The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER V

A PRIN­CI­PAL PER­SON­AGE

There ex­ists in Provence, es­pe­cial­ly about Avi­gnon, a race of men with blond or chest­nut hair, fair skin, and eyes that are al­most ten­der, their pupils calm, fee­ble, or lan­guish­ing, rather than keen, ar­dent, or pro­found, as they usu­al­ly are in the eyes of South­ern­ers. Let us re­mark, in pass­ing, that among Cor­si­cans, a race sub­ject to fits of anger and dan­ger­ous iras­ci­bil­ity, we of­ten meet with fair skins and phys­ical na­tures of the same ap­par­ent tran­quil­li­ty. These pale men, rather stout, with some­what dim and hazy eyes ei­ther green or blue, are the worst species of hu­man­ity in Provence; and Charles-​Marie-​Theo­dose de la Peyrade presents a fine type of that race, the con­sti­tu­tion of which de­serves care­ful ex­am­ina­tion on the part of med­ical sci­ence and philo­soph­ical phys­iol­ogy. There ris­es, at times, with­in such men, a species of bile,--a bit­ter gall, which flies to their head and makes them ca­pa­ble of fe­ro­cious ac­tions, done, ap­par­ent­ly, in cold blood. Be­ing the re­sult of an in­ward in­tox­ica­tion, this sort of dumb vi­olence seems to be ir­rec­on­cil­able with their quasi-​lym­phat­ic out­ward man, and the tran­quil­li­ty of their be­nig­nant glance.

Born in the neigh­bor­hood of Avi­gnon, the young Proven­cal whose name we have just men­tioned was of mid­dle height, well-​pro­por­tioned, and rather stout; the tone of his skin had no bril­lian­cy; it was nei­ther livid nor dead-​white, nor col­ored, but gelati­nous,--that word can alone give a true idea of the flab­by, hue­less en­ve­lope, be­neath which were con­cealed nerves that were less vig­or­ous than ca­pa­ble of enor­mous re­sis­tance at cer­tain giv­en mo­ments. His eyes, of a pale cold blue, ex­pressed in their or­di­nary con­di­tion a species of de­cep­tive sad­ness, which must have had great charms for wom­en. The fore­head, fine­ly cut, was not with­out dig­ni­ty, and it har­mo­nized well with the soft, light chest­nut hair curl­ing nat­ural­ly, but slight­ly, at its tips. The nose, pre­cise­ly like that of a hunt­ing dog, flat and fur­rowed at the tip, in­quis­itive, in­tel­li­gent, search­ing, al­ways on the scent, in­stead of ex­press­ing good-​hu­mor, was iron­ical and mock­ing; but this par­tic­ular as­pect of his na­ture nev­er showed it­self open­ly; the young man must have ceased to watch him­self, he must have flown in­to fury be­fore the pow­er came to him to flash out the sar­casm and the wit which em­bit­tered, ten­fold, his in­fer­nal hu­mor. The mouth, the curv­ing lines and pomegranate-​col­ored lips of which were very pleas­ing, seemed the ad­mirable in­stru­ment of an or­gan that was al­most sweet in its mid­dle tones, where its own­er usu­al­ly kept it, but which, in its high­er key, vi­brat­ed on the ear like the sound of a gong. This falset­to was the voice of his nerves and his anger. His face, kept ex­pres­sion­less by an in­ward com­mand, was oval in form. His man­ners, in har­mo­ny with the sac­er­do­tal calm­ness of the face, were re­served and con­ven­tion­al; but he had sup­ple, pli­ant ways which, though they nev­er de­scend­ed to wheedling, were not lack­ing in se­duc­tion; al­though as soon as his back was turned their charm seemed in­ex­pli­ca­ble. Charm, when it takes its rise in the heart, leaves deep and last­ing traces; that which is mere­ly a prod­uct of art, or of elo­quence, has on­ly a pass­ing pow­er; it pro­duces its im­me­di­ate ef­fect, and that is all. But how many philoso­phers are there in life who are able to dis­tin­guish the dif­fer­ence? Al­most al­ways the trick is played (to use a pop­ular ex­pres­sion) be­fore the or­di­nary run of men have per­ceived its meth­ods.

Ev­ery­thing about this young man of twen­ty-​sev­en was in har­mo­ny with his char­ac­ter; he obeyed his vo­ca­tion by cul­ti­vat­ing phi­lan­thropy, --the on­ly ex­pres­sion which ex­plains the phi­lan­thropist. Theo­dose loved the Peo­ple, for he lim­it­ed his love for hu­man­ity. Like the hor­ti­cul­tur­ist who de­votes him­self to ros­es, or dahlias, or heart's-​ease, or gera­ni­ums, and pays no at­ten­tion to the plants his fan­cy has not se­lect­ed, so this young La Rochefou­cault-​Lian­court gave him­self to the work­ing­men, the pro­le­tari­at and the pau­pers of the faubourgs Saint-​Jacques and Saint-​Marceau. The strong man, the man of ge­nius at bay, the wor­thy poor of the bour­geois class, he cut them off from the bo­som of his char­ity. The heart of all per­sons with a ma­nia is like those box­es with com­part­ments, in which sug­arplums are kept in sorts: “su­um cuique tribuere” is their mot­to; they mea­sure to each du­ty its dose. There are some phi­lan­thropists who pity noth­ing but the man con­demned to death. Van­ity is cer­tain­ly the ba­sis of phi­lan­thropy; but in the case of this Proven­cal it was cal­cu­la­tion, a pre­de­ter­mined course, a “lib­er­al” and demo­crat­ic hypocrisy, played with a per­fec­tion that no oth­er ac­tor will ev­er at­tain.

Theo­dose did not at­tack the rich; he con­tent­ed him­self with not un­der­stand­ing them; he en­dured them; ev­ery one, in his opin­ion, ought to en­joy the fruits of his la­bor. He had been, he said, a fer­vent dis­ci­ple of Saint-​Si­mon, but that mis­take must be at­tribut­ed to his youth: mod­ern so­ci­ety could have no oth­er ba­sis than hered­ity. An ar­dent Catholic, like all men from the Com­tat, he went to the ear­li­est morn­ing mass­es, and thus con­cealed his piety. Like oth­er phi­lan­thropists, he prac­tised a sor­did econ­omy, and gave to the poor his time, his le­gal ad­vice, his elo­quence, and such mon­ey as he ex­tract­ed for them from the rich. His clothes, al­ways of black cloth, were worn un­til the seams be­came white. Na­ture had done a great deal for Theo­dose in not giv­ing him that fine man­ly South­ern beau­ty which cre­ates in oth­ers an imag­inary ex­pec­ta­tion, to which it is more than dif­fi­cult for a man to re­spond. As it was, he could be what suit­ed him at the mo­ment,--an agree­able man or a very or­di­nary one. Nev­er, since his ad­mis­sion to the Thuil­liers', had he ven­tured, till this evening, to raise his voice and speak as dog­mat­ical­ly as he had risked do­ing to Olivi­er Vinet; but per­haps Theo­dose de la Peyrade was not sor­ry to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to come out from the shade in which he had hith­er­to kept him­self. Be­sides, it was nec­es­sary to get rid of the young sub­sti­tute, just as the Mi­nards had pre­vi­ous­ly ru­ined the hopes of Mon­sieur Gode­schal. Like all su­pe­ri­or men (for he cer­tain­ly had some su­pe­ri­or­ity), Vinet had nev­er low­ered him­self to the point where the threads of these bour­geois spi­der-​webs be­came vis­ible to him, and he had there­fore plunged, like a fly, head­fore­most, in­to the al­most in­vis­ible trap to which Theo­dose in­vei­gled him.

To com­plete this por­trait of the poor man's lawyer we must here re­late the cir­cum­stances of his first ar­rival at the Thuil­liers'.

Theo­dose came to lodge in Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er's house to­ward the close of the year 1837. He had tak­en his de­gree about five years ear­li­er, and had kept the prop­er num­ber of terms to be­come a bar­ris­ter. Cir­cum­stances, how­ev­er, about which he said noth­ing, had in­ter­fered to pre­vent his be­ing called to the bar; he was, there­fore, still a li­cen­ti­ate. But soon af­ter he was in­stalled in the lit­tle apart­ment on the third floor, with the fur­ni­ture rig­or­ous­ly re­quired by all mem­bers of his no­ble pro­fes­sion,--for the guild of bar­ris­ters ad­mits no broth­er un­less he has a suit­able study, a le­gal li­brary, and can thus, as it were, ver­ify his claims,--Theo­dose de la Peyrade be­gan to prac­tise as a bar­ris­ter be­fore the Roy­al Court of Paris.

The whole of the year 1838 was em­ployed in mak­ing this change in his con­di­tion, and he led a most reg­ular life. He stud­ied at home in the morn­ings till din­ner-​time, go­ing some­times to the Palais for im­por­tant cas­es. Hav­ing be­come very in­ti­mate with Du­tocq (so Du­tocq said), he did cer­tain ser­vices to the poor of the faubourg Saint-​Jacques who were brought to his no­tice by that of­fi­cial. He plead­ed their cas­es be­fore the court, af­ter bring­ing them to the no­tice of the at­tor­neys, who, ac­cord­ing to the statutes of their or­der, are obliged to take turns in do­ing busi­ness for the poor. As Theo­dose was care­ful to plead on­ly safe cas­es, he won them all. Those per­sons whom he thus obliged ex­pressed their grat­itude and their ad­mi­ra­tion, in spite of the young lawyer's ad­mo­ni­tions, among their own class, and to the porters of pri­vate hous­es, through whom many anec­dotes rose to the ears of the pro­pri­etors. De­light­ed to have in their house a ten­ant so wor­thy and so char­ita­ble, the Thuil­liers wished to at­tract him to their sa­lon, and they ques­tioned Du­tocq about him. The may­or's clerk replied as the en­vi­ous re­ply; while do­ing jus­tice to the young man he dwelt on his re­mark­able avarice, which might, how­ev­er, be the ef­fect of pover­ty.

“I have had oth­er in­for­ma­tion about him. He be­longs to the Peyrades, an old fam­ily of the 'com­tat' of Avi­gnon; he came here to­ward the end of 1829, to in­quire about an un­cle whose for­tune was said to be con­sid­er­able; he dis­cov­ered the ad­dress of the old man on­ly three days be­fore his death; and the fur­ni­ture of the de­ceased mere­ly suf­ficed to bury him and pay his debts. A friend of this use­less un­cle gave a cou­ple of hun­dred louis to the poor for­tune-​hunter, ad­vis­ing him to fin­ish his le­gal stud­ies and en­ter the ju­di­cia­ry ca­reer. Those two hun­dred louis sup­port­ed him for three years in Paris, where he lived like an an­chorite. But be­ing un­able to dis­cov­er his un­known friend and bene­fac­tor, the poor stu­dent was in ab­ject dis­tress in 1833. He worked then, like so many oth­er li­cen­ti­ates, in pol­itics and lit­er­ature, by which he kept him­self for a time above want--for he had noth­ing to ex­pect from his fam­ily. His fa­ther, the youngest broth­er of the dead un­cle, has eleven oth­er chil­dren, who live on a small es­tate called Les Can­quoelles. He fi­nal­ly ob­tained a place on a min­is­te­ri­al news­pa­per, the man­ag­er of which was the fa­mous Cer­izet, so cel­ebrat­ed for the per­se­cu­tions he met with, un­der the Restora­tion, on ac­count of his at­tach­ment to the lib­er­als,--a man whom the new Left will nev­er for­give for hav­ing made his pa­per min­is­te­ri­al. As the gov­ern­ment of these days does very lit­tle to pro­tect even its most de­vot­ed ser­vants (wit­ness the Gis­quet af­fair), the re­pub­li­cans have end­ed by ru­in­ing Cer­izet. I tell you this to ex­plain how it is that Cer­izet is now a copy­ing clerk in my of­fice. Well, in the days when he flour­ished as man­ag­ing ed­itor of a pa­per di­rect­ed by the Perier min­istry against the in­cen­di­ary jour­nals, the 'Tri­bune' and oth­ers, Cer­izet, who is a wor­thy fel­low af­ter all, though he is too fond of wom­en, plea­sure, and good liv­ing, was very use­ful to Theo­dose, who edit­ed the po­lit­ical de­part­ment of the pa­per; and if it hadn't been for the death of Casimir Perier that young man would cer­tain­ly have re­ceived an ap­point­ment as sub­sti­tute judge in Paris. As it was, he dropped back in 1834-35, in spite of his tal­ent; for his con­nec­tion with a min­is­te­ri­al jour­nal of course did him harm. 'If it had not been for my re­li­gious prin­ci­ples,' he said to me, 'I should have thrown my­self in­to the Seine.' How­ev­er, it seems that the friend of his un­cle must have heard of his dis­tress, for again he sent him a sum of mon­ey; enough to com­plete his terms for the bar; but, strange to say, he has nev­er known the name or the ad­dress of this mys­te­ri­ous bene­fac­tor. Af­ter all, per­haps, un­der such cir­cum­stances, his econ­omy is ex­cus­able, and he must have great strength of mind to refuse what the poor dev­ils whose cas­es he wins by his de­vo­tion of­fer him. He is in­dig­nant at the way oth­er lawyers spec­ulate on the pos­si­bil­ity or im­pos­si­bil­ity of poor crea­tures, un­just­ly sued, pay­ing for the costs of their de­fence. Oh! he'll suc­ceed in the end. I shouldn't be sur­prised to see that fel­low in some very bril­liant po­si­tion; he has tenac­ity, hon­esty, and courage. He stud­ies, he delves.”

Notwith­stand­ing the fa­vor with which he was greet­ed, la Peyrade went dis­creet­ly to the Thuil­liers'. When re­proached for this re­serve he went of­ten­er, and end­ed by ap­pear­ing ev­ery Sun­day; he was in­vit­ed to all din­ner-​par­ties, and be­came at last so fa­mil­iar in the house that when­ev­er he came to see Thuil­li­er about four o'clock he was al­ways re­quest­ed to take “pot-​luck” with­out cer­emo­ny. Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er used to say:--

“Then we know that he will get a good din­ner, poor fel­low!”

A so­cial phe­nomenon which has cer­tain­ly been ob­served, but nev­er, as yet, for­mu­lat­ed, or, if you like it bet­ter, pub­lished, though it ful­ly de­serves to be record­ed, is the re­turn of habits, mind, and man­ners to prim­itive con­di­tions in cer­tain per­sons who, be­tween youth and old age, have raised them­selves above their first es­tate. Thus Thuil­li­er had be­come, once more, moral­ly speak­ing, the son of a concierge. He now made use of many of his fa­ther's jokes, and a lit­tle of the slime of ear­ly days was be­gin­ning to ap­pear on the sur­face of his de­clin­ing life. About five or six times a month, when the soup was rich and good he would de­posit his spoon in his emp­ty plate and say, as if the propo­si­tion were en­tire­ly nov­el:--

“That's bet­ter than a kick on the shin-​bone!”

On hear­ing that wit­ti­cism for the first time Theo­dose, to whom it was re­al­ly new, laughed so hearti­ly that the hand­some Thuil­li­er was tick­led in his van­ity as he had nev­er been be­fore. Af­ter that, Theo­dose greet­ed the same speech with a know­ing lit­tle smile. This slight de­tail will ex­plain how it was that on the morn­ing of the day when Theo­dose had his pas­sage at arms with Vinet he had said to Thuil­li­er, as they were walk­ing in the gar­den to see the ef­fect of a frost:--

“You have much more wit than you give your­self cred­it for.”

To which he re­ceived this an­swer:--

“In any oth­er ca­reer, my dear Theo­dose, I should have made my way nobly; but the fall of the Em­per­or broke my neck.”

“There is still time,” said the young lawyer. “In the first place, what did that moun­te­bank, Colleville, ev­er do to get the cross?”

There la Peyrade laid his fin­ger on a sore wound which Thuil­li­er hid from ev­ery eye so care­ful­ly that even his sis­ter did not know of it; but the young man, in­ter­est­ed in study­ing these bour­geois, had di­vined the se­cret en­vy that gnawed at the heart of the ex-​of­fi­cial.

“If you, ex­pe­ri­enced as you are, will do the hon­or to fol­low my ad­vice,” added the phi­lan­thropist, “and, above all, not men­tion our com­pact to any one, I will un­der­take to have you dec­orat­ed with the Le­gion of hon­or, to the ap­plause of the whole quar­ter.”

“Oh! if we suc­ceed in that,” cried Thuil­li­er, “you don't know what I would do for you.”

This ex­plains why Thuil­li­er car­ried his head high when Theo­dose had the au­dac­ity that evening to put opin­ions in­to his mouth.

In art--and per­haps Moliere had placed hypocrisy in the rank of art by class­ing Tartuffe for­ev­er among co­me­di­ans--there ex­ists a point of per­fec­tion to which ge­nius alone at­tains; mere tal­ent falls be­low it. There is so lit­tle dif­fer­ence be­tween a work of ge­nius and a work of tal­ent, that on­ly men of ge­nius can ap­pre­ci­ate the dis­tance that sep­arates Raf­faelle from Cor­reg­gio, Titian from Rubens. More than that; com­mon minds are eas­ily de­ceived on this point. The sign of ge­nius is a cer­tain ap­pear­ance of fa­cil­ity. In fact, its work must ap­pear, at first sight, or­di­nary, so nat­ural is it, even on the high­est sub­jects. Many peas­ant-​wom­en hold their chil­dren as the fa­mous Madon­na in the Dres­den gallery holds hers. Well, the height of art in a man of la Peyrade's force was to oblige oth­ers to say of him lat­er: “Ev­ery­body would have been tak­en in by him.”

Now, in the sa­lon Thuil­li­er, he not­ed a dawn­ing op­po­si­tion; he per­ceived in Colleville the some­what clear-​sight­ed and crit­icis­ing na­ture of an artist who has missed his vo­ca­tion. The bar­ris­ter felt him­self dis­pleas­ing to Colleville, who (as the re­sult of cir­cum­stances not nec­es­sary to here re­port) con­sid­ered him­self jus­ti­fied in be­liev­ing in the sci­ence of ana­grams. None of this ana­grams had ev­er failed. The clerks in the gov­ern­ment of­fice had laughed at him when, de­mand­ing an ana­gram on the name of the poor help­less Au­guste-​Jean-​Fran­cois Mi­nard, he had pro­duced, “J'amas­sai une si grande for­tune”; and the event had jus­ti­fied him af­ter the lapse of ten years! Theo­dose, on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, had made ad­vances to the jovial sec­re­tary of the may­or's of­fice, and had felt him­self re­buffed by a cold­ness which was not nat­ural in so so­cia­ble a man. When the game of bouil­lotte came to an end, Colleville seized the mo­ment to draw Thuil­li­er in­to the re­cess of a win­dow and say to him:--

“You are let­ting that lawyer get too much foothold in your house; he kept the ball in his own hands all the evening.”

“Thank you, my friend; fore­warned is fore­armed,” replied Thuil­li­er, in­ward­ly scoff­ing at Colleville.

Theo­dose, who was talk­ing at the mo­ment to Madame Colleville, had his eye on the two men, and, with the same pre­science by which wom­en know when and how they are spo­ken of, he per­ceived that Colleville was try­ing to in­jure him in the mind of the weak and sil­ly Thuil­li­er. “Madame,” he said in Flavie's ear, “if any one here is ca­pa­ble of ap­pre­ci­at­ing you it is cer­tain­ly I. You seem to me a pearl dropped in­to the mire. You say you are forty-​two, but a wom­an is no old­er than she looks, and many wom­en of thir­ty would be thank­ful to have your fig­ure and that no­ble coun­te­nance, where love has passed with­out ev­er fill­ing the void in your heart. You have giv­en your­self to God, I know, and I have too much re­li­gion my­self to re­gret it, but I al­so know that you have done so be­cause no hu­man be­ing has proved wor­thy of you. You have been loved, but you have nev­er been adored--I have di­vined that. There is your hus­band, who has not known how to please you in a po­si­tion in keep­ing with your deserts. He dis­likes me, as if he thought I loved you; and he pre­vents me from telling you of a way that I think I have found to place you in the sphere for which you were des­tined. No, madame,” he con­tin­ued, ris­ing, “the Abbe Gondrin will not preach this year through Lent at our hum­ble Saint-​Jacques du Haut-​Pas; the preach­er will be Mon­sieur d'Es­ti­val, a com­pa­tri­ot of mine, and you will hear in him one of the most im­pres­sive speak­ers that I have ev­er known,--a priest whose out­ward ap­pear­ance is not agree­able, but, oh! what a soul!”

“Then my de­sire will be grat­ified,” said poor Madame Thuil­li­er. “I have nev­er yet been able to un­der­stand a fa­mous preach­er.”

A smile flick­ered on the lips of Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er and sev­er­al oth­ers who heard the re­mark.

“They de­vote them­selves too much to the­olog­ical demon­stra­tion,” said Theo­dose. “I have long thought so my­self--but I nev­er talk re­li­gion; if it had not been for Madame _de_ Colleville, I--”

“Are there demon­stra­tions in the­ol­ogy?” asked the pro­fes­sor of math­emat­ics, naive­ly, plung­ing head­long in­to the con­ver­sa­tion.

“I think, mon­sieur,” replied Theo­dose, look­ing straight at Fe­lix Phel­lion, “that you can­not be se­ri­ous in ask­ing me such a ques­tion.”

“Fe­lix,” said old Phel­lion, com­ing heav­ily to the res­cue of his son, and catch­ing a dis­tressed look on the pale face of Madame Thuil­li­er, --“Fe­lix sep­arates re­li­gion in­to two cat­egories; he con­sid­ers it from the hu­man point of view and the di­vine point of view,--tra­di­tion and rea­son.”

“That is heresy, mon­sieur,” replied Theo­dose. “Re­li­gion is one; it re­quires, above all things, faith.”

Old Phel­lion, non­plussed by that re­mark, nod­ded to his wife:--

“It is get­ting late, my dear,” and he point­ed to the clock.

“Oh, Mon­sieur Fe­lix,” said Ce­leste in a whis­per to the can­did math­emati­cian, “Couldn't you be, like Pas­cal and Bossuet, learned and pi­ous both?”

The Phel­lions, on de­part­ing, car­ried the Collevilles with them. Soon no one re­mained in the sa­lon but Du­tocq, Theo­dose, and the Thuil­liers.

The flat­tery ad­min­is­tered by Theo­dose to Flavie seems at the first sight coarse­ly com­mon­place, but we must here re­mark, in the in­ter­ests of this his­to­ry, that the bar­ris­ter was keep­ing him­self as close as pos­si­ble to these vul­gar minds; he was nav­igat­ing their wa­ters; he spoke their lan­guage. His painter was Pierre Gras­sou, and not Joseph Bridau; his book was “Paul and Vir­ginia.” The great­est liv­ing po­et for him was Casimire de la Vi­gne; to his eyes the mis­sion of art was, above all things, util­ity. Par­men­tier, the dis­cov­er­er of the pota­to, was greater to him that thir­ty Raf­faelles; the man in the blue cloak seemed to him a sis­ter of char­ity. These were Thuil­li­er's ex­pres­sions, and Theo­dose re­mem­bered them all--on oc­ca­sion.

“That young Fe­lix Phel­lion,” he now re­marked, “is pre­cise­ly the aca­dem­ical man of our day; the prod­uct of knowl­edge which sends God to the rear. Heav­ens, what are we com­ing to? Re­li­gion alone can save France; noth­ing but the fear of hell will pre­serve us from do­mes­tic rob­bery, which is go­ing on at all hours in the bo­som of fam­ilies, and eat­ing in­to the surest for­tunes. All of you have a se­cret war­fare in your homes.”

Af­ter this shrewd tirade, which made a great im­pres­sion up­on Brigitte, he re­tired, fol­lowed by Du­tocq, af­ter wish­ing good evening to the three Thuil­liers.

“That young man has great ca­pac­ity,” said Thuil­li­er, sen­ten­tious­ly.

“Yes, that he has,” replied Brigitte, ex­tin­guish­ing the lamps.

“He has re­li­gion,” said Madame Thuil­li­er, as she left the room.

“Mon­sieur,” Phel­lion was say­ing to Colleville as they came abreast of the Ecole de Mines, look­ing about him to see that no one was near, “it is usu­al­ly my cus­tom to sub­mit my in­sight to that of oth­ers, but it is im­pos­si­ble for me not to think that that young lawyer plays the mas­ter at our friend Thuil­li­er's.”

“My own opin­ion,” said Colleville, who was walk­ing with Phel­lion be­hind his wife, Madame Phel­lion, and Ce­leste, “is that he's a Je­suit; and I don't like Je­suits; the best of them are no good. To my mind a Je­suit means knav­ery, and knav­ery for knav­ery's sake; they de­ceive for the plea­sure of de­ceiv­ing, and, as the say­ing is, to keep their hand in. That's my opin­ion, and I don't mince it.”

“I un­der­stand you, mon­sieur,” said Phel­lion, who was arm-​in-​arm with Colleville.

“No, Mon­sieur Phel­lion,” re­marked Flavie in a shrill voice, “you don't un­der­stand Colleville; but I know what he means, and I think he had bet­ter stop say­ing it. Such sub­jects are not to be talked of in the street, at eleven o'clock at night, and be­fore a young la­dy.”

“You are right, wife,” said Colleville.

When they reached the rue des Deux-​Eglis­es, which Phel­lion was to take, they all stopped to say good-​night, and Fe­lix Phel­lion, who was bring up the rear, said to Colleville:--

“Mon­sieur, your son Fran­cois could en­ter the Ecole Poly­tech­nique if he were well-​coached; I pro­pose to you to fit him to pass the ex­am­ina­tions this year.”

“That's an of­fer not to be re­fused! Thank you, my friend,” said Colleville. “We'll see about it.”

“Good!” said Phel­lion to his son, as they walked on.

“Not a bad stroke!” said the moth­er.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Fe­lix.

“You are very clev­er­ly pay­ing court to Ce­leste's par­ents.”

“May I nev­er find the so­lu­tion of my prob­lem if I even thought of it!” cried the young pro­fes­sor. “I dis­cov­ered, when talk­ing with the lit­tle Collevilles, that Fran­cois has a strong turn for math­emat­ics, and I thought I ought to en­light­en his fa­ther.”

“Good, my son!” re­peat­ed Phel­lion. “I wouldn't have you oth­er­wise. My prayers are grant­ed! I have a son whose hon­or, pro­bity, and pri­vate and civic virtues are all that I could wish.”

Madame Colleville, as soon as Ce­leste had gone to bed, said to her hus­band:--

“Colleville, don't ut­ter those blunt opin­ions about peo­ple with­out know­ing some­thing about them. When you talk of Je­suits I know you mean priests; and I wish you would do me the kind­ness to keep your opin­ions on re­li­gion to your­self when you are in com­pa­ny with your daugh­ter. We may sac­ri­fice our own souls, but not the souls of our chil­dren. You don't want Ce­leste to be a crea­ture with­out re­li­gion? And re­mem­ber, my dear, that we are at the mer­cy of oth­ers; we have four chil­dren to pro­vide for; and how do you know that, some day or oth­er, you may not need the ser­vices of this one or that one? There­fore don't make en­emies. You haven't any now, for you are a good-​na­tured fel­low; and, thanks to that qual­ity, which amounts in you to a charm, we have got along pret­ty well in life, so far.”

“That's enough!” said Colleville, fling­ing his coat on a chair and pulling off his cra­vat. “I'm wrong, and you are right, my beau­ti­ful Flavie.”

“And on the next oc­ca­sion, my dear old sheep,” said the sly crea­ture, tap­ping her hus­band's cheek, “you must try to be po­lite to that young lawyer; he is a schemer and we had bet­ter have him on our side. He is play­ing com­edy--well! play com­edy with him; be his dupe ap­par­ent­ly; if he proves to have tal­ent, if he has a fu­ture be­fore him, make a friend of him. Do you think I want to see you for­ev­er in the may­or's of­fice?”

“Come, wife Colleville,” said the for­mer clar­ionet, tap­ping his knee to in­di­cate the place he wished his wife to take. “Let us warm our toes and talk.--When I look at you I am more than ev­er con­vinced that the youth of wom­en is in their fig­ure.”

“And in their heart.”

“Well, both,” as­sent­ed Colleville; “waist slen­der, heart sol­id--”

“No, you old stupid, deep.”

“What is good about you is that you have kept your fair­ness with­out grow­ing fat. But the fact is, you have such tiny bones. Flavie, it is a fact that if I had life to live over again I shouldn't wish for any oth­er wife than you.”

“You know very well I have al­ways pre­ferred you to _oth­ers_. How un­lucky that mon­seigneur is dead! Do you know what I cov­et for you?”

“No; what?”

“Some of­fice at the Ho­tel de Ville,--an of­fice worth twelve thou­sand francs a year; cashier, or some­thing of that kind; ei­ther there, or at Pois­sy, in the mu­nic­ipal de­part­ment; or else as man­ufac­tur­er of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments--”

“Any one of them would suit me.”

“Well, then! if that queer bar­ris­ter has pow­er, and he cer­tain­ly has plen­ty of in­trigue, let us man­age him. I'll sound him; leave me to do the thing--and, above all, don't thwart his game at the Thuil­liers'.”

Theo­dose had laid a fin­ger on a sore sport in Flavie Colleville's heart; and this re­quires an ex­pla­na­tion, which may, per­haps, have the val­ue of a syn­thet­ic glance at wom­en's life.

At forty years of age a wom­an, above all, if she has tast­ed the poi­soned ap­ple of pas­sion, un­der­goes a solemn shock; she sees two deaths be­fore her: that of the body and that of the heart. Di­vid­ing wom­en in­to two great cat­egories which re­spond to the com­mon ideas, and call­ing them ei­ther vir­tu­ous or guilty, it is al­low­able to say that af­ter that fa­tal pe­ri­od they both suf­fer pangs of ter­ri­ble in­ten­si­ty. If vir­tu­ous, and dis­ap­point­ed in the deep­est hopes of their na­ture --whether they have had the courage to sub­mit, whether they have buried their re­volt in their hearts or at the foot of the al­tar--they nev­er ad­mit to them­selves that all is over for them with­out hor­ror. That thought has such strange and di­abol­ical depths that in it lies the rea­son of some of those apos­tasies which have, at times, amazed the world and hor­ri­fied it. If guilty, wom­en of that age fall in­to one of sev­er­al deliri­ous con­di­tions which of­ten turn, alas! to mad­ness, or end in sui­cide, or ter­mi­nate in some with pas­sion greater than the sit­ua­tion it­self.

The fol­low­ing is the “dilem­mat­ic” mean­ing of this cri­sis. Ei­ther they have known hap­pi­ness, known it in a vir­tu­ous life, and are un­able to breathe in any air but that sur­charged with in­cense, or act in any but a balmy at­mo­sphere of flat­tery and wor­ship,--if so, how is it pos­si­ble to re­nounce it?--or, by a phe­nomenon less rare than sin­gu­lar, they have found on­ly weary­ing plea­sures while seek­ing for the hap­pi­ness that es­caped them--sus­tained in that ea­ger chase by the ir­ri­tat­ing sat­is­fac­tions of van­ity, cling­ing to the game like a gam­bler to his dou­ble or quits; for to them these last days of beau­ty are their last stake against de­spair.

“You have been loved, but nev­er adored.”

That speech of Theo­dose, ac­com­pa­nied by a look which read, not in­to her heart, but in­to her life, was the key-​note to her enig­ma, and Flavie felt her­self di­vined.

The lawyer had mere­ly re­peat­ed ideas which lit­er­ature has ren­dered triv­ial; but what mat­ter where the whip comes from, or how it is made, if it touch­es the sen­si­tive spot of a horse's hide? The emo­tion was in Flavie, not in the speech, just as the noise is not in the avalanche, though it pro­duces it.

A young of­fi­cer, two fops, a banker, a clum­sy youth, and Colleville, were poor at­tempts at hap­pi­ness. Once in her life Madame Colleville had dreamed of it, but nev­er at­tained it. Death had has­tened to put an end to the on­ly pas­sion in which she had found a charm. For the last two years she had lis­tened to the voice of re­li­gion, which told her that nei­ther the Church, nor its votaries, should talk of love or hap­pi­ness, but of du­ty and res­ig­na­tion; that the on­ly hap­pi­ness lay in the sat­is­fac­tion of ful­fill­ing painful and cost­ly du­ties, the re­wards for which were not in this world. All the same, how­ev­er, she was con­scious of an­oth­er clam­or­ing voice; but, inas­much as her re­li­gion was on­ly a mask which it suit­ed her to wear, and not a con­ver­sion, she did not lay it aside, think­ing it a re­source. Be­liev­ing al­so that piety, false or true, was a be­com­ing man­ner in which to meet her fu­ture, she con­tin­ued in the Church, as though it were the cross-​roads of a for­est, where, seat­ed on a bench, she read the sign-​posts, and wait­ed for some lucky chance; feel­ing all the while that night was com­ing on.

Thus it hap­pened that her in­ter­est was keen­ly ex­cit­ed when Theo­dose put her se­cret con­di­tion of mind in­to words, seem­ing to promise her the re­al­iza­tion of her cas­tle in the air, al­ready built and over­thrown some six or eight times.

From the be­gin­ning of the win­ter she had no­ticed that Theo­dose was ex­am­in­ing and study­ing her, though cau­tious­ly and se­cret­ly. More than once, she had put on her gray moire silk with its black lace, and her head­dress of Mech­lin with a few flow­ers, in or­der to ap­pear to her best ad­van­tage; and men know very well when a toi­let has been made to please them. The old beau of the Em­pire, that hand­some Thuil­li­er, over­whelmed her with com­pli­ments, as­sur­ing her she was queen of the sa­lon, but la Peyrade said in­finite­ly more to the pur­pose by a look.

Flavie had ex­pect­ed, Sun­day af­ter Sun­day, a dec­la­ra­tion, say­ing to her­self at times:--

“He knows I am ru­ined and haven't a sou. Per­haps he is re­al­ly pi­ous.”

Theo­dose did noth­ing rash­ly; like a wise mu­si­cian, he had marked the place in his sym­pho­ny where he in­tend­ed to tap his drum. When he saw Colleville at­tempt­ing to warn Thuil­li­er against him, he fired his broad­side, clev­er­ly pre­pared dur­ing the three or four months in which he had been study­ing Flavie; he now suc­ceed­ed with her as he had, ear­li­er in the day, suc­ceed­ed with Thuil­li­er.

While get­ting in­to bed, Theo­dose said to him­self:--

“The wife is on my side; the hus­band can't en­dure me; they are now quar­relling; and I shall get the bet­ter of it, for she does what she likes with that man.”

The lawyer was mis­tak­en in one thing: there was no dis­pute what­ev­er, and Colleville was sleep­ing peace­ful­ly be­side his dear lit­tle Flavie, while she was say­ing to her­self:--

“Cer­tain­ly Theo­dose must be a su­pe­ri­or man.”

Many men, like la Peyrade, de­rive their su­pe­ri­or­ity from the au­dac­ity, or the dif­fi­cul­ty, of an en­ter­prise; the strength they dis­play in­creas­es their mus­cu­lar pow­er, and they spend it freely. Then when suc­cess is won, or de­feat is met, the pub­lic is as­ton­ished to find how small, ex­haust­ed, and puny those men re­al­ly are. Af­ter cast­ing in­to the minds of the two per­sons on whom Ce­leste's fate chiefly de­pend­ed, an in­ter­est and cu­rios­ity that were al­most fever­ish, Theo­dose pre­tend­ed to be a very busy man; for five or six days he was out of the house from morn­ing till night, in or­der not to meet Flavie un­til the time when her in­ter­est should in­crease to the point of over­step­ping con­ven­tion­al­ity, and al­so in or­der to force the hand­some Thuil­li­er to come and fetch him.

The fol­low­ing Sun­day he felt cer­tain he should find Madame Colleville at church; he was not mis­tak­en, for they came out, each of them, at the same mo­ment, and met at the cor­ner of the rue des Deux-​Eglis­es. Theo­dose of­fered his arm, which Flavie ac­cept­ed, leav­ing her daugh­ter to walk in front with her broth­er Ana­tole. This youngest child, then about twelve years old, be­ing des­tined for the sem­inary, was now at the Barniol in­sti­tute, where he ob­tained an el­emen­tary ed­uca­tion; Barniol, the son-​in-​law of the Phel­lions, was nat­ural­ly mak­ing the tu­ition fees light, with a view to the hoped-​for al­liance be­tween Fe­lix and Ce­leste.

“Have you done me the hon­or and fa­vor of think­ing over what I said to you so bad­ly the oth­er day?” asked the lawyer, in a ca­ress­ing tone, press­ing the la­dy's arm to his heart with a move­ment both soft and strong; for he seemed to wish to re­strain him­self and ap­pear re­spect­ful, in spite of his ev­ident ea­ger­ness. “Do not mis­un­der­stand my in­ten­tions,” he con­tin­ued, af­ter re­ceiv­ing from Madame Colleville one of those looks which wom­en trained to the man­age­ment of pas­sion know how to give,--a look that, by mere ex­pres­sion, can con­vey both se­vere re­buke and se­cret com­mu­ni­ty of sen­ti­ment. “I love you as we love a no­ble na­ture strug­gling against mis­for­tune; Chris­tian char­ity en­folds both the strong and the weak; its trea­sure be­longs to both. Re­fined, grace­ful, el­egant as you are, made to be an or­na­ment of the high­est so­ci­ety, what man could see you with­out feel­ing an im­mense com­pas­sion in his heart--buried here among these odi­ous bour­geois, who know noth­ing of you, not even the aris­to­crat­ic val­ue of a sin­gle one of your at­ti­tudes, or those en­chant­ing in­flec­tions of your voice! Ah! if I were on­ly rich! if I had pow­er! your hus­band, who is cer­tain­ly a good fel­low, should be made re­ceiv­er-​gen­er­al, and you your­self could get him elect­ed deputy. But, alas! poor am­bi­tious man, my first du­ty is to si­lence my am­bi­tion. Know­ing my­self at the bot­tom of the bag like the last num­ber in a fam­ily lot­tery, I can on­ly of­fer you my arm and not my heart. I hope all from a good mar­riage, and, be­lieve me, I shall make my wife not on­ly hap­py, but I shall make her one of the first in the land, re­ceiv­ing from her the means of suc­cess. It is so fine a day, will you not take a turn in the Lux­em­bourg?” he added, as they reached the rue d'En­fer at the cor­ner of Colleville's house, op­po­site to which was a pas­sage lead­ing to the gar­dens by the stair­way of a lit­tle build­ing, the last re­mains of the fa­mous con­vent of the Chartreux.

The soft yield­ing of the arm with­in his own, in­di­cat­ed a tac­it con­sent to this pro­pos­al, and as Flavie de­served the hon­or of a sort of en­thu­si­asm, he drew her ve­he­ment­ly along, ex­claim­ing:--

“Come! we may nev­er have so good a mo­ment--But see!” he added, “there is your hus­band at the win­dow look­ing at us; let us walk slow­ly.”

“You have noth­ing to fear from Mon­sieur Colleville,” said Flavie, smil­ing; “he leaves me mis­tress of my own ac­tions.”

“Ah! here, in­deed, is the wom­an I have dreamed of,” cried the Proven­cal, with that ec­sta­sy that in­flames the soul on­ly, and in tones that is­sue on­ly from South­ern lips. “Par­don me, madame,” he said, re­cov­er­ing him­self, and re­turn­ing from an up­per sphere to the ex­iled an­gel whom he looked at pi­ous­ly,--“par­don me, I aban­don what I was say­ing; but how can a man help feel­ing for the sor­rows he has known him­self when he sees them the lot of a be­ing to whom life should bring on­ly joy and hap­pi­ness? Your suf­fer­ings are mine; I am no more in my right place than you are in yours; the same mis­for­tune has made us broth­er and sis­ter. Ah! dear Flavie, the first day it was grant­ed to me to see you--the last Sun­day in Septem­ber, 1838--you were very beau­ti­ful; I shall of­ten re­call you to mem­ory in that pret­ty lit­tle gown of mous­se­line-​de-​laine of the col­or of some Scot­tish tar­tan! That day I said to my­self: 'Why is that wom­an so of­ten at the Thuil­liers'; above all, why did she ev­er have in­ti­mate re­la­tions with Thuil­li­er him­self?--'”

“Mon­sieur!” said Flavie, alarmed at the sin­gu­lar course la Peyrade was giv­ing to the con­ver­sa­tion.

“Eh! I know all,” he cried, ac­com­pa­ny­ing the words with a shrug of his shoul­ders. “I ex­plain it all to my own mind, and I do not re­spect you less. You now have to gath­er the fruits of your sin, and I will help you. Ce­leste will be very rich, and in that lies your own fu­ture. You can have on­ly one son-​in-​law; chose him wise­ly. An am­bi­tious man might be­come a min­is­ter, but you would hum­ble your daugh­ter and make her mis­er­able; and if such a man lost his place and for­tune he could nev­er re­cov­er it. Yes, I love you,” he con­tin­ued. “I love you with an un­lim­it­ed af­fec­tion; you are far above the mass of pet­ty con­sid­er­ations in which sil­ly wom­en en­tan­gle them­selves. Let us un­der­stand each oth­er.”

Flavie was be­wil­dered; she was, how­ev­er, awake to the ex­treme frank­ness of such lan­guage, and she said to her­self, “He is not a se­cret ma­noeu­vr­er, cer­tain­ly.” More­over, she ad­mit­ted to her own mind that no one had ev­er so deeply stirred and ex­cit­ed her as this young man.

“Mon­sieur,” she said, “I do not know who could have put in­to your mind so great an er­ror as to my life, nor by what right you--”

“Ah! par­don me, madame,” in­ter­rupt­ed the Proven­cal with a cool­ness that smacked of con­tempt. “I must have dreamed it. I said to my­self, 'She is all that!' But I see I was judg­ing from the out­side. I know now why you are liv­ing and will al­ways live on a fourth floor in the rue d'En­fer.”

And he point­ed his speech with an en­er­get­ic ges­ture to­ward the Colleville win­dows, which could be seen through the pas­sage from the al­ley of the Lux­em­bourg, where they were walk­ing alone, in that im­mense tract trod­den by so many and var­ious young am­bi­tions.

“I have been frank, and I ex­pect­ed reci­procity,” re­sumed Theo­dose. “I my­self have had days with­out food, madame; I have man­aged to live, pur­sue my stud­ies, ob­tain my de­gree, with two thou­sand francs for my sole de­pen­dence; and I en­tered Paris through the Bar­riere d'Ital­ie, with five hun­dred francs in my pock­et, firm­ly re­solved, like one of my com­pa­tri­ots, to be­come, some day, one of the fore­most men of our coun­try. The man who has of­ten picked his food from bas­kets of scraps where the restau­ra­teurs put their refuse, which are emp­tied at six o'clock ev­ery morn­ing--that man is not like­ly to re­coil be­fore any means,--avow­able, of course. Well, do you think me the friend of the peo­ple?” he said, smil­ing. “One has to have a speak­ing-​trum­pet to reach the ear of Fame; she doesn't lis­ten if you speak with your lips; and with­out fame of what use is tal­ent? The poor man's ad­vo­cate means to be some day the ad­vo­cate of the rich. Is that plain speak­ing? Don't I open my in­most be­ing to you? Then open your heart to me. Say to me, 'Let us be friends,' and the day will come when we shall both be hap­py.”

“Good heav­ens! why did I ev­er come here? Why did I ev­er take your arm?” cried Flavie.

“Be­cause it is in your des­tiny,” he replied. “Ah! my dear, beloved Flavie,” he added, again press­ing her arm up­on his heart, “did you ex­pect to hear the vul­gar­ities of love from me? We are broth­er and sis­ter; that is all.”

And he led her to­wards the pas­sage to re­turn to the rue d'En­fer.

Flavie felt a sort of ter­ror in the depths of the con­tent­ment which all wom­en find in vi­olent emo­tions; and she took that ter­ror for the sort of fear which a new pas­sion al­ways ex­cites; but for all that, she felt she was fas­ci­nat­ed, and she walked along in ab­so­lute si­lence.

“What are you think­ing of?” asked Theo­dose, when they reached the mid­dle of the pas­sage.

“Of what you have just said to me,” she an­swered.

“At our age,” he said, “it is best to sup­press pre­lim­inar­ies; we are not chil­dren; we both be­long to a sphere in which we should un­der­stand each oth­er. Re­mem­ber this,” he added, as they reached the rue d'En­fer. --“I am whol­ly yours.”

So say­ing, he bowed low to her.

“The iron's in the fire now!” he thought to him­self as he watched his gid­dy prey on her way home.