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

he has got to wait till his parents die, for the father happens to be mayor, and the government wouldn't like it."

"What mayor?"

"11th arrondissement,--Minard, powerfully rich, used to do a business in cocoa."

"Ah! very good! very good! I know all about him. You say Olympe is living with his son?"

"Well, not to say living together, for that would make talk, though he only sees her with good motives. He lives at home with his father, but he has bought their furniture, and has put it, and my daughter, too, into a lodging in the Chausee d'Antin; stylish quarter, isn't it?"

"It seems to me pretty well arranged," said Cerizet; "and as Heaven, it appears, didn't destine us for each other--"

"No, yes, well, that's how it was; and I think that girl is going to give me great satisfaction; and there's something I want to consult you about."

"What?" demanded Cerizet.

"Well, my daughter being in luck, I don't think I ought to continue to cry fish in the streets; and now that my uncle has disinherited me, I have, it seems to me, a right to an 'elementary allowance.'"

"You are dreaming, my poor woman; your daughter is a minor; it is you who ought to be feeding her; the law doesn't require her to give you aliment."

"Then do you mean," said Madame Cardinal, "that those who have nothing are to give to those who have much? A fine thing such a law as that! It's as bad as guardians who, for nothing at all, talk about calling the police. Yes! I'd like to see 'em calling the police to me! Let 'em guillotine me! It won't prevent my saying that the rich are swindlers; yes, swindlers! and the people ought to make another revolution to get their rights; and _then_, my lad, you, and my daughter, and barrister Minard, and that little old guardian, you'll all come down under it--"

Perceiving that his ex-mother-in-law was reaching stage of exaltation that was not unalarming, Cerizet hastened to get away, her epithets pursuing him for more than a hundred feet; but he comforted himself by thinking that he would make her pay for them the next time she came to his back to ask for a "convenience."


CHAPTER XVIII. SET A SAINT TO CATCH A SAINT

As he approached his own abode, Cerizet, who was nothing so little as courageous, felt an emotion of fear. He perceived a form ambushed near the door, which, as he came nearer, detached itself as if to meet him. Happily, it was only Dutocq. He came for his notes. Cerizet returned them in some ill-humor, complaining of the distrust implied in a visit at such an hour. Dutocq paid no attention to this sensitiveness, and the next morning, very early, he presented himself at la Peyrade's.

La Peyrade paid, as he had promised, on the nail, and to a few sentinel remarks uttered by Dutocq as soon as the money was in his pocket, he answered with marked coldness. His whole external appearance and behavior was that of a slave who has burst his chain and has promised himself not to make a gospel use of his liberty.

As he conducted his visitor to the door, the latter came face to face with a woman in servant's dress, who was just about to ring the bell. This woman was, apparently, known to Dutocq, for he said to her:--

"Ha ha! little woman; so we feel the necessity of consulting a barrister? You are right; at the family council very serious matters were brought up against you."

"Thank God, I fear no one. I can walk with my head up," said the person thus addressed.

"So much the better for you," replied the clerk of the justice-of-peace; "but you will probably be summoned before the judge who examines the affair. At any rate, you are in good hands here; and my friend la Peyrade will advise you for the best."

"Monsieur is mistaken," said the woman; "it is not for what he thinks that I have come to consult a lawyer."

"Well, be careful what you say and do, my dear woman, for I warn you you are going to be finely picked to pieces. The relations are furious against you, and you can't get the idea out of their heads that you have got a great deal of money."

While speaking thus, Dutocq kept his eye on Theodose, who bore the look uneasily, and requested his client to enter.

Here follows a scene which had taken place the previous afternoon between this woman and la Peyrade.

La Peyrade, we may remember, was in the habit of going to early mass at his parish church. For some little time he had felt himself the object of a singular attention which he could not explain on the part of the woman whom we have just seen entering his office, who daily attended the church at, as Dorine says, his "special hour." Could it be for love? That explanation was scarcely compatible with the maturity and the saintly, beatific air of this person, who, beneath a plain cap, called "a la Janseniste," by which fervent female souls of that sect were recognized, affected, like a nun, to hide her hair. On the other hand, the rest of her clothing was of a neatness that was almost dainty, and the gold cross at her throat, suspended by a black velvet ribbon, excluded the idea of humble and hesitating mendicity.

The morning of the day on which the dinner at the Rocher de Cancale was to take place, la Peyrade, weary of a performance which had ended by preoccupying his mind, went up to the woman and asked her pointblank if she had any request to make of him.

"Monsieur," she answered, in a tone of solemnity, "is, I think, the celebrated Monsieur de la Peyrade, the advocate of the poor?"

"I am la Peyrade; and I have had, it is true, an opportunity to render services to the indigent persons of this quarter."

"Would it, then, be asking too much of monsieur's goodness that he should suffer me to consult him?"

"This place," replied la Peyrade, "is not well chosen for such consultation. What you have to say to me seems important, to judge by the length of time you have been hesitating to speak to me. I live near here, rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer, and if you will take the trouble to come to my office--"

"It will not annoy monsieur?"

"Not in the least; my business is to hear clients."

"At what hour--lest I disturb monsieur--?"

"When you choose; I shall be at home all the morning."

"Then I will hear another mass, at which I can take the communion. I did not dare to do so at this mass, for the thought of speaking to monsieur so distracted my mind. I will be at monsieur's house by eight o'clock, when I have ended my meditation, if that hour does not inconvenience him."

"No; but there is no necessity for all this ceremony," replied la Peyrade, with some impatience.

Perhaps a little professional jealousy inspired his ill-humor, for it was evident that he had to do with an antagonist who was capable of giving him points.

At the hour appointed, not a minute before nor a minute after, the pious woman rang the bell, and the barrister having, not without some difficulty, induced her to sit down, he requested her to state her case. She was then seized with that delaying little cough with which we obtain a respite when brought face to face with a difficult subject. At last, however, she compelled herself to approach the object of her visit.

"It is to ask monsieur," she said, "if he would be so very good as to inform me whether it is true that a charitable gentleman, now deceased, has bequeathed a fund to reward domestic servants who are faithful to their masters."

"Yes," replied la Peyrade; "that is to say, Monsieur de Montyon founded 'prizes for virtue,' which are frequently given to zealous and exemplary domestic servants. But ordinary good conduct is not sufficient; there must be some act or acts of great devotion, and truly Christian self-abnegation."

"Religion enjoins humility upon us," replied the pious woman, "and therefore I dare not praise myself; but inasmuch as for the last twenty years I have lived in the service of an old man of the dullest description, a savant, who has wasted his substance on inventions, so that I myself have had to feed and clothe him, persons have thought that I am not altogether undeserving of that prize."

"It is certainly under such conditions that the Academy selects its candidates," said la Peyrade. "What is your master's name?"

"Pere Picot; he is never called otherwise in our quarter; sometimes he goes out into the streets as if dressed for the carnival, and all the little children crowd about him, calling out: 'How d'ye do, Pere Picot! Good-morning, Pere Picot!' But that's how it is; he takes no care of his dignity; he goes about full of his own ideas; and though I kill myself trying to give him appetizing food, if you ask him what he has had for his dinner he can't tell you. Yet he's a man full of ability, and he has taught good pupils. Perhaps monsieur knows young Phellion, a professor in the College of Saint-Louis; he was one of his scholars, and he comes to see him very often."

"Then," said la Peyrade, "your master is a mathematician?"

"Yes, monsieur; mathematics have been his bane; they have flung him into a set of ideas which don't seem to have any common-sense in them ever since he has been employed at the Observatory, near here."

"Well," said la Peyrade, "you must bring testimony proving your long devotion to this old man, and I will then draw up a memorial to the Academy and take the necessary steps to present it."

"How good monsieur is!" said the pious woman, clasping her hands; "and if he would also let me tell him of a little difficulty--"

"What is it?"

"They tell me, monsieur, that to get this prize persons must be really very poor."

"Not exactly; still, the Academy does endeavor to choose whose who are in straitened circumstances, and who have made sacrifices too heavy for their means."

"Sacrifices! I think I may indeed say I have made sacrifices, for the little property I inherited from my parents has all been spent in keeping the old man, and for fifteen years I have had no wages, which, at three hundred francs a year and compound interest, amount now to a pretty little sum; as monsieur, I am sure, will agree."

At the words "compound interest," which evidenced a certain amount of financial culture, la Peyrade looked at this Antigone with increased attention.

"In short," he said, "your difficulty is--"

"Monsieur will not think it strange," replied the saintly person, "that a very rich uncle dying in England, who had never done anything for his family in his lifetime, should have left me twenty-five thousand francs."

"Certainly," said the barrister, "there's nothing in that but what is perfectly natural and proper."

"But, monsieur, I have been told that the possession of this money will prevent the judges from considering my claims to the prize."

"Possibly; because seeing you in possession of a little competence, the sacrifices which you apparently intend to continue in favor of your master will be less meritorious."

"I