The Lesser Bourgeoisie Part 13

"Why, no! the smallest as well as the greatest of my efforts are merely the reflections of the flame which you have kindled. I intend to be your son-in-law that we may never part. My wife, heavens! what could she be to me but a machine for child-bearing? whereas the divinity, the sublime being will be--you," he whispered in her ear.

"You are Satan!" she said, in a sort of terror.

"No, I am something of a poet, like all the men of my region. Come, be my Josephine! I'll go and see you to-morrow. I have the most ardent desire to see where you live and how you live, the furniture you use, the color of your stuffs, the arrangement of all things about you. I long to see the pearl in its sh.e.l.l."

He slipped away cleverly after these words, without waiting for an answer.

Flavie, to whom in all her life love had never taken the language of romance, sat still, but happy, her heart palpitating, and saying to herself that it was very difficult to escape such influence. For the first time Theodose had appeared in a pair of new trousers, with gray silk stockings and pumps, a waistcoat of black silk, and a cravat of black satin on the knot of which shone a plain gold pin selected with taste. He wore also a new coat in the last fashion, and yellow gloves, relieved by white shirt-cuffs; he was the only man who had manners, or deportment in that salon, which was now filling up for the evening.

Madame p.r.o.n, nee Barniol, arrived with two school-girls, aged seventeen, confided to her maternal care by families residing in Martinique.

Monsieur p.r.o.n, professor of rhetoric in a college presided over by priests, belonged to the Ph.e.l.lion cla.s.s; but, instead of expanding on the surface in phrases and demonstrations, and posing as an example, he was dry and sententious. Monsieur and Madame p.r.o.n, the flowers of the Ph.e.l.lion salon, received every Monday. Though a professor, the little man danced. He enjoyed great influence in the quarter enclosed by the boulevard du Mont-Parna.s.se, the Luxembourg, and the rue de Sevres.

Therefore, as soon as Ph.e.l.lion saw his friend, he took him by the arm into a corner to inform him of the Thuillier candidacy. After ten minutes' consultation they both went to find Thuillier, and the recess of a window, opposite to that where Flavie still sat absorbed in her reflections, no doubt, heard a "trio" worthy, in its way, of that of the Swiss in "Guillaume Tell."

"Do you see," said Theodose, returning to Flavie, "the pure and honest Ph.e.l.lion intriguing over there? Give a personal reason to a virtuous man and he'll paddle in the slimiest puddle; he is hooking that little p.r.o.n, and p.r.o.n is taking it all in, solely to get your little Celeste for Felix Ph.e.l.lion. Separate them, and in ten minutes they'll get together again, and that young Minard will be growling round them like an angry bulldog."

Felix, still under the strong emotion imparted to him by Celeste's generous action and the cry that came from the girl's heart, though no one but Madame Thuillier still thought of it, became inspired by one of those ingenuous artfulnesses which are the honest charlatanism of true love; but he was not to the manner born of it, and mathematics, moreover, made him somewhat absent-minded. He stationed himself near Madame Thuillier, imagining that Madame Thuillier would attract Celeste to her side. This astute calculation succeeded all the better because young Minard, who saw in Celeste nothing more than a "dot," had no such sudden inspiration, and was drinking his coffee and talking politics with Laudigeois, Monsieur Barniol, and Dutocq by order of his father, who was thinking and planning for the general election of the legislature in 1842.

"Who wouldn't love Celeste?" said Felix to Madame Thuillier.

"Little darling, no one in the world loves me as she does," replied the poor slave, with difficulty restraining her tears.

"Ah! madame, we both love you," said the candid professor, sincerely.

"What are you saying to each other?" asked Celeste, coming up.

"My child," said the pious woman, drawing her G.o.d-daughter down to her and kissing her on the forehead. "He said that you both loved me."

"Do not be angry with my presumption, mademoiselle. Let me do all I can to prove it," murmured Felix. "Ah! I cannot help it, I was made this way; injustice revolts me to the soul! Yes, the Saviour of men was right to promise the future to the meek heart, to the slain lamb! A man who did not love you, Celeste, must have adored you after that sublime impulse of yours at table. Ah, yes! innocence alone can console the martyr. You are a kind young girl; you will be one of those wives who make the glory and the happiness of a family. Happy be he whom you will choose!"

"G.o.dmamma, with what eyes do you think Monsieur Felix sees me?"

"He appreciates you, my little angel; I shall pray to G.o.d for both of you."

"If you knew how happy I am that my father can do a service to Monsieur Thuillier, and how I wish I could be useful to your brother--"

"In short," said Celeste, laughing, "you love us all."

"Well, yes," replied Felix.

True love wraps itself in the mysteries of reserve, even in its expression; it proves itself by itself; it does not feel the necessity, as a false love does, of lighting a conflagration. By an observer (if such a being could have glided into the Thuillier salon) a book might have been made in comparing the two scenes of love-making, and in watching the enormous preparations of Theodose and the simplicity of Felix: one was nature, the other was society,--the true and the false embodied. Noticing her daughter glowing with happiness, exhaling her soul through the pores of her face, and beautiful with the beauty of a young girl gathering the first roses of an indirect declaration, Flavie had an impulse of jealousy in her heart. She came across to Celeste and said in her ear:--

"You are not behaving well, my daughter; everybody is observing you; you are compromising yourself by talking so long to Monsieur Felix without knowing whether we approve of it."

"But, mamma, my G.o.dmother is here."

"Ah! pardon me, dear friend," said Madame Colleville; "I did not notice you."

"You do as others do," said the poor nonent.i.ty.

That reply stung Madame Colleville, who regarded it as a barbed arrow.

She cast a haughty glance at Felix and said to Celeste, "Sit there, my daughter," seating herself at the same time beside Madame Thuillier and pointing to a chair on the other side of her.

"I will work myself to death," said Felix to Madame Thuillier. "I'll be a member of the Academy of Sciences; I'll make some great discovery, and win her hand by force of fame."

"Ah!" thought the poor woman to herself, "I ought to have had a gentle, peaceful, learned man like that. I might have slowly developed in a life of quietness. It was not thy will, O G.o.d! but, I pray thee, unite and bless these children; they are made for one another."

And she sat there, pensive, listening to the racket made by her sister-in-law--a ten-horse power at work--who now, lending a hand to her two servants, cleared the table, taking everything out of the dining-room to accommodate the dancers, vociferating, like the captain of a frigate on his quarter-deck when taking his ship into action: "Have you plenty of raspberry syrup?" "Run out and buy some more orgeat!"

"There's not enough gla.s.ses. Where's the 'eau rougie'? Take those six bottles of 'vin ordinaire' and make more. Mind that Coffinet, the porter, doesn't get any." "Caroline, my girl, you are to wait at the sideboard; you'll have tongue and ham to slice in case they dance till morning. But mind, no waste! Keep an eye on everything. Pa.s.s me the broom; put more oil in those lamps; don't make blunders. Arrange the remains of the dessert so as to make a show on the sideboard; ask my sister to come and help us. I'm sure I don't know what she's thinking about, that dawdle! Heavens, how slow she is! Here, take away these chairs, they'll want all the room they can get."

The salon was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Ph.e.l.lions, Laudigeois, and many others whom the announcement of a dance at the Thuilliers', spread about in the Luxembourg between two and four in the afternoon, the hour at which the bourgeoisie takes its walk, had drawn thither.

"Are you ready, Brigitte?" said Colleville, bolting into the dining-room; "it is nine o'clock, and they are packed as close as herrings in the salon. Cardot, his wife and son and daughter and future son-in-law have just come, accompanied by that young Vinet; the whole faubourg Saint Antoine is debouching. Can't we move the piano in here?"

Then he gave the signal, by tuning his clarionet, the joyous sounds of which were greeted with huzzas from the salon.

It is useless to describe a ball of this kind. The toilets, faces, and conversations were all in keeping with one fact which will surely suffice even the dullest imagination; they pa.s.sed round, on tarnished and discolored trays, common tumblers filled with wine, "eau rougie,"

and "eau sucree." The trays on which were gla.s.ses of orgeat and gla.s.ses of syrup and water appeared only at long intervals. There were five card-tables and twenty-five players, and eighteen dancers of both s.e.xes. At one o'clock in the morning, all present--Madame Thuillier, Mademoiselle Brigitte, Madame Ph.e.l.lion, even Ph.e.l.lion himself--were dragged into the vivacities of a country-dance, vulgarly called "La Boulangere," in which Dutocq figured with a veil over his head, after the manner of the Kabyl. The servants who were waiting to escort their masters home, and those of the household, were audience to this performance; and after the interminable dance had lasted one whole hour it was proposed to carry Brigitte in triumph when she gave the announcement that supper was served. This circ.u.mstance made her see the necessity of hiding a dozen bottles of old burgundy. In short, the company had amused themselves so well, the matrons as well as the young girls, that Thuillier found occasion to say:--

"Well, well, this morning we little thought we should have such a fete to-night."

"There's never more pleasure," said the notary Cardot, "than in just such improvised b.a.l.l.s. Don't talk to me of parties where everybody stands on ceremony."

This opinion, we may remark, is a standing axiom among the bourgeoisie.

"Well, for my part," said Madame Minard, "I prefer the dignified old ways."

"We didn't mean that for you, madame; your salon is the chosen haunt of pleasure," said Dutocq.

When "La Boulangere" came to an end, Theodose pulled Dutocq from the sideboard where he was preparing to eat a slice of tongue, and said to him:--

"Let us go; we must be at Cerizet's very early in the morning; we ought both of us to think over that affair; it is not so easy to manage as Cerizet seems to imagine."

"Why not?" asked Dutocq, bringing his slice of tongue to eat in the salon.

"Don't you know the law?"

"I know enough of it to be aware of the dangers of the affair. If that notary wants the house and we filch it from him, there are means by which he can recover it; he can put himself into the skin of a registered creditor. By the present legal system relating to mortgages, when a house is sold at the request of creditors, if the price obtained for it at auction is not enough to pay all debts, the owners have the right to bid it in and hold it for a higher sum; now the notary, seeing himself caught, may back out of the sale in that way."

"Well," said la Peyrade, "it needs attention."

"Very good," replied Dutocq, "we'll go and see Cerizet."

These words, "go and see Cerizet," were overheard by Minard, who was following the two a.s.sociates; but they offered no meaning to his mind.

The two men were so outside of his own course and projects that he heard them without listening to them.

"This has been one of the finest days in our lives," said Brigitte to her brother, when she found herself alone with him in the deserted salon, at half-past two in the morning. "What a distinction! to be thus selected by your fellow-citizens!"

"Don't be mistaken about it, Brigitte; we owe it all, my child, to one man."