The Lesser Bourgeoisie - Honoré de Balzac (top novels to read txt) 📗

as anxious as a lover should be who has just irritated his mistress.

"I heard the word 'enough'; then something is too much?" he said, inquiringly, looking in turn from Celeste to Felix.

"We were talking religion," replied Felix, "and I was saying to mademoiselle how dangerous ecclesiastical influence is in the bosom of families."

"That was not the point, monsieur," said Celeste, sharply; "it was to know if husband and wife could be of one heart when the one is an atheist and the other Catholic."

"Can there be such a thing as atheists?" cried Theodose, with all the signs of extreme wonderment. "Could a true Catholic marry a Protestant? There is no safety possible for a married pair unless they have perfect conformity in the matter of religious opinions. I, who come from the Comtat, of a family which counts a pope among its ancestors--for our arms are: gules, a key argent, with supporters, a monk holding a church, and a pilgrim with a staff, or, and the motto, 'I open, I shut'--I am, of course, intensely dogmatic on such points. But in these days, thanks to our modern system of education, it does not seem to me strange that religion should be called into question. I myself would never marry a Protestant, had she millions, even if I loved her distractedly. Faith is a thing that cannot be tampered with. 'Una fides, unus Dominus,' that is my device in life."

"You hear that!" cried Celeste, triumphantly, looking at Felix Phellion.

"I am not openly devout," continued la Peyrade. "I go to mass at six every morning, that I may not be observed; I fast on Fridays; I am, in short, a son of the Church, and I would not undertake any serious enterprise without prayer, after the ancient fashion of our ancestors; but no one is able to notice my religion. A singular thing happened to our family during the Revolution of 1789, which attached us more closely than ever to our holy mother the Church. A poor young lady of the elder branch of the Peyrades, who owned the little estate of la Peyrade,--for we ourselves are Peyrades of Canquoelle, but the two branches inherit from one another,--well, this young lady married, six years before the Revolution, a barrister who, after the fashion of the times, was Voltairean, that is to say, an unbeliever, or, if you choose, a deist. He took up all the revolutionary ideas, and practised the charming rites that you know of in the worship of the goddess Reason. He came into our part of the country imbued with the ideas of the Convention, and fanatical about them. His wife was very handsome; he compelled her to play the part of Liberty; and the poor unfortunate creature went mad. She died insane! Well, as things are going now it looks as if we might have another 1793."

This history, invented on the spot, made such an impression on Celeste's fresh and youthful imagination that she rose, bowed to the young men and hastened to her chamber.

"Ah! monsieur, why did you tell her that?" cried Felix, struck to the heart by the cold look the young girl, affecting profound indifference, cast upon him. She fancied herself transformed into a goddess of Reason.

"Why not? What were you talking about?" asked Theodose.

"About my indifference to religion."

"The great sore of this century," replied Theodose, gravely.

"I am ready," said Madame Colleville, appearing in a toilet of much taste. "But what is the matter with my poor daughter? She is crying!"

"Crying? madame," exclaimed Felix; "please tell her that I will study 'The Imitation of Christ' at once."

Felix left the house with Theodose and Flavie, whose arm the barrister pressed to let her know he would explain in the carriage the apparent dementia of the young professor.

An hour later, Madame Colleville and Celeste, Colleville and Theodose were entering the Thuilliers' apartment to dine there. Theodose and Flavie took Thuillier into the garden, where the former said to him:--

"Dear, good friend! you will have the cross within a week. Our charming friend here will tell you about our visit to the Comtesse du Bruel."

And Theodose left Thuillier, having caught sight of Desroches in the act of being brought by Mademoiselle Thuillier into the garden; he went, driven by a terrible and glacial presentiment, to meet him.

"My good friend," said Desroches in his ear, "I have come to see if you can procure at once twenty-five thousand francs plus two thousand six hundred and eighty for costs."

"Are you acting for Cerizet?" asked the barrister.

"Cerizet has put all the papers into the hands of Louchard, and you know what you have to expect if arrested. Is Cerizet wrong in thinking you have twenty-five thousand francs in your desk? He says you offered them to him and he thinks it only natural not to leave them in your hands."

"Thank you for taking the step, my good friend," replied Theodose. "I have been expecting this attack."

"Between ourselves," replied Desroches, "you have made an utter fool of him, and he is furious. The scamp will stop at nothing to get his revenge upon you--for he'll lose everything if he forces you to fling your barrister's gown, as they say, to the nettles and go to prison."

"I?" said Theodose. "I'm going to pay him. But even so, there will still be five notes of mine in his hands, for five thousand francs each; what does he mean to do with them?"

"Oh! after the affair of this morning, I can't tell you; my client is a crafty, mangy cur, and he is sure to have his little plans."

"Look here, Desroches," said Theodose, taking the hard, unyielding attorney round the waist, "those papers are in your hands, are not they?"

"Will you pay them?"

"Yes, in three hours."

"Very good, then. Be at my office at nine o'clock; I'll receive the money and give you your notes; _but_, at half-past nine o'clock, they will be in the sheriff's hands."

"To-night, then, at nine o'clock," said Theodose.

"Nine o'clock," repeated Desroches, whose glance had taken in the whole family, then assembled in the garden.

Celeste, with red eyes, was talking to her godmother; Colleville and Brigitte, Flavie and Thuillier were on the steps of the broad portico leading to the entrance-hall. Desroches remarked to Theodose, who followed him to the door:--

"You can pay off those notes."

At a single glance the shrewd attorney had comprehended the whole scheme of the barrister.


CHAPTER XIV. ONE OF CERIZET'S FEMALE CLIENTS

The next morning, at daybreak, Theodose went to the office of the banker of the poor, to see the effect produced upon his enemy by the punctual payment of the night before, and to make another effort to get rid of his hornet.

He found Cerizet standing up, in conference with a woman, and he received an imperative sign to keep at a distance and not to interrupt the interview. The barrister was therefore reduced to conjectures as to the importance of this woman, an importance revealed by the eager look on the face of the lender "by the little week." Theodose had a presentiment, though a very vague one, that the upshot of this conference would have some influence on Cerizet's own arrangements, for he suddenly beheld on that crafty countenance the change produced by a dawning hope.

"But, my dear mamma Cardinal--"

"Yes, my good monsieur--"

"What is it you want--?"

"It must be decided--"

These beginnings, or these ends of sentences were the only gleams of light that the animated conversation, carried on in the lowest tones with lip to ear and ear to lip, conveyed to the motionless witness, whose attention was fixed on Madame Cardinal.

Madame Cardinal was one of Cerizet's earliest clients; she peddled fish. If Parisians know these creations peculiar to their soil, foreigners have no suspicion of their existence; and Mere Cardinal--technologically speaking, of course, deserved all the interest she excited in Theodose. So many women of her species may be met with in the streets that the passers-by give them no more attention than they give to the three thousand pictures of the Salon. But as she stood in Cerizet's office the Cardinal had all the value of an isolated masterpiece; she was a complete and perfect type of her species.

The woman was mounted on muddy sabots; but her feet, carefully wrapped in gaiters, were still further protected by stout and thick-ribbed stockings. Her cotton gown, adorned with a glounce of mud, bore the imprint of the strap which supported the fish-basket. Her principal garment was a shawl of what was called "rabbit's-hair cashmere," the two ends of which were knotted behind, above her bustle--for we must needs employ a fashionable word to express the effect produced by the transversal pressure of the basket upon her petticoats, which projected below it, in shape like a cabbage. A printed cotton neckerchief, of the coarsest description, gave to view a red neck, ribbed and lined like the surface of a pond where people have skated. Her head was covered in a yellow silk foulard, twined in a manner that was rather picturesque. Short and stout, and ruddy of skin, Mere Cardinal probably drank her little drop of brandy in the morning. She had once been handsome. The Halle had formerly reproached her, in the boldness of its figurative speech, for doing "a double day's-work in the twenty-four." Her voice, in order to reduce itself to the diapason of ordinary conversation, was obliged to stifle its sound as other voices do in a sick-room; but at such times it came thick and muffled, from a throat accustomed to send to the farthest recesses of the highest garret the names of the fish in their season. Her nose, a la Roxelane, her well-cut lips, her blue eyes, and all that formerly made up her beauty, was now buried in folds of vigorous flesh which told of the habits and occupations of an outdoor life. The stomach and bosom were distinguished for an amplitude worthy of Rubens.

"Do you want to make me lie in the straw?" she said to Cerizet. "What do I care for the Toupilliers? Ain't I a Toupillier myself? What do you want to do with them, those Toupilliers?"

This savage outburst was hastily repressed by Cerizet, who uttered a prolonged "Hush-sh!" such as all conspirators obey.

"Well, go and find out all you can about it, and come back to me," said Cerizet, pushing the woman toward the door, and whispering, as he did so, a few words in her ear.

"Well, my dear friend," said Theodose to Cerizet, "you have got your money?"

"Yes," returned Cerizet "we have measured our claws, they are the same length, the same strength, and the same sharpness. What next?"

"Am I to tell Dutocq that you received, last night, twenty-five thousand francs?"

"Oh! my dear friend, not a word, if you love me!" cried Cerizet.

"Listen," said Theodose. "I must know, once for all, what you want. I am positively determined not to remain twenty-four hours longer on the gridiron where you have got me. Cheat Dutocq if you will; I am utterly indifferent to that; but I intend that you and I shall come to an understanding. It is a fortune that I have paid you, twenty-five thousand francs, and you must have earned ten thousand more in your business; it is enough to make you an honest man. Cerizet, if you will leave me in peace, if you won't prevent my