Part 20 (1/2)
”No doubt he came to Havre to inquire about the Mignons in the interests of his friend the poet,” said Modeste, looking furtively at her father.
”It was certainly he whom we saw in church.”
Madame Dumay and Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, accepted this as the natural explanation of Ernest's journey.
CHAPTER XIX. OF WHICH THE AUTHOR THINKS A GOOD DEAL
”Do you know, Ernest,” cried Ca.n.a.lis, when they had driven a short distance from the house, ”I don't see any marriageable woman in society in Paris who compares with that adorable girl.”
”Ah, that ends it!” replied Ernest. ”She loves you, or she will love you if you desire it. Your fame won half the battle. Well, you may now have it all your own way. You shall go there alone in future. Modeste despises me; she is right to do so; and I don't see any reason why I should condemn myself to see, to love, desire, and adore that which I can never possess.”
After a few consoling remarks, dashed with his own satisfaction at having made a new version of Caesar's phrase, Ca.n.a.lis divulged a desire to break with the d.u.c.h.esse de Chaulieu. La Briere, totally unable to keep up the conversation, made the beauty of the night an excuse to be set down, and then rushed like one possessed to the seash.o.r.e, where he stayed till past ten, in a half-demented state, walking hurriedly up and down, talking aloud in broken sentences, sometimes standing still or sitting down, without noticing the uneasiness of two custom-house officers who were on the watch. After loving Modeste's wit and intellect and her aggressive frankness, he now joined adoration of her beauty--that is to say, love without reason, love inexplicable--to all the other reasons which had drawn him ten days earlier, to the church in Havre.
He returned to the Chalet, where the Pyrenees hounds barked at him till he was forced to relinquish the pleasure of gazing at Modeste's windows.
In love, such things are of no more account to the lover than the work which is covered by the last layer of color is to an artist; yet they make up the whole of love, just as the hidden toil is the whole of art.
Out of them arise the great painter and the true lover whom the woman and the public end, sometimes too late, by adoring.
”Well then!” he cried aloud, ”I will stay, I will suffer, I will love her for myself only, in solitude. Modeste shall be my sun, my life; I will breathe with her breath, rejoice in her joys and bear her griefs, be she even the wife of that egoist, Ca.n.a.lis.”
”That's what I call loving, monsieur,” said a voice which came from a shrub by the side of the road. ”Ha, ha, so all the world is in love with Mademoiselle de La Bastie?”
And Butscha suddenly appeared and looked at La Briere. La Briere checked his anger when, by the light of the moon, he saw the dwarf, and he made a few steps without replying.
”Soldiers who serve in the same company ought to be good comrades,”
remarked Butscha. ”You don't love Ca.n.a.lis; neither do I.”
”He is my friend,” replied Ernest.
”Ha, you are the little secretary?”
”You are to know, monsieur, that I am no man's secretary. I have the honor to be of counsel to a supreme court of this kingdom.”
”I have the honor to salute Monsieur de La Briere,” said Butscha. ”I myself have the honor to be head clerk to Latournelle, chief councillor of Havre, and my position is a better one than yours. Yes, I have had the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie nearly every evening for the last four years, and I expect to live near her, as a king's servant lives in the Tuileries. If they offered me the throne of Russia I should answer, 'I love the sun too well.' Isn't that telling you, monsieur, that I care more for her than for myself? I am looking after her interests with the most honorable intentions. Do you believe that the proud d.u.c.h.esse de Chaulieu would cast a favorable eye on the happiness of Madame de Ca.n.a.lis if her waiting-woman, who is in love with Monsieur Germain, not liking that charming valet's absence in Havre, were to say to her mistress while brus.h.i.+ng her hair--”
”Who do you know about all this?” said La Briere, interrupting Butscha.
”In the first place, I am clerk to a notary,” answered Butscha. ”But haven't you seen my hump? It is full of resources, monsieur. I have made myself cousin to Mademoiselle Philoxene Jacmin, born at Honfleur, where my mother was born, a Jacmin,--there are eight branches of the Jacmins at Honfleur. So my cousin Philoxene, enticed by the bait of a highly improbable fortune, has told me a good many things.”
”The d.u.c.h.ess is vindictive?” said La Briere.
”Vindictive as a queen, Philoxene says; she has never yet forgiven the duke for being nothing more than her husband,” replied Butscha. ”She hates as she loves. I know all about her character, her tastes, her toilette, her religion, and her manners; for Philoxene stripped her for me, soul and corset. I went to the opera expressly to see her, and I didn't grudge the ten francs it cost me--I don't mean the play. If my imaginary cousin had not told me the d.u.c.h.ess had seen her fifty summers, I should have thought I was over-generous in giving her thirty; she has never known a winter, that d.u.c.h.ess!”
”Yes,” said La Briere, ”she is a cameo--preserved because it is stone.
Ca.n.a.lis would be in a bad way if the d.u.c.h.ess were to find out what he is doing here; and I hope, monsieur, that you will go no further in this business of spying, which is unworthy of an honest man.”
”Monsieur,” said Butscha, proudly; ”for me Modeste is my country. I do not spy; I foresee, I take precautions. The d.u.c.h.ess will come here if it is desirable, or she will stay tranquilly where she is, according to what I judge best.”
”You?”
”I.”