La Grande Breteche

H >> Honore de Balzac >> La Grande Breteche


"'He read his breviary like a priest, and went to mass and all the
services quite regularly. And where did he post himself?--we found
this out later.--Within two yards of Madame de Merret's chapel. As he
took that place the very first time he entered the church, no one
imagined that there was any purpose in it. Besides, he never raised
his nose above his book, poor young man! And then, monsieur, of an
evening he went for a walk on the hill among the ruins of the old
castle. It was his only amusement, poor man; it reminded him of his
native land. They say that Spain is all hills!

"'One evening, a few days after he was sent here, he was out very
late. I was rather uneasy when he did not come in till just on the
stroke of midnight; but we all got used to his whims; he took the key
of the door, and we never sat up for him. He lived in a house
belonging to us in the Rue des Casernes. Well, then, one of our
stable-boys told us one evening that, going down to wash the horses in
the river, he fancied he had seen the Spanish Grandee swimming some
little way off, just like a fish. When he came in, I told him to be
careful of the weeds, and he seemed put out at having been seen in the
water.

"'At last, monsieur, one day, or rather one morning, we did not find
him in his room; he had not come back. By hunting through his things,
I found a written paper in the drawer of his table, with fifty pieces
of Spanish gold of the kind they call doubloons, worth about five
thousand francs; and in a little sealed box ten thousand francs worth
of diamonds. The paper said that in case he should not return, he left
us this money and these diamonds in trust to found masses to thank God
for his escape and for his salvation.

"'At that time I still had my husband, who ran off in search of him.
And this is the queer part of the story: he brought back the
Spaniard's clothes, which he had found under a big stone on a sort of
breakwater along the river bank, nearly opposite la Grande Breteche.
My husband went so early that no one saw him. After reading the
letter, he burnt the clothes, and, in obedience to Count Feredia's
wish, we announced that he had escaped.

"'The sub-prefect set all the constabulary at his heels; but, pshaw!
he was never caught. Lepas believed that the Spaniard had drowned
himself. I, sir, have never thought so; I believe, on the contrary,
that he had something to do with the business about Madame de Merret,
seeing that Rosalie told me that the crucifix her mistress was so fond
of that she had it buried with her, was made of ebony and silver; now
in the early days of his stay here, Monsieur Feredia had one of ebony
and silver which I never saw later.--And now, monsieur, do not you say
that I need have no remorse about the Spaniard's fifteen thousand
francs? Are they not really and truly mine?'

"'Certainly.--But have you never tried to question Rosalie?' said I.

"'Oh, to be sure I have, sir. But what is to be done? That girl is
like a wall. She knows something, but it is impossible to make her
talk.'

"After chatting with me for a few minutes, my hostess left me a prey
to vague and sinister thoughts, to romantic curiosity, and a religious
dread, not unlike the deep emotion which comes upon us when we go into
a dark church at night and discern a feeble light glimmering under a
lofty vault--a dim figure glides across--the sweep of a gown or of a
priest's cassock is audible--and we shiver! La Grande Breteche, with
its rank grasses, its shuttered windows, its rusty iron-work, its
locked doors, its deserted rooms, suddenly rose before me in fantastic
vividness. I tried to get into the mysterious dwelling to search out
the heart of this solemn story, this drama which had killed three
persons.

"Rosalie became in my eyes the most interesting being in Vendome. As I
studied her, I detected signs of an inmost thought, in spite of the
blooming health that glowed in her dimpled face. There was in her soul
some element of ruth or of hope; her manner suggested a secret, like
the expression of devout souls who pray in excess, or of a girl who
has killed her child and for ever hears its last cry. Nevertheless,
she was simple and clumsy in her ways; her vacant smile had nothing
criminal in it, and you would have pronounced her innocent only from
seeing the large red and blue checked kerchief that covered her
stalwart bust, tucked into the tight-laced bodice of a lilac- and
white-striped gown. 'No,' said I to myself, 'I will not quit Vendome
without knowing the whole history of la Grande Breteche. To achieve
this end, I will make love to Rosalie if it proves necessary.'

"'Rosalie!' said I one evening.

"'Your servant, sir?'

"'You are not married?' She started a little.

"'Oh! there is no lack of men if ever I take a fancy to be
miserable!' she replied, laughing. She got over her agitation at once;
for every woman, from the highest lady to the inn-servant inclusive,
has a native presence of mind.

"'Yes; you are fresh and good-looking enough never to lack lovers!
But tell me, Rosalie, why did you become an inn-servant on leaving
Madame de Merret? Did she not leave you some little annuity?'

"'Oh yes, sir. But my place here is the best in all the town of
Vendome.'

"This reply was such an one as judges and attorneys call evasive.
Rosalie, as it seemed to me, held in this romantic affair the place of
the middle square of the chess-board: she was at the very centre of
the interest and of the truth; she appeared to me to be tied into the
knot of it. It was not a case for ordinary love-making; this girl
contained the last chapter of a romance, and from that moment all my
attentions were devoted to Rosalie. By dint of studying the girl, I
observed in her, as in every woman whom we make our ruling thought, a
variety of good qualities; she was clean and neat; she was handsome, I
need not say; she soon was possessed of every charm that desire can
lend to a woman in whatever rank of life. A fortnight after the
notary's visit, one evening, or rather one morning, in the small
hours, I said to Rosalie:

"'Come, tell me all you know about Madame de Merret.'

"'Oh!' she said, 'I will tell you; but keep the secret carefully.'

"'All right, my child; I will keep all your secrets with a thief's
honor, which is the most loyal known.'

"'If it is all the same to you,' said she, 'I would rather it should
be with your own.'

"Thereupon she set her head-kerchief straight, and settled herself to
tell the tale; for there is no doubt a particular attitude of
confidence and security is necessary to the telling of a narrative.
The best tales are told at a certain hour--just as we are all here at
table. No one ever told a story well standing up, or fasting.

"If I were to reproduce exactly Rosalie's diffuse eloquence, a whole
volume would scarcely contain it. Now, as the event of which she gave
me a confused account stands exactly midway between the notary's
gossip and that of Madame Lepas, as precisely as the middle term of a
rule-of-three sum stands between the first and third, I have only to
relate it in as few words as may be. I shall therefore be brief.

"The room at la Grande Breteche in which Madame de Merret slept was on
the ground floor; a little cupboard in the wall, about four feet deep,
served her to hang her dresses in. Three months before the evening of
which I have to relate the events, Madame de Merret had been seriously
ailing, so much so that her husband had left her to herself, and had
his own bedroom on the first floor. By one of those accidents which it
is impossible to foresee, he came in that evening two hours later than
usual from the club, where he went to read the papers and talk
politics with the residents in the neighborhood. His wife supposed him
to have come in, to be in bed and asleep. But the invasion of France
had been the subject of a very animated discussion; the game of
billiards had waxed vehement; he had lost forty francs, an enormous
sum at Vendome, where everybody is thrifty, and where social habits
are restrained within the bounds of a simplicity worthy of all praise,
and the foundation perhaps of a form of true happiness which no
Parisian would care for.

"For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been satisfied to ask
Rosalie whether his wife was in bed; on the girl's replying always in
the affirmative, he at once went to his own room, with the good faith
that comes of habit and confidence. But this evening, on coming in, he
took it into his head to go to see Madame de Merret, to tell her of
his ill-luck, and perhaps to find consolation. During dinner he had
observed that his wife was very becomingly dressed; he reflected as he
came home from the club that his wife was certainly much better, that
convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, as husbands
discover everything, a little too late. Instead of calling Rosalie,
who was in the kitchen at the moment watching the cook and the
coachman playing a puzzling hand at cards, Monsieur de Merret made his
way to his wife's room by the light of his lantern, which he set down
at the lowest step of the stairs. His step, easy to recognize, rang
under the vaulted passage.

"At the instant when the gentleman turned the key to enter his wife's
room, he fancied he heard the door shut of the closet of which I have
spoken; but when he went in, Madame de Merret was alone, standing in
front of the fireplace. The unsuspecting husband fancied that Rosalie
was in the cupboard; nevertheless, a doubt, ringing in his ears like a
peal of bells, put him on his guard; he looked at his wife, and read
in her eyes an indescribably anxious and haunted expression.

"'You are very late,' said she.--Her voice, usually so clear and
sweet, struck him as being slightly husky.

"Monsieur de Merret made no reply, for at this moment Rosalie came in.
This was like a thunder-clap. He walked up and down the room, going
from one window to another at a regular pace, his arms folded.

"'Have you had bad news, or are you ill?' his wife asked him timidly,
while Rosalie helped her to undress. He made no reply.

"'You can go, Rosalie,' said Madame de Merret to her maid; 'I can put
in my curl-papers myself.'--She scented disaster at the mere aspect of
her husband's face, and wished to be alone with him. As soon as
Rosalie was gone, or supposed to be gone, for she lingered a few
minutes in the passage, Monsieur de Merret came and stood facing his
wife, and said coldly, 'Madame, there is some one in your cupboard!'
She looked at her husband calmly, and replied quite simply, 'No,
monsieur.'

"This 'No' wrung Monsieur de Merret's heart; he did not believe it;
and yet his wife had never appeared purer or more saintly than she
seemed to be at this moment. He rose to go and open the closet door.
Madame de Merret took his hand, stopped him, looked at him sadly, and
said in a voice of strange emotion, 'Remember, if you should find no
one there, everything must be at an end between you and me.'

"The extraordinary dignity of his wife's attitude filled him with deep
esteem for her, and inspired him with one of those resolves which need
only a grander stage to become immortal.

"'No, Josephine,' he said, 'I will not open it. In either event we
should be parted for ever. Listen; I know all the purity of your soul,
I know you lead a saintly life, and would not commit a deadly sin to
save your life.'--At these words Madame de Merret looked at her
husband with a haggard stare.--'See, here is your crucifix,' he went
on. 'Swear to me before God that there is no one in there; I will
believe you--I will never open that door.'

"Madame de Merret took up the crucifix and said, 'I swear it.'

"'Louder,' said her husband; 'and repeat: "I swear before God that
there is nobody in that closet."' She repeated the words without
flinching.

"'That will do,' said Monsieur de Merret coldly. After a moment's
silence: 'You have there a fine piece of work which I never saw
before,' said he, examining the crucifix of ebony and silver, very
artistically wrought.

"'I found it at Duvivier's; last year when that troop of Spanish
prisoners came through Vendome, he bought it of a Spanish monk.'

"'Indeed,' said Monsieur de Merret, hanging the crucifix on its nail;
and he rang the bell.

"He had to wait for Rosalie. Monsieur de Merret went forward quickly
to meet her, led her into the bay of the window that looked on to the
garden, and said to her in an undertone:

"'I know that Gorenflot wants to marry you, that poverty alone
prevents your setting up house, and that you told him you would not be
his wife till he found means to become a master mason.--Well, go and
fetch him; tell him to come here with his trowel and tools. Contrive
to wake no one in his house but himself. His reward will be beyond
your wishes. Above all, go out without saying a word--or else!' and he
frowned.

"Rosalie was going, and he called her back. 'Here, take my latch-key,'
said he.

"'Jean!' Monsieur de Merret called in a voice of thunder down the
passage. Jean, who was both coachman and confidential servant, left
his cards and came.

"'Go to bed, all of you,' said his master, beckoning him to come
close; and the gentleman added in a whisper, 'When they are all asleep
--mind, _asleep_--you understand?--come down and tell me.'

"Monsieur de Merret, who had never lost sight of his wife while giving
his orders, quietly came back to her at the fireside, and began to
tell her the details of the game of billiards and the discussion at
the club. When Rosalie returned she found Monsieur and Madame de
Merret conversing amiably.

"Not long before this Monsieur de Merret had had new ceilings made to
all the reception-rooms on the ground floor. Plaster is very scarce at
Vendome; the price is enhanced by the cost of carriage; the gentleman
had therefore had a considerable quantity delivered to him, knowing
that he could always find purchasers for what might be left. It was
this circumstance which suggested the plan he carried out.

"'Gorenflot is here, sir,' said Rosalie in a whisper.

"'Tell him to come in,' said her master aloud.

"Madame de Merret turned paler when she saw the mason.

"'Gorenflot,' said her husband, 'go and fetch some bricks from the
coach-house; bring enough to wall up the door of this cupboard; you
can use the plaster that is left for cement.' Then, dragging Rosalie
and the workman close to him--'Listen, Gorenflot,' said he, in a low
voice, 'you are to sleep here to-night; but to-morrow morning you
shall have a passport to take you abroad to a place I will tell you
of. I will give you six thousand francs for your journey. You must
live in that town for ten years; if you find you do not like it, you
may settle in another, but it must be in the same country. Go through
Paris and wait there till I join you. I will there give you an
agreement for six thousand francs more, to be paid to you on your
return, provided you have carried out the conditions of the bargain.
For that price you are to keep perfect silence as to what you have to
do this night. To you, Rosalie, I will secure ten thousand francs,
which will not be paid to you till your wedding day, and on condition
of your marrying Gorenflot; but, to get married, you must hold your
tongue. If not, no wedding gift!'

"'Rosalie,' said Madame de Merret, 'come and brush my hair.'

"Her husband quietly walked up and down the room, keeping an eye on
the door, on the mason, and on his wife, but without any insulting
display of suspicion. Gorenflot could not help making some noise.
Madame de Merret seized a moment when he was unloading some bricks,
and when her husband was at the other end of the room to say to
Rosalie: 'My dear child, I will give you a thousand francs a year if
only you will tell Gorenflot to leave a crack at the bottom.' Then she
added aloud quite coolly: 'You had better help him.'

"Monsieur and Madame de Merret were silent all the time while
Gorenflot was walling up the door. This silence was intentional on the
husband's part; he did not wish to give his wife the opportunity of
saying anything with a double meaning. On Madame de Merret's side it
was pride or prudence. When the wall was half built up the cunning
mason took advantage of his master's back being turned to break one of
the two panes in the top of the door with a blow of his pick. By this
Madame de Merret understood that Rosalie had spoken to Gorenflot. They
all three then saw the face of a dark, gloomy-looking man, with black
hair and flaming eyes.

"Before her husband turned round again the poor woman had nodded to
the stranger, to whom the signal was meant to convey, 'Hope.'

"At four o'clock, as the day was dawning, for it was the month of
September, the work was done. The mason was placed in charge of Jean,
and Monsieur de Merret slept in his wife's room.

"Next morning when he got up he said with apparent carelessness, 'Oh,
by the way, I must go to the Maire for the passport.' He put on his
hat, took two or three steps towards the door, paused, and took the
crucifix. His wife was trembling with joy.

"'He will go to Duvivier's,' thought she.

"As soon as he had left, Madame de Merret rang for Rosalie, and then
in a terrible voice she cried: 'The pick! Bring the pick! and set to
work. I saw how Gorenflot did it yesterday; we shall have time to make
a gap and build it up again.'

"In an instant Rosalie had brought her mistress a sort of cleaver;
she, with a vehemence of which no words can give an idea, set to work
to demolish the wall. She had already got out a few bricks, when,
turning to deal a stronger blow than before, she saw behind her
Monsieur de Merret. She fainted away.

"'Lay madame on her bed,' said he coldly.

"Foreseeing what would certainly happen in his absence, he had laid
this trap for his wife; he had merely written to the Maire and sent
for Duvivier. The jeweler arrived just as the disorder in the room had
been repaired.

"'Duvivier,' asked Monsieur de Merret, 'did not you buy some
crucifixes of the Spaniards who passed through the town?'

"'No, monsieur.'

"'Very good; thank you,' said he, flashing a tiger's glare at his
wife. 'Jean,' he added, turning to his confidential valet, 'you can
serve my meals here in Madame de Merret's room. She is ill, and I
shall not leave her till she recovers.'

"The cruel man remained in his wife's room for twenty days. During the
earlier time, when there was some little noise in the closet, and
Josephine wanted to intercede for the dying man, he said, without
allowing her to utter a word, 'You swore on the Cross that there was
no one there.'"



After this story all the ladies rose from table, and thus the spell
under which Bianchon had held them was broken. But there were some
among them who had almost shivered at the last words.




ADDENDUM

The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy.

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 Second Home
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