Section 22 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 22 of Modest Mignon by Henri de Balzac, read by Don W. Jenkins. Chapter 22 Our Riddle Guest During the dinner, which was magnificent and admirably well served, the duke obtained a signal advantage over Canales. Modest, who had received her habit and other equestrian equipments the night before, spoke of taking rides about the country. A turn of the conversation led her to express the wish to see a hunt with the hounds, a pleasure which she had never yet enjoyed. The duke at once proposed to arrange a hunt in one of the crown forests which lay a few leagues from Havre. Thanks to his intimacy with the prince de Cadignan, master of the hunt, he saw his chance of displaying an almost regal pomp before Modest's eyes, and luring her with a glimpse of court fascinations to which she could be introduced by marriage. Glances were exchanged between the duke and the two damazelles de Haraville, which plainly said, the heiress is ours, and the poet, who detected them, and who had nothing but his personal splendors to depend on, determined all the more firmly to obtain some pledge of affection at once. Modest, on the other hand, half frightened at being thus pushed beyond her intentions by the de Haraville's, walked rather markedly apart with Melchior when the company adjourned to the park after dinner. With the pardonable curiosity of a young girl, she let him suspect the calamities which Helene had poured into her ears. But on Canalise's exclamation of anger she begged him to keep silence about them, which he promised. "'These stabs of the tongue,' he said, are considered fairer in the great world. They shock your upright nature. But as for me, I laugh at them. I am even pleased. These ladies must feel that the duke's interests are in great peril when they have recourse to such warfare." Making the most of the advantage Modest had thus given him, Canalise entered upon this defense with such warmth, such eagerness, and with a passion so exquisitely expressed as he thanked her for a confidence in which he could venture to see the dawn of love. As she found herself suddenly as much compromised with the poet as she feared to be with the grand equity, Canalise, feeling the necessity of prompt action, declared himself plainly. He uttered vows and protestations in which his poetry shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion and illuminating his allusions to the beauty of his mistress and the charms of her evening dress. This counterfeit enthusiasm, in which the night, the foliage, the heavens and earth, and nature herself played a part, carried the eager lover beyond all bounds, for he dwelt in his disinterestedness and revamped his own charming style, Diderot's famous apostrophe to Sophie and fifteen hundred francs, and the well-known love and a cottage of every lover who knows perfectly well the length of the father-in-law's purse. Montchure said Modest, after listening with delight to the melody of his concerto, the freedom granted to me by my parents has allowed me to listen to you, but it is to them that you must address yourself. But, exclaimed Canalise, tell me that if I obtain their consent you will ask nothing better than to obey them. I know beforehand, she replied, that my father has certain fancies which may wound the proper pride of an old family like yours. He wishes to have his own title and name borne by his grandsons.  You will permit me not to decide in a moment the fate of my whole life, she said, turning to rejoin the Damazelles de Haraville. Those noble ladies were just then engaged in flattering the vanity of little La Tornel, intending to win him over to their interests. Mamzelle de Haraville, to whom we shall in future confine the family name to distinguish her from her niece Helene, was giving the notary to understand that the post of Judge of the Supreme Court in Havre, which Charles X would bestow as she desired, was an office worthy of his legal talent and his well-known probity. Butcha, meanwhile, who had been walking about with La Breire, was greatly alarmed at the progress Canalise was evidently making, and he way-laid Modest at the lower step of the portico when the whole party returned to the house to endure the torments of their inevitable whist. Mamzelle, he said in a low whisper, I do hope you don't call him Melchior. I am very near it, my black dwarf, she said, with a smile that might have made an angel swear. Good God! exclaimed Butcha, letting fall his hands which struck the marble steps. Well, and isn't he worth more than that spiteful gloomy secretary in whom you take such an interest? She retorted, assuming at the mere thought of Ernest the haughty manor whose secret belongs exclusively to young girls, as if their virginity lent them wings to fly to heaven. Pray with your little La Breire, accept me without a fortune, she said, after a pause. Ask your father, replied Butcha, who walked a few steps from the house to get Modest at a safe distance from the windows. Listen to me, Mamzelle. You know that he who speaks to you is ready to give not only his life but his honor for you at any moment, and at all times. Or you may believe in him. You can confide to him that which you may not, perhaps, be willing to say to your father. Tell me, has the sublime Kanaleese been making you the disinterested offer that you now fling as a reproach at poor Ernest? Yes. Do you believe it? That questioned my mannequin, she replied, giving him one of the ten or a dozen nicknames she had invented for him, strikes me as undervaluing the strength of my self-love. Ah, you are laughing, my dear Mamzelle Modest. Then there is no danger. I hope you are only making a fool of him. Pray, what would you think of me, Monsher Butcha, if I allowed myself to make fun of those who do me the honor to wish to marry me? You ought to know, Master Jean, that even if a girl affects to despise the most despicable attention, she is flattered by them.  You, she said, you give me the most precious of all friendships, a feeling as disinterested as that of a mother for her child. Compare yourself to no one, for even my father is obliged to be devoted to me. She paused. I cannot say that I love you in the sense which men give to that word, but what I do give you is eternal and can no, no change. Then, said Butcha, stooping to pick up a pebble that he might kiss the hem of her garment. Suffer me to watch over you as a dragon guards a treasure. The poet was covering you just now with the lacework of his precious phrases, the tinsel of his promises. He chanted his love on the best strings of his liar. I know he did. If as soon as this noble lover finds out how small your fortune is, he makes a sudden change in his behavior, and is cold and embarrassed, will you still marry him? Shall you still esteem him? He would be another franciscay altore, she said, with a gesture of bitter disgust. Let me have the pleasure of producing that change of scenes, said Butcha. Not only shall it be sudden, but I believe I can change it back and make your poet as loving as before. Nay, it is possible to make him blow alternately hot and cold upon your heart, just as gracefully as he has talked upon both sides of an argument in one evening without ever finding it out. If you are right, she said, who can be trusted?  The little duke? Butcha looked at Modest. The pair walked some distance in silence. The girl was impenetrable and not an eyelash quivered. Mamzell, permit me to be the exponent of the thoughts that are lying at the bottom of your heart, like sea mosses under the waves, in which do not choose to gather up. Eh? said Modest. So my intimate friend and counselor thinks himself a mirror, does he? No, an echo, he answered, with a gesture of sublime humility. The duke loves you, but he loves you too much. If I, a dwarf, have understood the infinite delicacy of your heart, it would be repugnant to you to be worshiped like a saint in her shrine.  You neither want a man perpetually at your feet, of whom you are eternally sure, nor a selfish egoist like Canales, who will always prefer himself to you. Why? Ah, that I don't know. But I will make myself a woman, an old woman, and find out the meaning of the plan which I have read in your eyes, and which perhaps is in the heart of every girl. Nevertheless, in your great soul you feel the need of worshipping. When a man is at your knees you cannot put yourself at his. You can't advance in that way, as Volterra might say.  Indeed, I might say none at all. Ha! You guess the mischief in your smiles when you talk to the grand equity, and when he talks to you and you answer him. You would never be unhappy with the duke, and everybody will approve your choice if you do choose him, but you will never love him. The ice of egotism and the burning heat of ecstasy both produce indifference in the heart of every woman. It is evident to my mind that no such perpetual worship will give you the infinite delights which you are dreaming of in marriage. In some marriage where obedience will be your pride, where noble little sacrifices can be made and hidden, where the heart is full of anxieties without a cause, and successes are awaited with eager hope, where each new chance for magnanimity is hailed with joy, where souls are comprehended with their inmost recesses, and where the woman protects with her love the man who protects her.  Neither will you find that sweet equality of feeling that continues sharing of each other's lives that certainty of pleasing, which makes marriage tolerable, if you take Connolly's, a man who thinks of himself only, whose eye is the one string to his loot, whose mind is so fixed on himself that he is hitherto taken no notice of your father or the duke, a man of second-rate ambitions to whom your dignity and your devotion will matter nothing, who will make you a mere appendage to his household, and who already insults you by his indifference to your behavior. Yes, if you permitted yourself to go so far as to box your mother's ears, Connolly's would shut his eyes to it, and deny your crime even to himself, because he thirsts for your money. And so, ma'am Zell, when I spoke of the man who truly loves you, I was not thinking of the great poet who is nothing but a little comedian, nor of the duke who might be a good marriage for you, but never a husband. Mucha, my heart is a blank page on which you are yourself writing all that you read there, cried Modest, interrupting him.  You can't forgive a poet for being a statesman for possessing the gift of speech for having a noble future before him, and you calumniate his intentions. His, ma'am Zell, he will turn his back upon you with the abaseness of an aultor. Make him play that pretty little comedy, and that I will. He shall play it through and through within three days. On Wednesday, recollect, on Wednesday, until then, ma'am Zell, amuse yourself by listening to the little tunes of the liar, so that the discords and the false notes may come out all the more distinctly. Modest ran gaily back to the salon where Labriere, who was sitting by the window, where he had doubtless been watching his idol, rose to his feet as if a groom of the chambers had suddenly announced, The Queen! It was a movement of spontaneous respect full of that living eloquence that lies in a gesture even more than in speech. Spoken love cannot compare with acts of love, and every young girl of twenty has the wisdom of fifty in applying the axiom. In it lies the great secret of attraction, and instead of looking modest in the face as Canelice, who paid her public homage, would have done. The neglected lover followed her with a furtive look between his eyelids, humble after the manner of Butcha, and almost timid. The young heiress observed it as she took her place by Canelice, to whose game she proceeded to pay attention. During a conversation which ensued, Labriere heard Modest say to her father that she should ride out for the first time on the following Wednesday, and she also reminded him that she had no whip in keeping with her new equipments. The young man flung a lightning glance at the dwarf, and a few minutes later the two were pacing the terrace. "'It is nine o'clock,' cried Ernest. "'I shall start for a paris at full gallop. I can get there to-morrow morning by ten. My dear Butcha, from you she will accept anything, for she is attached to you. Let me give her a riding-whip in your name.  You have money? You? Tell Connolly's not to expect me, and that he must find some pretext to account for my absence.' An hour later Ernest had ridden out of Havre. He reached Paris in twelve hours, where his first act was to secure a place in the mail-coach for Havre on the following evening. Then he went to three of the chief jubilers in Paris and compared all the whip-handles that they could offer. He was in search of some artistic treasure that was regally superb. He found one at last made by Stidman for a Russian, who was unable to pay for it when finished. A fox had in gold with a ruby of exorbitant value. All his savings went into the purchase, a cost of which was seven thousand francs. Ernest gave a drawing of the arms of Labastee, and allowed the shop-people twenty hours to engrave them. The handle, a masterpiece of delicate workmanship, was fitted to an India-rubber whip, and put into a Morocco case lined with velvet, on which two Ems interlaced were stamped in gold. Labriere got back to Havre by the mail-coach Wednesday morning in time to breakfast with Canales. The poet had concealed his secretary's absence by declaring that he was busy with some work sent from Paris. Boucher, who meant Labriere at the coach-door, took the box containing the precious work of art to Francois Cauchat with instructions to place it on Modeste's dressing-table. Of course she will accompany Mamzell Modeste on her ride today, said Boucher, who went to Canales's house to let Labriere know by a wink that the whip had gone to its destination. I answered Ernest, no, I'm going to bed. Ba! exclaimed Canales, looking at him. I don't know what to make of you. Breakfast was then served, and the poet naturally invited their visitor to stay and take it. Boucher complied, having seen in the expression of the valet's face the success of a trick in which we shall see the first fruits of his promise to Modeste. Monschur is very right to detain the clerk of Monschur Latonelle, whispered Germain in his master's ear. Canales and Germain went into the salon in a sign that passed between them. I went out this morning to see the men-fish, Monschur, said the valet, an excursion proposed to me by the captain of a smack whose acquaintance I have made.  Well, said Canales, to the point, quick. Monschur Le Baronne, I heard a conversation about Monschur Mignon, which I encouraged as far as I could, for no one, of course, knew that I belonged to you. Ah, Monschur, judging by the talk of the quays, you are running your head into a noose. The fortune of Mme Zelle de la Bastille is, like her name, Modeste. The vessel on which the father returned does not belong to him, but to rich China merchants to whom he renders an account. They even say things that are not at all flattering to Monschur Mignon's honor. Having heard that you and Monschur Le Duc were rivals for Mme Zelle de la Bastille's hand, I have taken liberty to warn you, of the two wouldn't it be better that his lordship should gobble her? As I came home I walked round the quays and into that theater hall where the merchants meet. I slipped boldly in and out among them. Seeing a well-dressed stranger, those worthy fellows began to talk to me of Havre, and I got them, little by little, to speak of Colonel Mignon. What they said only confirms the stories the fishermen told me, and I feel that I should fail in my duty if I keep silence. That is why I did not get home in time to dress Monschur this morning. What am I to do? cried Cannellis, who remembered his proposals to Modeste the night before and did not see how he could get out of them. Monschur knows my attachment to him, said Jermaine, perceiving that the poet was quite thrown off his balance. He will not be surprised if I give him a word of advice. There is that clerk. Tried to get the truth out of him. Perhaps he'll unbutton after a bottle or two of champagne, or at any rate a third. It would be strange, indeed, if Monschur, who will one day be ambassador as Phloxine has heard Madame Le Duc's say time and again, couldn't turn a little notary's clerk inside out. CHAPTER XXIII of Modeste Mignon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Anna Simon. Modeste Mignon, by Honoré de Bazac, translated by Catherine Prescott Wormley. CHAPTER XXIII Boucher distinguishes himself. At this instant, Boucher, the hidden prompter of the fishing part, was requesting the secretary to say nothing about his trip to Paris and not to interfere in any way with what he, Boucher, might do. The dwarf had already made use of an unfavorable feeling lately aroused against M. Mignon in Havre in consequence of his reserve and his determination to keep silence as to the amount of his fortune. The persons who were most bitter against him even declared columniously that he had made over a large amount of property to do my to save it from the just demands of his associates in China. Boucher took advantage of this state of feeling. He asked the fisherman, who owed him many a good turn, to keep the secret and lend him their tongues. They served him well. The captain of the fishing-smack told Germain that one of his cousins, a sailor, had just returned from Marseille, where he had been paid off from the brig in which M. Mignon returned to France. The brig had been sold to the account of some other person than M. Mignon, and the cargo was only worth three or four hundred thousand francs at the utmost. Germain, said Canalie, as the valet was leaving the room, served champagne and claret. A member of the legal fraternity of Havre must carry away with him proper ideas of a poet's hospitality. Besides, he has got a wit that is equal to Figaro's, added Canalie, laying his hand on the drawer's shoulder, and we must make it foam and sparkle with champagne. You and I, earnest, will not spare the bottle either. Faith, it is over two years since I've been drunk, he added, looking at Labrière. Not drunk with wine, you mean, said Butcher, looking keenly at him. Yes, I can believe that. You get drunk every day on yourself. You drink in so much praise. You're handsome.  You're famous in your lifetime. You have the gift of an eloquence that is equal to your genius, and you please all women, even my master's wife, admired by the finest sultana valide that I ever saw in my life, and I never saw but her, you can if you choose Mary Matemazelle de la Bastille.  How such social distinctions, said Canalie, are of little use without the one thing that gives them value, wealth. Here we can talk as men with men, find sentiments only do inverse. That depends on circumstances, said the dwarf, with a knowing gesture. Ah, you writer of conveyances, said the poet, smiling at the interruption. You know as well as I do, that cottage rhymes with potage, and who would like to live on that for the rest of his days. That table Butcher played the part of Trigaudin in the Maison à Loterie, in a way that alarmed Ernest, who did not know the waggery of a lawyer's office, which is quite equal to that of an atelier. Butcher put forth the scandalous gossip of Havre, the private history of fortune and boudoirs, and the crimes committed, code in hand, which are called in Normandy, getting out of a thing as best you can. He spared no one, and his lifeiness increased with the torrents of wine which pulled down his throat like rain through a gutter. Do you know, Labrière, said Canalie, filling Butcher's glass, that this fellow would make a capital secretary to the Embassy? And oust his chief, cried the dwarf, flinging a look at Canalie, whose insolence was lost in the gurgling of carbonic acid gas.  Ha! a poet carrying a hunchback. That's been seen, often seen, on bookshelves. Come, don't look at me as if I were sawling swords. My dear great genius, you're a superior man. You know that gratitude is a word of fools. They stick it in the dictionary. But it isn't in the human heart. Pledges are worth nothing, except on a certain mount that is neither pindus nor pernusus. You think I owe a great deal to my master's wife, who brought me up? Bless you. The whole town has paid her for that in praises, respect, and admiration. The very best of coin. I don't recognize any service that is only the capital of self-love. Men make a commerce of their services, and gratitude goes down on the debit side. That's all. As to schemes, they are my divinity. What! he exclaimed, as a gesture of Canalie. Don't you admire the faculty which enables a wily man to get the better of a man of genius? It takes the closest observation of his vices and his weaknesses and the wit to seize the happy moment. Ask diplomacy if its greatest triumphs are not those of craft over force. If I were your secretary, Michel Le Baron, you'd soon be prime minister, because it would be my interest to have you so. Do you want a specimen of my talents in that line? Well then, listen. You love Mademoiselle Modeste distractedly, and you've good reason to do so. The girl has my fullest esteem. She's a true Parisian. Sometimes we get a few real Parisians born down here in the provinces. Well, Modeste is just the woman to help a man's career. She's got that in her, he cried, with a turn of his wrist in the air. But you've a dangerous competitor in the duke. What will you give me to get him out of Harvard within three days? Finish this bottle, said the poet, refilling Butcher's glass.  Have you a bed where I could sleep it off? My master is as sober as the camel that he is, and Madame La Tournelle, too. They are brutal enough, both of them, to scold me, and they have the rights of it, too. There are those deeds they ought to be drawing. Then suddenly returning to his previous ideas after the fashion of a drunken man, he's claimed, and have such a memory, it's on a pie with my gratitude. Butcher, cried the poet, you said just now you had no gratitude. You contradict yourself. Not at all, he replied. To forget a thing means almost always recollecting it. Come, come. Do you want me to get rid of the duke? I'm cut out for his secretary. How could you manage it, said kindly, delighted to find the conversation taking this turn of its own accord?  Butcher's head rolled between his shoulders, and his eyes turned from German to Labrière, and from Labrière to Cannelly. After the manner of men who, knowing their tipsy, wish to see what other men are thinking of them. For in the shipwreck of drunkenness it is noticeable that self-love is the last thing that goes through the bottom. Ah! My great poet, you're a pretty good trickster yourself, but you're not deep enough. What do you mean by taking me for one of your own readers? You who sent your friend to Paris, Phil Gallop, to inquire into the property of the Mignon family. Ha! I hoax, thou hoaxest, we hoax. Good! But do me the honour to believe that I'm deep enough to keep the secrets of my own business. As the head-clag of a notary, my heart is a locked box, pet-locked. My mouth never opens to let out anything about it, client. I know all, and I know nothing. My kids, my passion is well known. I love Modeste, she is my pupil, and she must make a good marriage. I'll fool the Duke, if need be, and you shall marry. J'amine? Coffee and liqueurs, said Kanali. Liqueurs! repeated Butcher with a wave of his hand, and the air of a sham virgin repelling seduction. Ah! those poor deeds! One of them was a marriage-contract.   Here is some clam de thé, a liqueur of the West Indies, said Kanali. You, whom Mademoiselle Modeste consults? Yes, she consults me. Well, do you think she loves me? asked the poet. Loves you? Yes. More than she loves the Duke? With a dwarf, rousing himself from a stupa which was admirably played. She loves you for your disinterestedness. She told me she was ready to make the greatest sacrifices for your sake, to give up dress and spend as little as possible on herself, and devote her life to showing you that in marrying her you hadn't done so hick of bad a thing for yourself. She's as right as a trivet. Yes, how well-informed. She knows everything that girl. And she has three hundred thousand francs. And there may be quite as much as that, cried the dwarf enthusiastically. Papa Mignon, Mignon by name, Mignon by nature, and that's why I respect him, well, he would rob himself of everything to marry his daughter. Your restoration has taught him how to live on half-pay. He'd be quite content to live with Dumay on next to nothing if he could rake and scrape enough together to give the little one three hundred thousand francs. But don't let's forget that Dumay is going to leave all his money to Modeste. Dumay, you know, is a Briton, and that fact clinches the matter. He won't go back from his word, and his fortune is equal to the colonels. But I don't approve of Monsieur Mignon's taking back that villa, and, as they often ask my advice, I told them so. You sink too much in it, I said. A vill colon does not buy it back. There's two hundred thousand francs which won't bring you a penny. It only leaves you a hundred thousand to get along with, and it isn't enough. The colonel and Dumay are consulting about it now. But, nevertheless, between you and me, Modeste is sure to be rich. I hear talk on the keys against it, but that's all nonsense. People are jealous. There's no such dot in Havre, cried Butcher, beginning to count on his fingers. Two to three hundred thousand in ready money, bending back the thumb of his left hand with the full finger of his right. That's one item. The reversion of the villa Mignon. That's another. Tertio, Dumay's property, doubling down his middle finger. Ah! The little Modeste may count upon her as six hundred thousand francs as soon as the two old soldiers have got their marching orders for eternity. This course and candid statement, in a mingled with a variety of liqueurs, so bit cannally as much as it appeared to be fuddle Butcher. To the letter, a young provincial, such a fortune must of course seem colossal. He let his head fall into the palm of his right hand, and putting his elbows majestically on the table, blinked his eyes, and continued talking to himself. In twenty years, thanks to that code which pillages fortunes under what they call successions, an heiress worth a million will be as rare as generosity in a moneylender. Suppose Modeste does want to spend all the interest of her own money. Wow! She's so pretty, so sweet and pretty. Why, she is. You poets are always after metaphors. She's a weasel as tricky as a monkey. How came you to tell me she had six millions, such cannally to l'abrière, in a low voice? My friend, said Ernest, I do assure you that I was bound to silence by an oath. Perhaps even now I ought not to say as much as that. Bound to whom? To Monsieur Mignon. Ernest, you who know how essential fortune is to me? Butcher snored. Who know my situation, and all that I shall lose in the duchess de chelieu by this attempted marrying. You could coldly let me plunge into such a thing as this, exclaimed cannally, turning pale. It was a question of friendship, and ours was a compact, entered into, long before you ever saw that crafty Mignon. My dear fellow, said Ernest, I love Modeste too well too. Fool, then take her, cried the poet, and break your oath. Will you promise me on your word of honour to forget what I now tell you, and to behave to me as though this confidence had never been made, whatever happens? I'll swear that by my mother's memory. Well, then, said Lebrière, Monsieur Mignon told me in Paris that it was very far from having the colossal fortune which the Mognonus told me about, and which I mentioned to you. The colonel intends to give two hundred thousand francs to his daughter. And now, Merrier, I ask you, was the father really distrustful of us, as you thought? Or was he sincere? It is not for me to answer those questions. If Modeste, without a fortune, dains to choose me, she'll be my wife. A blue-stocking, educated till she is a terror, a girl who has read everything, who knows everything, in theory, cried cannally, hastily, noticing Lebrière's gesture. A spoiled child, brought up in luxury in her childhood, and weaned of it for five years. Ah, my poor friend, take care of what you are about. Ode and code, said Butcher, waking up. You do the ode, and I the code, there's only a sea's difference between us. Well now, code comes from Coda, a tale, mark that word. See here, a bit of good advice is worth your wine and your cream of tea. Father Mignon, he's cream too, the cream of honest man. He's going with his daughter on this riding-party.  He'll answer plainly, and you'll get at the truth, just as surely as I'm drunk, and you're a great poet. But no matter for that. Where to leave Harvard together, that's settled, isn't it? I'm to be your secretary, in place of that little fellow who sits there grinning at me, and thinking I'm drunk. Come, let's go, and leave him to marry the girl. Colony rose to leave the room to dress for the excursion. Hush, not a word.  Adieu, my chief, he shouted, in stentorian tones, will you allow me to take a snooze in that kiosk down in the garden? Make yourself at home, answered the poet. Butcher, pursued by the laughter of the three servants of the establishment, gained the kiosk by walking over the flower-beds and round the vases with the perverse grace of an insect describing its interminable zig-zags as it tries to get out of a closed window. When he had plummeted into the kiosk and the servants had retired, he sat down on a wooden bench and wallowed in the delights of his triumph. He had completely fooled a great man. He had not only torn off his mask, but he had made him untie the strings himself, and he laughed like an author over his own play, that is to say, with a true sense of the immense value of his vie comica. Man are tops, he cried, you've only to find a twine to wind them up with. But I am like my fellows, he added, presently. I should faint away if any one came and said to me, Mademoiselle Modeste has been thrown from her halls and has broken her leg. End of CHAPTER XXIII. of Modeste Mignon by Henri de Balzac, translated by Catherine Prescott Warmly. 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. CHAPTER XXIV. The poet feels that he is loved too well. An hour later, Modeste, charmingly equipped in a bottle-green chasmere habit, a small hat with a green veil, buckskin gloves and velvet boots which met the lace frills of her drawers, and mounted on an elegantly comparisoned little horse, was exhibiting to her father and the Duke de Herrevelle the beautiful present she had just received. She was evidently delighted with an attention of a kind that particularly flatters women. Did it come from you, mon sure, le Duke, she said, holding the sparkling handle toward him? There was a card with it saying, Guess if you can, and some asterisks. François, and do my credit, butcha with this charming surprise. But my dear butcha is not rich enough to buy such rubies. And as for papa, to whom I said as I remember on Sunday evening that I had no whip, he sent to Rowan for this one, pointing to a whip in her father's hand, with a top like a cone of turquoise, a fashion then in vogue which has since become vulgar. I would give ten years of my old age, ma'am, zeal, to have the right to offer you that beautiful jewel, said the Duke courteously. Ah, here comes the audacious giver, cried Modeste, as Canolese wrote up. It is only a poet who knows where to find such choice things, mon sure, she said to Melchior. My father will scold you and say you justify those who accuse you of extravagance. Oh! exclaimed Canolese, with apparent simplicity. So that is why Labriere wrote at full gallop from Havre to Paris. As your secretary takes such liberties, said Modeste, turning pale and throwing the whip to Francois, with an impetuosity that expressed scorn, give me your whip, papa. Poor Ernest, who lies there on his bed half-dead with fatigue, said Canolese, overtaking the girl who had already started at a gallop. You are pitiless, ma'am zeal. I have, the poor fellow said to me, only this one chance to remain in her memory. And should you think well of a woman who could take presents from half the parish? said Modeste. She was surprised to receive no answer to this inquiry, and attributed the poets in attention to the noise of the horses' feet.  Ah, have you only just found that out, Montseur-le-Duke? She exclaimed, laughing. You have the sujectity of a husband. They rode half a mile in silence. Modeste was a good deal astonished not to receive the fire of the poets' eyes. The evening before, as she was pointing out to him an admirable effect of setting sunlight across the water, she had said, remarking his inattention, Well, don't you see it? To which he replied, I can see only your hand. But now his admiration for the beauties of nature seemed a little too intense to be natural. Does Montseur-le-Briere know how to ride, she asked, for the purpose of teasing him? Not very well, but he gets along, answered the poet, cold as Goebenheim before the colonels' return. At a crossroad, which Montseur-le-Magnon made them take through a lovely valley to reach the height overlooking the sin, can at least let Modeste and the Duke pass him, and then reigned up to join the colonel. Montseur-le-Compt, he said, you are an open-hearted soldier, and I know you will regard my frankness as a title to your esteem. When proposals of marriage, with all their brutal or, if you please, too civilized discussions are carried on by third parties, it is an injury to all. We are both gentlemen, and both discreet, and you, like myself, have passed beyond the age of surprises. Let us therefore speak as intimates. I will set you the example. I am twenty-nine years old, without landed estates and full of ambition. Mamzell Modeste, as you must have perceived, pleases me extremely. Now, in spite of the little defects which your little girl likes to assume—not counting those she really possesses, said the colonel, smiling—I should gladly make her my wife, and I believe I could render her happy. The question of money is of the utmost importance to my future, which hangs today in the balance. All young girls expect to be loved, whether or no. Fortune or no fortune, but you are not the man to marry your dear Modeste without a dot, and my situation does not allow me to make a marriage of what is called love, unless with a woman who has a fortune at least equal to mine. I have, from my emoluments and sinicures, from the academy and from my works about thirty thousand francs a year, a large income for a bachelor. If my wife brought me as much more, I should still be in about the same condition that I am now.  Oh, Monsher, we have not reached that point as yet, said the colonel, Jesuitically. Then suppose, said Canales quickly, that we go no further. We will let the matter drop. You shall have no cause to complain of me, Monsher Lecompte. The world shall consider me among the unfortunate suitors of your charming daughter. Give me your word of honor to say nothing on the subject to anyone. Not even to Mamzell Modeste, because, he added, throwing a word of promise to the ear, my circumstances may so change that I can ask you for her without dot. I promise you that, said the colonel, you know, Monsher, with what assurance the public both in Paris and the provinces talk of fortunes that they make and unmake. People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness. We are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are. Nothing sure and certain in business except investments in land. I am awaiting the accounts of my agents with very great impatience. The sale of my merchandise and my ship and the settlement of my affairs in China are not yet concluded, and I cannot know the full amount of my fortune for at least six months. I did, however, say to Monsher Lebrière in Paris that I would guarantee a dot of two hundred thousand francs in dready money. I wish to entail my estates and enable my grandchildren to inherit my arms and title. Canolese did not listen to this statement after the opening sentence. The four riders, having now reached a wider road, went abreast and soon reached a stretch of table-land, from which the eye took in on one side the rich valley of the Sen towards Ruin, and on the other an horizon bounded only by the sea. Butcha was right. God is the greatest of all landscape painters, said Canolese, contemplating the view, which is unique among the many fine scenes that have made the shores of the Sen so justly celebrated. Above all, do we feel that, my dear Barron, said the Duke, on hunting days when nature has a voice, and a lively tumble breaks the silence, as such times the landscape, changing rapidly as we ride through it, seems really sublime. The sun is the inexhaustible pallet, said Modeste, looking at the poet in a species of bewilderment. A remark that she presently made on his absence of mine gave him an opportunity of saying he was just then absorbed in his own thoughts, an excuse that authors have more reason for giving than other men. Are we really made happy by carrying our lives into the midst of the world, and swelling them with all sorts of fictitious wants and over-excited vanities, said Modeste, moved by the aspect of the fertile and billowy country too long for a philosophically tranquil life? This is a bucolic, ma'am Zell, which is only written on tablets of gold, said the poet, and sometimes under Garrett roofs, remarked the Colonel. Modeste threw a piercing glance at Cannelly's, which he was unable to sustain. She was conscious of a ringing in her ears. Darkness seemed to spread before her, and then she suddenly exclaimed in icy tones, Ah! it is Wednesday! I do not say this to flatter your passing caprice, ma'am Zell, said the Duke, to whom the little scene so tragic cold for Modeste had left time for thought. But I declare I am so profoundly disgusted with the world and the court and paris that had I a duchess to Haraville, gifted with the width and graces of ma'am Zell, I would gladly bind myself to live like a philosopher at my chateau, doing good around me, draining my marshes, educating my children. That, Monsher de Duc, will be set to the account of your great goodness, said Modeste, letting her eyes rest steadily on the noble gentleman. You flatter me in not thinking me frivolous, and in believing that I have enough resources within myself to be able to live in solitude. It is perhaps my lot, she added, glancing at cannellies with an expression of pity. It is the lot of all insignificant fortunes, said the poet. Paris demands Babylonian splendor. Sometimes I ask myself how I have ever managed to keep it up. The King does that for both of us, said the Duke, candidly. We live on His Majesty's bounty. If my family had not been allowed, after the death of Monsher de Grande, as they called, Sink Mars, to keep His office among us, we should have been obliged to sell Haraville back to the Black Brethren. Ah, believe me, ma'am Zell, it is a bitter humiliation to me to have to think of money in marrying. The simple honesty of this confession came from His heart, and the regret was so sincere that it touched Modeste. In these days, said the poet, no man in France, Monsher de Duke, is rich enough to marry a woman for herself, her personal worth, her grace, or her beauty. The Colonel looked at cannellies with a curious eye after first watching Modeste, whose face no longer expressed the slightest astonishment. For persons of high honour, he said slowly, it is a noble employment of wealth to repair the ravages of time and destiny and restore the old historic families. Yes, papa, said Modeste gravely. The Colonel invited the Duke and cannellies to dine with him sociably in their riding-dress, promising them to make no change himself. When Modeste went to her room to make her toilette, she looked at the jeweled whip she had disdained in the morning. What workmanship they put into such things nowadays, she said to Francois Coshet, who had become her waiting-maid. That poor young man, ma'am Zell, who has got a fever, who told you that? Monchur Butcha, he came here this afternoon and asked me to say to you that he hoped you would notice he had kept his word on the appointed day. Modeste came down to the salon, rest with royal simplicity. My dear father, she said aloud, taking the Colonel by the arm, please go and ask after Monchur de la Brillaire's health and take him back his present. You can say that my small means as well as my natural tastes forbid my wearing ornaments which are only fit for queens and courtesans. Besides, I can only accept gifts from a bridegroom. Beg him to keep the whip until you know whether you are rich enough to buy it back. My little girl has plenty of good sense, said the Colonel, kissing his daughter on the forehead. Conalise took advantage of a conversation which began between the duke and ma'am Mignon to escape the terrace where Modeste had joined him, influenced by curiosity, though the poet believed her desire to become madame de Conalise had brought her there. Another alarmed at the indecency with which he had just executed what soldiers call a vote-face, and which, according to the laws of ambition, every man in his position would have executed quite as brutally, he now endeavored as the unfortunate Modeste approached him to find plausible excuses for his conduct. Dear Modeste, he began in a coaxing tone, considering the terms on which we stand to each other, shall I displease you if I say that your replies to the duke de Haraville were very painful to a man in love? Above all, to a poet whose soul is feminine, nervous, full of the jealousies of true passion, I should make a poor diplomatist indeed if I had not perceived that your first coquetries, your little premeditated inconsistencies, were only assumed for the purpose of studying our characters. Modeste raised her head with the rapid, intelligent, half-coquettish motion of a wild animal in whom instinct produces such miracles of grace. And therefore when I returned home and thought them over, they never misled me. I only marveled at a cleverness so in harmony with your character and your countenance. Do not be uneasy. I never doubted that your assumed duplicity covered an angelic candor.  You are indeed a wife for a poet, a diplomatist, a thinker, a man destined to endure the chances and changes of life, and my admiration is equal only by the attachment I feel to you. I now entreat you. If yesterday you were not playing a little comedy when you accepted the love of a man whose vanity will change to pride if you accept him, one whose defects will become virtues under your divine influence, I entreat you do not excite a passion which in him amounts to vice. Jealousy is a noxious element in my soul, and you have revealed to me its strength. It is awful. It destroys everything. Oh! I do not mean the jealousy of an octello, he continued, noticing modest gesture. No! No! My thoughts were of myself. I have been so indulged on that point. You know the affection to which I owe all the happiness I have ever enjoyed. Very little at the best, he sadly shook his head. Love is symbolized among all nations as a child because it fancies the world belongs to it, and it cannot conceive otherwise. Well, nature herself set the limit to that sentiment. It was stillborn, a tender maternal soul guessed and calmed the painful constriction of my heart. For a woman who feels, who knows, that she is past the joys of love becomes angelic in her treatment of others. The Duchess has never made me suffer in my sensibilities. For ten years not a word, not a look, that could wound me. I attach more value to words, to thoughts, to looks, than ordinary men. If a look is to me a treasure beyond all price, the slightest doubt is deadly poison. It acts instantaneously, my love dies. I believe, contrary to the mass of men who delight in trembling, hoping, expecting, that love can only exist in perfect infantile and infinite security. The exquisite purgatory where women delight to send us by their cooketry is a base happiness to which I will not submit. To me love is either heaven or hell.  I feel an affinity with the azure skies of paradise within my soul. I can give myself without reserve, without secrets or doubts or deceptions in the life to come, and I demand reciprocity. Perhaps I offend you by these doubts. Remember, however, that I am only talking of myself. A good deal, but never too much, said Modeste, offended in every hole and corner of her pride by this discourse, in which the duchess de chelou served as a dagger. I am so accustomed to admire you, my dear poet. Well, then, can you promise me the same canine fidelity which I offer to you? Is it not beautiful? Is it not just what you have longed for?  I ask nothing better than to please my husband. But you threaten to take away from a girl the very happiness you so kindly arrange for her. You are tearing away every gesture, every word, every look. You cut the wings of your bird, and then expect it to hover above you. I know poets are accused of inconsistency. Oh, very unjustly! she added as Canales made a gesture of denial. That alleged defect which comes from the brilliant activity of their minds which commonplace people cannot take into account. I do not believe, however, that a man or genius can invent such irreconcilable conditions and call his invention life. You are requiring the impossible solely for the pleasure of putting me in the wrong, like the enchanters and fairy tales who set tasks to persecuted young girls whom the good fairies come and deliver. In this case the good fairy would be true love, said Canales in a curtain tone, aware that his elaborate excuse for a rupture was seen through by the keen and delicate mind which Butcha had piloted so well. My dear poet, you remind me of those fathers who inquire into a girl's dot before they are willing to name that of their son. You are quarreling with me without knowing whether you have the slightest right to do so. Love is not gained by such dry arguments as yours. The poor duke, on the contrary, abandons himself to it like my Uncle Toby, with this difference, that I am not the widow Wadman, the widow indeed of many allusions as to the poetry at the present moment. Ah, yes, we young girls will not believe in anything that disturbs our world of fancy. I was warned of all this beforehand. My dear poet, you are attempting to get up a quarrel which is unworthy of you. I no longer recognize the melchior of yesterday. Because melchior has discovered a spirit of ambition in you which Maudeste looked at him from head to foot with an imperial eye. But I shall be peer of France, an ambassador, as well as he, added Canalese. Do you take me for a bourgeoisie, she said, beginning to mount the steps of the portico, but she instantly turned back and added.  The change in your conduct comes from certain silly rumors which you have heard in Havre, and which my maid François has repeated to me. Maudeste, how can you think it, said Canalese, striking a dramatic attitude? Do you think me capable of marrying you only for your money? If I do you that wrong after your edifying remarks on the banks of the Seine, can you easily end deceive me, she said, annihilating him with her scorn? Ah, thought the poet, as he followed her into the house. If you think my little girl that I am to be caught in that net, you take me to be younger than I am. Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful little thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of the King of Borneo. But she has given me a good reason for the rupture by accusing me of such unworthy sentiments. Isn't she sly?  The coldness which this altercation produced between Maudeste and Canalese was visible to all eyes that evening. The poet went off early on the ground of LaBriere's illness, leaving the field to the grand equerie. About eleven o'clock, Butchah, who had come to walk home with Madame LaTornell, whispered in Maudeste's ear, Was I right? Alas, yes, she said. But I hope you have left the door half open so that he can come back. We agreed upon that, you know. Anger got the better of me, said Maudeste. Such meanness sent the blood into my head, and I told him what I thought of him. Well, so much the better. When you are both so angry that you can't speak civilly to each other, I engage to make him desperately in love and so pressing that you will be deceived yourself. Come, come, Butchah, he is a great poet. He is a gentleman. He is a man of intellect. Your father's eight millions are more to him than all that. Eight millions, exclaimed Maudeste. My master, who has sold his practice, is going to Provence to attend to the purchase of lands which your father's agent has suggested to him. The sum that is to be paid for the estate of Labastee is four millions. Your father has agreed to it. You are to have a dot of two millions and another million for an establishment in Paris, a hotel, and furniture. Now, count up. Ah, then I can be, duchess de Hereville, cried Maudeste, glancing at Butchah. If it hadn't been for that comedian of a kind of lease, you would have kept his whip, thinking it came from me, said the dwarf, indirectly pleading Labrier's cause. Maudeste, butchah, may I ask if I am to marry to please you? said Maudeste, laughing. That fine fellow loves you as well as I do, and you loved him for eight days, retorted Butchah, and he has got a heart. Can he compete, pray, with an office under the crown? There are but six Grand Almaner, Chancellor, Grand Chamberlain, Grand Master, High Constable, Grand Admiral, but they don't appoint High Constables any longer. In six months, Mamzell, the masses who are made up of wicked Butches, could send all those grand dignities to the winds. Besides, what signifies nobility in these days? There are not a thousand real noblemen in France. The de Herevilles are descended from a tip-staff in the time of Robert of Normandy. You will have to put up with many a vexation from the old aunt with the furrowed face. Look here, as you are so anxious for the title of Duchess, you belong to the Comtat, and the Pope will certainly think as much of you as he does of all those merchants down there. He'll sell you a douchey with some name ending in Ia or Anyo. Don't play away your happiness for an office under the crown. End of Section 24. Red by Don W. Jenkins. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 25 of Modeste Mignon by Henri de Balzac. CHAPTER XXV A Diplomatic Letter The poet's reflections during the night were thoroughly matter-of-fact. He sincerely saw nothing worse in life than the situation of a married man without money. Still trembling at the danger he had been led into by his vanity, his desire to get the better of the duke, and his belief in the Mignon millions, he began to ask himself what the Duchess must be thinking of his stay in Havre, aggravated by the fact that he had not written to her for fourteen days, whereas in Paris they exchanged four or five letters a week. And that poor woman is working hard to get me appointed Commander of the Legion, an ambassador to the court of Baden, he cried. Thereupon, with that promptitude of decision which results, and poets as well as inspeculators, from a lively intuition of the future, he sat down and composed the following letter. TO MADAME LA DUTCHESTE DE CHALU My dear Eleanor, you have doubtless been surprised at not hearing from me, but the stay I am making in this place is not altogether on account of my help. I have been trying to do a good turn to our little friend Labriere. The poor fellow has fallen in love with a certain Mamzell Modeste de la Bastille, a rather pale, insignificant, and thread-papery little thing, who, by the way, has the vice of liking literature, and calls herself a poet to excuse the caprices and humours of a rather sullen nature. You know our nest, he is so easy to catch that I have been afraid to leave him to himself. Mamzell de la Bastille was inclined to coquette with your Melchior, and was only too ready to become your rival, though her arms are thin, and she has no more bust than most girls. Moreover her hair is as dead and colorless as that of Madame de Rochefide, and her eyes small, gray, and very suspicious. I put a stop, perhaps rather brutally, to the attentions of Mamzell in Modeste, but love, such as mine, for you demanded it. What care I for all the women on earth, compared to you? What are they? The people with whom I pass my time, and who form the circle round the heiress, are so thoroughly bourgeois that they almost turn my stomach. Pity me! Imagine! I pass my evenings with notaries, notareses, cashiers, provincial money-lenders. Ah! What a change from my evenings in the rue de Grinnell! The alleged fortune of the father, lately returned from China, has brought to Havre that indefatigable suitor, the grand equity, hungry after the millions which he wants, they say, to drain his marshes. The king does not know what a fatal present he made the duke in those wastelands. His grace, who has not yet found out that the lady had only a small fortune, is jealous of me, for Labrière is quietly making progress with his idol under cover of his friend, who serves as a blind. Notwithstanding Ernest's romantic ecstasies, I, myself, a poet, think chiefly of the essential thing, and I have been making some inquiries which darken the prospects of our friend. If my angel would like absolution for some of our little sins, she will try to find out the facts of the case by sending for a longenode the banker and questioning him with the dexterity that characterizes her as to the father's fortune. Monsieur Mignon, formerly Colonel of Cavalry in the Imperial Guard, has been for the last seven years a correspondent of the Mange-Nodes. It is said that he gives his daughter a dot of two hundred thousand francs, and before I make the offer on Ernest's behalf I am anxious to get the rights of the story. As soon as the affair is arranged I shall return to Paris. I know a way to settle everything to the advantage of our young lover. Only by the transmission of the father-in-law's title, and no one, I think, can more readily obtain that favor than Ernest, both on account of his own services and the influence which you and I and the Duke can exert for him. With his tastes, Ernest, who, of course, will step into my office when I go to Baden, will be perfectly happy in Paris with twenty-five thousand francs a year, a permanent place, and a wife, luckless fellow. Ah, dearest, how I long for the rue de Grinnell, fifteen days of absence when they do not kill love. They revive all the ardour of its earlier days, and you know better than I, perhaps, the reasons that make my love eternal. My bones will love thee in the grave. Ah, I cannot bear this separation. If I am forced to stay here another ten days I shall make a flying visit of a few hours to Paris. As the Duke obtained for me the thing we wanted, and shall you my dearest life be ordered to drink the Baden waters next year, the billing and cooing of the handsome disconsulate compared with the accents of our happy love so true and changeless for now ten years, have given me a great contempt for marriage. I had never seen the things so near. Ah, dearest, what the world calls a false step brings two beings nearer together than the law. Does it not? The concluding idea served as a text for two pages of reminiscences and aspirations a little too confidential for publication. The evening before the day on which Canelice put the above epistle into the post, Butcha, under the name of Jean Jaquemine, had received a letter from his fictitious cousin, Philoxine, and had mailed his answer which thus preceded the letter of the poet by about twelve hours. Terribly anxious for the last two weeks, and wounded by melky or silence, the duchess herself dictated Philoxine's letter to her cousin, and the moment she had read the answer rather too explicit for her queen-quadrennery vanity she sent for the banker and made close inquiries as to the exact fortune of Mont-sur-Mignon. Finding herself betrayed and abandoned for the millions, Eleanor gave way to a paroxysm of anger, hatred, and cold vindictiveness. Philoxine knocked at the door of the sumptuous room, and entering found her mistress with her eyes full of tears. So unprecedented a phenomenon in the fifteen years she had waited upon her that the woman stopped short stupefied. We expiated the happiness of ten years and ten minutes, she heard the duchess say. A letter from Havre, madame. Eleanor read the poet's prose without noticing the presence of Philoxine, whose amazement became still greater when she saw the dawn of fresh serenity on the duchess's face as she read further and further into the letter. Hold out a pole no thicker than a walking stick to a drowning man, and he will think it a high road of safety. The happy Eleanor believed in Canales's good faith when she had read through the four pages in which love and business falsehood and truth jostled each other. She who, a few moments earlier, had sent for her husband to prevent Melchior's appointment, while there was still time, was now seized with the spirit of generosity that amounted almost to the sublime. Poor fellow, she thought, he has not had one faithless thought. He loves me as he did on the first day. He tells me all. Philoxine, she cried, noticing her maid, who was standing near and pretending to arrange the toilet table. Madame the duchess, a mirror child, Eleanor looked at herself, saw the fine, razor-like lines traced on her brow, which disappeared at a little distance. She sighed, and in that sigh she felt she baited due to love. A brave thought came into her mind, a manly thought outside of all the pettiness of women, a thought which intoxicates for a moment in which explains, perhaps, the clemency of the Samaramis of Russia when she married her young and beautiful rival to Mominoff. Since he has not been faithless, he shall have the girl and her millions, she thought. Provided Mamzell Mignon is as ugly as he says she is. Three raps, circumspectly given, announced the duke, and his wife went herself to the door to let him in. Ah, I see you are better, my dear, he cried, with the counterfeit joy that at courtiers assume so readily, and by which fools are readily taken in. My dear Henri, she answered, why is it you have not yet obtained that appointment for Melchior, you who sacrificed so much to the king in taking a ministry which you knew could only last one year? The duke glanced at Philoxine, who showed him by an almost imperceptible sign the letter from Havre on the dressing-table. You would be terribly bored at Baden, and come back with daggers drawn with Melchior, said the duke. Pray, why? Why, you would always be together, said the former diplomat with Comet Good-Humor. Oh, no, she said, I am going to marry him. If we can believe Deharaville, our dear Cannelly stands in no need of your help in that direction, said the duke, smiling. Yesterday Grand-Lew read me some passages from a letter the Grand Aquary had written him. No doubt they were dictated by the aunt for the express purpose of their reaching you, for Mamzelle Deharaville, always on the scent of a dot, knows that Grand-Lew and I play whisked nearly every evening. That good little Deharaville wants the prince de Cadignan to go down and give a royal hunt in Normandy, and endeavor to persuade the king to be present so as to turn the head of the Damazelle when she sees herself the object of such a grand affair. In short, two words from Charles the Tenth would settle the matter. Deharaville says the girl has incomparable beauty. Henri, let us go to Havre, cried the Duchess, interrupting him. Under what pretext, said her husband gravely, he was one of the confidence of Louis the Eighteenth. I never saw a hunt. It would be all very well if the king meant, but it is a terrible bore to go so far, and he will not do it. I have just been speaking with him about it. Perhaps Madame would go? That would be better, returned the Duke. I daresay the Duchess de Malfigno would help you to persuade her from Rassigny. If she goes, the king will not be displeased at the use of his hunting-equipage. Don't go to Havre, my dear, added the Duke paternally. That would be giving yourself away. Come, here's a better plan, I think. Gaspard's chateau of Rosembrye is on the other side of the forest of Breton. Why not give him a hint to invite the whole party? He invite them? said Eleanor. I mean, of course, the Duchess. She is always engaged in pious works with Mamzell de Haraville. Give that old maid a hint, and get her to speak to Gaspard.  I'll write to the old maid and to Diane at once, for we must get hunting things made. A riding-hat is so becoming. Did you win last night at the English Embassy? Yes, said the Duke. I cleared myself. Henri, above all things, stop proceedings about Melchior's two appointments. After writing half a dozen lines to the beautiful Diane de Malfigno, and a short hint to Mamzell de Haraville, Eleanor sent the following answer like the lash of a whip through the poet's lies. To Monser le Baron des Canales. My dear poet, Mamzell de la Bastille is very beautiful. Monsgenot has provided to me that her father has millions. I did think of marrying you to her. I am therefore much displeased that you're want of confidence. If you had any intention of marrying La Breire when you went to La Havre, it is surprising that you said nothing to me about it before you started. And why have you omitted riding to a friend who is so easily made anxious as I? Your letter arrived a trifle late. I have already seen the banker.  It is not right. The Duke himself is quite indignant at your proceedings.  Now I intend to see things for myself. I shall, I believe, have the honor of accompanying Madame to the hunt, which the Duke de Haraville proposes to give for Mamzell de la Bastille. I will manage to have you invited to Rosenbrie for the meet will probably take place in Duke de Vanuil's park. Pray believe, my dear poet, that I am none the less for life. Your friend, Eleanor de M. There, Ernest, just look at that, cried Connolly, tossing the letter at Ernest's nose across the breakfast table. That's the two-thousandth love letter I have had from that woman. And there isn't even a thou in it. The illustrious Eleanor has never compromised herself more than she does there. Mary and try your luck. The worst marriage in the world is better than this sort of halter. Ah, I am the greatest Nicodemus that ever tumbled out of the moon. Modest has millions, and I've lost her. For we can't get back from the Poles, where we are today, to the tropics, where we were three days ago. Well, I am all the more anxious for your triumph over the Grand Aquary, because I told the Duchess I came here only for your sake, and so I shall do my best for you. Alas, Melchior, Modest, must needs have so noble, so grand, so well balanced in nature to resist the glories of the court, and all these splendors cleverly displayed for her honor and glory by the duke, that I cannot believe in the existence of such perfection, and yet, if she is still the Modest of her letters, there might be hope. Well, well, you are a happy fellow, you young Boniface, to see the world and your mistress through green spectacles, cried Canalease, marching off to pace up and down the garden. Caught between two lies, the poet was at a loss what to do. Play by rule, and you lose, he cried presently, sitting down in the kiosk. Every man of sense would have acted as I did four days ago and got himself out of the net in which I saw myself. But such times people don't disentangle nets, they break through them. Come, let us be calm, cold, dignified, affronted. Honor requires it. English stiffness is the only way to win her back. After all, if I have to retire, finally, I can always fall back on my old happiness. A fidelity of ten years can't go unrewarded. Eleanor will arrange me some good marriage. CHAPTER XXVI All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section XXVI of Modest Mignon by Henri de Balzac. CHAPTER XXVI TRUE LOVE The hunt was destined to be not only a meet of the hounds, but a meeting of all the passions excited by the colonels' millions in Modest's beauty, and while it was in prospect there was truce between the adversaries. During the days required for the arrangement of this forest-real solemnity, the salon of the villa Mignon presented the tranquil picture of a united family. Canalise, cut short in his role of injured love by Modest's quick perceptions, wished to appear courteous. He laid aside his pretensions, gave no further specimens of his oratory, and became what all men of intellect can be when they renounce affectation. He talked finances with Goebenheim and war with the colonel, Germany with Madame Mignon and housekeeping with Madame Latonelle, endeavoring to bias them all in favor of Labrière. The duke de Harreville left the field to his rivals, for he was obliged to go to Rosembride to consult with the duke de Verneu, and see that the orders of the royal huntsman, the prince de Cadignan, were carried out, and yet the comic element was not altogether wanting. Modest found herself between the depreciatory hints of Canalise as to the gallantry of the grand equerie, and the exaggerations of the two menomousels de Harreville who passed every evening at the villa. Canalise made Modest take notice that, instead of being the heroine of the hunt, she would be scarcely noticed. Madame would be attended by the duchess de Mophrineu, daughter-in-law of the prince de Cadignan, by the duchess de Chaleu and other great ladies of the court, among whom she could produce no sensation. No doubt the officers in Garrison at Rouen would be invited, etc. Helene, on the other hand, was incessantly telling her new friend whom she already looked upon as a sister-in-law, that she was to be presented to Madame. Undoubtedly the duke de Verneu would invite her father and herself to stay at Rosembride. If the colonel wished to obtain a favour of the king, a peerage, for instance, the opportunity was unique, for there was hope of the king himself being present on the third day. She would be delighted with the charming welcome with which the beauties of the court, the duchesses de Chaleu, de Mophrineu, de Lennon court Chaleu, and other ladies were prepared to meet her. It was, in fact, an excessively amusing little warfare with its marches and counter-marches and stratagems, all of which were keenly enjoyed by the Demise, the Latternells, Gobenheim and Butcha, who in conclave assembled said horrible things of these noble personages, cruelly noting and intelligently studying all their little meannesses. The promises on the De Haraville's side were, however, confirmed by the arrival of an invitation couched in flattering terms from the duke de Verneu, and the master of the hunt to mencer le camp de la Bastille and his daughter to stay at Rosenbride, to be present at a grand hunt on the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth of November following. La Brière, full of dark pre-sentiments, craved the presence of Modeste with an eagerness whose bitter joys are known only to lovers who feel that they are parted, and parted fatally from those they love. Flashes of joy came to him intermingled with melancholy meditations on the one theme. I have lost her, and made him all the more interesting to those who watched him because his face and his whole person were in keeping with his profound feeling. There is nothing more poetic than a living elegy animated by a pair of eyes walking about and sighing without rhymes. The duke de Haraville arrived at last to arrange for Modeste's departure. After crossing the Sen she was to be conveyed in the duke's calaise accompanied by the demazelles de Haraville. The duke was charmingly courteous. He begged Connelisse and La Brière to be of the party, assuring them, as he did the colonel, that he had taken particular care that hunters should be provided for them. The colonel invited the three lovers to breakfast on the morning of the start. Connelisse then began to put into execution a plan that he had been maturing in his own mind for the last few days, namely to quietly reconquer Modeste and throw over the Duchess, La Brière and the duke. A graduate of diplomacy could hardly remain stuck in the position in which he found himself. On the other hand La Brière had come to the resolution of bidding Modeste an eternal farewell. Each suitor was therefore on the watch to slip in a last word, like the defendant's counsel to the court before judgment is pronounced, for all felt that the three-week struggle was approaching its conclusion. After dinner on the evening before the start was to be made, the colonel had taken his daughter by the arm and made her feel the necessity of deciding. Our position with the de Haraville family will be quite intolerable at Rosenbrei, he said to her. Do you mean to be a Duchess? No, father, she answered. Then do you love Connelisse? No, papa, a thousand times no, she exclaimed, with the impatience of a child. The colonel looked at her with a sort of joy. Ah, I have not influenced you, cried the father, and I will now confess that I chose my son in law and paris when, having made him believe that I had but little fortune, he grasped my hand and told me I took a weight from his mind. Who is it you mean, asked Modeste coloring? The man of fixed principles and sound moralities, said her father slightly, repeating the words which had dissolved poor Modeste's dream on the day after his return. I was not even thinking of him, papa. Always leave me at liberty to refuse the duke myself. I understand him, and I know how to soothe him. Then your choice is not made? Not yet. There is another syllable or two in the charade of my destiny, still to be guessed. But after I have had a glimpse of court life at Rosenbrei, I will tell you my secret. Ah, Monchur de la Bréar, cried the colonel, as the young man approached them along the garden path in which they were walking. I hope you are going to this hunt. No, colonel, answered Ernest, I have come to take leave of you and of Mamzell. I returned to Paris. You have no curiosity, said Modeste, interrupting and looking at him? A wish that I cannot expect would suffice to keep me, he replied. If that is all, you must stay to please me. I wish it, said the colonel, going forward to meet Canelis, and leaving his daughter and la Bréar together for a moment. Mamzell said the young man, raising his eyes to hers with the boldness of a man without hope, I have an entreaty to make to you. To me? Let me carry away with me your forgiveness. My life can never be happy. It must be full of remorse for having lost my happiness. No doubt by my own fault, but at least. Before we part forever, said Modeste, interrupting a la Canelis, and speaking in a voice of some emotion, I wish to ask you one thing, and though you once disguised yourself I think you cannot be so baseless to deceive me now. The taunt made him turn pale, and he cried out, Oh, you are pitiless. Will you be frank? You have the right to ask me that degrading question, he said in a voice weakened by the violent palpitation of his heart. Well, then, did you read my letters to Montreur de Canelis? No, Mamzell. When I allowed your father to read them, it was to justify my love by showing him how it was born, and how sincere my efforts were to cure you of your fancy. But how came the idea of that unworthy masquerade ever to arise, she said, with a sort of impatience? Labriere related truthfully the scene in the poet's study, which Modeste's first letter had occasioned, and the sort of challenge that resulted from his expressing a favourable opinion of a young girl thus led toward a poet's fame, as a plant seeks its share of the sun. You have said enough, said Modeste, restraining some emotion. If you have not my heart, Montreur, you have at least my esteem. These simple words gave the young man a violent shock. Feeling himself stagger, he leaned against a tree, like a man deprived for a moment of reason. Modeste, who had left him, turned her head, and came hastily back. What is the matter, she asked, taking his hand to prevent him from falling? Forgive me, I thought you despised me. But she answered with a distant and disdainful manner. I did not say that I loved you, and she left him again. But this time, in spite of her harshness, Labriere thought he walked on air. The earth softened under his feet. The trees bore flowers. The skies were rosy. The air cerulean, as they are in the temples of Hyman in those fancy pantomimes which finish happily. In such situations every woman is a jainess, and sees behind her without turning around. And thus Modeste perceived, on the face of her lover, the indubitable symptoms of a love like butchas, surely the knee-plus ultra of a woman's hope. Moreover the great value which Labriere attached to her opinion filled Modeste with an emotion that was inestimably sweet. Mamzell said Canales, leaving the colonel, and way-laying Modeste, in spite of the little value you attached to my sentiments, my honour is concerned in a facing astane under which I have suffered too long. Here is a letter which I have received from the Duchess de Shalou five days after my arrival in Havre. He let Modeste read the first lines of the letter we have seen, which the Duchess began by saying that she had seen Manjanode and wished to marry her poet to Modeste. Then he tore that passage from the body of the letter and placed the fragment in her hand. I cannot let you read the rest, he said, putting the paper in his pocket, but I can find these few lines to your discretion so that you may verify the writing. A young girl who could accuse me of ignoble sentiments is quite capable of suspecting some collusion, some trickery. Ah, Modeste, he said, with tears in his voice, your poet, the poet of Madame de Shalou, has no less poetry in his heart than in his mind. You are about to see the Duchess. Suspend your judgment of me, until then. He left Modeste half bewildered. Oh, dear, she said to herself, it seems they are all angels and not marriageable. The Duke is the only one who belongs to humanity. Ma'am Zelle Modeste said butchah appearing with a parcel under his arm. This hunt makes me very uneasy. I dreamed your horse ran away with you and I have been to Rowan to see if I could get a Spanish bit which they tell me a horse can't take between his teeth. I entreat you to use it. I have shown it to the Colonel, and he has thanked me more than there is any occasion for. Poor dear butchah cried Modeste, moved by tears to this maternal care. Butchah went skipping off like a man who has just heard the death of a rich uncle. My dear father said Modeste, returning to the salon, I should like to have that beautiful whip. Suppose you were to ask Monture de Labrière to exchange it for your picture by Van Ostade. Modeste looked furtively at Ernest while the Colonel made him this proposition standing before the picture which was the sole thing he possessed in memory of his campaigns, having bought it of a burger at Rabestan, and she said to herself as Labrière left the room precipitately, he will be at the hunt. A curious thing happened. Modeste's three lovers, each and all, went to Rosembrye with their hearts full of hope, and captivated by her many perfections. Rosembrye, an estate, lately purchased by the Duke de Vernu, with the money which fell to him as his share of the thousand millions voted as indemnity for the sale of the lands of the emigres, is remarkable for its chateau whose magnificence compares only with that of the misnir ore of Balleroy. This imposing and noble edifice is approached by a wide avenue of four rows of venerable elms from which the visitor enters an immense rising courtyard like that of Versailles with magnificent iron railings and two lodges, and adorned with rows of large orange trees in their tubs. Facing this courtyard, the chateau presents between two fronts of the main building which retreat on either side of this projection a double row of nineteen tall windows with carved arches and diamond panes divided from each other by a series of fluted pilasters surmounted by an entablature which hides an Italian roof from which rise several stone chimneys basked by carved trophies of arms. Rosembrye was built under Louis XIV by a fermia general named Cotten. The façade toward the park differs from that on the courtyard by having a narrower projection in the center with columns between five windows above which rises a magnificent pediment. The family of Maregne, to whom the estates of this Cotten were brought in marriage by Mamzell Cotten, her father's sole heiress ordered a sunrise to be carved in this pediment by Cosevo. Beneath it are two angels unwinding a scroll on which is cut this motto in honor of the grand monarch, Sol Nobis Beninius. From the portico reached by two grand circular and ballastrated flights of steps, the view extends over an immense fish pond as long and wide as the Grand Canal at Versailles, beginning at the foot of a grass plot which compares well with the finest English lawns and bordered with beds and baskets now filled with the brilliant flowers of autumn. On either side of the piece of water, two gardens laid out in the French style display their squares and long straight paths like brilliant pages written in the ciphers of La Notre. These gardens are back to their whole length by a border of nearly thirty acres of woodland. From the terrace the view is bounded by a forest belonging to Rosenbrie and contiguous to two other forests, one of which belongs to the crown, the other to the state. It would be difficult to find a nobler landscape. CHAPTER 27 OF MODEST MINION This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nathine Kertboulez, Modest Mignon, by Honoré de Balzac. Translated by Catherine Prescott-Wormley. CHAPTER 27 A GIRL'S REVENGE Modest's arrival at Rosenbrie made a certain sensation in the avenue when the carriage with the liveries of friends came inside, accompanied by the Grand Aquari, the colonel, canallis and labriere on horseback, preceded by an outrider in full dress and followed by six servants, among whom were the negroes and the mulatto, and the brits care of the colonel for the two waiting women and the luggage. The carriage was drawn by four horses, ridden by pastillions dressed with an elegance specially commanded by the Grand Aquari, who was often better served than the king himself. As Modest, dazzled by the magnificence of the great lords, entered and beheld this lesser Versailles, she suddenly remembered her approaching interview with the celebrated Duchesses, and began to fear that she might seem awkward or provincial or parvenu. In fact, she lost her self-possession and heartily repented having wished for her hunt. Fortunately, however, as the carriage drew up, Modest saw an old man in a blonde wig friased into little curls, whose calm, plump, smooth face wore a fatherly smile and an expression of monastic cheerfulness, which the half-veiled glance of the eye rendered almost noble. This was the Duke de Verneuil, master of Rosembray. The Duchesses, a woman of extreme piety, the only daughter of a rich and deceased chief justice, spare and erect, and the mother of four children, resembled Madame La Tournelle, if the imagination can go so far as to adorn the notary's wife with the graces of a bearing that was truly abatial. Ah, good morning, dear Hortense, said Mademoiselle des Rouvilles, kissing the Duchesses with the sympathy that united their haute-in-ages. Let me present to you and to the dear Duke, our little angel, Mademoiselle de la Bastille. We have heard so much of you, Mademoiselle, said the Duchesses, that we were in haste to receive you. And regret the time last, added the Duke de Verneuil, with courteous admiration. Monsieur le Comte de la Bastille, said the Grand Aquary, taking the colonel by the arm and presenting him to the Duke and Duchesses, with an air of respect in his tone and gesture. I am glad to welcome you, Monsieur le Comte, said Monsieur de Verneuil. You possess more than one treasure, he added, looking at Modeste. The Duchesses took Modeste under her arm and led her into an immense salon, where a dozen or more women were grouped about the fireplace. The men of the party remained with the Duke on the terrace, except Canalis, who respectfully made his way to the superb Eleanor. The Duchesses de Cholieu, seated at an embroidery frame, was showing Mademoiselle de Verneuil how to shade a flower. If Modeste had run a needle through her finger when handling a pincushion, she could not have felt a sharper prick than she received from the cold and haute and contemptuous stare with which Madame de Cholieu favoured her. For an instant she saw nothing but that one woman, and she saw through her. To understand the depth of cruelty to which these charming creatures, whom our passions defy, can go, we must see women with each other.  Had she not known the Duchesses' age, she would have thought her a woman of thirty-six, but other and greater astonishments awaited her. The poet had run plump against a great lady's anger.  The face is radiant, all the rest menacing. Kings themselves cannot make the exquisite politeness of a mistress's cold anger capitulate when she guards it with steel armor. Canalis tried to cling to the steel, but his fingers slipped on the polished surface, like his words on the heart. And the gracious face, the gracious words, the gracious bearing of the Duchesses, hid the steel of her wrath, now fallen to twenty-five below zero, from all observers. The appearance of Modeste in her sublime beauty, and dressed as well as Dianne de Moffrinneuse herself, had fired the train of gunpowder which reflection had been laying in Eleanor's mind. All the women had gone to the windows to see the new wonder get out of the royal carriage, attended by her three suitors. To not let us seem so curious, Madame de Cholieux had said, cut to the heart by Dianne's exclamation, she is divine! Where in the world does she come from?  Mademoiselle de Rouville, said in a low voice and with much meaning to the Duchesses de Verneuil, Eleanor receives America very ungraciously. The Duchesses de Moffrinneuse thinks there is a coolness between them, said Lorde Verneuil, with simplicity. Charming phrase, so often used in the world of society, how the North wind blows through it. Why so, asked Modeste of the pretty young girl, who had lately left the Sacré-Cœur? The great poet, said the Pious Duchesses, making a sign to her daughter to be silent, left Madame de Cholieux without a letter for more than two weeks after he went to Avre, having told her that he went there for his health. Modeste made a hasty movement, which caught the attention of Lorde, Eleanor, and Mademoiselle de Rouville. And during that time, continued the devout Duchesses, she was endeavouring to have him appointed commander of the Legion of Honor, and minister at Baden. Oh, that was shameful in Canalis! He owes everything to her, exclaimed Mademoiselle de Rouville. Why did not Madame de Cholieux come to Avre? asked Modeste of Helene innocently. My dear, said the Duchesses de Verneuil, she would let herself be cut in little pieces without saying a word.  In fact, she has some of that blood in her veins. Did she not write to him? asked Modeste. Dianne tells me, answered the Duchesses, prompted by a note from Mademoiselle de Rouville, that in answer to Canalis's first letter, she made a cutting reply a few days ago. This explanation made Modeste blush with shame for the man before her. She longed not to crush him under her feet, but to revenge herself by one of those malicious acts that are sharper than a dagger's thrust. She looked heartily at the Duchesses de Cholieux. Monsieur Melchior, she said, all the women snuffed the air and looked alternately at the Duchesses, who were stalking in an undertone to Canalis over the embroidery frame, and then at the young girl so ill-browed up as to disturb a loveless meeting, a thing not permissible in any society. Dianne de Moffrey News nodded, however, as Modeste has to say, the child is in the right of it. All the women ended by smiling at each other. They were enraged with a woman who was 56 years old and still handsome enough to put her fingers into the treasury and steal the views of youth. Melchior looked at Modeste with feverish impatience and made the gesture of a master tour valet with the movement of a lioness disturbed at a meal. Her eyes, fastened on the canvas, emitted red flames in the direction of the poet, which stamped like epigrams, for each word revealed to her a triple insult. Monsieur Melchior said Modeste again in a voice that asserted its right to be heard. What, mademoiselle, demanded the poet. Forced to rise, he remained standing halfway between the embroidery frame, which was near a window, and the fireplace where Modeste was seated with the Duchesses de Verneuil on the sofa. What bitter reflections came into his ambitious mind, as he caught a glance from Eleanor. If he obeyed Modeste all was over, and forever, between himself and his protectors. Not to obey her was to avow his slavery, to lose the chances of his 25 days of base maneuvering, and to disregard the plainest glows of decency and civility. The greater the folly, the more imperatively the Duchesses exacted it. Modeste's beauty and money, thus pitted against Eleanor's rights and influence, made this hesitation between the man and his honour as terrible to witness as the peril of a methadour in the arena. A man seldom feels such palpitations as those which now came near causing Canada's ananeurysm, except, perhaps, before the green table, where his fortune or his ruin is about to be decided. Mademoiselle de Rouveil hurried me from the carriage, and I left behind me, said Modeste to Canalys, my handkerchief. Canalys shrugged his shoulders significantly, and, continued Modeste, taking no notice of his gesture, I had tied into one corner of it the key of a desk which contains the fragment of an important letter. Have the kindness, Monsieur Melchior, to get it for me. Between an angel and a tiger equally enraged Canalys, who had turned livid, no longer hesitated. The tiger seemed to him the least dangerous of the two, and he was about to do as he was told, and commit himself irretrievably, when Labrière appeared at the door of the salon, seeming to his anguished mind like the archangel Gabriel tumbling from heaven. Ernest here, Mademoiselle de Labastier wants you, said the poet, hastily returning to his chair by the embroidery frame. Ernest rushed to Modeste without bowing to anyone, he saw only her, took his commission with undisguised joy, and darted from the room with a secret approbation of every woman present. What an occupation for a poet, said Modeste to Elaine des Rouvilles, glancing toward the embroidery at which the Duchess was now working savagely. If you speak to her, if you ever look at her, all is over between us, said the Duchess to the poet in a low voice, not at all satisfied with the very doubtful termination which Ernest's arrival had put to the scene. And remember, if I am not present, I leave behind me eyes that will watch you.  Beneath her plumpness could be seen the exquisite delicacy of such women, which comes from the vigour of the nervous systems controlling and vitalising the development of flesh. There is no other way to explain the lightness of her step, and the incomparable nobility of her bearing. None but the women whose quarterings begin with no one know, as Eleonore did, how to be majestic in spite of a buxom tendency. A philosopher might have pityed Phylloxin while admiring the graceful lines of the bust and the minute care bestowed upon a morning dress which was worn with the elegance of her queen and the easy grace of a young girl. Her abundant hair, still undied, was simply wound about her head in plates. She bared her snowy throat and shoulders exquisitely muddled, and her celebrated hand and arm with pardonable pride.  In fact, Eleonore was one of the grand dam, now so rare. To endeavour to explain what august quality there was in the carriage of her head, what refinement and delicacy in the curve of the throat, what harmony in her movements and nobility in her bearing, what contour in the perfect acorn of details with the whole being, and in the arts, now a second nature, which render a woman grand and even sacred. To explain all these things would simply be to attempt to analyze the sublime. People enjoy such poetry as they enjoyed that of Paganini. They do not explain to themselves the medium. They know the cause is in the spirit that remains invisible. Madame de Jolieu bound her head in salutation of Vélaine and her aunt. Then, saying to Diane in a pure, unequable tone of voice, without a trace of emotion, is it not time to dress the chess? She made her exit, accompanied by her daughter-in-law and mademoiselle de Rouville. As she left the room she spoke in an undertone to the old maid, who pressed her arm, saying, you are charming. Which meant I am all gratitude for the service you have just done us. After that mademoiselle de Rouville returned to the salon to play her part of spy, and her first glance apprised canadies that the duchess had made him no empty threat. That apprentice in diplomacy became aware that his science was not sufficient for a struggle of this kind, and his wit served him to take a more honest position, if not a worthier one. When Ernest returned, bringing Modeste's handkerchief, the poet seized his arm and took him out on the terrace. My dear friend, he said, I am not only the most unfortunate man in the world, but I am also the most ridiculous, and I come to you to get me out of the hornet's nest into which I have run myself. Modeste is a demon. She sees my difficulty, and she laughs at it. She has just spoken to me of a fragment of a letter of Madame de Chouliou, which I had the folly to give her. If she shows it, I can never make my peace with a leonore. Therefore will you at once ask Modeste to send me back that paper, and tell her, from me, that I make no pretensions to her hand. Say I count upon her delicacy, upon her propriety as a young girl, to behave to me as if we had never known each other. I beg her not to speak to me. I implore her to treat me harshly, though I hardly dare ask her to feign a jealous anger, which would help my interests amazingly. Go, I will wait here for an answer. End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 of Modeste Mignon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nadine Descartes-Boulets. Modeste Mignon by Honoris de Balzac. Translated by Catherine Prescott-Wormley. Chapter 28 Modeste behaves with dignity. On re-entering the salon, Ernest Labrière found a young officer of the company of the Guarde d'Avres, the Viconte de Cérizie, who had just arrived from Rosigny, to announce that Madame was obliged to be present at the opening of the chambers. We know the importance then attached to this constitutional solemnity, at which Charles Tenth delivered his speech, surrounded by the royal family, Madame La Dauphine, and Madame being present in their gallery. The choice of the emissary charged with the duty of expressing the princess's regrets was an attention to Diane, who was then an object of adoration to this charming young man, son of a minister of state, gentleman in ordinary of the chamber, only son and heir to an immense fortune. The Duchesse de Mouffrie News permitted his attentions solely for the purpose of attracting notice to the age of his mother, Madame de Cérizie, who was said in those chronicles that are whispered behind the fence to have deprived her of the heart of the handsome Lucien de Rubenbray. You will do us the pleasure, I hope, to remain at Rosembray, said the Sevilla Duchesse to the young officer. While giving ear to every scandal, the devout lady shot her eyes to the derelictions of her guests who had been carefully selected by the Duke. Indeed, it is surprising how much these excellent women will tolerate under pretense of bringing the lost sheep back to the fold by their indulgence. We reckoned without our constitutional government, said the Grand Aquary, and Rosembray, Madame de Duchesse, will lose a great honour. We shall be more at our ease, said a tall, thin old man, about seventy-five years of age, dressed in blue cloth and wearing his hunting cap by permission of the ladies. This personage, who closely resembled the Duc de Bourbon, was no less than the Prince de Catignan, master of the hunt, and one of the last of the great French lords. Just as Labrière was endeavouring to sleep behind the sofa and obtain a moment's intercourse with Modeste, a man of thirty-eight, short, fat, and very common in appearance, entered the room. My son, the Prince de Loudon, said the Duchesse de Verneuil to Modeste, who could not restrain the expression of amazement that overspread her young face on seeing the man who bore the historical name that the hero of Lavendee had rendered famous by his bravery and the martyrdom of his death. Gaspard, said the Duchesse, calling her son to her. The young Prince came at once, and his mother continued, motioning to Modeste, mademoiselle de la Bastille, my friend. The heir presumptive, whose marriage with Desplens' only daughter had lately been arranged, bowed to the young girl without seeming struck, as his father had been, with her beauty. Modeste was thus unable to compare the youth of today with the old age of a past epoch, for the old Prince de Catignan had already said a few words which made her feel that he rendered as true a homage to womanhood as to royalty. The Duke de Retor, the eldest son of the Duchesse de Cholieux, chiefly remarkable for manners that were equally impertinent and free and easy, bowed to Modeste rather cavalierly. The reason of this contrast between the fathers and the sons is to be found, probably, in the fact that young men no longer fear themselves great beings as their forefathers did, and they dispense with the duties of greatness knowing well that they are now but the shadow of it. The fathers retain the inerrant politeness of their vanished grandeur, like the mountaintop still gilded by the sun when all is twilight in the valley. Erneste was at last able to slip a word into Modeste's ear, and she rose immediately. My dear, said the Duchesse, thinking she was going to dress and pulling a bellroop, they shall show you your apartment. Erneste accompanied Modeste to the foot of the Grand Staircase, presenting the request of the luckless poet and endeavouring to touch her feelings by describing Melchior's agony. You see, he loves. He is a captive who thought he could break his chain. Love in such a rapid seeker after fortune, retorted Modeste.  You do not know its defiles. The inconsistencies of a man who falls under the dominion of a woman much older than himself should be forgiven, for he is really not accountable. Think how many sacrifices Cananis has made to her. He has sown too much seed of that kind to resign the harvest. The Duchesse represents to him ten years of devotion and happiness. You made him forget all that, and unfortunately he has more vanity than pride. He did not reflect on what he was losing until he met Madame Chouliu here today. If you really understood him, you would help him.  You call him a seeker after fortune, but he seeks very badly. Like all poets, he is a victim of sensations. He is childish, easily dazzled like a child by anything that shines, and pursuing its glitter. He used to love horses in pictures, and he craved fame. Well, he sold his pictures to buy armor and old furniture of the Renaissance, and we fifteenth. Just now he is seeking political power. Admit that his hobbies are noble things. You have said enough, replied Modeste. Come, she added, seeing her father whom she called with a motion of her head to give her his arm. Come with me, and I will give you that scrap of paper. You shall carry it to the great man and assure him of my condescension to his wishes, but on one condition. You must thank him in my name, for the pleasure I have taken in seeing one of the finest of the German plays performed in my honor. I have learned that Goethe's masterpiece is neither Faust nor Egmont. And then, as Ernest looked at the malicious girl with the puzzled air, she added, it is toquato tasso. Tell Monsieur de Canalis to reread it, she added, smiling. I particularly desire that you will repeat to your friend word for word what I say, for it is not an epigram. It is the justification of his conduct. With this trifling difference that he will, I trust, become more and more reasonable, thanks to the folly of his eleanor. The Duchess's headwoman contacted Modeste and her father to their apartment, where François Scochet had already put everything in order, and the choice elegance of which astounded the colonel, more especially after he heard from François, that there were thirty other apartments in the château decorated with the same taste. This is what I call a proper country house, said Modeste. The Conte de la Bastille must build you one like it, replied her father. Here Monsieur, said Modeste, giving the bit of paper to Erneste, carried it to our friend and put him out of his misery. The word our friend struck the young man's heart. He looked at Modeste to see if there was anything real in the community of interests which he seemed to admit, and she, understanding perfectly what his look meant, added, come, go at once, your friend is waiting. Labrière collared excessively and left the room in a state of doubt and anxiety less and durable than despair. The path that approaches happiness is, to the true lover, like the narrow way which Catholic poetry has called the entrance to paradise, expressing thus a dark and gloomy passage echoing with the last cries of earthly anguish. An hour later this illustrious company were all assembled in the salon. Some were playing wist, others conversing. The women had their embroideries in hand, and all were waiting the announcement of dinner. The Prince de Gardignan was throwing Monsieur Mignon out upon Chyna, and his campaigns under the Empire, and making him talk about the Port-en-Douerre, the Lestorade, and the Moconde, provincial families. He blamed him for not seeking service and assured him that nothing would be easier than to restore him to his rank as colonel of the Guard. A man of your birth and your fortune ought not to belong to the present opposition, said the Prince, smiling. This society of distinguished persons not only pleased Modeste, but it enabled her to acquire, during her stay, a perfection of manners which, without this revelation, she would have lacked all her life.  He thus develops the germs of his faculty which lie dormant within him. In like manner Modeste had the instinct to appropriate the distinctive qualities of Madame de Mouffrinneuse and Madame de Chaurieux. For her, the sight of these women was an education, whereas a bourgeois would merely have ridiculed their ways or made them absurd by clumsy mutation. A well-born, well-educated and right-minded young woman like Modeste fell naturally into connection with these people, and so had once the differences that separate the aristocratic world from the bourgeois world, the provinces from the Foubours Saint-Germain. She caught the almost imperceptible shadings. In short, she perceived the grace of the grand dame, without doubting that she could herself acquire it. She noticed also that her father and labriere appeared infinitely better in this Olympus than Canales. The great poet, abdicating his real and incontestable power, that of the mind, became nothing more than a courtier seeking a ministry, intriguing for an order, and forced to please the whole galaxy. Ernest de Labriere, without ambitions, was able to be himself. While Melchior became, to use a vulgar expression, a mere toady encorted the Prince de Loudon, the Duke de Roteur, the viconte de Cérizie, or the Duke de Mouffrinneuse, like a man not free to assert himself, as did Colonel Mignon, who was justly proud of his campaigns, and of the confidence of the Emperor Napoleon. Modeste took note of the strained efforts of the men of real talent, seeking some wetticism that should raise a laugh, some clever speech, some compliment with which to flatter these grand personnages, whom it was his interest to please. In a word, to Modeste's eyes, the peacock plucked out his tail feathers. Toward the middle of the evening, the young girl sat down with a grand aiguerie in a corner of the salon. She led him there purposely to end a suit which she could no longer encourage if she wished to retain her self-respect. Monsieur le Duke, if you really knew me, she said, you would understand how deeply I am touched by your attentions. It is because of the profound respect I feel for your character and the friendship which a soul like yours inspires in mine, that I cannot endure to want your self-love. Before your arrival in Avre, I love sincerely, deeply, and forever, one who is worthy of being loved, and my affection for whom is still a secret. But I wish you to know, and in saying this I am more sincere than most young girls, that had I not already formed this voluntary attachment, you would have been my choice, for I recognize your noble and beautiful qualities. A few words which your aunt and sister have said to me as to your intentions lead me to make this frank avowal. If you think it desirable, a letter from my mother shall recall me on pretence of her illness, tomorrow morning before the hunt begins. Without your consent, I do not choose to be present at a vet which I owe to your kindness, and where, if my secret should escape me, you might feel hurt and defrauded. You will ask me why I have come here at all. I could not withstand the invitation. Be generous enough not to reproach me for what was almost necessary curiosity. But this is not the chief, not the most delicate thing I have to say to you. You have firm friends in my father and myself, more so than perhaps you realize, and as my fortune was the first cause that brought you to me, I wish to say, but without intending to use it as a sedative to comb the grief which gallantry requires you to testify, that my father has thought over the affair of the marches. His friend Dumé thinks your project feasible, and they have already taken steps to form a company. Gorbenheim, Dumé, and my father have subscribed at fifteen hundred thousand francs, and undertake to get the rest from capitalists who will feel it in their interest to take up the matter. If I have not the honor of becoming the Duchesse d'Héruville, I have almost the certainty of enabling you to choose her free from all troubles in your choice, and in a higher sphere than mine. Oh, let me finish! she cried at a gesture from the Duke. Judging by my nafuse emotion, whispered mademoiselle d'Héruville to her niece, it is easy to see you have a sister. Monsieur le Duke, all this was settled in my mind the day of our first ride, when I heard you deplore your situation. This is what I have wished to say to you. That day determined my future life. Though you did not make the conquest of a woman, you have at least gained faith for friends at Angouville, if you will deign to accord us that title. This little discourse, which Modeste had carefully thought over, was said with so much charm of soul, that the tears came to the grandeur's eyes. He seized her hand and kissed it. Stay during the hunt, he said. My want of merit has accustomed me to these refusals. But while accepting your friendship and that of the colonel, you must let me satisfy myself by the judgment of a competent scientific man, that the draining of those marches will be no risk to the company you speak of, before I agree to the generous offer of your friends.  In that case, Monsieur le Duke, let us keep our secret. My choice will not be known, at least I think not, until after my mother's complete recovery. I should like our first blessing to come from her eyes. End of chapter 28