Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (35 page)

Up to the present, he had been pardoned for many things due to his good nature. His lawsuit placed him amongst men of bad character. No one visited his house.

Frédéric, bound by honour, thought he should go there more frequently than ever.

He took a box at the Italian opera, and brought them there with him every week. Meanwhile, the pair had reached that period in ill-matched unions when an invincible weariness springs from concessions which people make, and which render existence intolerable. Madame Arnoux restrained her pent-up feelings from breaking out; Arnoux became gloomy; and Frédéric grew sad at witnessing the unhappiness of these two ill-fated beings.

She had imposed on him the obligation, since she had placed her trust in him, of making enquiries as to the state of her husband’s affairs. But shame prevented him from doing so. It was painful to him to reflect that he coveted the wife of this man, at whose dinner-table he constantly sat. Nevertheless, he continued his visits, excusing himself on the grounds that he was bound to protect her, and that an occasion might present itself for being of service to her.

Eight days after the ball, he had paid a visit to M. Dambreuse. The financier had offered him twenty shares of stock in his coal-mining company; Frédéric did not go back there again. Deslauriers had written letters to him, which he left unanswered. Pellerin had invited him to go and see the portrait; he always put it off. He gave way, however, to Cisy’s persistent appeals to be introduced to Rosanette.

She received him very nicely, but without throwing her arms around him as she used to do. His comrade was delighted at being received by a woman of easy virtue, and above all at having a chat with an actor. Delmar was there when he called. A drama in which he appeared as a peasant lecturing Louis XIV and prophesying the events of ’89 had made him so conspicuous, that the same part was continually assigned to him; and now his function consisted of attacks on the monarchs of all nations. As an English brewer, he inveighed against Charles I; as a student at Salamanca, he cursed Philip II; or, as a sensitive father, he expressed indignation against the Marquise de Pompadour—this was the most beautiful bit of acting! The street urchins used to wait at the stage-door in order to see him; and his biography, sold between the acts, described him as taking care of his aged mother, reading the Bible, assisting the poor, in fact, comparing him to Saint Vincent de Paul with a dash of Brutus and Mirabeau.
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People spoke of him as “Our Delmar.” He had a mission; he became another Christ.

All this had fascinated Rosanette; and she had got rid of Père Oudry, without caring one bit about the consequences, as she was not a greedy person.

Arnoux, who knew her, had taken advantage of her nature for quite some time, spending very little money on her. The old man had appeared on the scene, and all three of them carefully avoided any candid conversations. Then, thinking that she had gotten rid of the other solely on his account, Arnoux increased her allowance. But she made frequent demands for more which was curious since she was living less extravagantly. She had even sold her cashmere in her anxiety to pay off her old debts, as she said; and he was continually giving her money, while she bewitched him and imposed upon him pitilessly. Therefore, bills and writs rained all over the house. Frédéric felt that a crisis was approaching.

One day he called to see Madame Arnoux. She had gone out, Monsieur was at work downstairs in the shop. In fact, Arnoux, in the midst of his Japanese vases, was trying to con a newly-married pair who happened to be well-to-do people from the provinces. He talked about wheel-moulding and fine-moulding, about spotted porcelain and glazed porcelain; not wishing to appear utterly ignorant of the subject, they listened with nods of approbation, and made purchases.

When the customers had gone out, he told Frédéric that he had that very morning been engaged in a little altercation with his wife. In order to prevent any remarks about expenses, he had declared that the Maréchale was no longer his mistress. “I even told her that she was yours.”

Frédéric was annoyed at this; but to make reproaches might only betray him. He faltered: “Ah! you were in the wrong—greatly in the wrong!”

“What does that signify?” said Arnoux. “Where is the disgrace of passing for her lover? After all, I am! Would you not be flattered at being in that position?”

Had she spoken? Was this a hint? Frédéric hastened to reply:

“No! not at all! on the contrary!”

“Well, what then?”

“Yes, ’tis true; it makes no difference.”

Arnoux next asked: “And why don’t you call there more often?”

Frédéric promised that he would make it his business to go there again.

“Ah! I forgot! you ought, when talking about Rosanette, to let out in some way to my wife that you are her lover. I can’t suggest how you can best do it, but you’ll find a way. I ask this of you as a special favour—eh?”

The young man’s only answer was an equivocal smile. This slander had undone him. He even called on her that evening, and swore that Arnoux’s accusation was false.

“Is that really so?”

He appeared to be speaking sincerely, and, when she had taken a long breath of relief, she said to him:

“I believe you,” with a beautiful smile. Then she lowered her head, and, without looking at him:

“Besides, nobody has any claim on you!”

So then she suspected nothing; and she despised him, seeing that she did not think he could love her enough to remain faithful to her! Frédéric, forgetting his overtures towards the other, looked on her tolerant attitude as an outrage.

After this she suggested that he ought now and then to pay Rosanette a visit, to get a little glimpse of what she was like.

Arnoux arrived, and, five minutes later, wished to take him off to Rosanette’s.

The situation was becoming intolerable.

His attention was diverted by a letter from a notary, who was going to send him fifteen thousand francs the following day; and, in order to make up for his neglect of Deslauriers, he went straight away to tell him this good news.

The lawyer was lodging in the Rue des Trois-Maries, on the fifth floor, over a courtyard. His study, a little tiled room, chilly, and with grey wallpaper, had as its principal decoration a gold medal, the prize awarded him on the occasion of receiving his Doctor of Laws, which was set in an ebony frame near the mirror. A mahogany bookcase enclosed under its glass front a hundred volumes, more or less. The writing-desk, covered with leather, occupied the centre of the room. Four old armchairs upholstered in green velvet were placed in the corners; and a heap of wood shavings made a blaze in the fireplace, where there was always a bundle of sticks ready to be lighted as soon as he rang the bell. It was his consultation-hour, and the lawyer had on a white cravat.

The announcement as to the fifteen thousand francs (he had, no doubt, given up all hope of getting the amount) made him chuckle with delight.

“That’s right, old fellow, that’s right—that’s quite right!”

He threw some wood into the fire, sat down again, and immediately began talking about the journal. The first thing to do was to get rid of Hussonnet.

“I’m quite tired of that idiot! As for officially professing opinions, my own notion is that the most equitable and forcible position is to have no opinions at all.”

Frédéric appeared astonished.

“Why, the thing is perfectly plain. It is time that politics should be dealt with scientifically. The old men of the eighteenth century began it when Rousseau and the men of letters introduced into the political sphere philanthropy, poetry, and other nonsense, to the great delight of the Catholics—a natural alliance, however, since the modern reformers (I can prove it) all believe in divine revelation. But, if you sing high masses for Poland, if, in place of the God of the Dominicans, who was an executioner, you take the God of the Romanticists, who is an upholsterer, if, in fact, you have not a wider conception of the Absolute than your ancestors, Monarchy will penetrate underneath your Republican forms, and your red cap will never be more than a priest’s skull cap. The only difference will be that the solitary confinement will take the place of torture, the outrageous treatment of Religion that of sacrilege, and the European Concert that of the Holy Alliance;
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and in this beautiful order which we admire, composed of the wreckage of the followers of Louis XIV, the last remains of the Voltaireans, with some Imperial white-wash on top, and some fragments of the British Constitution, you will see the municipal councils trying to annoy the Mayor, the general councils their Prefect,
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the Chambers the King, the Press Power, and the Administration everybody. But simple-minded people get enraptured about the Civil Code, a work fabricated—let them say what they like—in a mean and tyrannical spirit, for the legislator, in place of doing his duty to the State, which simply means to observe customs in a regular fashion, claims to model society like another Lycurgus. Why does the law impede fathers of families with regard to the making of wills? Why does it place shackles on the compulsory sale of real estate? Why does it punish vagrancy as a misdemeanour, which ought not even to be regarded as a technical contravention of the Code. And there are other things! I know all about them! and so I am going to write a little novel, entitled ‘The History of the Idea of Justice,’ which will be amusing. But I am infernally thirsty! And you?”

He leaned out through the window, and called to the porter to go and fetch them two glasses of grog from the tavern across the way.

“To sum up, I see three parties—no! three groups—in none of which do I take the slightest interest: those who have, those who have nothing, and those who are trying to have. But all agree in their idiotic worship of Authority! For example, Mably recommends that the philosophers should be prevented from publishing their doctrines; M. Wronsky, the geometrician, describes censorship as the ‘critical expression of speculative spontaneity’; Père Enfantin gives his blessing to the Hapsburgs for having stretched a hand across the Alps in order to keep Italy down; Pierre Leroux wishes people to be compelled to listen to an orator; and Louis Blanc inclines towards a State religion
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-so much rage for government have these vassals whom we call the people! Nevertheless, there is not a single legitimate government, in spite of their eternal principles. But ‘principle’ signifies ‘origin.‘ It is always necessary to go back to a revolution, to an act of violence, to a transitory fact. Thus, our principle is the national sovereignty embodied in the Parliamentary form, though the Parliament does not assent to this! But in what way could the sovereignty of the people be more sacred than the Divine Right? They are both fictions. Enough of metaphysics; no more phantoms! There is no need of dogmas in order to get the streets swept! It will be said that I am turning society upside down. Well, after all, where is the harm in that? It is, indeed, a nice thing—this society of yours.”

Frédéric could have given many answers. But, seeing that his theories were far from those of Sénécal, he was full of indulgence. He contented himself with arguing that such a system would make them universally hated.

“On the contrary, as we should have given to each party a pledge of hatred against his neighbour, all will support us. You’re going to get down to work too, and furnish us with some transcendent criticism!”

It was necessary to attack accepted ideas—the Academy, the École Normale, the Conservatoire, the Comédie Française, everything that resembled an institution.
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It was in that way that they would give uniformity to the doctrines taught in their review. Then, as soon as it had been thoroughly well-established, the journal would suddenly be converted into a daily publication. Thereupon they could find fault with individuals.

“And they will respect us, you may be sure!”

Deslauriers touched upon that old dream of his—the position of editor-in-chief, so that he might have the unutterable happiness of directing others, of entirely cutting down their articles, of ordering them to be written or declining them. His eyes twinkled behind his spectacles; he got into a state of excitement, and drank a few glasses of brandy, one after the other, in a mechanical fashion.

“You’ll have to give a dinner party once a week. That’s indispensable, even though you would have to spend half your income on it. People would feel pleasure in going to it; it would be a centre for the others, a boost for yourself; and by manipulating public opinion at its two ends—literature and politics—you will see how, before six months have passed, we shall occupy the first rank in Paris.”

Frédéric, as he listened to Deslauriers, experienced a sensation of rejuvenation, like a man who, after having been confined in a room for a long time, is suddenly transported into the open air. The enthusiasm of his friend had a contagious effect upon him.

“Yes, I have been an idler, an imbecile—you are right!”

“All in good time,” said Deslauriers. “I have found my Frédéric again!”

And, putting his fist under Frédéric’s chin:

“Ah! you have made me suffer! Never mind, I am fond of you all the same.”

They stood there gazing into each other’s faces, both deeply affected, and were on the point of embracing each other.

A woman’s cap appeared on the threshold of the anteroom.

“What brings you here?” said Deslauriers.

It was Mademoiselle Clémence, his mistress.

She replied that, as she happened to be passing, she could not resist the desire to go in to see him, and in order that they might have a little treat together, she had brought some cakes, which she laid on the table.

“Watch out for my papers!” said the lawyer, sharply. “Besides, this is the third time that I have forbidden you to come during my consultation-hours.”