The Lesser Bourgeoisie Part 37

"No! but I'd like to be hidden in a corner and hear how you will open the subject with your sister."

"Parbleu! I shall open it frankly. I WILL, very firmly said, shall meet every one of her objections."

"Ah, my poor fellow!" said la Peyrade, clapping him on the shoulder, "from Chrysale down how often have we seen brave warriors lowering their penants before the wills of women accustomed to master them!"

"We'll see about _that_," replied Thuillier, making a theatrical exit.

The eager desire to publish his pamphlet, and the clever doubt thrown upon the strength of his will had made him furious,--an actual tiger; and he went away resolved, in case of opposition, to reduce his household, as the saying is, by fire and sword.

When he reached home Thuillier instantly laid the question before Brigitte. She, with her crude good sense and egotism, pointed out to him that by thus hastening the period formerly agreed upon for the marriage, they committed the blunder of disarming themselves; they could not be sure that when the election took place la Peyrade would put the same zeal into preparing for it. "It might be," said the old maid, "just as it has been about the cross."

"There's this difference," said Thuillier; "the cross doesn't depend directly upon la Peyrade, whereas the influence he exerts in the 12th arrondiss.e.m.e.nt he can employ as he will."

"And suppose he willed, after we have feathered his nest," said Brigitte, "to work his influence for his own election? He is very ambitious, you know."

This danger did not fail to strike the mind of the future legislator, who thought, however, that he might feel some security in the honor and morality of la Peyrade.

"A man's honor can't be very delicate," returned Brigitte, "when he tries to get out of a bargain; and this fas.h.i.+on of dangling a bit of sugar before us about getting your pamphlet finished, doesn't please me at all. Can't you get Ph.e.l.lion to help you, and do without Theodose? Or, I dare say, Madame de G.o.dollo, who knows everybody in politics, could find you a journalist--they say there are plenty of them out at elbows; a couple of hundred francs would do the thing."

"But the secret would get into the papers," said Thuillier. "No, I must absolutely have Theodose; he knows that, and he makes these conditions.

After all, we did promise him Celeste, and it is only fulfilling the promise a year earlier--what am I saying?--a few months, a few weeks, possibly; for the king may dissolve the Chamber before any one expects it."

"But suppose Celeste won't have him?" objected Brigitte.

"Celeste! Celeste, indeed!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Thuillier; "she _must_ have whomsoever we choose. We ought to have thought of that when we made the engagement with la Peyrade; our word is pa.s.sed now, you know. Besides, if the child is allowed to choose between la Peyrade and Ph.e.l.lion--"

"So you really think," said the sceptical old maid, "that if Celeste decides for Ph.e.l.lion you can still count on la Peyrade's devotion?"

"What else can I do? Those are his conditions. Besides, the fellow has calculated the whole thing; he knows very well that Felix will never bring himself in two weeks to please Celeste by going to confession, and unless he does, that little monkey will never accept him for a husband.

La Peyrade's game is very clever."

"Too clever," said Brigitte. "Well, settle the matter as you choose; I shall not meddle; all this manoeuvring is not to my taste."

Thuillier went to see Madame Colleville, and intimated to her that she must inform Celeste of the designs upon her.

Celeste had never been officially authorized to indulge her sentiment for Felix Ph.e.l.lion. Flavie, on the contrary, had once expressly forbidden her to encourage the hopes of the young professor; but as, on the part of Madame Thuillier, her G.o.dmother and her confidant, she knew she was sustained in her inclination, she had let herself gently follow it without thinking very seriously of the obstacles her choice might encounter. When, therefore, she was ordered to choose at once between Felix and la Peyrade, the simple-hearted girl was at first only struck by the advantages of one half of the alternative, and she fancied she did herself a great service by agreeing to an arrangement which made her the mistress of her own choice and allowed her to bestow it as her heart desired.

But la Peyrade was not mistaken in his calculation when he reckoned that the religious intolerance of the young girl on one side, and the philosophical inflexibility of Ph.e.l.lion's son on the other, would create an invincible obstacle to their coming together.

CHAPTER III. GOOD BLOOD CANNOT LIE

The evening of the day on which Flavie had communicated to Celeste the sovereign orders of Thuillier, the Ph.e.l.lions called to spend the evening with Brigitte, and a very sharp engagement took place between the two young people. Mademoiselle Colleville did not need to be told by her mother that it would be extremely unbecoming if she allowed Felix to know of the conditional approval that was granted to their sentiments.

Celeste had too much delicacy, and too much real religious feeling to wish to obtain the conversion of the man she loved on any other ground than that of his conviction. Their evening was therefore pa.s.sed in theological debate; but love is so strange a Proteus, and takes so many and such various forms, that though it appeared on this occasion in a black gown and a mob cap, it was not at all as ungraceful and displeasing as might have been imagined. But Ph.e.l.lion junior was in this encounter, the solemnity of which he little knew, unlucky and blundering to the last degree. Not only did he concede nothing, but he took a tone of airy and ironical discussion, and ended by putting poor Celeste so beside herself that she finally declared an open rupture and forbade him to appear in her presence again.

It was just the case for a lover more experienced than the young savant to reappear the very next day, for young hearts are never so near to understanding each other as when they have just declared the necessity of eternal separation. But this law is not one of logarithms, and Felix Ph.e.l.lion, being incapable of guessing it, thought himself positively and finally banished; so much so, that during the fifteen days granted to the poor girl to deliberate (as says the Code in the matter of beneficiary bequests), although he was expected day by day, and from minute to minute by Celeste, who gave no more thought to la Peyrade than if he had nothing to do with the question, the deplorably stupid youth did not have the most distant idea of breaking his ban.

Luckily for this hopeless lover, a beneficent fairy was watching over him, and the evening before the day on which the young girl was to make her decision the following affair took place.

It was Sunday, the day on which the Thuilliers still kept up their weekly receptions.

Madame Ph.e.l.lion, convinced that the housekeeping leakage, vulgarly called "the basket dance," was the ruin of the best-regulated households, was in the habit of going in person to her tradespeople.

From time immemorial in the Ph.e.l.lion establishment, Sunday was the day of the "pot-au-feu," and the wife of the great citizen, in that intentionally dowdy costume in which good housekeepers bundle themselves when they go to market, was prosaically returning from a visit to the butcher, followed by her cook and the basket, in which lay a magnificent cut of the loin of beef. Twice had she rung her own doorbell, and terrible was the storm gathering on the head of the foot-boy, who by his slowness in opening the door was putting his mistress in a situation less tolerable than that of Louis XIV., who had only _almost_ waited. In her feverish impatience Madame Ph.e.l.lion had just given the bell a third and ferocious reverberation, when, judge of her confusion, a little coupe drew up with much clatter at the door of her house, and a lady descended, whom she recognized, at this untimely hour, as the elegant Comtesse Torna de G.o.dollo!

Turning a purplish scarlet, the unfortunate bourgeoise lost her head, and, floundering in excuses, she was about to complicate the position by some signal piece of awkwardness, when, happily for her, Ph.e.l.lion, attracted by the noise of the bell, and attired in a dressing-gown and Greek cap, came out of his study to inquire what was the matter. After a speech, the pompous charm of which did much to compensate for his dishabille, the great citizen, with the serenity that never abandoned him, offered his hand very gallantly to the lady, and having installed her in the salon, said:--

"May I, without indiscretion, ask Madame la comtesse what has procured for us the unhoped-for advantage of this visit?"

"I have come," said the lady, "to talk with Madame Ph.e.l.lion on a matter which must deeply interest her. I have no other way of meeting her without witnesses; and therefore, though I am hardly known to Madame Ph.e.l.lion, I have taken the liberty to call upon her here."

"Madame, your visit is a great honor to this poor dwelling. But where is Madame Ph.e.l.lion?" added the worthy man, impatiently, going towards the door.

"No, I beg of you, don't disturb her," said the countess; "I have heedlessly come at a moment when she is busy with household cares.

Brigitte has been my educator in such matters, and I know the respect we ought to pay to good housekeepers. Besides, I have the pleasure of your presence, which I scarcely expected."

Before Ph.e.l.lion could reply to these obliging words, Madame Ph.e.l.lion appeared. A cap with ribbons had taken the place of the market bonnet, and a large shawl covered the other insufficiencies of the morning toilet. When his wife arrived, the great citizen made as though he would discreetly retire.

"Monsieur Ph.e.l.lion," said the countess, "you are not one too many in the conference I desire with madame; on the contrary, your excellent judgment will be most useful in throwing light upon a matter as interesting to you as to your wife. I allude to the marriage of your son."

"The marriage of my son!" cried Madame Ph.e.l.lion, with a look of astonishment; "but I am not aware that anything of the kind is at present in prospect."

"The marriage of Monsieur Felix with Mademoiselle Celeste is, I think, one of your strongest desires--"

"But we have never," said Ph.e.l.lion, "taken any overt steps for that object."

"I know that only too well," replied the countess; "on the contrary, every one in your family seems to study how to defeat my efforts in that direction. However, one thing is clear in spite of the reserve, and, you must allow me to say so, the clumsiness in which the affair has been managed, and that is that the young people love each other, and they will both be unhappy if they do not marry. Now, to prevent this catastrophe is the object with which I have come here this morning."

"We cannot, madame, be otherwise than deeply sensible of the interest you are so good as to show in the happiness of our son," said Ph.e.l.lion; "but, in truth, this interest--"

"Is something so inexplicable," interrupted the countess, "that you feel a distrust of it?"

"Oh! madame!" said Ph.e.l.lion, bowing with an air of respectful dissent.

"But," continued the lady, "the explanation of my proceeding is very simple. I have studied Celeste, and in that dear and artless child I find a moral weight and value which would make me grieve to see her sacrificed."

"You are right, madame," said Madame Ph.e.l.lion. "Celeste is, indeed, an angel of sweetness."

"As for monsieur Felix, I venture to interest myself because, in the first place, he is the son of so virtuous a father--"

"Oh, madame! I entreat--" said Ph.e.l.lion, bowing again.

"--and he also attracts me by the awkwardness of true love, which appears in all his actions and all his words. We mature women find an inexpressible charm in seeing the tender pa.s.sion under a form which threatens us with no deceptions and no misunderstandings."

"My son is certainly not brilliant," said Madame Ph.e.l.lion, with a faint tone of sharpness; "he is not a fas.h.i.+onable young man."

"But he has the qualities that are most essential," replied the countess, "and a merit which ignores itself,--a thing of the utmost consequence in all intellectual superiority--"