Shorts from Scenes from Private Life

Halfway down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other name could the passerby give to the X’s and V’s which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house.

“Do not use newfangled words. Say the profits, Joseph. Do you know, my boy, that this result is partly owing to you? And I do not intend to pay you a salary any longer. Madame Guillaume has suggested to me to take you into partnership.⁠—‘Guillaume and Lebas’; will not that make a good business name? We might add, ‘and Co.’ to round off the firm’s signature.”

Tears rose to the eyes of Joseph Lebas, who tried to hide them.

“Oh, Monsieur Guillaume, how have I deserved such kindness? I only do my duty. It was so much already that you should take an interest in a poor orph⁠—”

He was brushing the cuff of his left sleeve with his right hand, and dared not look at the old man, who smiled as he thought that this modest young fellow no doubt needed, as he had needed once on a time, some encouragement to complete his explanation.

“To be sure,” said Virginie’s father, “you do not altogether deserve this favor, Joseph. You have not so much confidence in me as I have in you.” (The young man looked up quickly.) “You know all the secrets of the cashbox. For the last two years I have told you almost all my concerns. I have sent you to travel in our goods. In short, I have nothing on my conscience as regards you. But you⁠—you have a soft place, and you have never breathed a word of it.” Joseph Lebas blushed. “Ah, ha!” cried Guillaume, “so you thought you could deceive an old fox like me? When you knew that I had scented the Lecocq bankruptcy?”

“What is the meaning of this illumination?” asked Thédore in glad tones, as he came into her room.

Augustine skilfully seized the auspicious moment; she threw herself into her husband’s arms, and pointed to the portrait. The artist stood rigid as a rock, and his eyes turned alternately on Augustine, on the accusing dress. The frightened wife, half-dead, as she watched her husband’s changeful brow⁠—that terrible brow⁠—saw the expressive furrows gathering like clouds; then she felt her blood curdling in her veins when, with a glaring look, and in a deep hollow voice, he began to question her:

“Where did you find that picture?”

“The Duchess de Carigliano returned it to me.”

“You asked her for it?”

“I did not know that she had it.”

The gentleness, or rather the exquisite sweetness of this angel’s voice, might have touched a cannibal, but not an artist in the clutches of wounded vanity.

“It is worthy of her!” exclaimed the painter in a voice of thunder. “I will be avenged!” he cried, striding up and down the room. “She shall die of shame; I will paint her! Yes, I will paint her as Messalina stealing out at night from the palace of Claudius.”

“Thédore!” said a faint voice.

“I will kill her!”

“My dear⁠—”

“She is in love with that little cavalry colonel, because he rides well⁠—”

“Thédore!”

“Let me be!” said the painter in a tone almost like a roar.

“My dear, do not so depreciate those who love you. Only the poor are generous as a rule; the rich have always excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relation. Come, my child, do not pout, let us talk rationally.⁠—Among the young marrying men have you noticed Monsieur de Manerville?”

“Oh, he minces his words⁠—he says Zules instead of Jules; he is always looking at his feet, because he thinks them small, and he gazes at himself in the glass! Besides, he is fair. I don’t like fair men.”

“Well, then, Monsieur de Beaudenord?”

“He is not noble! he is ill made and stout. He is dark, it is true.⁠—If the two gentlemen could agree to combine their fortunes, and the first would give his name and his figure to the second, who should keep his dark hair, then⁠—perhaps⁠—”

“What can you say against Monsieur de Rastignac?”

“Madame de Nucingen has made a banker of him,” she said with meaning.

“And our cousin, the Vicomte de Portenduère?”

“A mere boy, who dances badly; besides, he has no fortune. And, after all, papa, none of these people have titles. I want, at least, to be a countess like my mother.”

“Have you seen no one, then, this winter⁠—?”

“No, papa.”

“What then do you want?”

“The son of a peer of France.”

“My dear girl, you are mad!” said Monsieur de Fontaine, rising.

“Well, what are you doing here, my poor Bartolomeo?” said the First Consul to Piombo.

“I have come to ask for shelter and protection, if you are a true Corsican,” replied Bartolomeo in a rough tone.

“What misfortune has driven you from your native land? You were the richest, the most⁠—”

“I have killed all the Porta,” replied the Corsican, in a hollow voice, with a frown.

The First Consul drew back a step or two, like a man astonished.

“Are you going to betray me?” cried Bartolomeo, with a gloomy look at Bonaparte. “Do you forget that there are still four of the Piombo in Corsica?”

Lucien took his fellow-countryman by the arm and shook him.

“Do you come here to threaten the saviour of France?” he said vehemently.

Bonaparte made a sign to Lucien, who was silent. Then he looked at Piombo, and said, “And why did you kill all the Porta?”