The Lesser Bourgeoisie Part 21

"There is something behind all this," said Desroches in an undertone to G.o.deschal, as la Peyrade followed Sauvaignou into the clerk's office.

"The Thuilliers get a splendid piece of property for next to nothing,"

replied G.o.deschal; "that's all."

"La Peyrade and Cerizet look to me like two divers who are fighting under water," replied Desroches. "What am I to say to Cerizet, who put the matter into my hands?" he added, as the barrister returned to them.

"Tell him that Sauvaignou forced your hand," replied la Peyrade.

"And you fear nothing?" said Desroches, in a sudden manner.

"I? oh no! I want to give Cerizet a lesson."

"To-morrow, I shall know the truth," said Desroches, in a low tone, to G.o.deschal; "no one chatters like a beaten man."

La Peyrade departed, carrying with him the deed of relinquishment.

At eleven o'clock he was in the courtroom of the justice-of-peace, perfectly calm, and firm. When he saw Cerizet come in, pale with rage, his eyes full of venom, he said in his ear:--

"My dear friend, I'm a pretty good fellow myself, and I hold that twenty-five thousand francs in good bank-bills at your disposal, whenever you will return to me those notes of mine which you hold."

Cerizet looked at the advocate of the poor, without being able to say one word in reply; he was green; the bile had struck in.

CHAPTER XIII. THE PERVERSITY OF DOVES

"I am a non-dispossessable property-owner!" cried Thuillier, coming home after visiting his notary. "No human power can get that house away from me. Cardot says so."

The bourgeoisie think much more of what their notary tells them than of what their attorney says. The notary is nearer to them than any other ministerial officer. The Parisian bourgeois never pays a visit to his attorney without a sense of fear; whereas he mounts the stairs with ever-renewed pleasure to see his notary; he admires that official's virtue and his sound good sense.

"Cardot, who is looking for an apartment for one of his clients, wants to know about our second floor," continued Thuillier. "If I choose he'll introduce to me on Sunday a tenant who is ready to sign a lease for eighteen years at forty thousand francs and taxes! What do you say to that, Brigitte?"

"Better wait," she replied. "Ah! that dear Theodose, what a fright he gave me!"

"Hey! my dearest girl, I must tell you that when Cardot asked who put me in the way of this affair he said I owed him a present of at least ten thousand francs. The fact is, I owe it all to him."

"But he is the son of the house," responded Brigitte.

"Poor lad! I'll do him the justice to say that he asks for nothing."

"Well, dear, good friend," said la Peyrade, coming in about three o'clock, "here you are, richissime!"

"And through you, Theodose."

"And you, little aunt, have you come to life again? Ah! you were not half as frightened as I was. I put your interests before my own; I haven't breathed freely till this morning at eleven o'clock; and yet I am sure now of having two mortal enemies at my heels in the two men I have tricked for your sake. As I walked home, just now, I asked myself what could be your influence over me to make me commit such a crime, and whether the happiness of belonging to your family and becoming your son could ever efface the stain I have put upon my conscience."

"Bah! you can confess it," said Thuillier, the free-thinker.

"And now," said Theodose to Brigitte, "you can pay, in all security, the cost of the house,--eighty thousand francs, and thirty thousand to Grindot; in all, with what you have paid in costs, one hundred and twenty thousand; and this last twenty thousand added make one hundred and forty thousand. If you let the house outright to a single tenant ask him for the last year's rent in advance, and reserve for my wife and me the whole of the first floor above the entresol. Make those conditions and you'll still get your forty thousand francs a year. If you should want to leave this quarter so as to be nearer the Chamber, you can always take up your abode with us on that vast first floor, which has stables and coach-house belonging to it; in fact, everything that is needful for a splendid life. And now, Thuillier, I am going to get the cross of the Legion of honor for you."

Hearing this last promise, Brigitte cried out in her enthusiasm:--

"Faith! my dear boy, you've done our business so well that I'll leave you to manage that of letting the house."

"Don't abdicate, dear aunt," replied Theodose. "G.o.d keep me from ever taking a step without you! You are the good genius of this family; I think only of the day when Thuillier will take his seat in the Chamber.

If you let the house you will come into possession of your forty thousand francs for the last year of the lease in two months from now; and that will not prevent Thuillier from drawing his quarterly ten thousand of the rental."

After casting this hope into the mind of the old maid, who was jubilant, Theodose drew Thuillier into the garden and said to him, without beating round the bush:--

"Dear, good friend, find means to get ten thousand francs from your sister, and be sure not to let her suspect that you pay them to me; tell her that sum is required in the government office to facilitate your appointment as chevalier of the Legion of honor; tell her, too, that you know the persons among whom that sum should be distributed."

"That's a good idea," said Thuillier; "besides, I'll pay it back to her when I get my rents."

"Have the money ready this evening, dear friend. Now I am going out on business about your cross; to-morrow we shall know something definitely about it."

"What a man you are!" cried Thuillier.

"The ministry of the 1st of March is going to fall, and we must get it out of them beforehand," said Theodose, shrewdly.

He now hurried to Madame Colleville, crying out as he entered her room:--

"I've conquered! We shall have a piece of landed property for Celeste worth a million, a life-interest in which will be given to her by her marriage-contract; but keep the secret, or your daughter will be hunted down by peers of France. Besides, this settlement will only be made in my favor. Now dress yourself, and let us go and call on Madame du Bruel; she can get the cross for Thuillier. While you are getting under arms I'll do a little courting to Celeste; you and I can talk as we drive along."

La Peyrade had seen, as he pa.s.sed the door of the salon, Celeste and Felix Ph.e.l.lion in close conversation. Flavie had such confidence in her daughter that she did not fear to leave them together. Now that the great success of the morning was secured, Theodose felt the necessity of beginning his courtship of Celeste. It was high time, he thought, to bring about a quarrel between the lovers. He did not, therefore, hesitate to apply his ear to the door of the salon before entering it, in order to discover what letters of the alphabet of love they were spelling; he was even invited to commit this domestic treachery by sounds from within, which seemed to say that they were disputing. Love, according to one of our poets, is a privilege which two persons mutually take advantage of to cause each other, reciprocally, a great deal of sorrow about nothing at all.

When Celeste knew that Felix was elected by her heart to be the companion of her life, she felt a desire, not so much to study him as to unite herself closely with him by that communion of souls which is the basis of all affections, and leads, in youthful minds, to involuntary examination. The dispute to which Theodose was now to listen took its rise in a disagreement which had sprung up within the last few days between the mathematician and Celeste. The young girl's piety was real; she belonged to the flock of the truly faithful, and to her, Catholicism, tempered by that mysticism which attracts young souls, was an inward poem, a life within her life. From this point young girls are apt to develop into either extremely high-minded women or saints. But, during this beautiful period of their youth they have in their heart, in their ideas, a sort of absolutism: before their eyes is the image of perfection, and all must be celestial, angelic, or divine to satisfy them. Outside of their ideal, nothing of good can exist; all is stained and soiled. This idea causes the rejection of many a diamond with a flaw by girls who, as women, fall in love with paste.

Now, Celeste had seen in Felix, not irreligion, but indifference to matters of religion. Like most geometricians, chemists, mathematicians, and great naturalists, he had subjected religion to reason; he recognized a problem in it as insoluble as the squaring of the circle.

Deist "in petto," he lived in the religion of most Frenchmen, not attaching more importance to it than he did to the new laws promulgated in July. It was necessary to have a G.o.d in heaven, just as they set up a bust of the king at the mayor's office. Felix Ph.e.l.lion, a worthy son of his father, had never drawn the slightest veil over his opinions or his conscience; he allowed Celeste to read into them with the candor and the inattention of a student of problems. The young girl, on her side, professed a horror for atheism, and her conscience a.s.sured her that a deist was cousin-germain to an atheist.

"Have you thought, Felix, of doing what you promised me?" asked Celeste, as soon as Madame Colleville had left them alone.

"No, my dear Celeste," replied Felix.

"Oh! to have broken his word!" she cried, softly.

"But to have kept it would have been a profanation," said Felix. "I love you so deeply, with a tenderness so little proof against your wishes, that I promised a thing contrary to my conscience. Conscience, Celeste, is our treasure, our strength, our mainstay. How can you ask me to go into a church and kneel at the feet of a priest, in whom I can see only a man? You would despise me if I obeyed you."

"And so, my dear Felix, you refuse to go to church," said Celeste, casting a tearful glance at the man she loved. "If I were your wife you would let me go alone? You do not love me as I love you! for, alas! I have a feeling in my heart for an atheist contrary to that which G.o.d commands."

"An atheist!" cried Felix. "Oh, no! Listen to me, Celeste. There is certainly a G.o.d; I believe in that; but I have higher ideas of Him than those of your priests; I do not wish to bring Him down to my level; I want to rise to Him. I listen to the voice He has put within me,--a voice which honest men call conscience, and I strive not to darken that divine ray as it comes to me. For instance, I will never harm others; I will do nothing against the commandments of universal morality, which was that of Confucius, Moses, Pythagoras, Socrates, as well as of Jesus Christ. I will stand in the presence of G.o.d; my actions shall be my prayers; I will never be false in word or deed; never will I do a base or shameful thing. Those are the precepts I have learned from my virtuous father, and which I desire to bequeath to my children. All the good that I can do I shall try to accomplish, even if I have to suffer for it. What can you ask more of a man than that?"

This profession of the Ph.e.l.lion faith caused Celeste to sadly shake her head.

"Read attentively," she replied, "'The Imitation of Jesus Christ.'

Strive to convert yourself to the holy Catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church, and you will see how empty your words are. Hear me, Felix; marriage is not, the Church says, the affair of a day, the mere satisfaction of our own desires; it is made for eternity. What! shall we be united day and night, shall we form one flesh, one word, and yet have two languages, two faiths in our heart, and a cause of perpetual dissension? Would you condemn me to weep tears over the state of your soul,--tears that I must ever conceal from you? Could I address myself in peace to G.o.d when I see his arm stretched out in wrath against you?

Must my children inherit the blood of a deist and his convictions? Oh!

G.o.d, what misery for a wife! No, no, these ideas are intolerable. Felix!

be of my faith, for I cannot share yours. Do not put a gulf between us.