From the manner with which the Latournelles entered the Chalet a
stranger would readily have guessed that they came there every
evening.
“Ah, you are here already,” said the notary, perceiving the young
banker Gobenheim, a connection of Gobenheim-Keller, the head of the
great banking house in Paris.
This young man with a livid face—a blonde of the type with black
eyes, whose immovable glance has an indescribable fascination, sober
in speech as in conduct, dressed in black, lean as a consumptive, but
nevertheless vigorously framed—visited the family of his former
master and the house of his cashier less from affection than from
self-interest. Here they played whist at two sous a point; a
dress-coat was not required; he accepted no refreshment except “eau
sucree,” and consequently had no civilities to return. This apparent
devotion to the Mignon family allowed it to be supposed that Gobenheim
had a heart; it also released him from the necessity of going into the
society of Havre and incurring useless expenses, thus upsetting the
orderly economy of his domestic life. This disciple of the golden calf
went to bed at half-past ten o’clock and got up at five in the
morning. Moreover, being perfectly sure of Latournelle’s and Butscha’s
discretion, he could talk over difficult business matters, obtain the
advice of the notary gratis, and get an inkling of the real truth of
the gossip of the street. This stolid gold-glutton (the epithet is
Butscha’s) belonged by nature to the class of substances which
chemistry terms absorbents. Ever since the catastrophe of the house of
Mignon, where the Kellers had placed him to learn the principles of
maritime commerce, no one at the Chalet had ever asked him to do the
smallest thing, no matter what; his reply was too well known. The
young fellow looked at Modeste precisely as he would have looked at a
cheap lithograph.
“He’s one of the pistons of the big engine called ‘Commerce,'” said
poor Butscha, whose clever mind made itself felt occasionally by such
little sayings timidly jerked out.
The four Latournelles bowed with the most respectful deference to an
old lady dressed in black velvet, who did not rise from the armchair
in which she was seated, for the reason that both eyes were covered
with the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon may be
sketched in one sentence. Her august countenance of the mother of a
family attracted instant notice as that of one whose irreproachable
life defies the assaults of destiny, which nevertheless makes her the
target of its arrows and a member of the unnumbered tribe of Niobes.
Her blonde wig, carefully curled and well arranged upon her head,
became the cold white face which resembled that of some burgomaster’s
wife painted by Hals or Mirevelt. The extreme neatness of her dress,
the velvet boots, the lace collar, the shawl evenly folded and put on,
all bore testimony to the solicitous care which Modeste bestowed upon
her mother.
When silence was, as the notary had predicted, restored in the pretty
salon, Modeste, sitting beside her mother, for whom she was
embroidering a kerchief, became for an instant the centre of
observation. This curiosity, barely veiled by the commonplace
salutations and inquiries of the visitors, would have revealed even to
an indifferent person the existence of the domestic plot to which
Modeste was expected to fall a victim; but Gobenheim, more than
indifferent, noticed nothing, and proceeded to light the candles on
the card-table. The behavior of Dumay made the whole scene terrifying
to Butscha, to the Latournelles, and above all to Madame Dumay, who
knew her husband to be capable of firing a pistol at Modeste’s lover
as coolly as though he were a mad dog.
After dinner that day the cashier had gone to walk followed by two
magnificent Pyrenees hounds, whom he suspected of betraying him, and
therefore left in charge of a farmer, a former tenant of Monsieur
Mignon. On his return, just before the arrival of the Latournelles, he
had taken his pistols from his bed’s head and placed them on the
chimney-piece, concealing this action from Modeste. The young girl
took no notice whatever of these preparations, singular as they were.
Though short, thick-set, pockmarked, and speaking always in a low
voice as if listening to himself, this Breton, a former lieutenant in
the Guard, showed the evidence of such resolution, such sang-froid on
his face that throughout life, even in the army, no one had ever
ventured to trifle with him. His little eyes, of a calm blue, were
like bits of steel. His ways, the look on his face, his speech, his
carriage, were all in keeping with the short name of Dumay. His
physical strength, well-known to every one, put him above all danger
of attack. He was able to kill a man with a blow of his fist, and had
performed that feat at Bautzen, where he found himself, unarmed, face
to face with a Saxon at the rear of his company. At the present moment
the usually firm yet gentle expression of the man’s face had risen to
a sort of tragic sublimity; his lips were pale as the rest of his
face, indicating a tumult within him mastered by his Breton will; a
slight sweat, which every one noticed and guessed to be cold,
moistened his brow. The notary knew but too well that these signs
might result in a drama before the criminal courts. In fact the
cashier was playing a part in connection with Modeste Mignon, which
involved to his mind sentiments of honor and loyalty of far greater
importance than mere social laws; and his present conduct proceeded
from one of those compacts which, in case disaster came of it, could
be judged only in a higher court than one of earth. The majority of
dramas lie really in the ideas which we make to ourselves about
things. Events which seem to us dramatic are nothing more than
subjects which our souls convert into tragedy or comedy according to
the bent of our characters.
Madame Latournelle and Madame Dumay, who were appointed to watch
Modeste, had a certain assumed stiffness of demeanor and a quiver in
their voices, which the suspected party did not notice, so absorbed
was she in her embroidery. Modeste laid each thread of cotton with a
precision that would have made an ordinary workwoman desperate. Her
face expressed the pleasure she took in the smooth petals of the
flower she was working. The dwarf, seated between his mistress and
Gobenheim, restrained his emotion, trying to find means to approach
Modeste and whisper a word of warning in her ear.
By taking a position in front of Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle,
with the diabolical intelligence of conscientious duty, had isolated
Modeste. Madame Mignon, whose blindness always made her silent, was
even paler than usual, showing plainly that she was aware of the test
to which her daughter was about to be subjected. Perhaps at the last
moment she revolted from the stratagem, necessary as it might seem to
her. Hence her silence; she was weeping inwardly. Exupere, the spring
of the trap, was wholly ignorant of the piece in which he was to play
a part. Gobenheim, by reason of his character, remained in a state of
indifference equal to that displayed by Modeste. To a spectator who
understood the situation, this contrast between the ignorance of some
and the palpitating interest of others would have seemed quite poetic.
Nowadays romance-writers arrange such effects; and it is quite within
their province to do so, for nature in all ages takes the liberty to
be stronger than they. In this instance, as you will see, nature,
social nature, which is a second nature within nature, amused herself
by making truth more interesting than fiction; just as mountain
torrents describe curves which are beyond the skill of painters to
convey, and accomplish giant deeds in displacing or smoothing stones
which are the wonder of architects and sculptors.
It was eight o’clock. At that season twilight was still shedding its
last gleams; there was not a cloud in the sky; the balmy air caressed
the earth, the flowers gave forth their fragrance, the steps of
pedestrians turning homeward sounded along the gravelly road, the sea
shone like a mirror, and there was so little wind that the wax candles
upon the card-tables sent up a steady flame, although the windows were
wide open. This salon, this evening, this dwelling—what a frame for
the portrait of the young girl whom these persons were now studying
with the profound attention of a painter in presence of the Margharita
Doni, one of the glories of the Pitti palace. Modeste,—blossom
enclosed, like that of Catullus,—was she worth all these precautions?
You have seen the cage; behold the bird! Just twenty years of age,
slender and delicate as the sirens which English designers invent for
their “Books of Beauty,” Modeste was, like her mother before her, the
captivating embodiment of a grace too little understood in France,
where we choose to call it sentimentality, but which among German
women is the poetry of the heart coming to the surface of the being
and spending itself—in affectations if the owner is silly, in divine
charms of manner if she is “spirituelle” and intelligent. Remarkable
for her pale golden hair, Modeste belonged to the type of woman
called, perhaps in memory of Eve, the celestial blonde; whose satiny
skin is like a silk paper applied to the flesh, shuddering at the
winter of a cold look, expanding in the sunshine of a loving glance,—teaching the hand to be jealous of the eye. Beneath her hair, which
was soft and feathery and worn in many curls, the brow, which might
have been traced by a compass so pure was its modelling, shone forth
discreet, calm to placidity, and yet luminous with thought: when and
where could another be found so transparently clear or more
exquisitely smooth? It seemed, like a pearl, to have its orient. The
eyes, of a blue verging on gray and limpid as the eyes of a child, had
all the mischief, all the innocence of childhood, and they harmonized
well with the arch of the eyebrows, faintly indicated by lines like
those made with a brush on Chinese faces. This candor of the soul was
still further evidenced around the eyes, in their corners, and about
the temples, by pearly tints threaded with blue, the special privilege
of these delicate complexions. The face, whose oval Raphael so often
gave to his Madonnas, was remarkable for the sober and virginal tone
of the cheeks, soft as a Bengal rose, upon which the long lashes of
the diaphanous eyelids cast shadows that were mingled with light. The
throat, bending as she worked, too delicate perhaps, and of milky
whiteness, recalled those vanishing lines that Leonardo loved. A few
little blemishes here and there, like the patches of the eighteenth
century, proved that Modeste was indeed a child of earth, and not a
creation dreamed of in Italy by the angelic school. Her lips, delicate
yet full, were slightly mocking and somewhat sensuous; the waist,
which was supple and yet not fragile, had no terrors for maternity,
like those of girls who seek beauty by the fatal pressure of a corset.
Steel and dimity and lacings defined but did not create the serpentine
lines of the elegant figure, graceful as that of a young poplar
swaying in the wind.
A pearl-gray dress with crimson trimmings, made with a long waist,
modestly outlined the bust and covered the shoulders, still rather
thin, with a chemisette which left nothing to view but the first
curves of the throat where it joined the shoulders. From the aspect of
the young girl’s face, at once ethereal and intelligent, where the
delicacy of a Greek nose with its rosy nostrils and firm modelling
marked something positive and defined; where the poetry enthroned upon
an almost mystic brow seemed belied at times by the pleasure-loving
expression of the mouth; where candor claimed the depths profound and
varied of the eye, and disputed them with a spirit of irony that was
trained and educated,—from all these signs an observer would have
felt that this young girl, with the keen, alert ear that waked at
every sound, with a nostril open to catch the fragrance of the
celestial flower of the Ideal, was destined to be the battle-ground of
a struggle between the poesies of the dawn and the labors of the day;
between fancy and reality, the spirit and the life. Modeste was a pure
young girl, inquisitive after knowledge, understanding her destiny,
and filled with chastity,—the Virgin of Spain rather than the Madonna
of Raphael.
She raised her head when she heard Dumay say to Exupere, “Come here,
young man.” Seeing them together in the corner of the salon she
supposed they were talking of some commission in Paris. Then she
looked at the friends who surrounded her, as if surprised by their
silence, and exclaimed in her natural manner, “Why are you not
playing?”—with a glance at the green table which the imposing Madame
Latournelle called the “altar.”
“Yes, let us play,” said Dumay, having sent off Exupere.
“Sit there, Butscha,” said Madame Latournelle, separating the
head-clerk from the group around Madame Mignon and her daughter by
the whole width of the table.
“And you, come over here,” said Dumay to his wife, making her sit
close by him.
Madame Dumay, a little American about thirty-six years of age, wiped
her eyes furtively; she adored Modeste, and feared a catastrophe.
“You are not very lively this evening,” remarked Modeste.
“We are playing,” said Gobenheim, sorting his cards.
No matter how interesting this situation may appear, it can be made
still more so by explaining Dumay’s position towards Modeste. If the
brevity of this explanation makes it seem rather dry, the reader must
pardon its dryness in view of our desire to get through with these
preliminaries as speedily as possible, and the necessity of relating
the main circumstances which govern all dramas.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — Modeste Mignon/Chapter II. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.