Section 17 of Modest Mignon, by Henri de Balzac, translated by Catherine Prescott Wormley. Section 17 of Modest Mignon, by Henri de Balzac, read by Don W. Jenkins. Chapter 17. A Third Souter. Those two young men, said Madame Latonelle, on Saturday evening, have no idea how many spies they have on their tracks. We are eight in all on the watch. Don't say two young men, wife, say three, cried little Latonelle, looking round him. Gobenheim is not here, so I can speak out. Modest raised her head, and everybody, imitating Modest, raised theirs, looking at the notary. Yes, a third lover, and he is something like a lover, offers himself as a candidate. Bah! exclaimed the colonel. I speak of no less a person said Latonelle pompously than Monser, Le Duc de Herreville, Marquis de Saint-Severre, Duc de Nivron, Comte de Bayeux, Vaicomte de Essigny, Grand-Equery and Pier of France, Knight of the Spur and the Golden Fleece, Grand-Dee of Spain and son of the last governor of Normandy. He saw Monser Modest at the time when he was staying with the Vilquines, and he regretted then, as his notary, who came from Bayeux yesterday, tells me, that she was not rich enough for him, for his father recovered nothing but the estate of Herreville on his return to France, and that is saddled with a sister. The young Duc is thirty-three years old. I am definitively charged to lay these proposals before you, Monser Le Comte, added the notary, turning respectfully to leave the colonel. Ask Modest if she wants another bird in her cage, replied the Count. As far as I am concerned, I am willing that my lord the Grand-Equery shall pay her attention. Notwithstanding the care with which Charles Mignon avoided seeing people, and though he stayed in the chalet and never went out without Modest, Gobenheim had reported De Maie's wealth. For De Maie had said to him, when giving up his position as cashier, I am to be bailiff for my colonel, and all my fortune except what my wife needs is to go to the children of our little Modest. Everyone in Havre had therefore propounded the same question that the notary had already put to himself. If De Maie's share in the profits is six hundred thousand francs, and he is going to be Monser Mignon's bailiff, then Monser Mignon must certainly have a colossal fortune. He arrived at Marseille on a ship of his own, loaded with indigo, and they say at the bourse that the cargo not counting the ship is worth more than he gives out as his whole fortune. The colonel was unwilling to dismiss the servants he had brought back with him, whom he had chosen with care during his travels, and he therefore hired a house for them in the lower part of Ingeville, where he installed his valet, cook, and coachman, all negros, and three melados on whose fidelity he could rely. The coachman was told to search for saddle-horses for Mamzelle and for his master, and for carriage-horses for the Caliche, in which the colonel and the lieutenant had returned to Havre. That carriage, bought in Paris, was of the latest fashion, and bore the arms of la Bastille surmounted by a count's coronet. These things, insignificant in the eyes of a man who for four years had been accustomed to the unbridled luxury of the Indies, and of the English merchants at Canton, were the subject of much comment among the businessmen of Havre and the inhabitants of Ingeville and Graville. Before five days had elapsed, the rumor of them ran from one end of Normandy to the other like a train of gunpowder touched by fire. « Mon sure mignon has come back from China with millions, some one said in Rouen, and it seems he was made a count in mid-ocean. But he was the camp de la Bastille before the Revolution, answered another. So they call him a liberal just because he was plain charl mignon for twenty-five years. What are we coming to? said a third. Modeste was considered, therefore, notwithstanding the silence of her parents and friends as the richest heiress in Normandy, and all eyes began once more to see her merits. The aunt and sister of the Duke de Huraville confirmed in the aristocratic salons of Bayou, Mon sure charl mignon's right to the title and arms of count, derived from cardinal mignon for whom the cardinal's hat and tassels were added as a crest. They had seen Mamzelle de la Bastille when they were staying at the Vilkines, and their solicitude for the impoverished head of their house now became active. «If Mamzelle de la Bastille is really as rich as she is beautiful, said the aunt of the young Duke, she is the best match in the province. She, at least, is noble. The last words were aimed at the Vilkines, with whom they had not been able to come to terms, after incurring the humiliation of staying in that bourgeois household. Such were the little events which, contrary to the rules of Aristotle and of Horus, precede this introduction of another person into our story, but the portrait and the biography of this personage, this late arrival, shall not be long, taking into consideration his own dominativeness. The grand equerie shall not take more space here than he will take in history. Montreux-leducte de Haraville, offspring of the matrimonial autumn of the last governor of Normandy, was born during the emigration in 1799 at Vienna. The old Marischal, father of the present Duke, returned with the king in 1814 and died in 1819 before he was able to marry his son. He could only leave him the last chateau of Haraville, the park, a few dependencies, and a farm which he had bought back with some difficulty, all of which returned a rental of about fifteen thousand francs a year. Louis XVIII gave the post of grand equerie to the son, who, under Charles X, received the usual pension of twelve thousand francs, which was granted to the pauper-peers of France. But what were these twenty-seven thousand francs a year in the salary of grand equerie to such a family? In Paris, of course, the young Duke used the king's coaches and had a mansion provided for him in the rue Saint Thomas du Louvre near the royal stables. His salary paid for his winters in the city and his twenty-seven thousand francs for the summers in Normandy. If this noble personage was still a bachelor, he was less to blame than his aunt, who was not versed in Lafontaine's fables. Mamzelle de Haraville made enormous pretensions wholly out of keeping with the spirit of the times, for great names without the money to keep them up can sell them when rich heiresses among the higher French nobility, who are themselves embarrassed to provide for their sons under the new law of the equal division of property. To marry the young Duke de Haraville it was necessary to conciliate the great banking-houses, but the haughty pride of the daughter of the house alienated these people by cutting speeches. During the first years of the restoration, from 1817 to 1825, Mamzelle de Haraville, though in quest of millions, refused among others the daughter of Monsignor de Banquer with whom Monsir de Fontaine afterwards contented himself. At last, having lost several good opportunities to establish her nephew entirely through her own fault, she was just considering whether the property of the Nusingen was not too basely acquired, or whether she should lend herself to the ambition of Madame de Nusingen, who wished to make her daughter a duchess. The king, ambitious to restore the de Haraville's to their former splendor, had almost brought about this marriage, and when it failed he openly accused Mamzelle de Haraville of folly. In this way the aunt made the nephew ridiculous, and the nephew in his own way was not less absurd. When great things disappear they leave crumbs, frustaux, Rabelais would say, behind them, and the French nobility of this century has left us too many such fragments. Neither the clergy nor the nobility have anything to complain of in this long history of manners and customs. Those great and magnificent social necessities have been well represented, but we ought surely to renounce the noble title of historian if we are not impartial, if we do not here depict the present degeneracy of the race of nobles, although we have already done so elsewhere, in the character of the Comte de Mortsaaf in the lily of the valley, in the duchess de Languy in the very nobleness of the nobility in the Marquis de Sparde. How then could it be that the race of heroes and valiant men belonging to the proud house of Haraville, who gave the famous marshal to the nation, cardinals to the church, great leaders to the valoi, knights to Louis XIV, was reduced to a little fragile being smaller than butcha? This is a question which we ask ourselves in more than one salon in Paris when we hear the greatest names of France announced, and see the entrance of a thin, pinched, undersized young man scarcely possessing the breath of life, or a premature old one, or some whimsical creature in whom the observer can with great difficulty trace the signs of past grandeur. The dissipations of the reign of Louis XV, the orgies of that fatal and egotistical period, have produced an effete generation in which manners alone survived the nobler, vanished qualities, forms which are the sole heritage of our nobles have preserved. The abandonment in which Louis XVI was allowed to perish may thus be explained with some slight reservations as a wretched result of the reign of Madame de Pompadour. The grand equary, a fair young man with blue eyes and a pallid face, was not without a certain dignity of thought, but his thin, undersized figure and the follies of his aunt, which had taken him to the Vilquines and elsewhere to pay his court rendered him extremely diffident. The house of Harrowville had already been threatened with extinction by the deed of a deformed being. See the enfaunt-madit in philosophical studies. The grand marshal, that being the family term for the member who was made duke by Louis XIII, married at the age of eighty. The young duke admired women, but he placed them too high and respected them too much. In fact, he adored them, and was only at his ease with those whom he could not respect. This characteristic caused him to lead a double life. He found compensation with women of easy virtue for the worship to which he surrendered himself in the salons, or, if you like, the boudoirs of the Fauburg Saint-Germain. Such habits and his puny figure, his suffering face with its blue eyes turning upward in ecstasy, increased the ridicule already bestowed upon him, very unjustly bestowed as it happened, for he was full of wit and delicacy, but his wit, which never sparkled, only showed itself when he felt at ease. Fanny Bopra, an actress who was supposed to be his nearest friend, at a price, called him a sound wine so carefully corked that you break all your corkscrews. The beautiful duchess de Malfrenuse, whom the grand equary could only worship, annihilated him with a speech which, unfortunately, was repeated from mouth to mouth, like all such pretty and malicious sayings. He always seems to me, she said, like one of those jewels of fine workmanship which we exhibit but never wear, and keep in cotton wool. Everything about him, even to his absurdly contrasting title of grand equary, amused the good-natured king, Charles X, and made him laugh, although the duke de Haraville justified his appointment in the matter of being a fine horseman. Men are like books, often understood and appreciated too late. Modest had seen the duke during his fruitless visit to the Vilkeens, and many of these reflections passed through her mind as she watched him come and go. But under the circumstances in which she now found herself, she saw plainly that the courtship of the duke de Haraville would save her from being at the mercy of either cannellies. I see no reason, she said to La Ternelle, why the duke de Haraville should not be received. I have passed, in spite of our indigence, she continued, with a mischievous look at her father, to the condition of Eris. Haven't you observed Gobenheim's glances? They have quite changed their character within a week. He is, in despair, not being able to make his games of wist count for mute adoration of my charms. Hush, my darling, cried Madame La Ternelle. Here he comes. Old Altor is in despair, said Gobenheim, to Montchermignon as he entered. Why, asked the Count, Vilkeen is going to fail, and the Bourse thinks you are worth several millions. What ill luck for his son! No one knows, said Charles Mignon, cootly, what my liabilities in India are, and I do not intend to take the public into my confidence as to my private affairs. To my, he whispered to his friend, if Vilkeen is embarrassed, we could get back the villa by paying him what he gave for it. Such was the general state of things due chiefly to accident, when on Sunday morning cannellies and labrières arrived, with a courier in advance at the villa of Madame Amarai. It was known that the Duke de Haraville, his sister and his aunt, were coming the following Tuesday to occupy, also under pretext of ill health, a hired house at Graville. This assemblage of suitors made the wits of the Bourse remark that, thanks to Mamel Mignon, rents would rise at Ingeville. If this goes on, she will have a hospital here, said the younger Mamel Vilkeen, vexed at not becoming a duchess. The everlasting comedy of the heiress about to be played at the chalet might very well be called, in view of Modeste's frame of mind, the designs of a young girl. For since the overthrow of her illusions she had fully made up her mind to give her hand to no man whose qualifications did not fully satisfy her. The two rivals, still intimate friends, intended to pay their first visit at the chalet on the evening of the day succeeding their arrival. They had spent Sunday and part of Monday in unpacking and arranging Madame Amarai's house for a month's stay. The poet, always calculating effects, wished to make the most of the probable excitement which his arrival would cause in Havre, and which would of course echo up to the mignons, therefore in his role of a man needing rest he did not leave the house. La Breire went twice to walk past the chalet, though always with a sense of despair, for he feared to displease Modeste, and the future seemed to him dark with clouds. The two friends came down to dinner on Monday, dressed for the momentous visit. La Breire wore the same clothes he had so carefully selected for the famous Sunday, but he now felt like the satellite of a planet and resigned himself to the uncertainties of his situation.  He had gone into the minutiae of dandyism while poor La Breire was about to present himself with the negligence of a man without hope. Germain, as he waited at dinner, could not help smiling to himself at the contrast. After the second course, however, the valet came in with a diplomatic, that is to say, uneasy air. Does Montchure-LeBaron know, he said to Canalise, in a low voice, that Montchure, the Grand-Ecquerie, is coming to Gravelle to get cured of the same illness which has brought Montchure-La Breire and Montchure-LeBaron to the seashore? What, the little duke de Herreville? Yes, Montchure. Is he coming for Mamzelle de la Bastille, asked La Breire, colouring? So it appears, Montchure. We are cheated, cried Canalise, looking at La Breire. Ah, retorted Ernest quickly. That is the first time you have said we since we left Paris. It has been I all along. You understand me, cried Canalise, with a burst of laughter, but we are not in a position to struggle against the Ducal Coronet, nor the duke's title, nor against the wastelands which the Council of State have just granted on my report to the House of Herreville. His grace, said La Breire, with the spice of malice that was nevertheless serious, will furnish you with compensation in the person of his sister. At this instant the Compe de la Bastille was announced, the two young men rose at once, and La Breire hastened forward to present Canalise. I wished to return the visit you paid me in Paris, said the Count to the young lawyer, and I knew that by coming here I should have the double pleasure of greeting one of our great living poets. Great, Montchure replied the poet smiling, No one can be great in a century prefaced by the reign of a Napoleon. We are a tribe of would-be great poets. Besides, second-rate talent imitates genius nowadays, and renders real distinction impossible. Is that the reason why you have thrown yourself into politics, asked the Count? It is the same thing in that sphere, said the poet. There are no statesmen in these days, only men who handle events more or less. Look at it, Montchure, under the system of government that we derive from the Charter, which makes a tax list of more importance than a coat of arms, there is absolutely nothing solid except that which you went to seek in China—wealth. Satisfied with himself and with the impression he was making on the prospective father-in-law, Canalise turned to Germain. Serve the coffee in the salon, he said, inviting Montchure de la Bastille to leave the dining-room. I thank you for this visit, Montchure Lacombe, said Labrière. It saves me from the embarrassment of presenting my friend to you in your own house. You have a heart and you have also a quick mind. Bah! the ready-wit of Provence, that is all, said Charles Mignon. Ah! do you come from Provence, cried Canalise? You must pardon my friend, said Labrière. He has not studied as I have the history of la Bastille. At the word friend, Canalise, threw a searching glance at her nest. If your health will allow, said the count to the poet, I shall hope to receive you this evening under my roof. It will be a day to mark, as the old writer said, al beau notanda la pilo. Although we cannot duly receive so great a fame in our little house, yet your visit will gratify my daughter, whose admiration for your poems has even led her to set them to music. You have something better than fame in your house, said Canalise. You have beauty, if I am to believe her nest. Yes, a good daughter. But you will find her rather countryfied, said Charles Mignon. A country girl sought by the Duc de Haraville, remarked Canalise dryly. Oh! replied Montserrat Mignon, with the perfidious good humor of a southerner. I leave my daughter free. Ducs, princes, commoners, they are all the same to me, even men of genius. I shall make no pledges, and whoever my modest chooses will be my son-in-law, or rather my son, he added, looking at Labrière. It could not be otherwise. Madame de la Bastille is a German. She has never adopted our etiquette, and I let my two women lead me their own way. I have always preferred to sit in the carriage rather than on the box. I can make a joke of all this at present, for we have not seen the Duc de Haraville, and I do not believe in marriages arranged by proxy any more than I believe in choosing my daughter's husband. That declaration is equally encouraging and discouraging to two young men who are searching for the philosopher's stone of happiness in marriage, said Canalise. Don't you consider it useful, necessary, and even politic, to stipulate for perfect freedom of action for parents, daughters, and suitors? asked Charles Mignon. Canalise, at a sign from Labrière, kept silence. The conversation presently became unimportant, and after a few turns around the garden the Count retired, urging the visit of the two friends. That's our dismissal, cried Canalise. You saw it as plainly as I did. Well, in his place, I should not hesitate between the grand equity and either of us, charming as we are. I don't think so, said Labrière. I believe that Frank's soldier came here to satisfy his desire to see you and to warn us of his neutrality while receiving us in his house. Modest in love with your fame, and misled by my person, stands as it were between the real and the ideal, between poetry and prose. I am, unfortunately, the prose. Jermaine, said Canalise to the valet, who came to take away the coffee, ordered the carriage in half an hour. We will take a drive before we go to the chalet. End of Section 17. Read by Don W. Jenkins. Rancho San Diego, California. shaggybark.blogspot.com Section 18 of Modest Mignon by Henri de Balzac Translated by Catherine Prescott-Wormley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 18 of Modest Mignon by Henri de Balzac Read by Don W. Jenkins. Chapter 18. A Splendid First Appearance. The two young men were equally impatient to see Modest, but Labrière dreaded the interview while Canalise approached it with the confidence of self-conceit. The eagerness with which Labrière had met the father, and the flattery of his attention to the family pride of the ex-merchant, showed Canalise his own maladroitness, and determined him to select a special role. The great poet resolved to pretend indifference, though all the while displaying his seductive powers, to appear to disdain the young lady, and thus peak her self-love. Trained by the handsome duchess de Chaleu, he was bound to be worthy of his reputation as a man who knew women, when, in fact, he did not know them at all, which is often the case with those who are the happy victims of an exclusive passion. While poor Ernest, gloomily ensconced in his corner of the Chaleuch, gave way to the terrors of genuine love, and foresaw instinctively the anger, contempt, and disdain of an injured and offended young girl, Canalise was preparing himself, not less silently, like an actor making ready for an important part in a new play. Certainly neither of them presented the appearance of a happy man. Important interests were involved for Canalise. The mere suggestion of his desire to marry would bring about a rupture of the tie which had bound him for the last ten years to the duchess de Chaleu. Though he had covered the purpose of his journey with the vulgar pretext of needing rest, in which, by the by, women never believe, even when it is true, his conscience troubled him somewhat, but the word conscience seemed so jesuetical to Labrière that he shrugged his shoulders when the poet mentioned his scruples. Your conscience, my friend, strikes me as nothing more nor less than a dread of losing the pleasures of vanity and some very real advantages and habits by sacrificing the affections of Madame de Chaleu, for, if you were sure of succeeding with Modeste, you would renounce without the slightest compunction that the aftermath of a passion has been moan and well-rigged for the last eight years. If you simply mean that you were afraid of displeasing your protectress, should she find out the object of your stay here, I believe you. To renounce the duchess and yet not succeed at the Chaleu is too heavy a risk. You take the anxiety of this alternative for remorse. You have no comprehension of feelings, said the poet irritably, the man who hears truth when he expects a compliment. That is what a bigamist should tell the jury, reported Labrière, laughing. This epigram made another disagreeable impression on Canalise. He began to think Labrière too witty and too free for a secretary. The arrival of an elegant caliche driven by a coachman in the Canalise livery made the more excitement at the Chaleu because the two suitors were expected, and the personages of this history were assembled to receive them, except the duke and butcha. Which is the poet, asked Madame Latournel of Dumaye in the embouchure of a window where she stationed herself as soon as she heard the wheels? The one who walks like a drum major answered the lieutenant. Ah! said the notary's wife, examining Canalise, who was swinging his body like a man who knows he is being looked at. The vault lay with the great lady who flattered him incessantly and spoiled him, as all women older than their adorers invariably spoil and flatter them. Canalise and his moral being was a sort of narcissist. When a woman of a certain age wishes to attach a man forever, she begins by deifying his defects so as to cut off all possibility of rivalry. For a rival is never, at the first approach, aware of the super fine flattery to which the man is accustomed. Coxcomes are the product of this feminine maneuver when they are not fobs by nature.  Such shades of character may be excessively faint, but it is improper for the historian not to point them out. For instance, Melchior possessed the talent for reading, which was greatly admired, and much injudicious praise had given him a habit of exaggeration, which neither poets nor actors are willing to check, and which made people say of him, always through de Marseille, that he no longer declaimed, he bellowed his verses, lengthening the sounds that he might listen to himself. In the slang of the green room, Canalise dragged the time. He was fond of exchanging glances with his hearers, throwing himself into postures of self-complacency and practicing those tricks of demeanor which actors call balanquars, the picturesque phrase of an artistic people. Canalise had his imitators, and was in fact the head of a school of his kind. This habit of declamatory chanting slightly affected his conversation, as we have seen in his interview with Dumas. The moment the mind becomes finical, the manners follow suit, and the great poet ended by studying his demeanor, inventing attitudes, looking furtively at himself in mirrors, and suiting his discourse to the particular pose which he had happened to have taken up. He was so preoccupied with the effect he wished to produce that a practical joke, Blondet, had bet once or twice, and won the wager, that he could non-plus him at any moment by merely looking fixedly at his hair or his boots or the tails of his coats. These errors and graces which started in life with a passport of flowery youth now seemed all the more stale and old because Melchior himself was waning. Life in the world of fashion is quite as exhausting to men as it is to women, and perhaps the twenty years by which the duchess exceeded her lover's age weighed more heavily upon him than upon her. To the eyes of the world she was always handsome, without rouge, without wrinkles, and without heart. Alas, neither men nor women have friends who are friendly enough to warn them of the moment when the fragrance of their modesty grows stale, when the caressing glance is but an echo of the stage, when the expression of the face changes from sentiment to sentimentality, and the artifices of the mind show their rusty edges. Genius alone renews its skin like a snake, and in the matter of charm, as in everything else, it is only the heart that never grows old. People who have hearts are simple in all their ways. Now Canales, as we know, had a shriveled heart. He misused the beauty of his glance by giving it, without adequate reason, the fixity that comes to the eyes in meditation. In short, applause was to him a business in which he was perpetually on the lookout for gain. His style of paying compliments, charming to superficial people, seemed insulting to others of more delicacy by its triteness and the cool assurance of its cut-and-dried flattery. As a matter of fact, Melchior lied like a courtier. He remarked without blushing to the Duke de Chaleu, who made no impression whatever when he was obliged to address the Chamber as Minister of Foreign Affairs, your excellency was truly sublime. Many men like Canales are purged of their affectations by the administration of non-success in little doses. These defects, slight in the gilded salons of the Fauburg Saint-Germain, where everyone contributes his or her quota of absurdity, and where these particular forms of exaggerated speech and effected diction, magniliquence, if you please to call it so, are surrounded by excessive luxury and sumptuous toilettes, which are to some extent their excuse, were certain to be far more noticed in the provinces, whose own absurdities are of a totally different type. Canales, by nature, overstrained and artificial, could not change his form. In fact, he had had time to grow stiff in the mold into which the Duchess had poured him. Moreover, he was thoroughly Parisian, or, if you prefer it, truly French. The Parisian is amazed that everything everywhere is not as it is in Paris. The Frenchman, as it is in France, good taste, on the contrary, demands that we adapt ourselves to the customs of foreigners without losing too much of our own character, as did Alcibiades, that model of a gentleman. True grace is elastic. It lends itself to circumstances. It is in harmony with all social centres. It wears a robe of simple material in the streets, noticeable only by its cut, in preference to the feathers and flounces of middle-class vulgarity. Now Canales, instigated by a woman who loved herself much more than she loved him, wished to lay down the law and be everywhere, such as he himself might see fit to be. He believed he carried his own public with him wherever he went, an error shared by several of the great men of Paris. While a poet made a studied and effective entrance into the salon of the chalet, Abriere slipped in behind him like a person of no account. Ha! do I see my soldier, said Canales, perceiving Dumai after addressing a compliment to Madame Mignon and bowing to the other woman? Your anxieties are relieved, are they not, he said, offering his hand effusively. I comprehend them to their fullest extent after seeing Mamzelle. I spoke to you of terrestrial creatures, not of angels, all present seen by their attitudes to ask the meaning of this speech. I shall always consider it a triumph, resumed the poet, observing that everybody wished for an explanation, to have stirred to mention one of those men of iron whom Napoleon had the eye to find and make the supporting piles on which he tried to build an empire, too colossal to be lasting, for such structures time alone is the cement. But this triumph, why should I be proud of it? I count for nothing. There is no triumph of ideas over facts. Your battles, my dear Monser Dumai, your heroic charges, Monser Lacombe, nay, war itself was the form in which Napoleon's idea clothed itself. Of all these things, what remains? The sod that covers them knows nothing. Harvests come and go without revealing their resting place. Were it not for the historian, the writer, puturity would have no knowledge of these heroic days.  That which preserves the empire forever is the poem that the poets make of them. A nation that can win such battles must now know how to sing them. Canolese paws together by a glance that ran around the circle the tribute of amazement which he expected of provincials. You must be aware, Monser, of the regret I feel at not seeing you, said Madame Mignon, since you compensate me with the pleasure of hearing you. Modeste determined to think Canolese sublime sat motionless with amazement. The embroidery slipped from her fingers, which held it only by the needle full of thread. Modeste, this is Monser Ernest de la Breière. Monser Erneste, my daughter, said the count, thinking the secretary too much in the background. The young girl vowed coldly, giving Erneste a glance that was meant to prove to every one present that she saw him for the first time. Pardon me, Monser, she said, without blushing. The great admiration I feel for the greatest of our poets is, in the eyes of my friends, a sufficient excuse for seeing only him. The pure, fresh voice with accents like that of Mamzelle Mars charmed the poor secretary, already dazzled by Modeste's beauty, and in his sudden surprise he answered by a phrase that would have been sublime had it been true. He is my friend, he said. Ah, then you do pardon me, she replied. He is more than a friend, cried Canales, taking Erneste by the shoulder and leaning upon it like Alexander on her face, Dion. We love each other as though we were brothers. Madame LaTorne cut short the poet's speech by pointing to Erneste and saying a lot to her husband. Surely that is the gentleman we saw at the church. Why not, said Charles Mignon, quickly observing that Erneste was in a hurry. Madame may be right. I have been twice in Haver lately, replied LaBriere, sitting down by Dumai. Canales, charmed with Modeste's beauty, mistook the admiration she expressed and flattered himself he had succeeded in producing his desired effects. I should think a man without heart if he had no devoted friend near him, said Modeste, to pick up the conversation interrupted him. As out Erneste's devotion makes me almost think myself worth something, said Canales. For my dear Pilates is full of talent. He was the right hand of the greatest master we have had since the peace. Though he holds a fine position, he is good enough to be my tutor in the science of politics. He teaches me to conduct affairs and feeds me with his experience when all the while he might aspire to much better situation. Modeste, he continued gracefully. Yes, the poetry that I express he carries in his heart, and if I speak thus openly before him it is because he has the modesty of a nun. Enough, oh enough, cried LaBriere, who hardly knew which way to look.  How is it Monchure, said Charles Mignon, addressing Canales, that you can even think of becoming a political character? The application, said Modeste, for a poet, politics are the resource of matter of fact men. Ah, Mamzell, the rostrum is today the greatest theatre of the world. It has succeeded the tournaments of chivalry. It is now the meeting place for all intellects, just as the army has been the rallying point of courage.  Poetry was but a preface to her as become a sublime reasoner, the shepherd of ideas. A poet may point the way to nations or individuals, but can he ever cease to be himself? He quoted Chateaubriand and declared that he would one day be greater on the political side than on the literary. The form of France has to be the pharaohs of humanity. Oral battles supplanted fields of battle. There were sessions of the chamber finer than any else. They spent their lives, their courage, their strength as freely as those who went to war. Speech was surely one of the most prodigal outlets of the vital fluid that man had ever known, etc. This improvisation of modern commonplaces clothed in sonorous phrases and newly invented words and intended to prove that the Comte de Canales was becoming one of the glories of the French government, made a deep impression upon the notary on Madame La Tournée and Madame Mignon. Modeste looked as though she were at the theatre in an attitude of enthusiasm for an actor, very much like that of Ernest toward herself, for though the secretary knew all these high-sounding phrases by heart, he listened through the eyes, as it were, of the young girl, and grew more and more madly in love with her. To this true lover, Modeste was eclipsing all the Modests he had created as he read her letters to them. This visit, the length of which was predetermined by Canales, careful not to allow his admirers a chance to get surfited, ended by an invitation to dinner on the following Monday. We shall not be at the chalet, said the Comte de la Bastille. De Maï will have sole possession of it. I returned to the villa, having bought it back under a deed of redemption within six months, which I have today signed with Monchure-Vilquine. Why, that Vilquine will not be able to return to you the sum you have just lent him, and that the villa will remain yours. It isn't a boat in keeping with your fortune, said Canales. You mean the fortune that I am supposed to have, replied Charlemagne Yone Hastily? It would be too sad, said Canales, returning to Modeste with a charming little bow, if this Madonna were not framed in a manner worthy of her divine modest, he effected not to look at her and to behave like a man to whom all idea of marriage was interdicted. Ah, my dear Madame Mignon, cried the notary's wife as soon as the gravel was heard to grit under the feet of the Parisians. What an intellect! Is he rich? That is the question, said Gobernheim. Modeste was at the window, not losing a single movement of the great poet and paying no attention to his companion. When Monchure Hollande and Modeste, having received a last bow from the two friends as the carriage turned, went back to her seat, a weighty discussion took place, such as provincials invariably hold over Parisians after a first interview. Gobernheim repeated his phrase, Is he rich? as a chorus to the songs of praise sung by Madame Latournel, Modeste and her mother. Rich! exclaimed Modeste. What can that signify? You cannot see that Monchure de Canales is one of those men who are destined for the highest places in the state. He has more than fortune. He possesses that which gives fortune. He will be minister or ambassador, said Monchure Mignon. That won't hinder taxpayers from having to pay the costs of his funeral, remarked the notary. How so? asked Charles Mignon. He strikes me as a man who will waste all the fortunes he has. Modeste can't avoid being liberal to a poet who called her a Madonna, said Dumais, sneering and faithful to the repulsion which Canales had originally inspired him. Gobernheim arranged the wisp table with all the more persistency because since the return of Monchure Mignon, Latournel and Dumais had allowed themselves to play for ten Sue-points. Well, my little darling, said the father to the daughter in order of the window, admit that Papa thinks of everything. If you send your orders this evening to your former dressmaker in Paris and all your other furnishing people, you shall show yourself eight days' hints in all the splendor of an heiress. Meantime we will install ourselves in the villa. You already have a pretty horse. Now order a habit. You owe that amount of civility to the grand equity. All the more because there will be a number of us to ride, said Modeste, who was recovering the colors of health. The secretary did not say much, remarked Madame Mignon. A little fool, said Madame Latournel, the poet has an attentive word for everybody. He thanked Monchure Latournel for his help in choosing the house and said he must have taken counsel with a woman of good taste. But the other looked as gloomy as a Spaniard and kept his eyes fixed on Modeste as though he would like to swallow her whole. If he had even looked at me, I should have been afraid of him. He had a pleasant voice, said Madame Mignon. No doubt he came to Havre to inquire about the Mignons in the interest of his friend the poet, said Modeste, looking furtively at her father. It was certainly he whom we saw in church. Madame Dumay and Monchure and Madame Latournel accepted this as the natural explanation of Ernest's journey. End of Section 18 Read by Don W. Jenkins, Rancho San Diego, California, shaggybark.blogspot.com Section 19 of Modeste Mignon by Henri de Balzac, translated by Catherine Prescott-Wormley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 19 of Modeste Mignon by Henri de Balzac. Read by Don W. Jenkins. Chapter 19 Of which the author thinks a good deal. Do you know Ernest cried cannelies when they had driven a short distance from the house? I don't see any marriageable women in society in Paris who compares with that adorable girl. Ah, that ends it, replied Ernest. She loves you or she will love you if you desire it. Your fame won half the battle. Well, you may now have it all your own way. You shall go there alone in the future. Modeste despises me. She is right to do so, and I don't see any reason why I should condemn myself to see, to love, to desire, and to adore that which I can never possess. After a few consoling remarks, dashed with his own satisfaction at having made a new version of Caesar's phrase, cannelies divulged the desire to break with the duchess de chaleux. Labrière, totally unable to keep up the conversation, made the beauty of the night an excuse to be set down, and then rushed like one possess to the seashore where he stayed till past ten, until he returned to the chalet where the Pyrenees hounds barked at him till he was forced to sit down without noticing uneasiness of two custom house officers who were on watch. After loving Modeste's wit and intellect and her aggressive frankness, he now joined adoration till he was forced to relinquish the pleasure of gazing at Modeste's windows. In love such things are of no more account to the lover than the work which is covered by the last layer of color is to the artist. Yet they make up the whole of love just as the hidden toil is the whole of art. Out of them arise the great painter and the true lover whom the woman suffered. I will love her for myself only in solitude.  I will breathe with her breath. Rejoice in her joys and bear her griefs. Be she even the wife of that egoist cannolese. That's what I call loving-long-sure said a voice which came from a shrub by the side of the road. Ha ha! So all the world is in love except his anger when by the light of the moon he saw the dwarf and he made a few steps without replying. Soldiers who serve in the same company ought to be good comrades, Mark Butcher. You don't love cannolese, neither do I. He is my friend, reply, donest. Ha!  You are to know, Modeste, that I said Butcher. I myself have the honour to be head clerk to La Tronelle, chief councillor of Havre, and my position is a better one than yours. Yes, I have had the happiness of seeing Mamzel Modeste de la Bastille nearly every evening for the last four years, and I expect to live near here as a king's servant lives in the Tularies. If they offered me the throne of Russia I should answer myself. I am looking after her interests with the most honourable intentions. Do you believe that the proud Duchess de Chaleu would cast a favourable eye on the happiness of Madame de Cannolese if her waiting woman who is in love with Modeste Germain not liking that charming valet's absence in Havre were to say to her mistress while brushing my hump it is full of resources, Monchure. I have made myself cousin to Mamzel Philoxine Jacques Mines born at Hanfleur where my mother was born Jacques Mines there are eight branches of the Jacques Mines at Hanfleur so my cousin Philoxine enticed by the bait of a highly improbable fortune forgiven me the Duke for being nothing more than her husband replied Boucher she hates as she loves I know all about her character her tastes her toilette her religion and her manners for Philoxine stripped her for me soul and corset I went to the opera expressly to see her and I didn't grudge the ten francs it cost me I don't mean the play if my imaginary cousin had not told me the Duchess had seen her fifty summers I should have was over generous in giving her thirty she has never known a winter that Duchess yes said Labriere she is a cameo preserved because is stone Kanelis would be in a bad way if the Duchess were to find out what he is doing here and I hope long sure that you will go no further in this business of spying which is unworthy of an honest man long sure said Boucher proudly for me modest is come here if it is desirable or she will stay tranquilly where she is according to what I judge best you I and how pray huh that is it said the little hunchback plucking a blade of grass see here this herb believes that men build palaces for it to grow in it wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble and brings it to the ground and the power of the feeble life that can creep everywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their cannons I am one of three who have sworn that modest shall be happy and we would sell our honor for her a doom on sure if you truly love Mamzell de la Bastille forget this conversation and shake hands with me for I think you've got a heart I long to see the chalet and I got here just as she was putting out and I overheard your words and that is why I take the liberty of saying we serve in the same regiment that of loyal devotion Mon sure said Labrière ringing the hunchback's hand would you have the friendliness to tell me if Mamzell Modeste ever loved anyone with love before she wrote to Canalees Oh! exclaimed Butcha in an altered voice that thought is an insult of genius of the soul and intellect of that seller of verses that literary quack we all study him and I know how to make the man's real character peep out from under the turtle shell of fine manners we'll soon see the petty little head of his ambition and his vanity cried Butcha rubbing his hands so unless Mamzell is desperately taken with him Oh! letting the secret of his jealousy escape him if he is a loyal honest fellow and loves her if he is worthy of her if he renounces his duchess said Butcha then I'll manage the duchess here my dear sir take this road and you'll get home in ten minutes but as they parted Butcha turned back and hailed poor Ernest who as a true lover would gladly have stayed all night talking of Modeste seeing our great poet I am very curious to observe that magnificent phenomenon in the exercise of his functions do me the favor to bring him to the chalet tomorrow evening and stay as long as possible for it takes more than an hour for a man to show himself for what he is I shall be the first to see if he loves if he can love or if ever he will love Mamzell Modeste my dear ha Moncher deformed folks are born a hundred years old and besides a sick man who has long been sick knows more than his doctor he knows the disease and that is more than can be said for the best of doctors well so it is with a man who cherishes a woman in his heart when the woman is forced to disdain him the stupidity alone is incurable I have had neither father nor mother since I was six years old I am now twenty-five public charity has been my mother the procurator of my father oh don't be troubled he had in seeing your nest gesture I am much more lively than my situation well for the last for it is best to take the bull by the horns so I took my master's wife who has certainly been an angel to me for my first study perhaps I did wrong but I couldn't help it I passed her through my alembic and what did I find? this thought crouching at the bottom of her heart I am not so ugly as they think me but if a man you replied butch that my life belongs to her just as France belongs to the king do you now understand what you called my spying in Paris? no one but me really knows what nobility what pride what devotion what mysterious grace what unwearing kindness what true religion gaity wit delicacy knowledge and courtesy there are in the soul and in the heart of that adorable and labriere pressed his hand for a long time I live in the sunbeam of her existence it comes from her it is absorbed in me that is how we are united as nature is to God by the light and by the word adumons sure never in my life have I talked this way but seeing you beneath her windows I felt in my heart that you loved her as I love her without waiting for an answer butch acquitted the poor lover but an inexpressible balm Ernest resolved to make a friend of him not suspecting that the chief object of the clerk's loquacity was to gain communication with someone connected with Kanalees Ernest was rocked to sleep that night by the ebb and flow of thoughts and resolutions and plans for his future conduct whereas Kanalees slept the sleep of the conqueror and agreed to spend the evening of the following day at the chalet and initiate themselves into the delights of Provincial Wist to get rid of the day they ordered their horses purchased by Germain at a large price and started on a voyage of discovery around the country which was quite as unknown to them as China for the most foreign thing to Frenchman in France is France itself by dint of reflecting on his position as an unfortunate Ernest went through something of the same process as Modest's first letter had forced upon him though sorrow is said to develop virtue it only develops it in virtuous persons that cleaning out of the conscience takes place only in persons who are by nature clean Labrier vowed to endure his sufferings in Spartan silence to act wordly and give away to no baseness while Kanalees activating the eras selfishness and devotion the key notes of the two characters therefore took by the action of a moral law which is often very odd in its effects certain measures that were contrary to their respective natures the selfish man put on self-abnegation the man who thought chiefly of others took refuge on the avantiness of pride that phenomenon is often seen in political life men frequently turn their characters wrong side out and it sometimes happens that the public is unable to tell which is the right side after dinner the two friends heard the arrival of the grand equari who was presented at the chalet the same evening by Latournel Mamzell de Haraville who had contrived to wound that worthy man by sending a footman to tell him to come to her instead of sending her nephew in person thus depriving the notary of his natural life so Latournel curtly informed the grand equari when he proposed to drive him to the chalet that he was engaged to take Madame Latournel guessing from the little man's sulky manner that there was some blunder to repair the Duke said graciously then I shall have the pleasure if you will allow me of taking Madame Latournel also disregarding Mamzell de Haraville's haughty shrug the Duke left the room so Latournel half crazed with joy at seeing the gorgeous carriage at her door with footmen and royal livery letting down the steps was too agitated on hearing that the grand equari had called for her to find her gloves her parasol her absurdity or her usual era of pompous dignity once in the carriage however and while expressing confused thanks and civilities to the little Duke she suddenly exclaimed from a thought in her kind heart Mike Butcha said the Duke smiling when the people in the quays attracted in groups by the splendor of the royal equippage saw the funny spectacle the three little men with the spare gigantic woman they looked at one another and laughed if you melt all three together they might make one man fit to mate with that big codfish said the sailor from Bordeaux is there any other thing you would like to take with you no more sure she replied turning scarlet and looking at her husband as much as to say what did I do wrong more sure the Duke honors me by considering that I am a thing said Butcha a poor clerk is usually thought to be a non-entity though this was said with a laugh the Duke colored and did not answer great people are to blame for joking with their social equity equality that players have the right after the game is over not to recognize each other the visit of the grand equity had the ostensible excuse of an important piece of business namely the retrieval of an immense tract of wasteland left by the sea between the mouths of the two rivers which tract had just been a judge by the council of state to the house 200 acres cutting canals and laying out roadways when the Duke had explained the condition of the land Charles Mignon remarked that time must be allowed for the soil which was still moving to settle and grow solid in a natural way time which has providentially enriched your house Monserle Duke can alone complete the work he said in conclusion it would be prudent to let 50 years elapse before you reclaim the land when Shirley Comte said the Duke come to Haraville and see things for yourself Charles Mignon replied that every capitalist should take time to examine into such matters with a cool head thus giving the Duke a pretext for his visits to the chalet the sight of Modeste made a lively impression on the young man and he asked the favor of receiving her at Haraville with her father saying that his sister and his aunt had his daughter to those ladies himself and invited the whole party to dinner on the day of his return to the villa the Duke accepted the invitation the blue ribbon the title and above all the ecstatic glances of the noble gentleman had an effect upon Modeste but she appeared to great advantage and carriage dignity and conversation the Duke withdrew reluctantly carrying the order of Charles the Tenth existing for a single evening without his rubber the following evening therefore Modeste was to see all three of her lovers no matter what young girls may say and though the logic of the heart may lead them to sacrifice everything to preference it is extremely flattering to their self-love to see a number of rival adorers around them distinguished or celebrated men or men of ancient religion it must be told she subsequently admitted that the sentiments expressed in her letters pale before the pleasure of seeing three such different minds at war with one another three men who taken separately would each have done honor to the most exacting family yet this luxury of self-love was checked by a misanthropical spitefulness resulting from the terrible wound she had received although by this time her laughing well, Modest, do you want to be a duchess? she answered with a mocking curtsy sorrows have made me philosophical do you mean to be only a baroness? asked Butcha? or have I countest? said her father how could that be? she asked quickly if you accept Monture-Labriere he has enough merit and influence to obtain permission from the king to bear my titles and arms oh, if it comes to disguising himself Butcha did not understand this epigram whose meaning could only be guessed by Monture and Madame Mignon and de Maie when it is a question of marriage all men disguise themselves remarked Laternel and women set themselves the example I have heard it said ever since I came into the world that Monture this or Mamzelle if one dupes the other certainly half the husbands in the world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half from which you conclude Sir Butcha inquired Modeste to pay the utmost attention to the maneuvers of the enemy answered the clerk what did I tell you my darling said Charles Mignon alluding to their conversation on the seashore men play as many parts to get married as possible then you approve of stratagem said Modeste on both sides cried Gobenheim and that brings it even this conversation was carried on by Fitz and Starts as they say in the intervals of cutting and dealing the cards and it soon turned chiefly might possibly find the forthcoming account of the evening so impatiently awaited by Butcha somewhat too long the plane the famous surgeon arrived the next morning and stayed only long enough to send to Havera for fresh horses and have them put to which took about an hour after examining Madame Mignon's eyes he decided that she could recover her sight and fixed a suitable time and took place before the assembled members of the chalet who stood trembling and expectant to hear the verdict of the Prince of Science that illustrious member of the Academy of Science has put about a dozen brief questions to the blind woman as he examined her eyes in the strong light from a window Modeste was amazed at the value which a man so celebrated Paris that evening before and had spent the night in sleeping and travelling the rapidity and clearness of Plain's judgement on each answer made by Madame Mignon his succinct tone his decisive manner gave Modeste her first real idea of a man of genius she perceived the enormous difference between a second rate man like Cannelise the validity of his fame and arena of his own where his legitimate pride can expand and exercise itself without interfering with others moreover his perpetual struggle with men and things leave them no time for the coxcomery of fashionable genius which makes haste to gather in the harvests of a fugitive season and whose vanity and self-love are as intended by this great practical genius because he was evidently charmed with the exquisite beauty of Modeste he through whose hands so many women had passed and who had long since examined the sex as it were with magnifier and scalpel it would be a sad pity he said with an air of gallantry which he occasionally put on in which contrasted the breakfast which was all the great surgeon would accept she accompanied her father in demise to the carriage stationed at the garden gate and said to this plane at parting her eyes shining with hope and will my dear mama really see me? yes my little sprite I'll promise you that he answered smiling and I am incapable of deceiving nothing is more charming than the peculiar unexpectedness of persons of talent End of Section 19 read by Don W. Jenkins Rancho San Diego, California shaggybark.blogspot.com Section 20 of Modeste Mignon by Henri de Balzac translated by Catherine Prescott-Wormley this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Section 20 of Modeste Mignon by Henri de Balzac read by Don W. Jenkins Chapter 20 the poet does his exercises this visit of the great surgeon was the event of the day and it left a luminous trace in Modeste's soul the young enthusiast ardently admired the man whose life belonged to others and in whom the habit of studying physical suffering had destroyed the manifestations of egoism that evening when Goebenheim the Latternells and Butcha Canalise Ernest and the Duke de Harreville were gathered in the salon they all the conversation in which the Modeste of her letters was once more in the ascendant turned naturally on the man whose genius unfortunately for his fame was appreciable only by the faculty and men of science Goebenheim contributed a phrase which is the sacred chrism of genius as interpreted in those days by public economists and bankers he makes a mint of money they say he is very grasping the praises which Modeste showered on de Plaine had annoyed the poet vanity acts like a woman they both think they are defrauded when love or praises bestowed on others Voltaire was jealous of the wit of a rouet whom Paris admired for two days and even a duchess takes offence at a look bestowed upon her maid the avarice excited by these two sentiments is such that a fraction of them given to the pourers thought robbery they think Modeste smiling that we should judge genius by ordinary standards perhaps we ought first of all to define the man of genius replied Canales one of the conditions of genius is invention invention of a form a system a force Napoleon is an inventor apart from his other conditions of genius he invented his method of making war Walter Scott Halere and Cuvier are inventors such men are men of genius of the first rank they renew increase or modify both science and art but de Plaine is merely a man whose vast talent consists in properly applying laws already known and observing by means of a natural gift the limits laid down for each temperament and the time appointed by nature for an operation he has not founded like Hippocrates invented no system as did Galen Bruce and Russeri he is merely an executive genius like Moshele on the piano Paganini on the violin or Fronelli on his own larynx men who have developed enormous faculties but who have not created music you must permit me to discriminate between Beethoven and La Catalani to one belongs the immortal crown of genius and of martyrdom to the other innumerable five franc pieces one we can pay in coin but the world remains throughout all time a debtor to the other each day increases our debt to Mollier but Barron's comedies have been overpaid I think you make the prerogative of ideas too exclusive said Ernest de la Brière and a quiet and melodious voice who formed a sudden contrast to the peremptory tones of the poet whose flexible organ with a real voice of the rostrum genius must be estimated according to its utility and parmentier who brought potatoes into general use Jacquart the inventor of the silk looms Papine who first discovered the elastic quality of steam are men of genius to whom statues will someday be erected they have changed or they will change in a certain sense the face of the state it is in that he is considered a man of genius by thinkers they see him attended by a generation of sufferers whose pains are stifled by his hand that Ernest should give utterance to his opinions was enough to make modeste oppose it if that be so most sure as he said then the man whom could discover a way to mow wheat without injuring the straw by a machine that could do the work the poor is blessed of God that is putting utility above art said modeste shaking her head without utility what would become of art said charle mignon what would it rest on what would it live on where would you lodge and how would you pay the poet oh my dear papa such opinions are fearfully flat and antediluvian I am not surprised that gobenheim and moncher labriere who are interested in the solution of social problems should think so most useless poetry of the century useless because the blood you shed all over europe and the horrible sufferings extracted by your colossus did not prevent france from losing ten departments acquired under the revolution how can you give into such excessively pigtail notions as the idealists say it is plain you've just come from china the impertinence of modeste speech was heightened by a little air madame mignon madame latronelle and domay as for madame latronelle she opened her eyes so wide she no longer saw anything butcha whose alert attention was comparable to that of a spy looked at moncher mignon expecting to see him flush with sudden and violent indignation a little more young lady and you'll be wanting in respect for your father said the colonel smiling and noticing butcha's look see what it is to spoil one's children I am your only child child indeed remarked the notary significantly moncher said modeste turning upon him my father is delighted to have me for his governess he gave me life and I give him knowledge he will soon owe me something there seems occasion for it said madame mignon but mamzelle is right said canales rising and standing before the fireplace in one of the finest attitudes of his collection God in his providence says to man to live thou must bow thyself to the earth to think thou shalt lift thyself to me we have as much need of the life of the soul as of the life of the body hence there are two utilities it is true we cannot be shod by books or clothed by poems an epic song is not if you take the utilitarian view as useful as the broth of a charity cotton gin gives us calicoes for thirty soot a yard less than we ever paid before but that machine and all other industrial perfections will not breathe the breath of life into a people will not tell futurity of civilization that once existed art on the contrary egyptian mexican greecean roman art with their masterpieces the newt of men of genius have disappeared leaving not a line nor a trace behind them the works of genius are the sumum of civilization and presuppose utility surely a pair of boots are not as agreeable to your eyes as a fine play at the theater and you don't prefer a windmill to the church of son one do you well then nations drive himself morally just as he propagates himself physically the survival of the people is the work of its men of genius at this very moment France is proving energetically the truth of that theory she is undoubtedly excelled by england in commerce industry and navigation and yet she is I believe there is no school of painting at this moment but that of France and we shall reign far longer and perhaps more securely by our books than our swords and a Brier system on the other hand all that is glorious and lovely must be suppressed women's beauty music painting poetry society will not be overthrown that is true but I ask you who would willingly accept such a life all useful but you take care not to sit there you live in the salon which you adorn like this with superfluous things of what use let me ask you are these charming wall paintings this carved woodwork there is nothing beautiful but that which seems to us useless we call the 16th century the renaissance with admirable truth of language that century was the dawn of a new era men will continue to speak of it when all their only merit being that they once existed like the million beings who count as rubbish of a generation rubbish yes that may be but my rubbish is dear to me said the duke de haravel laughing during the silent pause which followed the poet's pompous oration let me ask said butcha attacking cannellies does art the sphere in which according to you genius is required to evolve a man do I want a landscape seen of Normandy in my bedroom when I can look out and see a better one done by God himself our dreams make poems more glorious than Iliad's for an insignificant sum of money I can find at Valone at Carentin at Provence at Arles many of Venus as beautiful as those of Tichin I think happiness and virtue exist above and beyond both art and genius bravo butcha cried Madame Latternel what did he say as cannellies of L'Abrière failing to gather from the eyes and attitude of Mamzelle Mignon the usual signs of artless admiration the contemptuous sorrowfully and modeste were full of deep meditation the duke took up Butch's argument and reproduced it with much intelligence saying finally that the ecstasies of San Teresa were far superior to the creations of Lord Byron O Montserre L'Aduk exclaimed modeste hers was purely a personal poetry whereas now you are insisting that genius must be useful and benefit the world as though it were cotton but perhaps you think logic is antediluvian as your poor old father Butcha L'Abrière and Madame Latternel exchanged glances that were more than half derisive and drove modeste to a pitch of irritation that kept her silent for a moment Mamzelle did not mind them literature music painting sculpture or architecture implies a positive social utility equal to that of all other commercial products art is preeminently commerce presupposes it in short an author pockets ten thousand francs for his book the making of books means the manufactory of paper a foundry by Rossini requires human arms and machinery and manufactures the cost of a monument is an almost brutal case in point in short I may say that the works of genius have an extremely costly basis and are necessarily useful to the working man astride of that theme Cannelly spoke for some minutes with a fine luxury of metaphor and much effort last at the point from which the conversation started and in full agreement with library error without perceiving it I see with much pleasure my dear Baron said the little duke's lily that you will make an admirable constitutional minister oh said Cannelly with the gesture of a great man what is the use of other surroundings to the point of being actually unrecognizable society exists through settled opinions said the duke de Haraville what laxity whispered madame letter now to her husband he has a poet said gobenheim who over heard her Cannelly's who was ten leagues above the heads of his audience who may being modest understood him he was content being wholly unaware that monologue is particularly a disagreeable to country folk whose principal desire it is to exhibit the manner of life and the wit and custom of the provinces to Parisians it is long since you have seen the duchess de chaleur ask the duke addressing Cannelly's as if to change the conversation I left her about six years ago to remember me to her when you write they say she is charming remark modest addressing the duke Montrelle-Baronne can speak more confidently than I replied the grand equity more than Charming said Cannelly's making the best of the duke's perfidy but I am partial Mamzol she has been a friend to me in my present career without the influence of that family the king and the princesses would have forgotten a poor poet like me therefore my affection for the duchess must always be full of gratitude his voice quivered we ought to love the woman who has led you to write those sublime poems and who inspires you with such noble feelings said modeste quite affected who can think of a poet without a muse who never loved anyone but Voltaire I thought you did me the honor to say in paris interrupted to mind that you never felt the sentiments you expressed the shoe fits my soldier replied the poet smiling but let me tell you that it is quite possible to have a great deal of feeling both in the intellectual life and in real life my good I think so unless I delude myself well I can give to my love a literary form in harmony with its character but I dare not say mamzell he said turning to modeste with two studied to grace that tomorrow I may not be without inspiration thus the poet triumphed over all obstacles in honor of his love he wrote a tilt at the hindrances that were thrown in his way a modeste remained of which she had hitherto known little or nothing what an acrobat whispered butch to latinel after listening to a magnificent tirade on the catholic religion and the happiness of having a pious wife served up in response to a remark by madame mignon modeste's eyes were blindfolded as it were canalease's elocution and the close attention which she was predetermined to pay to him prevented her from the wand of simplicity the emphasis that took the place of feeling and the curious incoherencies in the poet's speech which led the dwarf to make his rather cruel comment at certain points of canalease's discourse when moncier mignon de maie and butch and latinel wondered at the man's utter want of logic modeste admired his butch in common with the other spectators of what we must call a stage scene was struck with the radiant defect of all egoists which canalease like many men accustomed to perorate allowed to be plainly seen whether he understood beforehand what the person he was speaking to meant to say whether he was not listening or whether he had the asserted the ideas of others and wounded their vanity not to listen is not merely a want of politeness it is a mark of disrespect canalease pushed this habit too far for he often forgot to answer a speech which required an answer and passed without the ordinary transitions of courtesy to the subject whatever it was that preoccupied him though such impertinence is accepted without protest from a man of marked and many hearts for those of equals it even goes far as to destroy a friendship if by chance Melchior was forced to listen he fell into another fault he merely lent his attention and never gave it though this may not be so mortifying it shows a kind of semi-concession which is almost as unsatisfactory to the hearer and leaves him dissatisfied nothing brings more profit in the commerce the earth let him hear is not only a gospel precept it is an excellent speculation follow it and all will be forgiven you even vice Connelly's took a great deal of trouble in his anxiety to please Modest but though he was compliant enough with her he fell back into his natural self with others Modest putilis for the gift for reading of which she had heard so much Connelly's took the volume in which she gave him and cued for that is the proper word a poem which is generally considered his finest an imitation of Moore's loves of the angels entitled Vitalis which Monture and Madame have never met a man as accomplished as you the remark raised a laugh for it was the translation of everybody's thought I play it sufficiently well to live in the provinces for the rest of my days replied Connelly's that I think is enough and more than enough literature and conversation for wist players he added throwing the volume for he is like the favorite actor of a second rate audience whose talent is lost when he leaves his own boards and steps upon those of an upper class theater end of section 20 read by Don W. Jenkins Rancho San Diego California shaggybark.blogspot.com recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Kress Karan Modest Mignen by Anore Debalzak translated by Catherine Prescott Warmly Chapter 21 Modest plays her part the game opened with the Baron and the Duke Gobenheim and LaTornel as partners Modest took a seat near the poet to earn his appointment he watched the face of the wayward girl and marked the progress of the fascination which Canalius exerted over her Libre had not the gift of seduction which Melchoire possessed nature frequently denies it to true hearts who are as a rule timid this gift demands fearlessness and a larcretty of ways and means goes with it in fact there is always morally speaking something of the comedian in a poet there is a vast difference between expressing sentiments we do not feel though we may imagine all their variations and feigning to feel them when bidding for success on the theater of private life and yet though in the necessary hypocrisy of a man of the world may have gained her into poet he ends by infusing his heart sentiment just as a great man doomed to solitude ends by infusing his heart into his mind he is after the millions thought Libre sadly and he can play passion so well that modest will believe him instead of endeavoring to appear more amiable and wittier than his rival longharris earnest simply felt a prey to the pains of dark and concentrated jealousy he had not yet been able to obtain a glance from his idol after a while he left the room with butzcha it is all over he said he is caught by him I am more disagreeable to her and moreover she is right canalius is charming there is intellect in his silence passion in his eyes poetry in his see an honest man as butzcha oh yes replied Libre he is loyal and chivalrous and capable of getting rid under modest influence of those affectations which madame chelou has taught him you are a fine fellow said the hunchback but is he capable of loving will he love her I don't know answered Libre has he said anything about me he asked after a moment silence in his speech about disguises poor earnest flung himself upon a bench and held his head in his hands he could not keep back his tears and he did not wish butzcha to see him but the dwarf was the very man to guess his emotion what troubles do he asked she is right crawled earnest bringing up I am a wretch and he related the deception into which canalius had led him butzcha that he had wished to un-deceive the young girl before he herself took off the mask and apostrophizing in rather juvenile fashion his luckless destiny butzcha sympathetically understood the love in the favor and vigor of his simple language and in his deep and genuine anxiety but why don't you show yourself to mademoiselle modest for what you are he said have you never felt your throat tightened when you wished to speak to her is there never a strange feeling in the roots of your hair and on the surface of your skin when she looks at you even as she thinking of something else but you had sufficient judgment to show displeasure when she as good as told her excellent father that he was adult I love her too well not to have felt a knife and reported her if she had more self-love than heart there would be nothing for a man to regret and losing her answered library at this moment modest followed by canales who had lost the rubber came out with her father mademou to breathe the fresh air of the starry night while his daughter walked about with the poet Charles mignin left her and came up not judge a poet as you would an ordinary man as you would me for example Montseguirre Lecomte said library a poet has a mission he's obliged by his nature to see the poetry of questions just as he expresses out of things when he think of him inconsistent with himself he is really faithful to his vocation he is a painter copying with equal truth a Madonna in his young ones and Morales judgement was assuredly a sound and healthy one these witty paradoxes might be dangerous for second rate minds but they have no real influence on the character of great mem Charles mignin passed library's hand that adaptability however leads a man to excuse himself in his own eyes for actions that are diametrically opposed to each other above all in politics mademoiselle the kerosene voice replying to a roguish remark and modest do you not think that a multiplicity of emotions can in any way lessen the strength of feelings poets even more than other men must needs love with constancy and faith you must not be jealous of what is called the muse happy is the wife of a man whose days are occupied if you heard the complaints of woman who have to endure the burden of these are once so rich as to have nothing to do you would know that the highest happiness of a partisan wife is freedom the right to rule in her own home now we writers and men of functions and occupations we leave the scepter to our wives we cannot descend to the tyranny of little minds we have something better to do if I ever marry which I assure you is a catastrophe very remote at the present moment I should wish my wife to enjoy the moral freedom that a mistress enjoys at which is perhaps the real source of her attraction Canales talked on displaying the warmth of his fancy and all his graces for modest benefit as he spoke of love marriage and the adoration of woman until Monsecure Mignan who had rejoined him sees the opportunity of a slight pause to take his daughter's arm and let her up to Ernest Mad Moiselle said Ernest in a voice that was scarcely his own his impossible for me to remain any longer under the weight of your displeasure I do not defend myself I do not seek to justify my conduct I desire only to make you see that before reading your most flattering letter addressed to the individual and no longer the to the poet the last which you sent all the feelings that I have had the happiness to express to you are sincere a hope dawned on me in Paris when your father told me he was comparatively poor but now that all is lost now that nothing is left for me but endless regrets why should I stay here where all is torture let me carry away with me one smile to live forever in my heart Monsecure but I certainly should deeply regret to retain anyone where he finds neither pleasure nor happiness she left library and took Madame Dumé's arm to re-enter the house a few minutes later all the actors in this domestic scene re-assembled in the salon and were a good deal surprised to see Maras sitting behind the Duke D'Orville and conquering with him like an accomplished partisan woman she watched by ranking the merits of noble birth with those of genius and beauty canalist thought he knew the reason of this change he had tried to pick way Maras by calling marriage a catastrophe and showing that he was aloof from it but like others who play with fire he had burned his fingers Maras D'Orville Maras implacable was an angel tasted the sweets of power and naturally enough abused it the Duke D'Orville had never known such a happy evening a woman smiled on him at 11 o'clock and unheard of our at the cell at the three suitors took their leave the Duke thinking Maras charming canalist believing her excessively as the Harris continued to be to her three lovers very much which she had been during that evening so that the poet appeared to carry the day against his rivals in spite of certain freaks and carpresses from which time to time gave the Duke D'Orville a little hope the disrespect she showed to her father and the great liberty she took with him her impatience with her blind mother to whom then the delight of her filial piety seemed the result of a capricious nature and a heedless gaiety indulged from childhood when modest went too far she turned around and openly took herself to task ascribing her impertinence and levity to a spirit of independence she acknowledged to the Duke and canalist her distaste for obedience and professed regard as an obstacle to her marriage thus investigating of those who dug into the earth in search of metal coal tufa or water I shall never she said the evening before the day on which the family were to move to the villa find a husband who will put up with my caprices as my father does his kindness never flags I am sure no one will ever be as indulgent to me as my precious mother they know that you love them the full value of his treasure added the Duke you have spirit and resolution enough to discipline a husband cried canalist laughing Mades smiled Henry the fourth must have smiled after drawing out of the characters of his three principal ministers for the benefit of a foreign ambassador by means of three answers to an insidious question on the day of the dinner Mades led away by the preference she bestowed on Kenielus the graveled space which lay between the house and the lawn with his flowerbeds from the guestures of the poet and the air and matter of the young Harris it was easy to see that she was listening favorably to him the two Des Moines sells Hordell hastened to interrupt the scandalous Teretite and with the natural cleverness of woman under such circumstances they turned the conversation on the court and the distinction of an appointment of the crown pointing out the difference that existed between appointments in the household of the king and those of the crown they tried to intoxicate Mades's mind by appealing to her pride and describing one of the highest stations to which a woman could aspire to have a Duke for a son said the elder lady is an actual advantage the title is a fortune that is being thus broken and upon that Monsignor Deluc has had so little success in a matter where his title would seem to be of a special service to him the two ladies cast a look at Candelus as full of venom as the tooth of a snake and they were so disconcerted by Mades a muse smile that they were actually unable to reply Monsignor Deluc has never blamed you she said to Candelus for the humility you bear your fame why should you attack him for his modesty besides we have never met a woman worthy of my nephew's rank said Mademoiselle Delorvel some had only the wealth of the position others without fortune had the wit and birth I must admit that we have done well to wait till God granted us an opportunity to meet one in whom we find the noble blood the mind Mades said Helen Delorvel leading her new friend apart there are a thousand barons in the kingdom just as there are a great hundred poets in Paris who are worth as much as he he is so little of a great man that even I a poor girl forced to take the veil for want of a dot I would not take him you don't know what a young man is is who has been for ten years in the hands of a duchess could put up with the little ailments of which they say the great poet is always complaining a habit in lewis the fourteenth that became a perfectly insupportable annoyance it is true the duchess does not suffer from it as much as a wife who would have him always about her then practicing a well-known menorve peculiarly to her sex Helen Delorvel repeated in a low voice all the calm woman jealous of the duchess duchess duchelio were in the habit of spreading about the poet this little incident common as it is in the intercourse of women will serve to show with what fury the hounds were after modest's wealth ten days saw a great change in the opinions at the cell as to the three suitors of madmoiselle de la best's hand this change which was much to the disadvantage of kenelis came about the considerations of a nature which ought to make the holders of any kind of fame pause and reflect no one can deny if we remember the passion with which people seek for autographs that public curiosity is greatly excited by a celebrity evidently most provinces never form an exact idea in their own minds of how illustrious partisans put on their clothes because no sooner do they perceive a man clothed in the sunbeams of fashion or resplendent with some dignity that is more or less fugitive though always envied than they cry out look at that how queer and other depreciatory exclamations in a word the mysterious charm that attaches to every kind of fame elastic a sensation which passes off with the rapidity of lightning and never returns it would seem as though fame like the sun hot and luminous at a distance as the summit of an elp when you approach it perhaps man is only really great to his peers perhaps the defects inherent in his constitution disappear sooner to his eyes of his equals of those who are able to make their insignificance forgotten by charming manners and complying speeches the poet of the faborg saint germain who did not choose to bow before this social dictum was made before long to feel that an insulting provincial indifference had succeeded to the top full of glassware products on the eye in other words the fire and brilliancy of kenellis eloquence soon worried people who to use their own words cared more for the solid forced after a while to behave like an ordinary man the poet found an unexpected stumbling block on the ground where his reputation by preferring his friend the best of men are influenced by such feelings as these the simple and straightforward young fellow jarred no one's self-love coming to know him better they discovered his heart his modesty his silent and sure discration and his excellent bearing the duke de orvelle considered him as a pure and ran into debt while the young lawyer whose character was equal and well balanced lived soberly was useful without proclaiming it awaited rewards without begging for them and laid by his money kenellis had more overlaid himself upon in a special way to the gorgeous eyes that were watching him for two or three days he had shown signs of a patience he had given way for the natural results of the nervous temperament of poets these originalities we use the prevent soul word came from the uneasiness that his conduct toward the duchess dichelieu which grew daily less explainable caused him he knew he ought to write to her but could not resolve on doing so all these fluctuations were carefully remarked and commenced on by the gentle American and the excellent and madame mignan kenellis felt the effects of these discussions without being able to explain them the attention paid to him was not the same the faces surrounding him no longer wore the entranced look of the earlier days while at the same time earnest was evidently gaining ground for the last two days the poet had endeavored to fascinate madeste only and he took advantage of as she listened to him on the occasion we have just mentioned showed the demoiselles de ovale the pleasure with which she was listening to sweet conceits that were sweetly said and they horribly uneasy at the site had immediate recourse to the ultimate radio of women in such cases namely those calmentis which seldom missed their object accordingly when the party met at the dinner table the poet saw a cloud on the brow that mademoiselle de orvelle's malignity allowed him to lose no time and he resolved to offer himself as a husband at the first moment when he could find himself alone with madeste overhearing a few acid though polite remarks exchanged between the poet and the two noble ladies Gulbenheim nudged Boucher with his elbow and said in an undertone motion towards the poet and the grand lady they'll demolish one another canalis has genius enough to demolish herself all alone answered the dwarf end of chapter 21 recording by chris karan ham lake minnesota