Honoré Balzac - Vautrin - A Drama in Five Acts

Mademoiselle de Vaudrey

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Felicite

Her grace the duchess dismissed me early.

Mademoiselle de Vaudrey

Has my niece given you no orders for the morning?

Felicite

None, madame.

Mademoiselle de Vaudrey A young man, named Monsieur Raoul de Frescas, is coming to call upon me towards noon; he may possibly ask for the duchess, but you must instruct Joseph to bring him to my apartment. (Exit.)

Felicite (alone) A young man for her? Not a bit of it. I always said that there was some motive in my lady's retired way of living; she is rich, she is handsome, yet the duke does not love her; and now the first time she goes out, a young man comes next day to see her, and her aunt wishes to receive him. They keep me in the dark; I am neither trusted nor tipped. If this is the way chambermaids are to be treated under the new government, I don't know what will become of us. (A side door opens, two men are seen, and the door is immediately closed again.) At any rate we shall have a look at the young man. (Exit.)

Joseph That blasted girl! We would have been down in our luck if she had seen us.

Vautrin You mean you would have been down in your luck; you take pretty good care not to be caught again, don't you? I suppose then that you enjoy peace of mind in this house?

Joseph

That I do, for honesty I find to be the best policy.

Vautrin

And do you quite approve of honesty?

Joseph

Oh, yes, so long as the place and the wages suit me.

Vautrin I see you are doing well, my boy. You take little and often, you save, you even have the honesty to lend a trifle at interest. That's all right, but you cannot imagine what pleasure it gives me to see one of my old acquaintances filling an honorable position. You have succeeded in doing so; your faults are but negative and therefore half virtues. I myself once had vices; I regret them as things of the past; I have nothing but dangers and struggles to interest me. Mine is the life of an Indian hemmed in by my enemies, and I am fighting in defence of my own scalp.

Joseph

And what of mine?

Vautrin

Yours? Ah! you are right to ask that. Well, whatever happens to me, you have the word of Jacques Collin that he will never compromise you.

But you must obey me in everything!

Joseph

In everything? But —

Vautrin There are no buts with me. If there is any dark business to be done I have my "trusties" and old allies. Have you been long in this place?

Joseph

The duchess took me for her footman when she went with the court to

Ghent, last year and I am trusted by both the ladies of the house.

Vautrin

That's the ticket! I need a few points with regard to these

Montsorels. What do you know about them?

Joseph

Nothing.

Vautrin (aside) He is getting a little too honest. Does he think he knows nothing about them? Well, you cannot talk for five minutes with a man without drawing something out of him. (Aloud) Whose room is this?

Joseph The salon of her grace the duchess, and these are her apartments; those of the duke are on the floor above. The suite of the marquis, their only son, is below, and looks on the court.

Vautrin I asked you for impressions of all the keys of the duke's study. Where are they?

Joseph (hesitatingly)

Here they are.

Vautrin Every time I purpose coming here you will find a cross in chalk on the garden gate; every night you must examine the place. Virtue reigns here, and the hinges of that gate are very rusty; but a Louis XVIII can never be a Louis XV! Good-bye – I'll come back to-morrow night. (Aside) I must rejoin my people at the Christoval house.

Joseph (aside) Since this devil of a fellow has found me out, I have been on tenter-hooks —

Vautrin (coming back from the door)

The duke then does not live with his wife?

Joseph

They quarreled twenty years ago.

Vautrin

What about?

Joseph

Not even their own son can say.

Vautrin

And why was your predecessor dismissed?

Joseph I cannot say. I was not acquainted with him. They did not set up an establishment here until after the king's second return.

Vautrin (aside) Such are the advantages of the new social order; masters and servants are bound together by no ties; they feel no mutual attachment, exchange no secrets, and so give no ground for betrayal. (To Joseph) Any spicy stories at meal-times?

Joseph

Never before the servants.

Vautrin

What is thought of them in the servants' hall?

Joseph

The duchess is considered a saint.

Vautrin

Poor woman! And the duke?

Joseph

He is an egotist.

Vautrin Yes, a statesman. (Aside) The duke must have secrets, and we must look into that. Every great aristocrat has some paltry passion by which he can be led; and if I once get control of him, his son, necessarily – (To Joseph) What is said about the marriage of the Marquis de Montsorel and Inez de Christoval?

Joseph I haven't heard a word. The duchess seems to take very little interest in it.

Vautrin

And she has only one son! That seems hardly natural.

Joseph

Between ourselves, I believe she doesn't love her son.

Vautrin I am obliged to draw this word from your throat, as if it were the cork in a bottle of Bordeaux. There is, I perceive, some mystery in this house. Here is a mother, a Duchesse de Montsorel, who does not love her son, her only son! Who is her confessor?

Joseph

She keeps her religious observances a profound secret.

Vautrin Good – I shall soon know everything. Secrets are like young girls, the more you conceal them, the sooner they are discovered. I will send two of my rascals to the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas. They won't work out their salvation in that way, but they'll work out something else. – Good-bye.

Joseph (alone) He is an old friend – and that is the worst nuisance in the world. He will make me lose my place. Ah, if I were not afraid of being poisoned like a dog by Jacques Collin, who is quite capable of the act, I would tell all to the duke; but in this vile world, every man for himself, and I am not going to pay another man's debt. Let the duke settle with Jacques; I am going to bed. What noise is that? The duchess is getting up. What does she want? I must listen. (He goes out, leaving the door slightly ajar.)

The Duchesse de Montsorel (alone) Where can I hide the certificate of my son's birth? (She reads) "Valencia… July, 1793." An unlucky town for me! Fernand was actually born seven months after my marriage, by one of those fatalities that give ground for shameful accusations! I shall ask my aunt to carry the certificate in her pocket, until I can deposit it in some place of safety. The duke would ransack my rooms for it, and the whole police are at his service. Government refuses nothing to a man high in favor. If Joseph saw me going to Mademoiselle de Vaudrey's apartments at this hour, the whole house would hear of it. Ah – I am alone in the world, alone with all against me, a prisoner in my own house!

The Duchess

I see that you find it is impossible to sleep as I do.

Mademoiselle de Vaudrey Louise, my child, I only rose to rid you of a dream, the awakening from which will be deplorable. I consider it my duty to distract you from your insane fancies. The more I think of what you told me the more is my sympathy aroused. But I am compelled to tell you the truth, cruel as it is; beyond doubt the duke has placed Fernand in some compromising situation, so as to make it impossible for him to retrieve his position in the world to which you belong. The young man you saw cannot be your son.