The Deputy of Arcis

II

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ELEVEN O’CLOCK AND MIDNIGHT

As a result of the elections which had just taken place, the ministry, contrary to expectation, maintained a majority in the Chamber,—­a doubtful and provisional majority which would give it an uncertain and struggling existence.  But, at any rate, it had obtained that merely numerical success which parties seek at any price to prolong their power.  The Te Deum was sung in all its camps,—­a paean which serves as well to celebrate victorious defeats as honest victories.

On the evening of the day when Colonel Franchessini received the visit from Maxime de Trailles, the general result of the elections was made known.  The ministers of the left bank, whose wives received on that day, found their salons crowded, particularly the Comte de Rastignac, the minister of Public Works.

Madame de l’Estorade, too much absorbed in her children to be very exact in the fulfilment of her social duties, had owed a visit to Madame de Rastignac ever since the evening when the minister’s wife had interrupted her conversation with the sculptor apropos of the famous statue.  Monsieur de l’Estorade, zealous conservative as we know already, had insisted that politics and politeness now combined to oblige them both to pay this social debt.  Arriving early, in order to be rid the sooner of such a bore, Madame de l’Estorade found herself seated at the upper end of a circle of women, while the men stood about them conversing.  Her chair was side by side with that of Madame de Rastignac.

In hoping to make her visit short, Madame de l’Estorade had not counted on the allurements of conversation which, under the circumstances of this so-called political victory, laid hold of her husband.  A man of more influence by his judgment than by his oratory in the Chamber of Peers, Monsieur de l’Estorade, as he circulated through the salons, was stopped at every turn by the various notabilities of politics, finance, and diplomacy, and requested to give his opinion on the future of the session now about to begin.  To all such questions he replied with more or less extended observations, and sometimes he had the pleasure of finding himself the centre of a group respectfully receptive of his opinions.  This success rendered him very inattentive to the telegraphy of his wife, who, watching his various evolutions, made him signs whenever she could catch his eye that she wished to go away.

The years that had elapsed since Monsieur de l’Estorade had obtained the hand of the beautiful Renee de Maucombe, while they had scarcely dimmed the splendor of her beauty, had considerably aged her husband.  The twenty years’ difference in their ages—­he being now fifty-two, she thirty-two—­was growing all the more apparent because even at the time of the marriage he was turning gray and his health was failing.  An affection of the liver, latent for several years, was now developing, and at the same time the wilful disposition which is noticeable in statesmen and men of ambition made his mouth less sensitive to the conjugal bit.  Monsieur de l’Estorade talked so long and so well that after a time the salons thinned, leaving a group of the intimates of the house around his wife and their hostess.  At this moment the minister himself slipped an arm through his, and, leading him up to the group surrounding their two wives, Rastignac said to Madame de l’Estorade,—­

“I bring you back your husband; I have just found him in criminal conversation with a member of the Zollverin, who would probably have clung to him all night if it had not been for me.”

“I was myself on the point of asking Madame de Rastignac for a bed, that I might release her from the burden of my company, which Monsieur de l’Estorade’s interminable conversations have put upon her.”

Madame de Rastignac protested that, on the contrary, she desired to enjoy as long as possible Madame de l’Estorade’s company, only regretting that she had been so often obliged to interrupt their conversation to receive those strange objects, the newly fledged deputies, who had come in relays to make their bow to her.

“Oh! my dear,” cried Rastignac, “here’s the session about to open, and we really must not take these disdainful airs toward the elect of the nation.  Besides which, you will get into difficulties with madame, who, I am told, is the protectress of one of these sovereigns of late date.”

“I?” said Madame de l’Estorade, rather surprised, and blushing a little.  She had one of those complexions, still fresh and dazzling, which are predisposed to these flushes of color.

“Ah! true,” said Madame de Rastignac; “I had forgotten that artist who cut out the pretty figures for your children the last time I had the pleasure of paying you a visit.  I own I was far from thinking then that he would be one of our masters.”

“And yet, ever since then,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, “his election has been talked about; though it must be owned that until now no one thought seriously of it.”

“I did,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, rather eagerly, seizing the occasion to put another star to his reputation for prophecy; “from the first political conversation that I had with him I said—­and Monsieur de Ronquerolles is here to bear me out—­that I was surprised at the ability and the breadth of aim he manifested.”

“Certainly,” said the personage thus interpellated, “he is not an ordinary fellow; but I do not believe in his future.  He is a man who goes by the first impulsion, and, as Monsieur de Talleyrand has wisely remarked, the first impulse is the good impulse.”

“Well, monsieur?” inquired Madame de l’Estorade, ingenuously.

“Well, madame,” replied Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who was vain of his scepticism, “heroism is not of our day; it is heavy baggage, horribly embarrassing, which gets us into mud-holes continually.”

“Nevertheless, I believe that great qualities of heart and mind have some share in the composition of a distinguished man.”

“Qualities of mind?  Yes, you are right there, provided always they work in a certain direction.  But as for qualities of the heart in political life, what good are they?—­to hoist you on stilts with which you can’t walk as well as you can on the ground, and from which you are liable to fall and break your neck at the first push.”

“At that rate,” said Madame de Rastignac, laughing, while Madame de l’Estorade was silent, disdaining to reply, “the political world must be peopled by none but scoundrels.”

“That is so, madame,—­ask Lazarille”; and as he made this allusion to a famous stage joke, he laid his hand on the minister’s shoulder.

“My dear fellow,” said Rastignac, “I think your generalities are a little too particular.”

“No, no; but come,” returned Monsieur de Ronquerolles, “let us talk seriously.  To my knowledge, this Monsieur de Sallenauve—­that is the name I think he has taken in exchange for Dorlange, which he himself called theatrical—­has done, within a short time, two fine actions.  I, being present and assisting, saw him stand up to be killed by the Duc de Rhetore, on account of certain ill-sounding words said about a friend.  Those words, in the first place, he could not help hearing; and having heard them it was, I will not say his duty, but his right to resent them.”

“Ah!” said Madame de Rastignac, “then it was he who fought that duel people said so much about?”

“Yes, madame, and I ought to say—­for I understand such matters—­that at the meeting he behaved with consummate bravery.”

To avoid the recital of the second fine action, Madame de l’Estorade, at the risk of impolitely cutting short a topic thus begun, rose, and made an almost imperceptible sign to her husband that she wished to go.  But Monsieur de l’Estorade took advantage of its faintness to stay where he was.

Monsieur de Ronquerolles continued:—­

“His other fine action was to throw himself in front of some runaway horses to save madame’s daughter from imminent death.”

All eyes turned on Madame de l’Estorade, who, this time, blushed deeply; but recovering speech, if only in order to seem composed, she said with feeling,—­

“According to your theory of heroism you must think Monsieur de Sallenauve very foolish to have thus risked his life and his future; but I assure you that there is one woman who will never agree with you, and that is—­the mother of my child.”

As she said the words, tears were in Madame de l’Estorade’s voice; she pressed Madame de Rastignac’s hand affectionately, and made so decided a movement to leave the room that she finally put in motion her immovable husband.

“Thank you,” said Madame de Rastignac, as she accompanied her to the door, “for having broken a lance with that cynic; Monsieur de Rastignac’s past life has left him with odious acquaintances.”

As she resumed her place, Monsieur de Ronquerolles was saying,—­

“Ha! saved her child’s life indeed!  The fact is that poor l’Estorade is turning as yellow as a lemon.”

“Ah, monsieur, but that is shocking,” cried Madame de Rastignac.  “A woman whom no breath of slander has ever touched; who lives only for her husband and children; whose eyes were full of tears at the mere thought of the danger the child had run!—­”

“Heavens! madame,” retorted Monsieur de Ronquerolles, paying no heed to the rebuke, “all I can say is that newfoundlands are always dangerous.  If Madame de l’Estorade becomes too much compromised, she has one resource,—­she can marry him to the girl he saved.”

Monsieur de Ronquerolles had no sooner said the words than he perceived the horrible blunder he had committed in making such a speech before Mademoiselle de Nucingen.  He colored high,—­a most unusual sign in him,—­and the solemn silence which seemed to wrap all present completed his discomfiture.

“This clock must be slow,” said the minister, catching at any words that would make a sound and break up an evening that was ending unfortunately.

“True,” said de Ronquerolles, looking at his watch; “it is a quarter to twelve.”

He bowed to Madame de Rastignac ceremoniously, and went away, followed by the rest of the company.

“You saw his embarrassment,” said Rastignac to his wife; “he had no malicious intention in what he said.”

“It is of no consequence.  I was saying just now to Madame de l’Estorade’s that your past life had given you a number of detestable acquaintances.”

“But, my dear, the King himself is compelled to smile graciously on men he would fain put in the Bastille,—­if we still had a Bastille and the Charter permitted him.”

Madame de Rastignac made no reply, and without bidding her husband good-night, she went up to her room.  A few moments later the minister went to the private door which led into it, and not finding the key in the lock, he said, “Augusta!” in the tone of voice a simple bourgeois might have used in such a case.

For all answer, he heard a bolt run hastily on the other side of the door.

“Ah!” he thought to himself with a gesture of vexation, “there are some pasts very different from that door,—­they are always wide open to the present.”

Then, after a moment’s silence, he added, to cover his retreat, “Augusta, I wanted to ask you what hour Madame de l’Estorade receives.  I ought to call upon her to-morrow, after what happened here to-night.”

“At four o’clock,” said the young wife through the door,—­“on her return from the Tuileries, where she takes the children to walk every day.”

One of the questions that were frequently put by Parisian society after the marriage of Madame de Rastignac was:  “Does she love her husband?”

The doubt was permissible.  The marriage of Mademoiselle de Nucingen was the unpleasant and scarcely moral product of one of those immoral unions which find their issue in the life of a daughter, after years and satiety have brought them to a condition of dry-rot and paralysis.  In such marriages of convenience the husband is satisfied, for he escapes a happiness which has turned rancid to him, and he profits by a speculation like that of the magician in the “Arabian Nights” who exchanges old lamps for new.  But the wife, on the contrary, must ever feel a living memory between herself and her husband; a memory which may revive, and while wholly outside of the empire of the senses, has the force of an old authority antagonistic to her young influence.  In such a position the wife is a victim.

During the short time we have taken to give this brief analysis of a situation too frequently existing, Rastignac lingered at the door.

“Well,” he said at last, deciding to retire, “good-night, Augusta.”

As he said the words, rather piteously, the door opened suddenly, and his wife, throwing herself into his arms, laid her head upon his shoulder sobbing.

The question was answered:  Madame de Rastignac loved her husband; but for all that, the distant muttering of a subterranean fire might be heard beneath the flowers of their garden.