The Lesser Bourgeoisie

“Mossieu,” returned the great citizen, “I did my duty at that time, and nothing more. As for the offer you have been so good as to make to me, I cannot accept it; satisfied with my humble fortunes, I feel neither the need nor the desire to re-enter an administrative career; and, in common with the Latin poet, I may say, ‘Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt.’”

Thus elevated in the character of its habitues, the salon Thuillier still needed a new element of life. Thanks to the help of Madame de Godollo, a born organizer, who successfully put to profit the former connection of Colleville with the musical world, a few artists came to make diversion from bouillotte and boston. Old-fashioned and venerable, those two games were forced to beat a retreat before whist, the only manner, said the Hungarian countess, in which respectable people can kill time.

Like Louis XVI., who began by putting his own hand to reforms which subsequently engulfed his throne, Brigitte had encouraged, at first, this domestic revolution; the need of sustaining her position suitably in the new quarter to which she had emigrated had made her docile to all suggestions of comfort and elegance. But the day on which occurred the scene we are about to witness, an apparently trivial detail had revealed to her the danger of the declivity on which she stood. The greater number of the new guests, recently imported by Thuillier, knew nothing of his sister’s supremacy in his home. On arrival, therefore, they all asked Thuillier to present them to Madame, and, naturally, Thuillier could not say to them that his wife was a figure-head who groaned under the iron hand of a Richelieu, to whom the whole household bent the knee. It was therefore not until the first homage rendered to the sovereign “de jure” was paid, that the new-comers were led up to Brigitte, and by reason of the stiffness which displeasure at this misplacement of power gave to her greeting they were scarcely encouraged to pay her any further attentions. Quick to perceive this species of overthrow, Queen Elizabeth said to herself, with that profound instinct of domination which was her ruling passion: —

“If I don’t take care I shall soon be nobody in this house.”

Burrowing into that idea, she came to think that if the project of making a common household with la Peyrade, then Celeste’s husband, were carried out, the situation which was beginning to alarm her would become even worse. From that moment, and by sudden intuition, Felix Phellion, that good young man, with his head too full of mathematics ever to become a formidable rival to her sovereignty, seemed to her a far better match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first, on seeing the Phellion father and mother arrive without the son, to express regret at his absence. Brigitte, however, was not the only one to feel the injury that the luckless professor was doing to his prospects in thus keeping away from her reception. Madame Thuillier, with simple candor, and Celeste with feigned reserve, both made manifest their displeasure. As for Madame de Godollo, who, in spite of a very remarkable voice, usually required much pressing before she would sing (the piano having been opened since her reign began), she now went up to Madame Phellion and asked her to accompany her, and between two verses of a song she said in her ear: —

“Why isn’t your son here?”

“He is coming,” said Madame Phellion. “His father talked to him very decidedly; but to-night there happens to be a conjunction of I don’t know what planets; it is a great night at the Observatory, and he did not feel willing to dispense with – ”

“It is inconceivable that a man should be so foolish!” exclaimed Madame de Godollo; “wasn’t theology bad enough, that he must needs bring in astronomy too?”

And her vexation gave to her voice so vibrating a tone that her song ended in the midst of what the English call a thunder of applause. La Peyrade, who feared her extremely, was not one of the last, when she returned to her place, to approach her, and express his admiration; but she received his compliments with a coldness so near to incivility that their mutual hostility was greatly increased. La Peyrade turned away to console himself with Madame Colleville, who had still too many pretensions to beauty not to be the enemy of a woman made to intercept all homage.

“So you also, you think that woman sings well?” she said, contemptuously, to Theodose.

“At any rate, I have been to tell her so,” replied la Peyrade, “because without her, in regard to Brigitte, there’s no security. But do just look at your Celeste; her eyes never leave that door, and every time a tray is brought in, though it is an hour at least since the last guest came, her face expresses disappointment.”

We must remark, in passing, that since the reign of Madame de Godollo trays were passed round on the Sunday reception days, and that without scrimping; on the contrary, they were laden with ices, cakes, and syrups, from Taurade’s, then the best confectioner.

“Don’t harass me!” cried Flavie. “I know very well what that foolish girl has in her mind; and your marriage will take place only too soon.”

“But you know it is not for myself I make it,” said la Peyrade; “it is a necessity for the future of all of us. Come, come, there are tears in your eyes! I shall leave you; you are not reasonable. The devil! as that Prudhomme of a Phellion says, ‘Whoso wants the end wants the means.’”

And he went toward the group composed of Celeste, Madame Thuillier, Madame de Godollo, Colleville, and Phellion. Madame Colleville followed him; and, under the influence of the feeling of jealousy she had just shown, she became a savage mother.

“Celeste,” she said, “why don’t you sing? These gentlemen wish to hear you.”

“Oh, mamma!” cried the girl, “how can I sing after Madame de Godollo, with my poor thread of a voice? Besides, you know I have a cold.”

“That is to say that, as usual, you make yourself pretentious and disagreeable; people sing as they can sing; all voices have their own merits.”

“My dear,” said Colleville, who, having just lost twenty francs at the card-tables, found courage in his ill-humor to oppose his wife, “that saying, ‘People sing as they can sing’ is a bourgeois maxim. People sing with a voice, if they have one; but they don’t sing after hearing such a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my part, I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her sentimental little ditties.”

“Then it is well worth while,” said Flavie, leaving the group, “to spend so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing.”

“So,” said Colleville, resuming the conversation which the invasion of Flavie had interrupted, “Felix no longer inhabits this earth; he lives among the stars?”

“My dear and former colleague,” said Phellion, “I am, as you are, annoyed with my son for neglecting, as he does, the oldest friends of his family; and though the contemplation of those great luminous bodies suspended in space by the hand of the Creator presents, in my opinion, higher interest than it appears to have to your more eager brain, I think that Felix, by not coming here to-night, as he promised me he would, shows a want of propriety, about which, I can assure you I shall speak my mind.”

“Science,” said la Peyrade, “is a fine thing, but it has, unfortunately, the attribute of making bears and monomaniacs.”

“Not to mention,” said Celeste, “that it destroys all religious sentiments.”

“You are mistaken there, my dear child,” said Madame de Godollo. “Pascal, who was himself a great example of the falseness of your point of view, says, if I am not mistaken, that a little science draws us from religion, but a great deal draws us back to it.”

“And yet, madame,” said Celeste, “every one admits that Monsieur Felix is really very learned; when he helped my brother with his studies nothing could be, so Francois told me, clearer or more comprehensible than his explanations; and you see, yourself, he is not the more religious for that.”

“I tell you, my dear child, that Monsieur Felix is not irreligious, and with a little gentleness and patience nothing would be easier than to bring him back.”

“Bring back a savant to the duties of religion!” exclaimed la Peyrade. “Really, madame, that seems to me very difficult. These gentlemen put the object of their studies before everything else. Tell a geometrician or a geologist, for example, that the Church demands, imperatively, the sanctification of the Sabbath by the suspension of all species of work, and they will shrug their shoulders, though God Himself did not disdain to rest from His labors.”

“So that in not coming here this evening,” said Celeste, naively, “Monsieur Felix commits not only a fault against good manners, but a sin.”

“But, my dearest,” said Madame de Godollo, “do you think that our meeting here this evening to sing ballads and eat ices and say evil of our neighbor – which is the customary habit of salons – is more pleasing to God than to see a man of science in his observatory busied in studying the magnificent secrets of His creation?”

“There’s a time for all things,” said Celeste; “and, as Monsieur de la Peyrade says, God Himself did not disdain to rest.”

“But, my love,” said Madame de Godollo, “God has time to do so; He is eternal.”

“That,” said la Peyrade, “is one of the wittiest impieties ever uttered; those are the reasons that the world’s people put forth. They interpret and explain away the commands of God, even those that are most explicit and imperative; they take them, leave them, or choose among them; the free-thinker subjects them to his lordly revision, and from free-thinking the distance is short to free actions.”

During this harangue of the barrister Madame de Godollo had looked at the clock; it then said half-past eleven. The salon began to empty. Only one card-table was still going on, Minard, Thuillier, and two of the new acquaintances being the players. Phellion had just quitted the group with which he had so far been sitting, to join his wife, who was talking with Brigitte in a corner; by the vehemence of his pantomimic action it was easy to see that he was filled with some virtuous indignation. Everything seemed to show that all hope of seeing the arrival of the tardy lover was decidedly over.

“Monsieur,” said the countess to la Peyrade, “do you consider the gentlemen attached to Saint-Jacques du Haut Pas in the rue des Postes good Catholics?”

“Undoubtedly,” replied the barrister, “religion has no more loyal supporters.”

“This morning,” continued the countess, “I had the happiness to be received by Pere Anselme. He is thought the model of all Christian virtues, and yet the good father is a very learned mathematician.”

“I have not said, madame, that the two qualities were absolutely incompatible.”

“But you did say that a true Christian could not attend to any species of work on Sunday. If so, Pere Anselme must be an unbeliever; for when I was admitted to his room I found him standing before a blackboard with a bit of chalk in his hand, busy with a problem which was, no doubt, knotty, for the board was three-parts covered with algebraic signs; and I must add that he did not seem to care for the scandal this ought to cause, for he had with him an individual whom I am not allowed to name, a younger man of science, of great promise, who was sharing his profane occupation.”

Celeste and Madame Thuillier looked at each other, and both saw a gleam of hope in the other’s eyes.

“Why can’t you tell us the name of that young man of science?” Madame Thuillier ventured to say, for she never put any diplomacy into the expression of her thoughts.

“Because he has not, like Pere Anselme, the saintliness which would absolve him in the eyes of monsieur here for this flagrant violation of the Sabbath. Besides,” added Madame de Godollo, in a significant manner, “he asked me not to mention that I had met him there.”

“Then you know a good many scientific young men?” said Celeste, interrogatively; “this one and Monsieur Felix – that makes two.”

“My dear love,” said the countess, “you are an inquisitive little girl, and you will not make me say what I do not choose to say, especially after a confidence that Pere Anselme made to me; for if I did, your imagination would at once set off at a gallop.”

The gallop had already started, and every word the countess said only added to the anxious eagerness of the young girl.

“As for me,” said la Peyrade, sarcastically, “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Pere Anselme’s young collaborator was that very Felix Phellion. Voltaire always kept very close relations with the Jesuits who brought him up; but he never talked religion with them.”

“Well, my young savant does talk of it to his venerable brother in science; he submits his doubts to him; in fact, that was the beginning of their scientific intimacy.”

“And does Pere Anselme,” asked Celeste, “hope to convert him?”

“He is sure of it,” replied the countess. “His young collaborator, apart from a religious education which he certainly never had, has been brought up to the highest principles; he knows, moreover, that his conversion to religion would make the happiness of a charming girl whom he loves, and who loves him. Now, my dear, you will not get another word out of me, and you may think what you like.”

“Oh! godmother!” whispered Celeste, yielding to the freshness of her feelings, “suppose it were he!”

And the tears filled her eyes as she pressed Madame Thuillier’s hand.

At this moment the servant threw open the door of the salon, and, singular complication! announced Monsieur Felix Phellion.

The young professor entered the room, bathed in perspiration, his cravat in disorder, and himself out of breath.

“A pretty hour,” said Phellion, sternly, “to present yourself.”

“Father,” said Felix, moving to the side of the room where Madame Thuillier and Celeste were seated, “I could not leave before the end of the phenomenon; and then I couldn’t find a carriage, and I have run the whole way.”

“Your ears ought to have burned as you came,” said la Peyrade, “for you have been for the last half-hour in the minds of these ladies, and a great problem has been started about you.”

Felix did not answer. He saw Brigitte entering the salon from the dining-room where she had gone to tell the man-servant not to bring in more trays, and he hurried to greet her.

After listening to a few reproaches for the rarity of his visits and receiving forgiveness in a very cordial “Better late than never,” he turned towards his pole, and was much astonished to hear himself addressed by Madame de Godollo as follows: —

“Monsieur,” she said, “I hope you will pardon the indiscretion I have, in the heat of conversation, committed about you. I have told these ladies where I met you this morning.”

“Met me?” said Felix; “if I had the honor to meet you, madame, I did not see you.”

An almost imperceptible smile flickered on la Peyrade’s lips.

“You saw me well enough to ask me to keep silence as to where I had met you; but, at any rate, I did not go beyond a simple statement; I said you saw Pere Anselme sometimes, and had certain scientific relations with him; also that you defended your religious doubts to him as you do to Celeste.”

“Pere Anselme!” said Felix, stupidly.

“Yes, Pere Anselme,” said la Peyrade, “a great mathematician who does not despair of converting you. Mademoiselle Celeste wept for joy.”

Felix looked around him with a bewildered air. Madame de Godollo fixed upon him a pair of eyes the language of which a poodle could have understood.

“I wish,” he said finally, “I could have given that joy to Mademoiselle Celeste, but I think, madame, you are mistaken.”

“Ah! monsieur, then I must be more precise,” said the countess, “and if your modesty still induces you to hide a step that can only honor you, you can contradict me; I will bear the mortification of having divulged a secret which, I acknowledge, you trusted implicitly to my discretion.”

Madame Thuillier and Celeste were truly a whole drama to behold; never were doubt and eager expectation more plainly depicted on the human face. Measuring her words deliberately, Madame de Godollo thus continued: —

“I said to these ladies, because I know how deep an interest they take in your salvation, and because you are accused of boldly defying the commandments of God by working on Sundays, that I had met you this morning at the house of Pere Anselme, a mathematician like yourself, with whom you were busy in solving a problem; I said that your scientific intercourse with that saintly and enlightened man had led to other explanations between you; that you had submitted to him your religious doubts, and he did not despair of removing them. In the confirmation you can give of my words there is nothing, I am sure, to wound your self-esteem. The matter was simply a surprise you intended for Celeste, and I have had the stupidity to divulge it. But when she hears you admit the truth of my words you will have given her such happiness that I shall hope to be forgiven.”

“Come, monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “there’s nothing absurd or mortifying in having sought for light; you, so honorable and so truly an enemy to falsehood, you cannot deny what madame affirms with such decision.”

“Well,” said Felix, after a moment’s hesitation, “will you, Mademoiselle Celeste, allow me to say a few words to you in private, without witnesses?”

Celeste rose, after receiving an approving sign from Madame Thuillier. Felix took her hand and led her to the recess of the nearest window.

“Celeste,” he said, “I entreat you: wait! See,” he added, pointing to the constellation of Ursa Minor, “beyond those visible stars a future lies before us; I will place you there. As for Pere Anselme, I cannot admit what has been said, for it is not true. It is an invented tale. But be patient with me; you shall soon know all.”

“He is mad!” said the young girl, in tones of despair, as she resumed her place beside Madame Thuillier.

Felix confirmed this judgment by rushing frantically from the salon, without perceiving the emotion in which his father and his mother started after him. After this sudden departure, which stupefied everybody, la Peyrade approached Madame de Godollo very respectfully, and said to her: —

“You must admit, madame, that it is difficult to drag a man from the water when he persists in being drowned.”

“I had no idea until this moment of such utter simplicity,” replied the countess; “it is too silly. I pass over to the enemy; and with that enemy I am ready and desirous to have, whenever he pleases, a frank and honest explanation.”

CHAPTER IV. HUNGARY VERSUS PROVENCE

The next day Theodose felt himself possessed by two curiosities: How would Celeste behave as to the option she had accepted? and this Comtesse Torna de Godollo, what did she mean by what she had said; and what did she want with him?

The first of these questions seemed, undoubtedly, to have the right of way, and yet, by some secret instinct, la Peyrade felt more keenly drawn toward the conclusion of the second problem. He decided, therefore, to take his first step in that direction, fully understanding that he could not too carefully arm himself for the interview to which the countess had invited him.

The morning had been rainy, and this great calculator was, of course, not ignorant how much a spot of mud, tarnishing the brilliancy of varnished boots, could lower a man in the opinion of some. He therefore sent his porter for a cabriolet, and about three o’clock in the afternoon he drove from the rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer toward the elegant latitudes of the Madeleine. It may well be believed that certain cares had been bestowed upon his toilet, which ought to present a happy medium between the negligent ease of a morning costume and the ceremonious character of an evening suit. Condemned by his profession to a white cravat, which he rarely laid aside, and not venturing to present himself in anything but a dress-coat, he felt himself being drawn, of necessity, to one of the extremes he desired to avoid. However by buttoning up his coat and wearing tan instead of straw-colored gloves, he managed to unsolemnize himself, and to avoid that provincial air which a man in full dress walking the streets of Paris while the sun is above the horizon never fails to convey.

The wary diplomatist was careful not to drive to the house where he was going. He was unwilling to be seen from the countess’ entresol issuing from a hired cab, and from the first floor he feared to be discovered stopping short on his way up at the lower floor, – a proceeding which could not fail to give rise to countless conjectures.

He therefore ordered the driver to pull up at the corner of the rue Royale, whence, along a pavement that was now nearly dry, he picked his way on tiptoe to the house. It so chanced that he was not seen by either the porter or his wife; the former being beadle of the church of the Madeleine, was absent at a service, and the wife had just gone up to show a vacant apartment to a lodger. Theodose was therefore able to glide unobserved to the door of the sanctuary he desired to penetrate. A soft touch of his hand to the silken bell-rope caused a sound which echoed from the interior of the apartment. A few seconds elapsed, and then another and more imperious bell of less volume seemed to him a notification to the maid that her delay in opening the door was displeasing to her mistress. A moment later, a waiting-woman, of middle age, and too well trained to dress like a “soubrette” of comedy, opened the door to him.

The lawyer gave his name, and the woman ushered him into a dining-room, severely luxurious, where she asked him to wait. A moment later, however, she returned, and admitted him into the most coquettish and splendid salon it was possible to insert beneath the low ceilings of an entresol. The divinity of the place was seated before a writing-table covered with a Venetian cloth, in which gold glittered in little spots among the dazzling colors of the tapestry.

“Will you allow me, monsieur, to finish a letter of some importance?” she said.

The barrister bowed in sign of assent. The handsome Hungarian then concluded a note on blue English paper, which she placed in an envelope; after sealing it carefully, she rang the bell. The maid appeared immediately and lighted a little spirit lamp; above the lamp was suspended a sort of tiny crucible, in which was a drop of sealing-wax; as soon as this had melted, the maid poured it on the envelope, presenting to her mistress a seal with armorial bearings. This the countess imprinted on the wax with her own beautiful hands, and then said: —

“Take the letter at once to that address.”

The woman made a movement to take the letter, but, either from haste or inadvertence, the paper fell from her hand close to la Peyrade’s feet. He stooped hastily to pick it up, and read the direction involuntarily. It bore the words, “His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs”; the significant words, “For him only,” written higher up, seemed to give this missive a character of intimacy.

“Pardon, monsieur,” said the countess, receiving the paper, which he had the good taste to return to her own hands in order to show his eagerness to serve her. “Be so good, mademoiselle, as to carry that in a way not to lose it,” she added in a dry tone to the unlucky maid. The countess then left her writing-table and took her seat on a sofa covered with pearl-gray satin.

During these proceedings la Peyrade had the satisfaction of making an inventory of all the choice things by which he was surrounded. Paintings by good masters detached themselves from walls of even tone; on a pier-table stood a very tall Japanese vase; before the windows the jardinieres were filled with lilium rubrum, showing its handsome reversely curling petals surmounted by white and red camellias and a dwarf magnolia from China, with flowers of sulphur white with scarlet edges. In a corner was a stand of arms, of curious shapes and rich construction, explained, perhaps, by the lady’s Hungarian nationality – always that of the hussar. A few bronzes and statuettes of exquisite selection, chairs rolling softly on Persian carpets, and a perfect anarchy of stuffs of all kinds completed the arrangement of this salon, which the lawyer had once before visited with Brigitte and Thuillier before the countess moved into it. It was so transformed that it seemed to him unrecognizable. With a little more knowledge of the world la Peyrade would have been less surprised at the marvellous care given by the countess to the decoration of the room. A woman’s salon is her kingdom, and her absolute domain; there, in the fullest sense of the word, she reigns, she governs; there she offers battle, and nearly always comes off victorious.