The Brotherhood of Consolation

Madame Vauthier, deceived by Godefroid’s apparent frankness, let a smile of satisfaction appear on her specious face, which confirmed all her lodger’s suspicions. Godefroid was convinced that the old woman was an accomplice in some plot that was brewing against the unfortunate old man.

“It is strange, monsieur,” she went on, “what fancies one takes into one’s head! You’ll think me very curious, but yesterday, when I saw you talking with Monsieur Bernard I said to myself that you were the clerk of some publisher; for this, you know, is a publisher’s quarter. I once lodged the foreman of a printing-house in the rue de Vaugirard, and his name was the same as yours – ”

“What does my business signify to you?” interrupted Godefroid.

“Oh, pooh! you can tell me, or you needn’t tell me; I shall know it all the same,” retorted Vauthier. “There’s Monsieur Bernard, for instance, for eighteen months he concealed everything from me, but on the nineteenth I discovered that he had been a magistrate, a judge somewhere or other, I forget where, and was writing a book on law matters. What did he gain by concealing it, I ask you. If he had told me I’d have said nothing about it – so there!”

“I am not yet a publisher’s clerk, but I expect to be,” said Godefroid.

“I thought so!” exclaimed Madame Vauthier, turning round from the bed she had been making as a pretext for staying in the room. “You have come here to cut the ground from under the feet of – Good! a man warned is a man armed.”

“Stop!” cried Godefroid, placing himself between the Vauthier and the door. “Look here, what interest have you in the matter?”

“Gracious!” said the old woman, eyeing Godefroid cautiously, “you’re a bold one, anyhow.”

She went to the door of the outer room and bolted it; then she came back and sat down on a chair beside the fire.

“On my word of honor, and as sure as my name is Vauthier, I took you for a student until I saw you giving your wood to that old Bernard. Ha! you’re a sly one; and what a play-actor! I was so certain you were a ninny! Look here, will you guarantee me a thousand francs? As sure as the sun shines, my old Barbet and Monsieur Metivier have promised me five hundred to keep my eyes open for them.”

“They! five hundred francs! nonsense!” cried Godefroid. “I know their ways; two hundred is the very most, my good woman, and even that is only promised; you can’t assign it. But I will say this: if you will put me in the way to do the business they want to do with Monsieur Bernard I will pay you four hundred francs. Now, then, how does the matter stand?”

“They have advanced fifteen hundred francs upon the work,” said Madame Vauthier, making no further effort at deception, “and the old man has signed an acknowledgment for three thousand. They wouldn’t do it under a hundred per cent. He thought he could easily pay them out of his book, but they have arranged to get the better of him there. It was they who sent Cartier here, and the other creditors.”

Here Godefroid gave the old woman a glance of ironical intelligence, which showed her that he saw through the role she was playing in the interest of her proprietor. Her words were, in fact, a double illumination to Godefroid; the curious scene between himself and the gardener was now explained.

“Well,” she resumed, “they have got him now. Where is he to find three thousand francs? They intend to offer him five hundred the day he puts the first volume of his book into their hands, and five hundred for each succeeding volume. The affair isn’t in their names; they have put it into the hands of a publisher whom Barbet set up on the quai des Augustins.”

“What, that little fellow?”

“Yes, that little Morand, who was formerly Barbet’s clerk. It seems they expect a good bit of money out of the affair.”

“There’s a good bit to spend,” said Godefroid, with a significant grimace.

Just then a gentle rap was heard at the door of the outer room. Godefroid, glad of the interruption, having got all he wanted to know out of Madame Vauthier, went to open it.

“What is said, is said, Madame Vauthier,” he remarked as he did so. The visitor was Monsieur Bernard.

“Ah! Monsieur Bernard,” cried the widow when she saw him, “I’ve got a letter downstairs for you.”

The old man followed her down a few steps. When they were out of hearing from Godefroid’s room she stopped.

“No,” she said, “I haven’t any letter; I only wanted to tell you to beware of that young man; he belongs to a publishing house.”

“That explains everything,” thought the old man.

He went back to his neighbor with a very different expression of countenance.

The look of calm coldness with which Monsieur Bernard now entered the room contrasted so strongly with the frank and cordial air he had worn not an instant earlier that Godefroid was forcibly struck by it.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” said the old man, stiffly, “but you have shown me many favors, and a benefactor creates certain rights in those he benefits.”

Godefroid bowed.

“I, who for the last five years have endured a passion like that of our Lord, I, who for thirty-six years represented social welfare, government, public vengeance, have, as you may well believe, no illusions – no, I have nothing left but anguish. Well, monsieur, I was about to say that your little act in closing the door of my wretched lair, that simple little thing, was to me the glass of water Bossuet tells of. Yes, I did find in my heart, that exhausted heart which cannot weep, just as my withered body cannot sweat, I did find a last drop of the elixir which makes us fancy in our youth that all human beings are noble, and I came to offer you my hand; I came to bring you that celestial flower of belief in good – ”

“Monsieur Bernard,” said Godefroid, remembering the kind old Alain’s lessons. “I have done nothing to obtain your gratitude. You are quite mistaken.”

“Ah, that is frankness indeed!” said the former magistrate. “Well, it pleases me. I was about to reproach you; pardon me, I now esteem you. So you are a publisher, and you have come here to get my work away from Barbet, Metivier, and Morand? All is now explained. You are making me advances in money as they did, only you do it with some grace.”

“Did Madame Vauthier just tell you that I was employed by a publisher?” asked Godefroid.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, Monsieur Bernard, before I can say how much I can give over what those other gentlemen offer, I must know the terms on which you stand with them.”

“That is fair,” said Monsieur Bernard, who seemed rather pleased to find himself the object of a competition by which he might profit. “Do you know what my work is?”

“No; I only know it is a good enterprise from a business point of view.”

“It is only half-past nine, my daughter has breakfasted, and Cartier will not bring the flowers for an hour or more; we have time to talk, Monsieur – Monsieur who?”

“Godefroid.”

“Monsieur Godefroid, the work in question was projected by me in 1825, at the time when the ministry, being alarmed by the persistent destruction of landed estates, proposed that law of primogeniture which was, you will remember, defeated. I had remarked certain imperfections in our codes and in the fundamental institutions of France. Our codes have often been the subject of important works, but those works were all from the point of view of jurisprudence. No one had even ventured to consider the work of the Revolution, or (if you prefer it) of Napoleon, as a whole; no one had studied the spirit of those laws, and judged them in their application. That is the main purpose of my work; it is entitled, provisionally, ‘The Spirit of the New Laws;’ it includes organic laws as well as codes, all codes; for we have many more than five codes. Consequently, my work is in several volumes; six in all, the last being a volume of citations, notes, and references. It will take me now about three months to finish it. The proprietor of this house, a former publisher, of whom I made a few inquiries, perceived, scented I may say, the chance of a speculation. I, in the first instance, thought only of doing a service to my country, and not of my own profit. Well, this Barbet has circumvented me. You will ask me how it was possible for a publisher to get the better of a magistrate, a man who knows the laws. Well, it was in this way: You know my history; Barbet is an usurer; he has the keen glance and the shrewd action of that breed of men. His money was always at my heels to help me over my worst needs. Strange to say, on the days I was most defenceless against despair he happened to appear.”

“No, no, my dear Monsieur Bernard,” said Godefroid, “he had a spy in Madame Vauthier; she told him when you needed money. But the terms, the conditions? Tell them to me briefly.”

“He has lent me from time to time fifteen hundred francs, for which I have signed three notes of a thousand francs each, and those notes are secured by a sort of mortgage on the copyright of my book, so that I cannot sell my book unless I pay off those notes, and the notes are now protested, – he has taken the matter into court and obtained a judgment against me. Such are the complications of poverty! At the lowest valuation, the first edition of my great work, a work representing ten years’ toil and thirty-six years’ experience, is fully worth ten thousand francs. Well, ten days ago Morand proposed to give me three thousand francs and my notes cancelled for the entire rights in perpetuity. Now as it is not possible for me to refund the amount of my notes and interest, namely, three thousand two hundred and forty francs, I must, – unless you intend to step between those usurers and me, – I must yield to them. They are not content with my word of honor; they first obtained the notes, then they had them protested, and now I am threatened with arrest for debt. If I could manage to pay them back, those scoundrels would have doubled their money. If I accept their terms they will make a fortune out of my book and I shall get almost nothing; one of them is a paper-maker, and God knows how they may keep down the costs of publication. They will have my name, and that alone will sell ten thousand copies for them.”

“But, monsieur, how could you, a former magistrate! – ”

“How could I help it? Not a friend, not a claim that I could make! And yet I saved many heads, if I made some fall! And, then, my daughter, my daughter! whose nurse I am, whose companion I must be; so that I can work but a few hours snatched from sleep. Ah, young man! none but the wretched can judge the wretched! Sometimes I think I used to be too stern to misery.”

“Monsieur, I do not ask your name. I cannot provide three thousand francs, especially if I pay Halpersohn and your lesser debts; but I will save you if you will promise me not to part with your book without letting me know. It is impossible for me to arrange a matter as important as this without consulting others. My backers are powerful, and I can promise you success if you, in return, will promise me absolute secrecy, even to your children, and keep your promise.”

“The only success I care for is the recovery of my poor Vanda; for such sufferings as hers extinguish every other feeling in a father’s heart. As for fame, what is that to one who sees an open grave before him?”

“I will come and see you this evening; they expect Halpersohn at any time, and I shall go there day after day until I find him.”

“Ah, monsieur! if you should be the cause of my daughter’s recovery, I would like, – yes, I would like to give you my work!”

“Monsieur,” said Godefroid, “I am not a publisher.”

The old man started with surprise.

“I let that old Vauthier think so in order to discover the traps they were laying for you.”

“Then who are you?”

“Godefroid,” replied the initiate; “and since you allow me to offer you enough to make the pot boil, you can call me, if you like, Godefroid de Bouillon.”

The old man was far too moved to laugh at a joke. He held out his hand to Godefroid, and pressed that which the young man gave him in return.

“You wish to keep your incognito?” he said, looking at Godefroid sadly, with some uneasiness.

“If you will allow it.”

“Well, as you will. Come to-night, and you shall see my daughter if her condition permits.”

This was evidently a great concession in the eyes of the poor father, and he had the satisfaction of seeing, by the look on Godefroid’s face, that it was understood.

An hour later, Cartier returned with a number of beautiful flowering plants, which he placed himself in the jardinieres, covering them with fresh moss. Godefroid paid his bill; also that of the circulating library, which was brought soon after. Books and flowers! – these were the daily bread of this poor invalid, this tortured creature, who was satisfied with so little.

As he thought of this family, coiled by misfortunes like that of the Laocoon (sublime image of so many lives), Godefroid, who was now on his way on foot to the rue Marbeuf, was conscious in his heart of more curiosity than benevolence. This sick woman, surrounded by luxury in the midst of such direful poverty, made him forget the horrible details of the strangest of all nervous disorders, which is happily rare, though recorded by a few historians. One of our most gossiping chroniclers, Tallemant des Reaux, cites an instance of it. The mind instinctively pictures a woman as being elegant in the midst of her worst sufferings; and Godefroid let himself dwell on the pleasure of entering that chamber where none but the father, son, and doctor had been admitted for six years. Nevertheless, he ended by blaming himself for his curiosity. He even felt that the sentiment, natural as it was, would cease as he went on exercising his beneficent ministry, from the mere fact of seeing more distressed homes and many sorrows.

Such agents do reach in time a divine serenity which nothing surprises or confounds; just as in love we come to the divine quietude of that emotion, sure of its strength, sure of its lastingness, through our constant experience of its pains and sweetnesses.

Godefroid was told that Halpersohn had returned during the night, but had been obliged to go out at once to visit patients who were awaiting him. The porter told Godefroid to come the next day before nine o’clock in the morning.

Remembering Monsieur Alain’s injunction to parsimony in his personal expenses, Godefroid dined for twenty-five sous in the rue de Tournon, and was rewarded for his abnegation by finding himself in the midst of compositors and pressmen. He heard a discussion on costs of manufacturing, and learned that an edition of one thousand copies of an octavo volume of forty sheets did not cost more than thirty sous a copy, in the best style of printing. He resolved to ascertain the price at which publishers of law books sold their volumes, so as to be prepared for a discussion with the men who held Monsieur Bernard in their clutches if he should have to meet them.

Towards seven in the evening he returned to the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, by way of the rue de Vaugiraud and the rue de l’Ouest, and he saw then how deserted the quarter was, for he met no one. It is true that the cold was rigorous, and the snow fell in great flakes, the wheels of the carriages making no noise upon the pavements.

“Ah, here you are, monsieur!” said Madame Vauthier. “If I had known you were coming home so early I would have made your fire.”

“I don’t want one,” said Godefroid, seeing that the widow followed him. “I shall spend the evening in Monsieur Bernard’s apartment.”

“Well, well! you must be his cousin, if you are hand and glove like that! Perhaps monsieur will finish now the little conversation we began.”

“Ah, yes! – about that four hundred francs. Look here, my good Madame Vauthier, you are trying to see which way the cat jumps, and you’ll tumble yourself between two stools. As for me, you have betrayed me, and made me miss the whole affair.”

“Now, don’t think that, my dear monsieur. To-morrow, while you breakfast – ”

“To-morrow I shall not breakfast here. I am going out, like your authors, at cock-crow.”

Godefroid’s antecedents, his life as a man of the world and a journalist, served him in this, that he felt quite sure, unless he took this tone, that Barbet’s spy would warn the old publisher of danger, and probably lead to active measures under which Monsieur Bernard would before long be arrested; whereas, if he left the trio of harpies to suppose that their scheme ran no risk of defeat, they would keep quiet.

But Godefroid did not yet know Parisian human nature when embodied in a Vauthier. That woman resolved to have Godefroid’s money and Barbet’s too. She instantly ran off to her proprietor, while Godefroid changed his clothes in order to present himself properly before the daughter of Monsieur Bernard.

XV. AN EVENING WITH VANDA

Eight o’clock was striking from the convent of the Visitation, the clock of the quarter, when the inquisitive Godefroid tapped gently at his neighbor’s door. Auguste opened it. As it happened to be a Saturday, the young lad had his evening to himself. Godefroid beheld him in a little sack-coat of black velvet, a blue silk cravat, and black trousers. But his surprise at the youth’s appearance, so different from that of this outside life, ceased as soon as he had entered the invalid’s chamber. He then understood the reason why both father and son were well dressed.

For a moment the contrast between the squalor of the other rooms, as he had seen them that morning, and the luxury of this chamber, was so great that Godefroid was dazzled, though habituated for years to the luxury and elegance procured by wealth.

The walls of the room were hung with yellow silk, relieved by twisted fringes of a bright green, giving a gay and cheerful aspect to the chamber, the cold tiled floor of which was hidden by a moquette carpet with a white ground strewn with flowers. The windows, draped by handsome curtains lined with white silk, were like conservatories, so full were they of plants in flower. The blinds were lowered, which prevented this luxury, so rare in that quarter of the town, from being seen from the street. The woodwork was painted in white enamel, touched up, here and there, by a few gold lines.

At the door was a heavy portiere, embroidered by hand with fantastic foliage on a yellow ground, so thick that all sounds from without were stifled. This magnificent curtain was made by the sick woman herself, who could work, when she had the use of her hands, like a fairy.

At the farther end of the room, and opposite to the door, was the fireplace, with a green velvet mantel-shelf, on which a few extremely elegant ornaments, the last relics of the opulence of two families, were arranged. These consisted of a curious clock, in the shape of an elephant supporting on its back a porcelain tower which was filled with the choicest flowers; two candelabra in the same style, and several precious Chinese treasures. The fender, andirons, tongs, and shovel were all of the handsomest description.

The largest of the flower-stands was placed in the middle of the room, and above it hung a porcelain chandelier designed with wreaths of flowers.

The bed on which the old man’s daughter lay was one of those beautiful white and gold carved bedsteads such as were made in the Louis XV. period. By the sick woman’s pillow was a very pretty marquetry table, on which were the various articles necessary to this bedridden life. Against the wall was a bracket lamp with two branches, either of which could be moved forward or back by a mere touch of the hand. A small table, adapted to the use of the invalid, extended in front of her. The bed, covered with a beautiful counterpane, and draped with curtains held back by cords, was heaped with books, a work-basket, and articles of embroidery, beneath which Godefroid would scarcely have distinguished the sick woman herself had it not been for the light of the bracket lamps.

There was nothing of her to be seen but a face of extreme whiteness, browned around the eyes by suffering, in which shone eyes of fire, its principal adornment being a magnificent mass of black hair, the numerous heavy curls of which, carefully arranged, showed that the dressing of those beautiful locks occupied a good part of the invalid’s morning. This supposition was further strengthened by the portable mirror which lay on the bed.

No modern arrangement for comfort was lacking. Even a few knick-knacks, which amused poor Vanda, proved that the father’s love was almost fanatical.

The old man rose from an elegant Louis XV. sofa in white and cold, covered with tapestry, and advanced to Godefroid, who would certainly not have recognized him elsewhere; for that cold, stern face now wore the gay expression peculiar to old men of the world, who retain the manners and apparent frivolity of the nobility about a court. His wadded violet gown was in keeping with this luxury, and he took snuff from a gold box studded with diamonds.

“Here, my dear daughter,” said Monsieur Bernard, taking Godefroid by the hand, “is the neighbor of whom I told you.”

He signed to his grandson to draw up one of two armchairs, similar in style to the sofa, which stood beside the fireplace.

“Monsieur’s name is Godefroid, and he is full of friendly kindness for us.”

Vanda made a motion with her head in answer to Godefroid’s low bow; by the very way in which her neck bent and then recovered itself, Godefroid saw that the whole physical life of the invalid was in her head. The thin arms and flaccid hands lay on the fine, white linen of the sheets, like things not connected with the body, which, indeed, seemed to fill no place at all in the bed. The articles necessary for a sick person were on shelves standing behind the bedstead, and were concealed by a drawn curtain.

“You are the first person, monsieur, – except my doctors, who are not men to me, – whom I have seen for six years; therefore you cannot doubt the interest you have excited in my mind, since my father told me this morning that you were to pay me a visit – interest! no, it was an unconquerable curiosity, like that of our mother Eve. My father, who is so good to me, and my son, whom I love so much, do certainly suffice to fill the desert of a soul which is almost without a body; but after all, that soul is still a woman’s; I feel it in the childish joy the thought of your visit has brought me. You will do me the pleasure to take a cup of tea with us, I hope?”

“Monsieur has promised to pass the evening here,” said the old man, with the air of a millionnaire receiving a guest.

Auguste, sitting on a tapestried chair at a marquetry table with brass trimmings, was reading a book by the light of the candelabra on the chimney piece.

“Auguste, my dear,” said his mother, “tell Jean to serve tea in an hour. Would you believe it monsieur,” she added, “that for six years I have been waited upon wholly by my father and son, and now, I really think, I could bear no other attendance. If they were to fail me I should die. My father will not even allow Jean, a poor Norman who has served us for thirty years, to come into my room.”

“I should think not!” said the old man, quickly; “monsieur knows him; he chops wood and brings it in, and cooks; he wears dirty aprons, and would soon spoil all this elegance in which you take such pleasure – this room is really the whole of life to my poor daughter, monsieur.”

“Ah! madame, your father is quite right.”

“But why?” she said; “if Jean did any damage to my room my father would restore it.”

“Yes, my child; but remember you could not leave it; you don’t know what Parisian tradesmen are; they would take three months to renovate your room. Let Jean take care of it? no, indeed! how can you think of it? Auguste and I take such precautions that we allow no dust, and so avoid all sweeping.”

“It is a matter of health, not economy,” said Godefroid; “your father is right.”

“I am not complaining,” said Vanda, in a caressing voice.

That voice was a concert of delightful sounds. Soul, motion, life itself were concentrated in the glance and in the voice of this woman; for Vanda had succeeded by study, for which time was certainly not lacking to her, in conquering the difficulty produced by the loss of her teeth.

“I have much to make me happy in the midst of my sufferings, monsieur,” she said; “and certainly ample means are a great help in bearing trouble. If we had been poor I should have died eighteen years ago, but I still live. Oh, yes, I have many enjoyments, and they are all the greater because they are perpetually won from death. I am afraid you will think me quite garrulous,” she added, smiling.