The Lesser Bourgeoisie

“Poor darling!” said Lydie, kissing her dream lovingly. “I do think she is better since morning. What had I better give her, doctor? Broth disgusts her, and she won’t take soup.”

“Well,” said Cerizet, “try panada. Does she like sweet things?”

“Oh, yes!” cried the poor girl, her face brightening, “she adores them. Would chocolate be good for her?”

“Certainly,” replied Cerizet, “but without vanilla; vanilla is very heating.”

“Then I’ll get what they call health-chocolate,” said Lydie, with all the intonations of a mother, listening to the doctor as to a god who reassured her. “Uncle,” she added, “please ring for Bruneau, and tell him to go to Marquis at once and get some pounds of that chocolate.”

“Bruneau has just gone out,” said her guardian; “but there’s no hurry, he shall go in the course of the day.”

“There, she is going to sleep,” said Cerizet, anxious to put an end to the scene, which, in spite of his hardened nature, he felt to be painful.

“True,” said the girl, replacing the bandages and rising; “I’ll put her to bed. Adieu, doctor; it is very kind of you to come sometimes without being sent for. If you knew how anxious we poor mothers are, and how, with a word or two, you can do us such good. Ah, there she is crying!”

“She is so sleepy,” said Cerizet; “she’ll be much better in her cradle.”

“Yes, and I’ll play her that sonata of Beethoven that dear papa was so fond of; it is wonderful how calming it is. Adieu, doctor,” she said again, pausing on the threshold of the door. “Adieu, kind doctor!” And she sent him a kiss.

Cerizet was quite overcome.

“You see,” said du Portail, “that she is an angel, – never the least ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a feeling of motherly solicitude. That is what first gave the doctors the idea that if reality could take the place of her constant hallucination she might recover her reason. Well, this is the girl that fool of a Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of a magnificent ‘dot.’ But he must come to it, or I’ll forswear my name. Listen,” he added as the sound of a piano came to them; “hear! what talent! Thousands of sane women can’t compare with her; they are not as reasonable as she is, except on the surface.”

When Beethoven’s sonata, played from the soul with a perfection of shades and tones that filled her hardened hearer with admiration, had ceased to sound, Cerizet said: —

“I agree with you, monsieur; la Peyrade refuses an angel, a treasure, a pearl, and if I were in his place – But we shall bring him round to your purpose. Now I shall serve you not only with zeal, but with enthusiasm, I may say fanaticism.”

As Cerizet was concluding this oath of fidelity at the door of the study, he heard a woman’s voice which was not that of Lydie.

“Is he in his study, the dear commander?” said that voice, with a slightly foreign accent.

“Yes, madame, but please come into the salon. Monsieur is not alone; I will tell him you are here.”

This was the voice of Katte, the old Dutch maid.

“Stop, go this way,” said du Portail quickly to Cerizet.

And he opened a hidden door which led through a dark corridor directly to the staircase, whence Cerizet betook himself to the office of the “Echo de la Bievre,” where a heated discussion was going on.

The article by which the new editors of every newspaper lay before the public their “profession of faith,” as the technical saying is, always produces a laborious and difficult parturition. In this particular case it was necessary, if not openly to declare Thuillier’s candidacy, to at least make it felt and foreseen. The terms of the manifesto, after la Peyrade had made a rough draft of it, were discussed at great length. This discussion took place in Cerizet’s presence, who, acting on du Portail’s advice, accepted the management, but postponed the payment of the security till the next day, through the latitude allowed in all administrations for the accomplishment of that formality.

Cleverly egged on by this master-knave, who, from the start, made himself Thuillier’s flatterer, the discussion became stormy, and presently bitter; but as, by the deed of partnership the deciding word was left to la Peyrade in all matters concerning the editorship, he finally closed it by sending the manifesto, precisely as he had written it, to the printing office.

Thuillier was incensed at what he called an abuse of power, and finding himself alone with Cerizet later in the day, he hastened to pour his griefs and resentments into the bosom of his faithful manager, thus affording the latter a ready-made and natural opportunity to insinuate the calumnious revelation agreed upon with du Portail. Leaving the knife in the wound, Cerizet went out to make certain arrangements to obtain the money necessary for his bond.

Tortured by the terrible revelation, Thuillier could not keep it to himself; he felt the need of confiding it, and of talking over the course he would be compelled to take by this infernal discovery. Sending for a carriage he drove home, and half an hour later he had told the whole story to his Egeria.

Brigitte had from the first very vehemently declared against all the determinations made by Thuillier during the last few days. For no purpose whatever, not even for the sake of her brother’s election, would she agree to a renewal of the relation to la Peyrade. In the first place, she had treated him badly, and that was a strong reason for disliking him; then, in case that adventurer, as she now called him, married Celeste, the fear of her authority being lessened gave her a species of second-sight; she had ended by having an intuitive sense of the dark profundities of the man’s nature, and now declared that under no circumstances and for no possible price would she make one household with him.

“Ruin yourself if you choose,” she said, “you are the master of that, and you can do as you like; a fool and his money are soon parted.”

When, therefore, she listened to her brother’s confidences it was not with reproaches, but, on the contrary, with a crow of triumph, celebrating the probable return of her power, that she welcomed them.

“So much the better!” she cried; “it is well to know at last that the man is a spy. I always thought so, the canting bigot! Turn him out of doors without an explanation. WE don’t want him to work that newspaper. This Monsieur Cerizet seems, from what you tell me, the right sort of man, and we can get another manager. Besides, when Madame de Godollo went away she promised to write to me; and she can easily put us in the way of finding some one. Poor, dear Celeste! what a fate we were going to give her!”

“How you run on!” said Thuillier. “La Peyrade, my dear, is so far only accused. He must be heard in his defence. And besides, there’s a deed that binds us.”

“Ah, very good!” said Brigitte; “I see how it will be; you’ll let that man twist you round his finger again. A deed with a spy! As if there could be deeds with such fellows.”

“Come, come, be calm, my good Brigitte,” returned Thuillier. “We mustn’t do anything hastily. Certainly, if la Peyrade cannot furnish a justification, clear, categorical, and convincing, I shall decide to break with him, and I’ll prove to you that I am no milksop. But Cerizet himself is not certain; these are mere inductions, and I only came to consult you as to whether I ought, or ought not, to demand an explanation outright.”

“Not a doubt about it,” replied Brigitte. “You ought to demand an explanation and go to the bottom of this thing; if you don’t, I cast you off as my brother.”

“That suffices,” said Thuillier, leaving the room with solemnity; “you shall see that we will come to an understanding.”

CHAPTER XI. EXPLANATIONS AND WHAT CAME OF THEM

On his return to the office after his conference with Brigitte, Thuillier found la Peyrade at his post as editor-in-chief, and in a position of much embarrassment, caused by the high hand he had reserved for himself as the sole selector of articles and contributors. At this moment, Phellion, instigated by his family, and deeply conscious of his position on the reading-committee of the Odeon, had come to offer his services as dramatic critic.

“My dear monsieur,” he said, continuing his remarks to la Peyrade, after inquiring of Thuillier about his health, “I was a great student of the theatre in my youth; the stage and its scenic effects continue to have for me peculiar attractions; and the white hairs which crown my brow to-day seem to me no obstacle to my allowing your interesting publication to profit by the fruit of my studies and my experience. As member of the reading-committee of the Odeon theatre, I am conversant with the modern drama, and – if I may be quite sure of your discretion – I will even confide to you that among my papers it would not be impossible for me to find a certain tragedy entitled ‘Sapor,’ which in my young days won me some fame when read in salons.”

“Ah!” said la Peyrade, endeavoring to gild the refusal he should be forced to give, “why not try to have it put upon the stage? We might be able to help you in that direction.”

“Certainly,” said Thuillier, “the director of any theatre to whom we should recommend – ”

“No,” replied Phellion. “In the first place, as member of the reading-committee of the Odeon, having to sit in judgment upon others, it would not become me to descend into the arena myself. I am an old athlete, whose business it is to judge of blows he can no longer give. In this sense, criticism is altogether within my sphere, and all the more because I have certain views on the proper method of composing dramatic feuilletons which I think novel. The ‘castigat ridendo mores’ ought to be, according to my humble lights, the great law, I may say the only law of the stage. I should therefore show myself pitiless for those works, bred of imagination, in which morality has no part, and to which mothers of families – ”

“Excuse me,” said la Peyrade, “for interrupting you; but before allowing you to take the trouble to develop your poetical ideas, I ought to tell you that we have already made arrangements for our dramatic criticism.”

“Ah! that’s another thing,” said Phellion; “an honest man must keep his word.”

“Yes,” said Thuillier, “we have our dramatic critic, little thinking that you would offer us your valuable assistance.”

“Well,” said Phellion, suddenly becoming crafty, – for there is something in the newspaper atmosphere, impossible to say what, which flies to the head, the bourgeois head especially, – “since you are good enough to consider my pen capable of doing you some service, perhaps a series of detached thoughts on different subjects, to which I should venture to give the name of ‘Diversities,’ might be of a nature to interest your readers.”

“Yes,” said la Peyrade, with a maliciousness that was quite lost upon Phellion, “thoughts, especially in the style of la Rochefoucauld or la Bruyere, might do. What do you think yourself, Thuillier?”

He reserved to himself the right to leave the responsibility of refusals, as far as he could, to the proprietor of the paper.

“But I imagine that thoughts, especially if detached, cannot be very consecutive,” said Thuillier.

“Evidently not,” replied Phellion; “detached thoughts imply the idea of a very great number of subjects on which the author lets his pen stray without the pretension of presenting a whole.”

“You will of course sign them?” said la Peyrade.

“Oh, no!” replied Phellion, alarmed. “I could not put myself on exhibition in that way.”

“Your modesty, which by the bye I understand and approve, settles the matter,” said la Peyrade. “Thoughts are a subject altogether individual, which imperatively require to be personified by a name. You must be conscious of this yourself. ‘Divers Thoughts by Monsieur Three-Stars’ says nothing to the public.”

Seeing that Phellion was about to make objections, Thuillier, who was in a hurry to begin his fight with la Peyrade, cut the matter short rather sharply.

“My dear Phellion,” he said, “I beg your pardon for not being able to enjoy the pleasure of your conversation any longer, but we have to talk, la Peyrade and I, over a matter of much importance, and in newspaper offices this devilish time runs away so fast. If you are willing, we will postpone the question to another day. Madame Phellion is well, I trust?”

“Perfectly well,” said the great citizen, rising, and not appearing to resent his dismissal. “When does your first number appear?” he added; “it is eagerly awaited in the arrondissement.”

“To-morrow I think our confession of faith will make its appearance,” replied Thuillier, accompanying him to the door. “You will receive a copy, my dear friend. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Come and see us, and bring that manuscript; la Peyrade’s point of view may be a little arbitrary.”

With this balm shed upon his wound, Phellion departed, and Thuillier rang the bell for the porter.

“Could you recognize the gentlemen who has just gone out the next time you see him?” asked Thuillier.

“Oh, yes, m’sieu, his round ball of a head is too funny to forget; besides, it is Monsieur Phellion; haven’t I opened the door to him hundreds of times?”

“Well, whenever he comes again neither I nor Monsieur de la Peyrade will be here. Remember that’s a positive rule. Now leave us.”

“The devil!” cried la Peyrade, when the two partners were alone, “how you manage bores. But take care; among the number there may be electors. You did right to tell Phellion you would send him a copy of the paper; he has a certain importance in the quarter.”

“Well,” said Thuillier, “we can’t allow our time to be taken up by all the dull-heads who come and offer their services. But now you and I have to talk, and talk very seriously. Be seated and listen.”

“Do you know, my dear fellow,” said la Peyrade, laughing, “that journalism is making you into something very solemn? ‘Be seated, Cinna,’ – Caesar Augustus couldn’t have said it otherwise.”

“Cinnas, unfortunately, are more plentiful than people think,” replied Thuillier.

He was still under the goad of the promise he had made to Brigitte, and he meant to fulfil it with cutting sarcasm. The top continued the whirling motion imparted to it by the old maid’s lash.

La Peyrade took a seat at the round table. As he was puzzled to know what was coming, he endeavored to seem unconcerned, and picking up the large scissors used for the loans which all papers make from the columns of their brethren of the press, he began to snip up a sheet of paper, on which, in Thuillier’s handwriting, was an attempt at a leading article, never completed.

Though la Peyrade was seated and expectant, Thuillier did not begin immediately; he rose and went toward the door which stood ajar, with the intention of closing it. But suddenly it was flung wide open, and Coffinet appeared.

“Will monsieur,” said Coffinet to la Peyrade, “receive two ladies? They are very well-dressed, and the young one ain’t to be despised.”

“Shall I let them in?” said la Peyrade to Thuillier.

“Yes, since they are here,” growled Thuillier; “but get rid of them as soon as possible.”

Coffinet’s judgment on the toilet of the two visitors needs revision. A woman is well-dressed, not when she wears rich clothes, but when her clothes present a certain harmony of shapes and colors which form an appropriate and graceful envelope to her person. Now a bonnet with a flaring brim, surmounted by nodding plumes, an immense French cashmere shawl, worn with the awkward inexperience of a young bride, a plaid silk gown with enormous checks and a triple tier of flounces with far too many chains and trinkets (though to be just, the boots and gloves were irreproachable), constituted the apparel of the younger of these ladies. As for the other, who seemed to be in the tow of her dressy companion, she was short, squat, and high-colored, and wore a bonnet, shawl, and gown which a practised eye would at once have recognized as second hand. Mothers of actresses are always clothed by this very economical process. Their garments, condemned to the service of two generations, reverse the order of things, and go from descendants to ancestors.

Advancing two chairs, la Peyrade inquired, “To whom have I the honor of speaking?”

“Monsieur,” said the younger visitor, “I am a dramatic artist, and as I am about to make my first appearance in this quarter, I allow myself to hope that a journal of this locality will favor me.”

“At what theatre?” asked la Peyrade.

“The Folies, where I am engaged for the Dejazets.”

“The Folies?” echoed la Peyrade, in a tone that demanded an explanation.

“Folies-Dramatiques,” interposed the agreeable Madame Cardinal, whom the reader has doubtless recognized.

“When do you appear?” asked la Peyrade.

“Next week, monsieur, – a fairy piece in which I play five parts.”

“You’ll encourage her, monsieur, won’t you?” said Madame Cardinal, in a coaxing voice; “she’s so young, and I can certify she works day and night.”

“Mother!” said Olympe, with authority, “the public will judge me; all I want is that monsieur will kindly promise to notice my debut.”

“Very good, mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade in a tone of dismissal, beginning to edge the pair to the door.

Olympe Cardinal went first, leaving her mother to hurry after her as best she could.

“At home to no one!” cried Thuillier to the office-boy as he closed the door and slipped the bolt. “Now,” he said, addressing la Peyrade, “we will talk. My dear fellow,” he went on, starting with irony, for he remembered to have heard that nothing was more confusing to an adversary, “I have heard something that will give you pleasure. I know now why MY pamphlet was seized.”

So saying, he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.

“Parbleu!” said the latter in a natural tone of voice, “it was seized because they chose to seize it. They wanted to find, and they found, because they always find the things they want, what the king’s adherents call ‘subversive doctrine.’”

“No, you are wrong,” said Thuillier; “the seizure was planned, concocted, and agreed upon before publication.”

“Between whom?” asked la Peyrade.

“Between those who wanted to kill the pamphlet, and the wretches who were paid to betray it.”

“Well, in any case, those who paid,” said la Peyrade, “got mighty little for their money; for, persecuted though it was, I don’t see that your pamphlet made much of a stir.”

“Those who sold may have done better?” said Thuillier with redoubled irony.

“Those who sold,” returned la Peyrade, “were the cleverer of the two.”

“Ah, I know,” said Thuillier, “that you think a great deal of cleverness; but allow me to tell you that the police, whose hand I see in all this, doesn’t usually throw its money away.”

And again he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.

“So,” said the barrister, without winking, “you have discovered that the police had plotted in advance the smothering of your pamphlet?”

“Yes, my dear fellow; and what is more, I know the actual sum paid to the person who agreed to carry out this honorable plot.”

“The person,” said la Peyrade, thinking a moment, – “perhaps I know the person; but as for the money, I don’t know a word about that.”

“Well, I can tell you the amount. It was twenty-five – thousand – francs,” said Thuillier, dwelling on each word; “that was the sum paid to Judas.”

“Oh! excuse me, my dear fellow, but twenty-five thousand francs is a good deal of money. I don’t deny that you have become an important man; but you are not such a bugbear to the government as to lead it to make such sacrifices. Twenty-five thousand francs is as much as would ever be given for the suppression of one of those annoying pamphlets about the Civil list. But our financial lucubrations didn’t annoy in that way; and such a sum borrowed from the secret-service money for the mere pleasure of plaguing you, seems to me rather fabulous.”

“Apparently,” said Thuillier, acrimoniously, “this honest go-between had some interest in exaggerating my value. One thing is very sure; this monsieur had a debt of twenty-five thousand francs which harassed him much; and a short time before the seizure this same monsieur, who had no means of his own, paid off that debt; and unless you can tell me where else he got the money, the inference I think is not difficult to draw.”

It was la Peyrade’s turn to look fixedly at Thuillier.

“Monsieur Thuillier,” he said, raising his voice, “let us get out of enigmas and generalities; will you do me the favor to name that person?”

“Well, no,” replied Thuillier, striking his hand upon the table, “I shall not name him, because of the sentiments of esteem and affection which formerly united us; but you have understood me, Monsieur la Peyrade.”

“I ought to have known,” said the Provencal, in a voice changed by emotion, “that in bringing a serpent to this place I should soon be soiled by his venom. Poor fool! do you not see that you have made yourself the echo of Cerizet’s calumny?”

“Cerizet has nothing to do with it; on the contrary, he has told me the highest good of you. How was it, not having a penny the night before, – and I had reason to know it, – that you were able to pay Dutocq the round sum of twenty-five thousand francs the next day?”

La Peyrade reflected for a moment.

“No,” he said, “it was not Dutocq who told you that. He is not a man to wrestle with an enemy of my strength without a strong interest in it. It was Cerizet; he’s the infamous calumniator, from whose hands I wrenched the lease of your house near the Madeleine, – Cerizet, whom in kindness, I went to seek on his dunghill that I might give him the chance of honorable employment; that is the wretch, to whom a benefit is only an encouragement to treachery. Tiens! if I were to tell you what that man is I should turn you sick with disgust; in the sphere of infamy he has discovered worlds.”

This time Thuillier made an able reply.

“I don’t know anything about Cerizet except through you,” he said; “you introduced him to me as a manager, offering every guarantee; but, allowing him to be blacker than the devil, and supposing that this communication comes from him, I don’t see, my friend, that all that makes YOU any the whiter.”

“No doubt I was to blame,” said la Peyrade, “for putting such a man into relations with you; but we wanted some one who understood journalism, and that value he really had for us. But who can ever sound the depths of souls like his? I thought him reformed. A manager, I said to myself, is only a machine; he can do no harm. I expected to find him a man of straw; well, I was mistaken, he will never be anything but a man of mud.”

“All that is very fine,” said Thuillier, “but those twenty-five thousand francs found so conveniently in your possession, where did you get them? That is the point you are forgetting to explain.”

“But to reason about it,” said la Peyrade; “a man of my character in the pay of the police and yet so poor that I could not pay the ten thousand francs your harpy of a sister demanded with an insolence which you yourself witnessed – ”

“But,” said Thuillier, “if the origin of this money is honest, as I sincerely desire it may be, what hinders you from telling me how you got it?”

“I cannot,” said la Peyrade; “the history of that money is a secret entrusted to me professionally.”

“Come, come, you told me yourself that the statutes of your order forbid all barristers from doing business of any kind.”

“Let us suppose,” said la Peyrade, “that I have done something not absolutely regular; it would be strange indeed after what I risked, as you know, for you, if you should have the face to reproach me with it.”

“My poor friend, you are trying to shake off the hounds; but you can’t make me lose the scent. You wish to keep your secret; then keep it. I am master of my own confidence and my own esteem; by paying you the forfeit stipulated in our deed I take the newspaper into my own hands.”

“Do you mean that you dismiss me?” cried la Peyrade. “The money that you have put into the affair, all your chances of election, sacrificed to the calumnies of such a being as Cerizet!”

“In the first place,” said Thuillier, “another editor-in-chief can be found; it is a true saying that no man is indispensable. As for election to the Chamber I would rather never receive it than owe it to the help of one who – ”