Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

He gazed mechanically out of the windows of the hotel des Princes, and then returned to the sofa, where he sat motionless. The fatigues of six voyages to India, the anxieties of speculation, the dangers he had encountered and evaded, and his many griefs, had silvered Charles Mignon’s head. His handsome soldierly face, so pure in outline and now bronzed by the suns of China and the southern seas, had acquired an air of dignity which his present grief rendered almost sublime.

“Mongenod told me he felt confidence in the young man who is coming to ask me for my daughter,” he thought at last; and at this moment Ernest de La Briere was announced by one of the servants whom Monsieur de La Bastie had attached to himself during the last four years.

“You have come, monsieur, from my friend Mongenod?” he said.

“Yes,” replied Ernest, growing timid when he saw before him a face as sombre as Othello’s. “My name is Ernest de La Briere, related to the family of the late cabinet minister, and his private secretary during his term of office. On his dismissal, his Excellency put me in the Court of Claims, to which I am legal counsel, and where I may possibly succeed as chief — ”

“And how does all this concern Mademoiselle de La Bastie?” asked the count.

“Monsieur, I love her; and I have the unhoped-for happiness of being loved by her. Hear me, monsieur,” cried Ernest, checking a violent movement on the part of the angry father. “I have the strangest confession to make to you, a shameful one for a man of honor; but the worst punishment of my conduct, natural enough in itself, is not the telling of it to you; no, I fear the daughter even more than the father.”

Ernest then related simply, and with the nobleness that comes of sincerity, all the facts of his little drama, not omitting the twenty or more letters, which he had brought with him, nor the interview which he had just had with Canalis. When Monsieur Mignon had finished reading the letters, the unfortunate lover, pale and suppliant, actually trembled under the fiery glance of the Provencal.

“Monsieur,” said the latter, “in this whole matter there is but one error, but that is cardinal. My daughter will not have six millions; at the utmost, she will have a marriage portion of two hundred thousand francs, and very doubtful expectations.”

“Ah, monsieur!” cried Ernest, rising and grasping Monsieur Mignon’s hand; “you take a load from my breast. Nothing can now hinder my happiness. I have friends, influence; I shall certainly be chief of the Court of Claims. Had Mademoiselle Mignon no more than ten thousand francs, if I had even to make a settlement on her, she should still be my wife; and to make her happy as you, monsieur, have made your wife happy, to be to you a real son (for I have no father), are the deepest desires of my heart.”

Charles Mignon stepped back three paces and fixed upon La Briere a look which entered the eyes of the young man as a dagger enters its sheath; he stood silent a moment, recognizing the absolute candor, the pure truthfulness of that open nature in the light of the young man’s inspired eyes. “Is fate at last weary of pursuing me?” he asked himself. “Am I to find in this young man the pearl of sons-in-law?” He walked up and down the room in strong agitation.

“Monsieur,” he said at last, “you are bound to submit wholly to the judgment which you have come here to seek, otherwise you are now playing a farce.”

“Oh, monsieur!”

“Listen to me,” said the father, nailing La Briere where he stood with a glance. “I shall be neither harsh, nor hard, nor unjust. You shall have the advantages and the disadvantages of the false position in which you have placed yourself. My daughter believes that she loves one of the great poets of the day, whose fame is really that which has attracted her. Well, I, her father, intend to give her the opportunity to choose between the celebrity which has been a beacon to her, and the poor reality which the irony of fate has flung at her feet. Ought she not to choose between Canalis and yourself? I rely upon your honor not to repeat what I have told you as to the state of my affairs. You may each come, I mean you and your friend the Baron de Canalis, to Havre for the last two weeks of October. My house will be open to both of you, and my daughter must have an opportunity to study you. You must yourself bring your rival, and not disabuse him as to the foolish tales he will hear about the wealth of the Comte de La Bastie. I go to Havre to-morrow, and I shall expect you three days later. Adieu, monsieur.”

Poor La Briere went back to Canalis with a dragging step. The poet, meantime, left to himself, had given way to a current of thought out of which had come that secondary impulse which Monsieur de Talleyrand valued so much. The first impulse is the voice of nature, the second that of society.

“A girl worth six millions,” he thought to himself, “and my eyes were not able to see that gold shining in the darkness! With such a fortune I could be peer of France, count, marquis, ambassador. I’ve replied to middle-class women and silly women, and crafty creatures who wanted autographs; I’ve tired myself to death with masked-ball intrigues, — at the very moment when God was sending me a soul of price, an angel with golden wings! Bah! I’ll make a poem on it, and perhaps the chance will come again. Heavens! the luck of that little La Briere, — strutting about in my lustre — plagiarism! I’m the cast and he’s to be the statue, is he? It is the old fable of Bertrand and Raton. Six millions, a beauty, a Mignon de La Bastie, an aristocratic divinity loving poetry and the poet! And I, who showed my muscle as man of the world, who did those Alcide exercises to silence by moral force the champion of physical force, that old soldier with a heart, that friend of this very young girl, whom he’ll now go and tell that I have a heart of iron! — I, to play Napoleon when I ought to have been seraphic! Good heavens! True, I shall have my friend. Friendship is a beautiful thing. I have kept him, but at what a price! Six millions, that’s the cost of it; we can’t have many friends if we pay all that for them.”

La Briere entered the room as Canalis reached this point in his meditations. He was gloom personified.

“Well, what’s the matter?” said Canalis.

“The father exacts that his daughter shall choose between the two Canalis — ”

“Poor boy!” cried the poet, laughing, “he’s a clever fellow, that father.”

“I have pledged my honor that I will take you to Havre,” said La Briere, piteously.

“My dear fellow,” said Canalis, “if it is a question of your honor you may count on me. I’ll ask for leave of absence for a month.”

“Modeste is so beautiful!” exclaimed La Briere, in a despairing tone. “You will crush me out of sight. I wondered all along that fate should be so kind to me; I knew it was all a mistake.”

“Bah! we will see about that,” said Canalis with inhuman gaiety.

That evening, after dinner, Charles Mignon and Dumay, were flying, by virtue of three francs to each postilion, from Paris to Havre. The father had eased the watch-dog’s mind as to Modeste and her love affairs; the guard was relieved, and Butscha’s innocence established.

“It is all for the best, my old Dumay,” said the count, who had been making certain inquiries of Mongenod respecting Canalis and La Briere. “We are going to have two actors for one part!” he cried gaily.

Nevertheless, he requested his old comrade to be absolutely silent about the comedy which was now to be played at the Chalet, — a comedy it might be, but also a gentle punishment, or, if you prefer it, a lesson given by the father to the daughter.

The two friends kept up a long conversation all the way from Paris to Havre, which put the colonel in possession of the facts relating to his family during the past four years, and informing Dumay that Desplein, the great surgeon, was coming to Havre at the end of the present month to examine the cataract on Madame Mignon’s eyes, and decide if it were possible to restore her sight.