he was nominated, feels that our gratitude has become a burden. She was saying to me the other day that we had better let the acquaintance die out.”
“Not, I hope, until you have done me a service by means of it,” said Rastignac.
“At your orders, my dear minister, in all things.”
“I want to meet this man and judge him for myself. To send him an invitation to dinner would be useless; under the eye of his party, he would not dare accept it, or if he did, he would be on his guard, and I should not see him as he is. But if I met him accidentally, I should find him without armor, and I could feel for his vulnerable spots.”
“To invite you both to dine with me might be open to the same objection; but I could, one of these evenings, make sure of a visit from him, and let you know — Stop!” cried Monsieur de l’Estorade; “a bright idea has come to me.”
“If it is really bright,” thought Rastignac, “it is fortunate I did not meet the wife.”
“We are just about to give a children’s ball, — a fancy of my little girl, to which Madame de l’Estorade, weary of refusing, has at last consented; the child wishes it to be given in celebration of her rescue. Of course, therefore, the rescuer is a necessary and integral part of the affair. Come to the ball, and I promise you noise enough to cover all investigations of your man; and certainly premeditation will never be suspected at such a meeting.”
“You are too good,” replied Rastignac, pressing the peer’s hand affectionately. “Perhaps we had better say nothing about it to Madame de l’Estorade; a mere hint given to our man would put him on his guard, and I want to spring upon him suddenly, like a tiger on his prey.”
“That’s understood — complete surprise to everybody.”
“Adieu, then,” said Rastignac; “I shall make the king laugh to-morrow at the notion of children plotting politics.”
“Ah!” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade, philosophically, “but isn’t that how life itself is carried on? — great effects from little causes.”
Rastignac had scarcely departed before Madame de l’Estorade returned with Nais and Monsieur and Madame de Camps.
“My dear,” said her husband, “you have just missed a charming visitor.”
“Who was it?” asked the countess, indifferently.
“The minister of Public Works, who came to make you his excuses. He noticed with regret the disagreeable impression made upon you by the theories of that scamp de Ronquerolles.”
“He has taken a good deal of trouble for a very small matter,” said Madame de l’Estorade, not sharing her husband’s enthusiasm.
“But all the same,” he replied, “it was very gracious of him to think of your feelings.” Then, in order to change the conversation, he asked Madame de Camps about their visit.
“Oh!” she replied, “the place is enchanting; you have no idea of its elegance and comfort.”
“How about Gaston?” asked Monsieur de l’Estorade.
“He was, I won’t say very calm,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, “but at any rate master of himself. His condition satisfied me all the more because the day had begun by a serious annoyance to him.”
“What was it?”
“Monsieur de Sallenauve could not come with him,” replied Nais, taking upon herself to reply.
She was one of those children brought up in a hot-house, who put themselves forward much oftener than they ought to do.
“Nais,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “go to Mary and tell her to do up your hair.”
The child understood perfectly well that she was sent away for speaking improperly, and she made a face as she left the room.
“This morning,” said Madame de l’Estorade as soon as Nais had shut the door, “Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve were to start together for Ville d’Avray, and meet us there, as agreed upon. But last night they had a visit from that organist who took such an active part in the election. He came to hear the Italian housekeeper sing and judge if she were ready to go upon the stage.”
“Yes, yes,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “of course Sallenauve wants to get rid of her now that he has ceased to make statues.”
“Just so,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, with a slight tone of asperity. “In order to put a stop to all calumny Monsieur de Sallenauve wishes her to carry out her idea of going on the stage; but he wanted, in the first place, an opinion he could trust. Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve accompanied the organist to Saint-Sulpice, where, during the services of the Month of Mary, the Italian woman sings every evening. After hearing her, the organist said she had a fine contralto that was worth, at the lowest, sixty thousand francs a year.”
“Just the revenue of my iron-works,” remarked Monsieur de Camps.
“That evening,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “Monsieur de Sallenauve told his housekeeper the opinion given of her talent, and with great kindness and delicacy let her know that she must now carry out her intention of supporting herself in that way. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I think the time has come. We will talk of it later’; and she stopped the conversation. This morning when the breakfast hour came, there was no sign of her. Thinking she must be ill, Monsieur de Sallenauve sent an old charwoman who does the rough work of the house to her room. No answer. Much disturbed, Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve went themselves to see what it meant. After knocking and calling in vain, they determined to open the
door, the key of which was outside. In the room no housekeeper! but in place of her a letter addressed to Monsieur de Sallenauve, in which she said that finding herself an embarrassment to him, she had retired to the house of one of her friends, thanking him for all his goodness to her.”
“The bird has found its wings,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “and takes flight.”
“That is not Monsieur de Sallenauve’s idea,” replied the countess; “he does not believe in such ingratitude. He is confident that, feeling herself a burden to him and yielding to the desperation which is natural to her, she felt obliged to leave his house without giving him a chance in any manner to provide for her future.”
“A good riddance!” remarked Monsieur de l’Estorade.
“Neither Monsieur de Sallenauve nor Monsieur Gaston takes that stoical view of it. In view of the headstrong nature of the woman, they fear some violence to herself, which, as we know, she once attempted. Or else they dread some evil adviser. The charwoman states that two or three visits have been lately made at the house by a lady of middle age, richly dressed, in a carriage, whose manner was singular, and who seemed to desire secrecy in speaking with Luigia.”
“Some charitable woman, of course,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “the runaway is given to piety.”
“At any rate the truth must be discovered, and it was that which kept Monsieur de Sallenauve from accompanying Monsieur Gaston to Ville d’Avray.”
“Well,” remarked Monsieur de l’Estorade, “in spite of their respective virtue, it is my opinion he holds by her.”
“In any case,” returned Madame de l’Estorade, emphasizing the word, “she does not hold by him.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Madame de Camps; “to avoid a man is often the greatest proof of love.”
Madame de l’Estorade looked at her friend with a vexed air, and a slight tinge of color came into her cheeks. But no one took notice of it, for at this moment the servant threw open the door and announced dinner.
After dinner, the theatre was proposed; that is one of the amusements that Parisians miss the most in the provinces. Monsieur Octave de Camps, coming from his “villanous iron-works,” as Madame de l’Estorade called them, had arrived in Paris eager for this pleasure, which his wife, more serious and sober, did not enjoy to the same extent. Therefore, when Monsieur de Camps proposed going to the Porte-Saint-Martin to see a fairy piece then much in vogue, Madame Octave replied: —
“Neither Madame de l’Estorade nor I have the least desire to go out this evening; we are very tired with our expedition. Take Rene and Nais; they will enjoy the fairies far more than we.”
The two children awaited in deep anxiety the permission which Madame de l’Estorade finally granted; and a few moments later the two friends, left to themselves, prepared for an evening of comfortable talk.
“I am not at home to any one,” said Madame de l’Estorade to Lucas, as soon as her family had departed.
“Now that we are alone,” said Madame de Camps, “I shall proceed to blows; I have not travelled two hundred miles to wrap up in cotton-wool the truth I have come to tell you.”
“Ready to hear it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing.
“Your last letter, my dear, simply frightened me.”
“Why? Because I told you I was trying to keep a man at a distance?”
“Yes. Why keep him at a distance? If Monsieur de Camps or Monsieur Gaston or Monsieur de Rastignac were to make a practice of coming here habitually, would you trouble yourself about them?”
“No; but they have not the same claim upon me: it is that I fear.”
“Tell me, do you think Monsieur de Sallenauve loves you?”
“No; I am now quite sure to the contrary; and I also think that on my side — ”
“We’ll talk about that presently; now I want to ask if you desire Monsieur de Sallenauve to love you?”
“Heaven forbid!”
“Well, then, the best possible way to make him do so is to wound his self-love, and show yourself unjust and ungrateful to him; you will only force him to think the more of you.”
“But, my dear friend, isn’t that a very far-fetched observation?”
“Did you never observe that men are more taken by our snubs than by our caresses? Severity fixes their attention upon us.”
“If that were so, all the men we disdain and never think of would sigh for us.”
“Oh! my dear, don’t make me talk such nonsense. To take fire, a man must have some degree of combustibility; and if that other person is lost to him forever, why shouldn’t he, as you said yourself, ricochet upon you?”
“That other person is not lost to him; he expects, more than ever, to find her by the help of a very clever seeker, the mother-superior of a convent at Arcis.”
“Very good; then why employ the delay in holding him at arm’s-length, — a proceeding which will only draw him towards you?”
“My dear moralist, I don’t admit your theory in the least. As for Monsieur de Sallenauve, he will be much too busy with his duties in the Chamber to think of me. Besides, he is a man who is full of self-respect; he will be mortified by my manner, which will seem to him both ungrateful and unjust. If I try to put two feet of distance between us, he will put four; you may rely on that.”
“And you, my dear?” asked Madame de Camps.
“How do you mean? — I?”
“You who are not busy, who have no Chamber to occupy your mind; you who have, I will agree, a great deal of self-respect, but who know as little about the things of the heart as the veriest school-girl, — what will become of you under the dangerous system you are imposing upon yourself?”
“If I don’t love him when near, I shall certainly love him still less at a distance.”
“So that when you see him take his ostracism coolly, your self-love as a woman will not be piqued.”
“Certainly not; that is precisely the result I desire.”
“And if you find, on the contrary, that he complains of you, or if he does not complain, that he suffers from your treatment, will your conscience tell you absolutely nothing?”
“It will tell me that I am doing right, and that I could not do otherwise.”
“And if success attends him and fame with its hundred voices talks of him, how will you think of him?”
“As I think of Monsieur Thiers and Monsieur Berryer.”
“And Nais, who adores him and will probably say, the first time he dines with you, ‘Ah! mamma, how well he talks!’ — ”
“If you are going to argue on the chatter of a child — ”
“And Monsieur de l’Estorade, who already irritates you? He is beginning to-day to sacrifice him to the spirit of party; shall you silence him every time he makes some malevolent insinuation about Monsieur de Sallenauve, and denies his honor and his talent? — you know the judgment people make on those who do not think as we do.”
“In short,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “you are trying to make me admit that the surest way to think of a person is to put him out of sight.”
“Listen to me, my dear,” said Madame de Camps, with a slight touch of gravity. “I have read and re-read your letters. You were there your own self, more natural and less quibbling than you are now, and an impression has remained upon my mind: it is that Monsieur de Sallenauve has touched your heart, though he may not have entered it.”
Madame de l’Estorade made a gesture of denial, but the confessor went on: —
“I know that idea provokes you; you can’t very well admit to me what you have studiously denied to yourself. But what is, is. We don’t say of a man, ‘A sort of magnetism issues from him, one feels his eye without meeting it’; we don’t cry out, ‘I am invulnerable on the side of love,’ without having had some prickings of it.”
“But so many things have happened since I wrote that nonsense.”
“True, he was only a sculptor then, and before long he may be a minister, — not like Monsieur
de Rastignac, but like our great poet, Canalis.”
“I like sermons with definite deductions,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a touch of impatience.
“That is what Vergniaud said to Robespierre on the 31st of May, and I reply, with Robespierre, Yes, I’ll draw my conclusion; and it is against your self-confidence as a woman, who, having reached the age of thirty-two without a suspicion of what love is, cannot admit that at this late date she may be subjected to the common law.”
“But what I want is a practical conclusion,” said Madame de l’Estorade, tapping her foot.
“My practical conclusion, — here it is,” replied Madame Octave. “If you will not persist in the folly of swimming against the current, I see no danger whatever in your being submerged. You are strong; you have principles and religion; you adore your children; you love Monsieur de l’Estorade, their father, in them. With all that ballast you cannot sink.”
“Well?” said Madame de l’Estorade, interrogatively.
“Well, there is no need to have recourse to violent measures, the success of which is very problematical. Remain as you are; build no barricades when no one attacks you. Don’t excite tempests of heart and conscience merely to pacify your conscience and quiet your heart, now ruffled only by a tiny breeze. No doubt between a man and a woman the sentiment of friendship does take something of the character ordinarily given to love; but such friendship is neither an impossible illusion nor is it a yawning gulf.”
“Then,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a thoughtful air, “do you wish me to make a friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve?”
“Yes, dear, in order not to make him a fixed idea, a regret, a struggle, — three things which poison life.”
“But my husband, who has already had a touch of jealousy?”
“As for your husband, I find him somewhat changed, and not for the better. I miss that deference he always showed to you personally, to your ideas and impressions, — a deference which honored him more than he thought, because there is true greatness in the power to admire. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that public life is spoiling him a little. As you cannot be with him in the Chamber of peers, he is beginning to suspect that he can have a life without you. If I were you, I should watch these symptoms of independence, and not let the work of your lifetime come to nought.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 924