A Second Home

H >> Honore de Balzac >> A Second Home


"You are at home, madame," said Granville, taking Caroline by the arm.
"Stay."

The Judge took up his wife in his arms, carried her to the carriage,
and got into it with her.

"Who is it that has brought you to the point of wishing me dead, of
resolving to fly?" asked the Countess, looking at her husband with
grief mingled with indignation. "Was I not young? you thought me
pretty--what fault have you to find with me? Have I been false to you?
Have I not been a virtuous and well-conducted wife? My heart has
cherished no image but yours, my ears have listened to no other voice.
What duty have I failed in? What have I ever denied you?"

"Happiness, madame," said the Count severely. "You know, madame, that
there are two ways of serving God. Some Christians imagine that by
going to church at fixed hours to say a _Paternoster_, by attending
Mass regularly and avoiding sin, they may win heaven--but they,
madame, will go to hell; they have not loved God for himself, they
have not worshiped Him as He chooses to be worshiped, they have made
no sacrifice. Though mild in seeming, they are hard on their
neighbors; they see the law, the letter, not the spirit.--This is how
you have treated me, your earthly husband; you have sacrificed my
happiness to your salvation; you were always absorbed in prayer when I
came to you in gladness of heart; you wept when you should have
cheered my toil; you have never tried to satisfy any demands I have
made on you."

"And if they were wicked," cried the Countess hotly, "was I to lose my
soul to please you?"

"It is a sacrifice which another, a more loving woman, has dared to
make," said Granville coldly.

"Dear God!" she cried, bursting into tears, "Thou hearest! Has he been
worthy of the prayers and penance I have lived in, wearing myself out
to atone for his sins and my own?--Of what avail is virtue?"

"To win Heaven, my dear. A woman cannot be at the same time the wife
of a man and the spouse of Christ. That would be bigamy; she must
choose between a husband and a nunnery. For the sake of future
advantage you have stripped your soul of all the love, all the
devotion, which God commands that you should have for me, you have
cherished no feeling but hatred--"

"Have I not loved you?" she put in.

"No, madame."

"Then what is love?" the Countess involuntarily inquired.

"Love, my dear," replied Granville, with a sort of ironical surprise,
"you are incapable of understanding it. The cold sky of Normandy is
not that of Spain. This difference of climate is no doubt the secret
of our disaster.--To yield to our caprices, to guess them, to find
pleasure in pain, to sacrifice the world's opinion, your pride, your
religion even, and still regard these offerings as mere grains of
incense burnt in honor of the idol--that is love--"

"The love of ballet-girls!" cried the Countess in horror. "Such flames
cannot last, and must soon leave nothing but ashes and cinders, regret
or despair. A wife ought, in my opinion, to bring you true friendship,
equable warmth--"

"You speak of warmth as negroes speak of ice," retorted the Count,
with a sardonic smile. "Consider that the humblest daisy has more
charms than the proudest and most gorgeous of the red hawthorns that
attract us in spring by their strong scent and brilliant color.--At
the same time," he went on, "I will do you justice. You have kept so
precisely in the straight path of imaginary duty prescribed by law,
that only to make you understand wherein you have failed towards me, I
should be obliged to enter into details which would offend your
dignity, and instruct you in matters which would seem to you to
undermine all morality."

"And you dare to speak of morality when you have but just left the
house where you have dissipated your children's fortune in
debaucheries?" cried the Countess, maddened by her husband's
reticence.

"There, madame, I must correct you," said the Count, coolly
interrupting his wife. "Though Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille is rich,
it is at nobody's expense. My uncle was master of his fortune, and had
several heirs. In his lifetime, and out of pure friendship, regarding
her as his niece, he gave her the little estate of Bellefeuille. As
for anything else, I owe it to his liberality--"

"Such conduct is only worthy of a Jacobin!" said the sanctimonious
Angelique.

"Madame, you are forgetting that your own father was one of the
Jacobins whom you scorn so uncharitably," said the Count severely.
"Citizen Bontems was signing death-warrants at a time when my uncle
was doing France good service."

Madame de Granville was silenced. But after a short pause, the
remembrance of what she had just seen reawakened in her soul the
jealousy which nothing can kill in a woman's heart, and she murmured,
as if to herself--"How can a woman thus destroy her own soul and that
of others?"

"Bless me, madame," replied the Count, tired of this dialogue, "you
yourself may some day have to answer that question." The Countess was
scared. "You perhaps will be held excused by the merciful Judge, who
will weigh our sins," he went on, "in consideration of the conviction
with which you have worked out my misery. I do not hate you--I hate
those who have perverted your heart and your reason. You have prayed
for me, just as Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille has given me her heart
and crowned my life with love. You should have been my mistress and
the prayerful saint by turns.--Do me the justice to confess that I am
no reprobate, no debauchee. My life was cleanly. Alas! after seven
years of wretchedness, the craving for happiness led me by an
imperceptible descent to love another woman and make a second home.
And do not imagine that I am singular; there are in this city
thousands of husbands, all led by various causes to live this twofold
life."

"Great God!" cried the Countess. "How heavy is the cross Thou hast
laid on me to bear! If the husband Thou hast given me here below in
Thy wrath can only be made happy through my death, take me to
Thyself!"

"If you had always breathed such admirable sentiments and such
devotion, we should be happy yet," said the Count coldly.

"Indeed," cried Angelique, melting into a flood of tears, "forgive me
if I have done any wrong. Yes, monsieur, I am ready to obey you in all
things, feeling sure that you will desire nothing but what is just and
natural; henceforth I will be all you can wish your wife to be."

"If your purpose, madame, is to compel me to say that I no longer love
you, I shall find the cruel courage to tell you so. Can I command my
heart? Can I wipe out in an instant the traces of fifteen years of
suffering?--I have ceased to love.--These words contain a mystery as
deep as lies the words _I love_. Esteem, respect, friendship may be
won, lost, regained; but as to love--I might school myself for a
thousand years, and it would not blossom again, especially for a woman
too old to respond to it."

"I hope, Monsieur le Comte, I sincerely hope, that such words may not
be spoken to you some day by the woman you love, and in such a tone
and accent--"

"Will you put on a dress _a la Grecque_ this evening, and come to the
Opera?"

The shudder with which the Countess received the suggestion was a mute
reply.



Early in December 1833, a man, whose perfectly white hair and worn
features seemed to show that he was aged by grief rather than by
years, was walking at midnight along the Rue Gaillon. Having reached a
house of modest appearance, and only two stories high, he paused to
look up at one of the attic windows that pierced the roof at regular
intervals. A dim light scarcely showed through the humble panes, some
of which had been repaired with paper. The man below was watching the
wavering glimmer with the vague curiosity of a Paris idler, when a
young man came out of the house. As the light of the street lamp fell
full on the face of the first comer, it will not seem surprising that,
in spite of the darkness, this young man went towards the passer-by,
though with the hesitancy that is usual when we have any fear of
making a mistake in recognizing an acquaintance.

"What, is it you," cried he, "Monsieur le President? Alone at this
hour, and so far from the Rue Saint-Lazare. Allow me to have the honor
of giving you my arm.--The pavement is so greasy this morning, that if
we do not hold each other up," he added, to soothe the elder man's
susceptibilities, "we shall find it hard to escape a tumble."

"But, my dear sir, I am no more than fifty-five, unfortunately for
me," replied the Comte de Granville. "A physician of your celebrity
must know that at that age a man is still hale and strong."

"Then you are in waiting on a lady, I suppose," replied Horace
Bianchon. "You are not, I imagine, in the habit of going about Paris
on foot. When a man keeps such fine horses----"

"Still, when I am not visiting in the evening, I commonly return from
the Courts or the club on foot," replied the Count.

"And with large sums of money about you, perhaps!" cried the doctor.
"It is a positive invitation to the assassin's knife."

"I am not afraid of that," said Granville, with melancholy
indifference.

"But, at least, do not stand about," said the doctor, leading the
Count towards the boulevard. "A little more and I shall believe that
you are bent of robbing me of your last illness, and dying by some
other hand than mine."

"You caught me playing the spy," said the Count. "Whether on foot or
in a carriage, and at whatever hour of the night I may come by, I have
for some time past observed at a window on the third floor of your
house the shadow of a person who seems to work with heroic constancy."

The Count paused as if he felt some sudden pain. "And I take as great
an interest in that garret," he went on, "as a citizen of Paris must
feel in the finishing of the Palais Royal."

"Well," said Horace Bianchon eagerly, "I can tell you--"

"Tell me nothing," replied Granville, cutting the doctor short. "I
would not give a centime to know whether the shadow that moves across
that shabby blind is that of a man or a woman, nor whether the
inhabitant of that attic is happy or miserable. Though I was surprised
to see no one at work there this evening, and though I stopped to
look, it was solely for the pleasure of indulging in conjectures as
numerous and as idiotic as those of idlers who see a building left
half finished. For nine years, my young--" the Count hesitated to use
a word; then he waved his hand, exclaiming--"No, I will not say friend
--I hate everything that savors of sentiment.--Well, for nine years
past I have ceased to wonder that old men amuse themselves with
growing flowers and planting trees; the events of life have taught
them disbelief in all human affection; and I grew old within a few
days. I will no longer attach myself to any creature but to
unreasoning animals, or plants, or superficial things. I think more of
Taglioni's grace than of all human feeling. I abhor life and the world
in which I live alone. Nothing, nothing," he went on, in a tone that
startled the younger man, "no, nothing can move or interest me."

"But you have children?"

"My children!" he repeated bitterly. "Yes--well, is not my eldest
daughter the Comtesse de Vandenesse? The other will, through her
sister's connections, make some good match. As to my sons, have they
not succeeded? The Viscount was public prosecutor at Limoges, and is
now President of the Court at Orleans; the younger is public
prosecutor in Paris.--My children have their own cares, their own
anxieties and business to attend to. If of all those hearts one had
been devoted to me, if one had tried by entire affection to fill up
the void I have here," and he struck his breast, "well, that one would
have failed in life, have sacrificed it to me. And why should he? Why?
To bring sunshine into my few remaining years--and would he have
succeeded? Might I not have accepted such generosity as a debt? But,
doctor," and the Count smiled with deep irony, "it is not for nothing
that we teach them arithmetic and how to count. At this moment perhaps
they are waiting for my money."

"O Monsieur le Comte, how could such an idea enter your head--you who
are kind, friendly, and humane! Indeed, if I were not myself a living
proof of the benevolence you exercise so liberally and so nobly--"

"To please myself," replied the Count. "I pay for a sensation, as I
would to-morrow pay a pile of gold to recover the most childish
illusion that would but make my heart glow.--I help my fellow-creatures
for my own sake, just as I gamble; and I look for gratitude from none.
I should see you die without blinking; and I beg of you to feel the
same with regard to me. I tell you, young man, the events of life
have swept over my heart like the lavas of Vesuvius over Herculaneum.
The town is there--dead."

"Those who have brought a soul as warm and as living as yours was to
such a pitch of indifference are indeed guilty!"

"Say no more," said the Count, with a shudder of aversion.

"You have a malady which you ought to allow me to treat," said
Bianchon in a tone of deep emotion.

"What, do you know of a cure for death?" cried the Count irritably.

"I undertake, Monsieur le Comte, to revive the heart you believe to be
frozen."

"Are you a match for Talma, then?" asked the Count satirically.

"No, Monsieur le Comte. But Nature is as far above Talma as Talma is
superior to me.--Listen: the garret you are interested in is inhabited
by a woman of about thirty, and in her love is carried to fanaticism.
The object of her adoration is a young man of pleasing appearance but
endowed by some malignant fairy with every conceivable vice. This
fellow is a gambler, and it is hard to say which he is most addicted
to--wine or women; he has, to my knowledge, committed acts deserving
punishment by law. Well, and to him this unhappy woman sacrificed a
life of ease, a man who worshiped her, and the father of her children.
--But what is wrong, Monsieur le Comte?"

"Nothing. Go on."

"She has allowed him to squander a perfect fortune; she would, I
believe, give him the world if she had it; she works night and day;
and many a time she has, without a murmur, seen the wretch she adores
rob her even of the money saved to buy the clothes the children need,
and their food for the morrow. Only three days ago she sold her hair,
the finest hair I ever saw; he came in, she could not hide the gold
piece quickly enough, and he asked her for it. For a smile, for a
kiss, she gave up the price of a fortnight's life and peace. Is it not
dreadful, and yet sublime?--But work is wearing her cheeks hollow. Her
children's crying has broken her heart; she is ill, and at this moment
on her wretched bed. This evening they had nothing to eat; the
children have not strength to cry, they were silent when I went up."

Horace Bianchon stood still. Just then the Comte de Granville, in
spite of himself, as it were, had put his hand into his waistcoat
pocket.

"I can guess, my young friend, how it is that she is yet alive if you
attend her," said the elder man.

"O poor soul!" cried the doctor, "who could refuse to help her? I only
wish I were richer, for I hope to cure her of her passion."

"But how can you expect me to pity a form of misery of which the joys
to me would seem cheaply purchased with my whole fortune!" exclaimed
the Count, taking his hand out of his pocket empty of the notes which
Bianchon had supposed his patron to be feeling for. "That woman feels,
she is alive! Would not Louis XV. have given his kingdom to rise from
the grave and have three days of youth and life! And is not that the
history of thousands of dead men, thousands of sick men, thousands of
old men?"

"Poor Caroline!" cried Bianchon.

As he heard the name the Count shuddered, and grasped the doctor's arm
with the grip of an iron vise, as it seemed to Bianchon.

"Her name is Caroline Crochard?" asked the President, in a voice that
was evidently broken.

"Then you know her?" said the doctor, astonished.

"And the wretch's name is Solvet.--Ay, you have kept your word!"
exclaimed Granville; "you have roused my heart to the most terrible
pain it can suffer till it is dust. That emotion, too, is a gift from
hell, and I always know how to pay those debts."

By this time the Count and the doctor had reached the corner of the
Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin. One of those night-birds who wonder round
with a basket on their back and crook in hand, and were, during the
Revolution, facetiously called the Committee of Research, was standing
by the curbstone where the two men now stopped. This scavenger had a
shriveled face worthy of those immortalized by Charlet in his
caricatures of the sweepers of Paris.

"Do you ever pick up a thousand-franc note?"

"Now and then, master."

"And you restore them?"

"It depends on the reward offered."

"You're the man for me," cried the Count, giving the man a
thousand-franc note. "Take this, but, remember, I give it to you on
condition of your spending it at the wineshop, of your getting drunk,
fighting, beating your wife, blacking your friends' eyes. That will
give work to the watch, the surgeon, the druggist--perhaps to the
police, the public prosecutor, the judge, and the prison warders. Do
not try to do anything else, or the devil will be revenged on you
sooner or later."

A draughtsman would need at once the pencil of Charlet and of Callot,
the brush of Teniers and of Rembrandt, to give a true notion of this
night-scene.

"Now I have squared accounts with hell, and had some pleasure for my
money," said the Count in a deep voice, pointing out the indescribable
physiognomy of the gaping scavenger to the doctor, who stood
stupefied. "As for Caroline Crochard!--she may die of hunger and
thirst, hearing the heartrending shrieks of her starving children, and
convinced of the baseness of the man she loves. I will not give a sou
to rescue her; and because you have helped her, I will see you no
more----"

The Count left Bianchon standing like a statue, and walked as briskly
as a young man to the Rue Saint-Lazare, soon reaching the little house
where he resided, and where, to his surprise, he found a carriage
waiting at the door.

"Monsieur, your son, the attorney-general, came about an hour since,"
said the man-servant, "and is waiting for you in your bedroom."

Granville signed to the man to leave him.

"What motive can be strong enough to require you to infringe the order
I have given my children never to come to me unless I send for them?"
asked the Count of his son as he went into the room.

"Father," replied the younger man in a tremulous voice, and with great
respect, "I venture to hope that you will forgive me when you have
heard me."

"Your reply is proper," said the Count. "Sit down," and he pointed to
a chair, "But whether I walk up and down, or take a seat, speak
without heeding me."

"Father," the son went on, "this afternoon, at four o'clock, a very
young man who was arrested in the house of a friend of mine, whom he
had robbed to a considerable extent, appealed to you.--He says he is
your son."

"His name?" asked the Count hoarsely.

"Charles Crochard."

"That will do," said the father, with an imperious wave of the hand.

Granville paced the room in solemn silence, and his son took care not
to break it.

"My son," he began, and the words were pronounced in a voice so mild
and fatherly, that the young lawyer started, "Charles Crochard spoke
the truth.--I am glad you came to me to-night, my good Eugene," he
added. "Here is a considerable sum of money"--and he gave him a bundle
of banknotes--"you can make any use of them you think proper in this
matter. I trust you implicitly, and approve beforehand whatever
arrangements you may make, either in the present or for the future.
--Eugene my dear son, kiss me. We part perhaps for the last time. I
shall to-morrow crave my dismissal from the King, and I am going to
Italy.

"Though a father owes no account of his life to his children, he is
bound to bequeath to them the experience Fate sells him so dearly--is
it not a part of their inheritance?--When you marry," the count went
on, with a little involuntary shudder, "do not undertake it lightly;
that act is the most important of all which society requires of us.
Remember to study at your leisure the character of the woman who is to
be your partner; but consult me too, I will judge of her myself. A
lack of union between husband and wife, from whatever cause, leads to
terrible misfortune; sooner or later we are always punished for
contravening the social law.--But I will write to you on this subject
from Florence. A father who has the honor of presiding over a supreme
court of justice must not have to blush in the presence of his son.
Good-bye."



PARIS, February 1830-January 1842.



ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Beaumesnil, Mademoiselle
The Middle Classes
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche

Crochard, Charles
The Middle Classes

Fontanon, Abbe
The Government Clerks
Honorine
The Member for Arcis

Granville, Vicomte de (later Comte)
The Gondreville Mystery
Honorine
Farewell (Adieu)
Cesar Birotteau
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Cousin Pons

Granville, Comtesse Angelique de
The Thirteen
A Daughter of Eve

Granville, Vicomte de
A Daughter of Eve
The Country Parson

Granville, Baron Eugene de
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Molineux, Jean-Baptiste
The Purse
Cesar Birotteau

Regnier, Claude-Antoine
The Gondreville Mystery

Roguin, Madame
Cesar Birotteau
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Pierrette
A Daughter of Eve

Vandenesse, Comtesse Felix de
A Daughter of Eve
The Muse of the Department