Part 39 (1/2)

Thus elevated in the character of its habitues, the salon Thuillier still needed a new element of life. Thanks to the help of Madame de G.o.dollo, a born organizer, who successfully put to profit the former connection of Colleville with the musical world, a few artists came to make diversion from bouillotte and boston. Old-fas.h.i.+oned and venerable, those two games were forced to beat a retreat before whist, the only manner, said the Hungarian countess, in which respectable people can kill time.

Like Louis XVI., who began by putting his own hand to reforms which subsequently engulfed his throne, Brigitte had encouraged, at first, this domestic revolution; the need of sustaining her position suitably in the new quarter to which she had emigrated had made her docile to all suggestions of comfort and elegance. But the day on which occurred the scene we are about to witness, an apparently trivial detail had revealed to her the danger of the declivity on which she stood. The greater number of the new guests, recently imported by Thuillier, knew nothing of his sister's supremacy in his home. On arrival, therefore, they all asked Thuillier to present them to _Madame_, and, naturally, Thuillier could not say to them that his wife was a figure-head who groaned under the iron hand of a Richelieu, to whom the whole household bent the knee.

It was therefore not until the first homage rendered to the sovereign ”de jure” was paid, that the new-comers were led up to Brigitte, and by reason of the stiffness which displeasure at this misplacement of power gave to her greeting they were scarcely encouraged to pay her any further attentions. Quick to perceive this species of overthrow, Queen Elizabeth said to herself, with that profound instinct of domination which was her ruling pa.s.sion:--

”If I don't take care I shall soon be n.o.body in this house.”

Burrowing into that idea, she came to think that if the project of making a common household with la Peyrade, then Celeste's husband, were carried out, the situation which was beginning to alarm her would become even worse. From that moment, and by sudden intuition, Felix Ph.e.l.lion, that good young man, with his head too full of mathematics ever to become a formidable rival to her sovereignty, seemed to her a far better match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first, on seeing the Ph.e.l.lion father and mother arrive without the son, to express regret at his absence. Brigitte, however, was not the only one to feel the injury that the luckless professor was doing to his prospects in thus keeping away from her reception. Madame Thuillier, with simple candor, and Celeste with feigned reserve, both made manifest their displeasure. As for Madame de G.o.dollo, who, in spite of a very remarkable voice, usually required much pressing before she would sing (the piano having been opened since her reign began), she now went up to Madame Ph.e.l.lion and asked her to accompany her, and between two verses of a song she said in her ear:--

”Why isn't your son here?”

”He is coming,” said Madame Ph.e.l.lion. ”His father talked to him very decidedly; but to-night there happens to be a conjunction of I don't know what planets; it is a great night at the Observatory, and he did not feel willing to dispense with--”

”It is inconceivable that a man should be so foolis.h.!.+” exclaimed Madame de G.o.dollo; ”wasn't theology bad enough, that he must needs bring in astronomy too?”

And her vexation gave to her voice so vibrating a tone that her song ended in the midst of what the English call a thunder of applause. La Peyrade, who feared her extremely, was not one of the last, when she returned to her place, to approach her, and express his admiration; but she received his compliments with a coldness so near to incivility that their mutual hostility was greatly increased. La Peyrade turned away to console himself with Madame Colleville, who had still too many pretensions to beauty not to be the enemy of a woman made to intercept all homage.

”So you also, you think that woman sings well?” she said, contemptuously, to Theodose.

”At any rate, I have been to tell her so,” replied la Peyrade, ”because without her, in regard to Brigitte, there's no security. But do just look at your Celeste; her eyes never leave that door, and every time a tray is brought in, though it is an hour at least since the last guest came, her face expresses disappointment.”

We must remark, in pa.s.sing, that since the reign of Madame de G.o.dollo trays were pa.s.sed round on the Sunday reception days, and that without scrimping; on the contrary, they were laden with ices, cakes, and syrups, from Taurade's, then the best confectioner.

”Don't hara.s.s me!” cried Flavie. ”I know very well what that foolish girl has in her mind; and your marriage will take place only too soon.”

”But you know it is not for myself I make it,” said la Peyrade; ”it is a necessity for the future of all of us. Come, come, there are tears in your eyes! I shall leave you; you are not reasonable. The devil! as that Prudhomme of a Ph.e.l.lion says, 'Whoso wants the end wants the means.'”

And he went toward the group composed of Celeste, Madame Thuillier, Madame de G.o.dollo, Colleville, and Ph.e.l.lion. Madame Colleville followed him; and, under the influence of the feeling of jealousy she had just shown, she became a savage mother.

”Celeste,” she said, ”why don't you sing? These gentlemen wish to hear you.”

”Oh, mamma!” cried the girl, ”how can I sing after Madame de G.o.dollo, with my poor thread of a voice? Besides, you know I have a cold.”

”That is to say that, as usual, you make yourself pretentious and disagreeable; people sing as they can sing; all voices have their own merits.”

”My dear,” said Colleville, who, having just lost twenty francs at the card-tables, found courage in his ill-humor to oppose his wife, ”that saying, 'People sing as they can sing' is a bourgeois maxim. People sing with a voice, if they have one; but they don't sing after hearing such a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my part, I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her sentimental little ditties.”

”Then it is well worth while,” said Flavie, leaving the group, ”to spend so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing.”

”So,” said Colleville, resuming the conversation which the invasion of Flavie had interrupted, ”Felix no longer inhabits this earth; he lives among the stars?”

”My dear and former colleague,” said Ph.e.l.lion, ”I am, as you are, annoyed with my son for neglecting, as he does, the oldest friends of his family; and though the contemplation of those great luminous bodies suspended in s.p.a.ce by the hand of the Creator presents, in my opinion, higher interest than it appears to have to your more eager brain, I think that Felix, by not coming here to-night, as he promised me he would, shows a want of propriety, about which, I can a.s.sure you I shall speak my mind.”

”Science,” said la Peyrade, ”is a fine thing, but it has, unfortunately, the attribute of making bears and monomaniacs.”

”Not to mention,” said Celeste, ”that it destroys all religious sentiments.”

”You are mistaken there, my dear child,” said Madame de G.o.dollo.

”Pascal, who was himself a great example of the falseness of your point of view, says, if I am not mistaken, that a little science draws us from religion, but a great deal draws us back to it.”

”And yet, madame,” said Celeste, ”every one admits that Monsieur Felix is really very learned; when he helped my brother with his studies nothing could be, so Francois told me, clearer or more comprehensible than his explanations; and you see, yourself, he is not the more religious for that.”