|
THE TWO BROTHERS
THE TWO BROTHERS HONORE DE BALZAC Translated By
Katharine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Monsieur Charles Nodier member of the French Academy etc.
Here my dear Nodier is a book filled with deeds that are
screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of
domestic life; but as to which the finger of God often called
chance supplies the place of human justice and in which the
moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is
pointed by a scoffer.
To my mind such deeds contain great lessons for the Family
and for Maternity. We shall some day realize perhaps too
late the effects produced by the diminution of paternal
authority. That authority which formerly ceased only at the
death of the father was the sole human tribunal before which
domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings themselves on
special occasions took part in executing its judgments.
However good and tender a mother may be she cannot fulfil the
function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can
take the place of a king upon the throne. Perhaps I have never
drawn a picture that shows more plainly how essential to
European society is the indissoluble marriage bond how fatal
the results of feminine weakness how great the dangers
arising from selfish interests when indulged without
restraint. May a society which is based solely on the power of
wealth shudder as it sees the impotence of the law in dealing
with the workings of a system which deifies success and
pardons every means of attaining it. May it return to the
Catholic religion for the purification of its masses through
the inspiration of religious feeling and by means of an
education other than that of a lay university.
In the "Scenes from Military Life" so many fine natures so
many high and noble self-devotions will be set forth that I
may here be allowed to point out the depraving effect of the
necessities of war upon certain minds who venture to act in
domestic life as if upon the field of battle.
You have cast a sagacious glance over the events of our own
time; its philosophy shines in more than one bitter
reflection through your elegant pages; you have appreciated
more clearly than other men the havoc wrought in the mind of
our country by the existence of four distinct political
systems. I cannot therefore place this history under the
protection of a more competent authority. Your name may
perhaps defend my work against the criticisms that are
certain to follow it--for where is the patient who keeps
silence when the surgeon lifts the dressing from his wound?
To the pleasure of dedicating this Scene to you is joined the
pride I feel in thus making known your friendship for one who
here subscribes himself
Your sincere admirer
De Balzac
Paris November 1842.
THE TWO BROTHERS
CHAPTER I
In 1792 the townspeople of Issoudun enjoyed the services of a
physician named Rouget whom they held to be a man of consummate
malignity. Were we to believe certain bold tongues he made his wife
extremely unhappy although she was the most beautiful woman of the
neighborhood. Perhaps indeed she was rather silly. But the prying of
friends the slander of enemies and the gossip of acquaintances had
never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor
Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance "He is not
pleasant to deal with." Consequently during his lifetime his
townsmen kept silence about him and treated him civilly. His wife a
demoiselle Descoings feeble in health during her girlhood (which was
said to be a reason why the doctor married her) gave birth to a son
and also to a daughter who arrived unexpectedly ten years after her
brother and whose birth took the husband doctor though he were by
surprise. This late-comer was named Agathe.
These little facts are so simple so commonplace that a writer seems
scarcely justified in placing them in the fore-front of his history;
yet if they are not known a man of Doctor Rouget's stamp would be
thought a monster an unnatural father when in point of fact he was
only following out the evil tendencies which many people shelter under
the terrible axiom that "men should have strength of character"--a
masculine phrase that has caused many a woman's misery.
The Descoings father-in-law and mother-in-law of the doctor were
commission merchants in the wool-trade and did a double business by
selling for the producers and buying for the manufacturers of the
golden fleeces of Berry; thus pocketing a commission on both sides. In
this way they grew rich and miserly--the outcome of many such lives.
Descoings the son younger brother of Madame Rouget did not like
Issoudun. He went to seek his fortune in Paris where he set up as a
grocer in the rue Saint-Honore. That step led to his ruin. But nothing
could have hindered it: a grocer is drawn to his business by an
attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives
artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social
potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would
be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer
rather than a baker; since in our day sons are not compelled to
follow the calling of their fathers as they were among the Egyptians.
In this instance love decided the vocation of Descoings. He said to
himself "I too will be a grocer!" and in the same breath he said
(also to himself) some other things regarding his employer--a
beautiful creature with whom he had fallen desperately in love.
Without other help than patience and the trifling sum of money his
father and mother sent him he married the widow of his predecessor
Monsieur Bixiou.
In 1792 Descoings was thought to be doing an excellent business. At
that time the old Descoings were still living. They had retired from
the wool-trade and were employing their capital in buying up the
forfeited estates--another golden fleece! Their son-in-law Doctor
Rouget who about this time felt pretty sure that he should soon
have to mourn for the death of his wife sent his daughter to Paris to
the care of his brother-in-law partly to let her see the capital but
still more to carry out an artful scheme of his own. Descoings had no
children. Madame Descoings twelve years older than her husband was
in good health but as fat as a thrush after harvest; and the canny
Rouget knew enough professionally to be certain that Monsieur and
Madame Descoings contrary to the moral of fairy tales would live
happy ever after without having any children. The pair might therefore
become attached to Agathe.
That young girl the handsomest maiden in Issoudun did not resemble
either father or mother. Her birth had caused a lasting breach between
Doctor Rouget and his intimate friend Monsieur Lousteau a former sub-
delegate who had lately removed from the town. When a family
expatriates itself the natives of a place as attractive as Issoudun
have a right to inquire into the reasons of so surprising a step. It
was said by certain sharp tongues that Doctor Rouget a vindictive
man had been heard to exclaim that Monsieur Lousteau should die by
his hand. Uttered by a physician this declaration had the force of a
cannon-ball. When the National Assembly suppressed the sub-delegates
Lousteau and his family left Issoudun and never returned there. After
their departure Madame Rouget spent most of her time with the sister
of the late sub-delegate Madame Hochon who was the godmother of her
daughter and the only person to whom she confided her griefs. The
little that the good town of Issoudun ever really knew of the
beautiful Madame Rouget was told by Madame Hochon--though not until
after the doctor's death.
The first words of Madame Rouget when informed by her husband that he
meant to send Agathe to Paris were: "I shall never see my daughter
again."
"And she was right" said the worthy Madame Hochon.
After this the poor mother grew as yellow as a quince and her
appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that
Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of
a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly
accused. Not restrained possibly encouraged by his father the young
fellow who was in every way stupid paid her neither the attentions
nor the respect which a son owes to a mother. Jean-Jacques Rouget was
like his father especially on the latter's worst side; and the doctor
at his best was far from satisfactory either morally or physically.
The arrival of the charming Agathe Rouget did not bring happiness to
her uncle Descoings; for in the same week (or rather we should say
decade for the Republic had then been proclaimed) he was imprisoned
on a hint from Robespierre given to Fouquier-Tinville. Descoings who
was imprudent enough to think the famine fictitious had the
additional folly under the impression that opinions were free to
express that opinion to several of his male and female customers as he
served them in the grocery. The citoyenne Duplay wife of a cabinet-
maker with whom Robespierre lodged and who looked after the affairs
of that eminent citizen patronized unfortunately the Descoings
establishment. She considered the opinions of the grocer insulting to
Maximilian the First. Already displeased with the manners of
Descoings this illustrious "tricoteuse" of the Jacobin club regarded
the beauty of his wife as a kind of aristocracy. She infused a venom
of her own into the grocer's remarks when she repeated them to her
good and gentle master and the poor man was speedily arrested on the
well-worn charge of "accaparation."
No sooner was he put in prison than his wife set to work to obtain
his release. But the steps she took were so ill-judged that any one
hearing her talk to the arbiters of his fate might have thought that
she was in reality seeking to get rid of him. Madame Descoings knew
Bridau one of the secretaries of Roland then minister of the
interior--the right-hand man of all the ministers who succeeded each
other in that office. She put Bridau on the war-path to save her
grocer. That incorruptible official--one of the virtuous dupes who are
always admirably disinterested--was careful not to corrupt the men on
whom the fate of the poor grocer depended; on the contrary he
endeavored to enlighten them. Enlighten people in those days! As well
might he have begged them to bring back the Bourbons. The Girondist
minister who was then contending against Robespierre said to his
secretary "Why do you meddle in the matter?" and all others to whom
the worthy Bridau appealed made the same atrocious reply: "Why do you
meddle?" Bridau then sagely advised Madame Descoings to keep quiet and
await events. But instead of conciliating Robespierre's housekeeper
she fretted and fumed against that informer and even complained to a
member of the Convention who trembling for himself replied hastily
"I will speak of it to Robespierre." The handsome petitioner put faith
in this promise which the other carefully forgot. A few loaves of
sugar or a bottle or two of good liqueur given to the citoyenne
Duplay would have saved Descoings.
This little mishap proves that in revolutionary times it is quite as
dangerous to employ honest men as scoundrels; we should rely on
ourselves alone. Descoings perished; but he had the glory of going to
the scaffold with Andre Chenier. There no doubt grocery and poetry
embraced for the first time in the flesh; although they have and ever
have had intimate secret relations. The death of Descoings produced
far more sensation than that of Andre Chenier. It has taken thirty
years to prove to France that she lost more by the death of Chenier
than by that of Descoings.
This act of Robespierre led to one good result: the terrified grocers
let politics alone until 1830. Descoings's shop was not a hundred
yards from Robespierre's lodging. His successor was scarcely more
...
|
