The Brotherhood of Consolation - Honoré de Balzac (best free ebook reader for android txt) 📗

in the banker's counting-room held by the scrutinizing eye of Frederic Mongenod while he made his inquiry, he felt ashamed as he saw a derisive smile on the lips of the listener.

"Madame la Baronne de la Chanterie," replied the banker, "is one of the most obscure persons in Paris, but she is also one of the most honorable. Have you any object in asking for information?"

Godefroid retreated into generalities: he was going to live among strangers; he naturally wished to know something of those with whom he should be intimately thrown. But the banker's smile became more and more sarcastic; and Godefroid, more and more embarrassed, was ashamed of the step he had taken, and which bore no fruit, for he dared not continue his questions about Madame de la Chanterie and her inmates.


IV. FAREWELL TO THE LIFE OF THE WORLD

Two days later, of a Monday evening, having dined for the last time at the Cafe Anglais, and seen the two first pieces at the Varietes, he went, at ten o'clock, to sleep for the first time in the rue Chanoinesse, where Manon conducted him to his room.

Solitude has charms comparable only to those of savage life, which no European has ever really abandoned after once tasting them. This may seem strange at an epoch when every one lives so much to be seen of others that all the world concern themselves in their neighbors' affairs, and when private life will soon be a thing of the past, so bold and so intrusive are the eyes of the press,--that modern Argus. Nevertheless, it is a truth which rests on the authority of the first six Christian centuries, during which no recluse ever returned to social life. Few are the moral wounds that solitude will not heal.

So, at first, Godefroid was soothed by the deep peace and absolute stillness of his new abode, as a weary traveller is relaxed by a bath.

The very day after his arrival at Madame de la Chanterie's he was forced to examine himself, under the sense that he was separated from all, even from Paris, though he still lived in the shadow of its cathedral. Stripped of his social vanities, he was about to have no other witnesses of his acts than his own conscience and the inmates of that house. He had quitted the great high-road of the world to enter an unknown path. Where was that path to lead him to? to what occupation should he now be drawn?

He had been for two hours absorbed in such reflections when Manon, the only servant of the house, knocked at his door to tell him that the second breakfast was served and the family were waiting for him. Twelve o'clock was striking. The new lodger went down at once, stirred by a wish to see and judge the five persons among whom his life was in future to be spent.

When he entered the room he found all the inmates of the house standing; they were dressed precisely as they were on the day when he came to make his first inquiries.

"Did you sleep well?" asked Madame de la Chanterie.

"So well that I did not wake up till ten o'clock," replied Godefroid, bowing to the four men, who returned the bow with gravity.

"We thought so," said an old man named Alain, smiling.

"Manon spoke of a second breakfast," said Godefroid; "but I fear that I have already broken some rule. At what hour do you rise?"

"Not quite so early as the old monks," said Madame de la Chanterie, courteously, "but as early as the working-men,--six in winter, half-past three in summer. Our bed-time is ruled by that of the sun. We are always asleep by nine in winter and eleven in summer. On rising, we all take a little milk, which comes from our farm, after saying our prayers, except the Abbe de Veze, who says the first mass, at six o'clock in summer and seven o'clock in winter, at Notre-Dame, where these gentlemen are present daily, as well as your humble servant."

Madame de la Chanterie ended her explanation as the five lodgers took their seats at table.

The dining-room, painted throughout in gray, the design of the woodwork being in the style of Louis XIV., adjoined the sort of antechamber in which Manon was usually stationed, and it seemed to be parallel with Madame de la Chanterie's bedroom, which also opened into the salon. This room had no other ornament than a tall clock. The furniture consisted of six chairs with oval backs covered with worsted-work, done probably by Madame de la Chanterie's own hand, two buffets and a table, all of Mahogany, on which Manon did not lay a cloth for breakfast. The breakfast, of monastic frugality, was composed of a small turbot with a white sauce, potatoes, a salad, and four dishes of fruit,--peaches, grapes, strawberries, and fresh almonds; also, for relishes, honey in the comb (as in Switzerland), radishes, cucumbers, sardines, and butter,--the whole served in the well-known china with tiny blue flowers and green leaves on a white ground, which was no doubt a luxury in the days of Louis XIV., but had now, under the growing demands of luxury, come to be regarded as common.

"We keep the fasts," said Monsieur Alain. "As we go to mass every morning, you will not be surprised to find us blindly following all the customs of the Church, even the severest."

"And you shall begin by imitating us," said Madame de la Chanterie, with a glance at Godefroid, whom she had placed beside her.

Of the five persons present Godefroid knew the names of three,--Madame de la Chanterie, the Abbe de Veze, and Monsieur Alain. He wished to know those of the other two; but they kept silence and ate their food with the attention which recluses appear to give to every detail of a meal.

"Does this fine fruit come also from your farm, madame?" asked Godefroid.

"Yes, monsieur," she replied. "We have a little model farm, like the government itself; we call it our country house; it is twelve miles from here, on the road to Italy, near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges."

"It is a property that belongs to us all, and is to go to the survivor," said the goodman Alain.

"Oh, it is not very considerable!" added Madame de la Chanterie, rather hastily, as if she feared that Godefroid might think these remarks a bait.

"There are thirty acres of tilled land," said one of the two personages still unknown to Godefroid, "six of meadow, and an enclosure containing four acres, in which our house, which adjoins the farmhouse, stands."

"But such a property as that," said Godefroid, "must be worth a hundred thousand francs."

"Oh, we don't get anything out of it but our provisions!" said the same personage.

He was a tall, grave, spare man, with all the appearance of having served in the army. His white hair showed him to be past sixty, and his face betrayed some violent grief controlled by religion.

The second unnamed person, who seemed to be something between a master of rhetoric and a business agent, was of ordinary height, plump, but active withal. His face had the jovial expression which characterizes those of lawyers and notaries in Paris.

The dress of these four personages revealed a neatness due to the most scrupulous personal care. The same hand, and it was that of Manon, could be seen in every detail. Their coats were perhaps ten years old, but they were preserved, like the coats of vicars, by the occult power of the servant-woman, and the constant care with which they were worn. These men seemed to wear on their backs the livery of a system of life; they belonged to one thought, their looks said the same word, their faces breathed a gentle resignation, a provoking quietude.

"Is it an indiscretion, madame," said Godefroid, "to ask the names of these gentlemen? I am ready to explain my life; can I know as much of theirs as custom will allow?"

"That gentleman," said Madame de la Chanterie, motioning to the tall, thin man, "is Monsieur Nicolas; he is a colonel of gendarmerie, retired with the rank of brigadier-general. And this," she added, looking towards the stout little man, "is a former councillor of the royal courts of Paris, who retired from the magistracy in 1830. His name is Monsieur Joseph. Though you have only been with us one day, I will tell you that in the world Monsieur Nicolas once bore the name of the Marquis de Montauran, and Monsieur Joseph that of Lecamus, Baron de Tresnes; but for us, as for the world, those names no longer exist. These gentlemen are without heirs; they only advance by a little the oblivion which awaits their names; they are simply Monsieur Nicolas and Monsieur Joseph, as you will be Monsieur Godefroid."

As he heard those names,--one so celebrated in the annals of royalism by the catastrophe which put an end to the uprising of the Chouans; the other so revered in the halls of the old parliament of Paris,--Godefroid could not repress a quiver. He looked at these relics of the grandest things of the fallen monarchy,--the _noblesse_ and the law,--and he could see no movement of the features, no change in the countenance, that revealed the presence of a worldly thought. Those men no longer remembered, or did not choose to remember, what they had been. This was Godefroid's first lesson.

"Each of your names, gentlemen, is a whole history in itself," he said respectfully.

"Yes, the history of my time,--ruins," replied Monsieur Joseph.

"You are in good company," said Monsieur Alain.

The latter can be described in a word: he was the small bourgeois of Paris, the worthy middle-class being with a kindly face, relieved by pure white hair, but made insipid by an eternal smile.

As for the priest, the Abbe de Veze, his presence said all. The priest who fulfils his mission is known by the first glance he gives you, and by the glance that others who know him give to him.

That which struck Godefroid most forcibly at first was the profound respect which the four lodgers manifested for Madame de la Chanterie. They all seemed, even the priest, in spite of the sacred character his functions gave him, to regard her as a queen. Godefroid also noticed their sobriety. Each seemed to eat only for nourishment. Madame de la Chanterie took, as did the rest, a single peach and half a bunch of grapes; but she told her new lodger, as she offered him the various dishes, not to imitate such temperance.

Godefroid's curiosity was excited to the highest degree by this first entrance on his new life. When they returned to the salon after breakfast, he was left alone; Madame de la Chanterie retired to the embrasure of a window and held a little private council with her four friends. This conference, entirely devoid of animation, lasted half an hour. They spoke together in a low voice, exchanging words which each of them appeared to have thought over. From time to time Monsieur Alain and Monsieur Joseph consulted a note-book, turning over its leaves.

"See the faubourg," said Madame de la Chanterie to Monsieur Joseph, who left the house.

That was the only word Godefroid distinguished.

"And you the Saint-Marceau quarter," she continued, addressing Monsieur Nicolas. "Hunt through the faubourg Saint-Germain and see if you can find what we want;" this to the Abbe de Veze, who went away immediately. "And you, my dear Alain," she added, smiling at the latter, "make