Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (66 page)

She gazed at him from under half-closed eye-lids. He lowered his voice, while he bent his head closer to her face.

“Yes! you frighten me! Perhaps I am offending you? Forgive me! I did not intend to say all that I have said! ’Tis not my fault! You are so beautiful!”

Madame Dambreuse closed her eyes, and he was astonished at his easy victory. The tall trees in the garden stopped their gentle quivering. Motionless clouds streaked the sky with long strips of red, and on every side everything seemed to come to a standstill. Then he remembered, in a blurry sort of way, evenings just the same as this, filled with the same unbroken silence. Where was it that he had known them?

He sank upon his knees, seized her hand, and swore that he would love her for ever. Then, as he was leaving her, she beckoned to him to come back, and said to him in a low tone:

“Come back to dinner! We’ll be all alone!”

It seemed to Frédéric, as he descended the stairs, that he had become a different man, that he was surrounded by the balmy temperature of hot-houses, and that he was without question entering into the higher sphere of patrician adulteries and lofty intrigues. In order to reach the top all he required was a woman like this. Greedy, no doubt, for power and success, and married to a man of inferior calibre, for whom she had done prodigious services, she longed for some one strong who she could guide. Nothing was impossible now. He felt himself capable of riding two hundred leagues on horseback, of travelling for several nights in succession without fatigue. His heart overflowed with pride.

Just in front of him, on the pavement, a man wrapped in a seedy overcoat was walking with downcast eyes, and with such an air of dejection that Frédéric, as he passed, turned around to have a better look at him. The other raised his head. It was Deslauriers. He hesitated. Frédéric threw his arms around him.

“Ah! my poor old friend! What! Is it really you?”

And he dragged Deslauriers into his house, asking his friend a lot of questions all at the same time.

Ledru-Rollin’s ex-commissioner commenced by describing the tortures to which he had been subjected. As he preached fraternity to the Conservatives, and respect for the laws to the Socialists, the former tried to shoot him, and the latter brought ropes to hang him with. After June he had been brutally dismissed. He found himself involved in a charge of conspiracy—that which was connected with the seizure of arms at Troyes. He had subsequently been released for lack of evidence. Then the action committee had sent him to London, where he had come to blows with his colleagues in the middle of a banquet. On his return to Paris—

“Why did you not call here, then, to see me?”

“You were always out! Your concierge had mysterious airs—I did not know what to think; and, besides, I had no desire to reappear before you as a defeated man.”

He had knocked at the portals of Democracy, offering to serve it with his pen, with his voice, with all his energies. He had been rejected everywhere. They had mistrusted him; and he had sold his watch, his library, and even his linen.

“It would be much better to die on the prison-ships of Belle Isle with Sénécal!”
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Frédéric, who had been fastening his cravat, did not appear to be much affected by this news.

“Ha! so he has been deported, this good Sénécal?”

Deslauriers replied, while he surveyed the walls with an envious air:

“Not everybody has your luck!”

“Excuse me,” said Frédéric, without noticing the allusion to his own circumstances, “but I am dining in the city. We must get you something to eat; order whatever you like. You can even take my bed!”

This cordial reception dissipated Deslauriers’ bitterness.

“Your bed? But that might inconvenience you!”

“Oh, no! I have others!”

“Oh, all right!” returned the lawyer, with a laugh. “Pray, where are you dining?”

“At Madame Dambreuse’s.”

“Can it be that you are—perhaps—?”

“You are too inquisitive,” said Frédéric, with a smile, which confirmed this hypothesis.

Then, after a glance at the clock, he sat down again.

“That’s how it is! and we mustn’t despair, my ex-defender of the people!”

“Mercy! let others worry about the people for a change!”

The lawyer detested the working-men, because he had suffered so much on their account in his province, a coal-mining district. Every pit had appointed a provisional government, from which he received orders.

“Besides, their conduct has been charming everywhere—at Lyons, at Lille, at Havre, at Paris! For, following the example of the manufacturers, who would exclude foreign products, these gentlemen call on us to banish the English, German, Belgian, and Savoyard workmen. As for their intelligence, what was the use of that precious trades’ union of theirs which they established under the Restoration? In 1830 they joined the National Guard, without having the common sense to get control of it. Is it not a fact that, after ’48, the various trade-unions reappeared with their banners? They even demanded representatives in the Chamber for themselves, who only speak on their behalf. All this is the same as if the beetroot representatives were to concern themselves about nothing save beetroot. Ah! I’ve had enough of these dodgers who in turn prostrate themselves before the scaffold of Robespierre, the boots of the Emperor, and the umbrella of Louis Philippe—a rabble who always yield allegiance to the person that flings bread into their mouths. They are always crying out against the venality of Talleyrand and Mirabeau;
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but the messenger downstairs would sell his country for fifty centimes if they’d only promise him a tariff of three francs for every erand he ran. Ah! what a wretched state of affairs! We ought to set the four corners of Europe on fire!”

Frédéric said in reply:

“The spark was missing! You were simply a lot of shopboys, and even the best of you were nothing better than penniless students. As for the workmen, they may well complain; for, apart from a million taken from the civil list, of which you granted them with the vilest flattery, you have given them nothing, save fine phrases! The workman’s certificate remains in the hands of the employer, and the person who is paid wages remains (even in the eye of the law), the inferior of his master, because his word is not believed. In short, the Republic seems to me a worn-out institution. Who knows? Perhaps Progress can be realised only through an aristocracy or through a single man? The initiative always comes from the top, and whatever may be the people’s pretensions, they are lower than those placed over them!”

“That may be true,” said Deslauriers.

According to Frédéric, the vast majority of citizens aimed only at a life of peace (he had been listening during his visits to the Dambreuses), and the odds were all on the side of the Conservatives. That party, however, was lacking new men.

“If you came forward, I am sure—”

He did not finish the sentence. Deslauriers saw what Frédéric meant, and passed his two hands over his forehead; then, all of a sudden:

“But what about yourself? Is there anything to prevent you from doing it? Why shouldn’t you be a representative?”

Following a double election in the Aube there was a vacancy for a candidate. M. Dambreuse, who had been re-elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly, belonged to a different arrondissement.

“Would you like me to see what I can do?” He was acquainted with many publicans, schoolmasters, doctors, notaries’ clerks and their employers. “Besides, you can make the peasants believe anything you like!”

Frédéric felt his ambition rekindling.

Deslauriers added:

“You ought to find a job for me in Paris.”

“Oh! it would not be hard to manage it through Monsieur Dambreuse.”

“As we happened to have been talking just now about coalmines,” the lawyer went on, “what has become of his big company? This is the sort of employment that would suit me, and I could make myself useful to them while preserving my own independence.”

Frédéric promised that he would introduce him to the banker in the next few days.

The dinner, which he enjoyed alone with Madame Dambreuse, was a delightful affair. She sat facing him with a smile on her face at the opposite side of the table, whereon was placed a basket of flowers, while a lamp suspended above their heads shed its light on them; and, as the window was open, they could see the stars. They talked very little, distrusting themselves, no doubt; but, the moment the servants had turned their backs, they blew each other kisses. He told her about his idea of becoming a candidate. She approved, promising even to get M. Dambreuse to help.

As the evening advanced, some of her friends appeared to congratulate and sympathize with her; she must be so much pained at the loss of her niece. Besides, it was all very well for newly-married people to go on a trip; later there would be incumbrances, children. But really, Italy did not live up to one’s expectations. They were still at the age of illusions; and, the honeymoon made everything look beautiful. The last two who stayed behind were M. de Grémonville and Frédéric. The diplomat was not inclined to leave. At last he departed at midnight. Madame Dambreuse beckoned to Frédéric to go with him, and thanked him for this compliance with her wishes by giving him a gentle squeeze of the hand more delightful than anything before.

The Maréchale uttered an exclamation of joy on seeing him again. She had been waiting for him for the last five hours. He gave as an excuse for the delay an indispensable step which he had to take in the interests of Deslauriers. His face wore a look of triumph, a halo which dazzled Rosanette.

“ ’Tis perhaps on account of your black coat, which fits you well; but I have never seen you look so handsome! How handsome you are!”

Carried away by tenderness, she made a vow inwardly never again to belong to any other man, no matter what might be the consequence, even if she were to die of hunger.

Her pretty eyes sparkled with such intense passion that Frédéric took her upon his knees and said to himself:

“What a swine I am!” while admiring his own wickedness.

D
ambreuse, when Deslauriers presented himself at his house, was thinking of reviving his great coal-mining scheme. But this fusion of all the companies into one was looked upon unfavourably; there was an outcry against monopolies, as if immense capital were not needed for carrying out enterprises of this kind!

Deslauriers, who had read for the purpose the work of Gobet and the articles of M. Chappe in
the Journal des Mines,
understood the question perfectly. He demonstrated that the law of 1810 established for the benefit of the grantee a privilege which could not be transferred. Besides, a democratic colour might be given to the undertaking. To interfere with the formation of coal-mining companies was an attack on the very principle of association.

M. Dambreuse gave him some notes for the purpose of drawing up a memorandum. As for the way in which he meant to pay for the work, his promises were all the more attractive for being vague.

Deslauriers called again at Frédéric’s house, and gave him an account of the interview. Moreover, he had caught a glimpse of Madame Dambreuse at the bottom of the stairs, just as he was going out.

“My compliments, old boy!”

Then they had a chat about the election. Some plan would have to be devised.

Three days later Deslauriers reappeared with a sheet of paper covered with handwriting, intended for the newspapers, and which was nothing less than a friendly letter from M. Dambreuse, expressing approval of their friend’s candidature. Supported by a Conservative and praised by a Red, he ought to succeed. How was it that the capitalist had put his signature to such a document? The lawyer had, of his own initiative, and without the least appearance of embarrassment, gone and shown it to Madame Dambreuse, who, thinking it quite appropriate, had taken the rest of the business on her own shoulders.

Frédéric was astonished at this proceeding. Nevertheless, he approved of it; then, as Deslauriers was in touch with M. Roque, his friend explained to him how he stood with regard to Louise.

“Tell them anything you like; that my affairs are in an unsettled state, that I am putting them in order. She is young enough to wait!”

Deslauriers set forth, and Frédéric looked upon himself as a very able man. He experienced, moreover, a feeling of gratification, a profound satisfaction. His delight at being the possessor of a rich woman was an unmitigated pleasure. The sentiment harmonised with the surroundings. His life would now be full of joy in every sense.

Perhaps the most delicious sensation of all was to gaze at Madame Dambreuse in the midst of a number of other ladies in her drawing-room. The propriety of her manners made him dream of other postures. While she was talking in a tone of coldness, he would recall to mind the loving words which she had murmured in his ear. All the respect which he felt for her virtue gave him a thrill of pleasure, as if it were a homage which was reflected back on himself; and at times he felt a longing to exclaim:

“But I know her better than you! She is mine!”

It was not long ere their relations came to be socially recognised as an established fact. Madame Dambreuse, during the whole winter, brought Frédéric with her into fashionable society.

He nearly always arrived before her; and he watched her as she entered the house they were visiting with her arms bare, a fan in her hand, and pearls in her hair. She would pause on the threshold (the doorway surrounded her like a frame), and with a certain air of indecision, she half-closed her eyes in order to see whether he was there.

She drove him back in her carriage; the rain lashed the carriage-blinds. The passers-by seemed merely shadows wavering in the mire of the street; and, pressed close to each other, they observed all these things vaguely with a calm disdain. Under various pretexts, he would linger in her room for an entire additional hour.