The Two Brothers

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In case you will consent to relieve me, and judge for yourself the
misery in which I now am, I live in the rue du Houssay, at the
corner of the rue Chantereine, on the fifth floor. If I cannot pay
my rent to-morrow I shall be put out--and then, where can I go?
May I call myself,

Your sister-in-law,

Comtesse Flore de Brambourg.


"What a pit of infamy!" cried Joseph; "there is something under it
all."

"Let us send for the woman who brought the letter; we may get the
preface of the story," said Bixiou.

The woman presently appeared, looking, as Bixiou observed, like
perambulating rags. She was, in fact, a mass of old gowns, one on top
of another, fringed with mud on account of the weather, the whole
mounted on two thick legs with heavy feet which were ill-covered by
ragged stockings and shoes from whose cracks the water oozed upon the
floor. Above the mound of rags rose a head like those that Charlet has
given to his scavenger-women, caparisoned with a filthy bandanna
handkerchief slit in the folds.

"What is your name?" said Joseph, while Bixiou sketched her, leaning
on an umbrella belonging to the year II. of the Republic.

"Madame Gruget, at your service. I've seen better days, my young
gentleman," she said to Bixiou, whose laugh affronted her. "If my poor
girl hadn't had the ill-luck to love some one too much, you wouldn't
see me what I am. She drowned herself in the river, my poor Ida,
--saving your presence! I've had the folly to nurse up a quaterne, and
that's why, at seventy-seven years of age, I'm obliged to take care of
sick folks for ten sous a day, and go--"

"--without clothes?" said Bixiou. "My grandmother nursed up a trey,
but she dressed herself properly."

"Out of my ten sous I have to pay for a lodging--"

"What's the matter with the lady you are nursing?"

"In the first place, she hasn't got any money; and then she has a
disease that scares the doctors. She owes me for sixty days' nursing;
that's why I keep on nursing her. The husband, who is a count,--she is
really a countess,--will no doubt pay me when she is dead; and so I've
lent her all I had. And now I haven't anything; all I did have has
gone to the pawn-brokers. She owes me forty-seven francs and twelve
sous, beside thirty francs for the nursing. She wants to kill herself
with charcoal. I tell her it ain't right; and, indeed, I've had to get
the concierge to look after her while I'm gone, or she's likely to
jump out of the window."

"But what's the matter with her?" said Joseph.

"Ah! monsieur, the doctor from the Sisters' hospital came; but as to
the disease," said Madame Gruget, assuming a modest air, "he told me
she must go to the hospital. The case is hopeless."

"Let us go and see her," said Bixiou.

"Here," said Joseph to the woman, "take these ten francs."

Plunging his hand into the skull and taking out all his remaining
money, the painter called a coach from the rue Mazarin and went to
find Bianchon, who was fortunately at home. Meantime Bixiou went off
at full speed to the rue de Bussy, after Desroches. The four friends
reached Flore's retreat in the rue du Houssay an hour later.

"That Mephistopheles on horseback, named Philippe Bridau," said
Bixiou, as they mounted the staircase, "has sailed his boat cleverly
to get rid of his wife. You know our old friend Lousteau? well,
Philippe paid him a thousand francs a month to keep Madame Bridau in
the society of Florine, Mariette, Tullia, and the Val-Noble. When
Philippe saw his crab-girl so used to pleasure and dress that she
couldn't do without them, he stopped paying the money, and left her to
get it as she could--it is easy to know how. By the end of eighteen
months, the brute had forced his wife, stage by stage, lower and
lower; till at last, by the help of a young officer, he gave her a
taste for drinking. As he went up in the world, his wife went down;
and the countess is now in the mud. The girl, bred in the country, has
a strong constitution. I don't know what means Philippe has lately
taken to get rid of her. I am anxious to study this precious little
drama, for I am determined to avenge Joseph here. Alas, friends," he
added, in a tone which left his three companions in doubt whether he
was jesting or speaking seriously, "give a man over to a vice and
you'll get rid of him. Didn't Hugo say: 'She loved a ball, and died of
it'? So it is. My grandmother loved the lottery. Old Rouget loved a
loose life, and Lolotte killed him. Madame Bridau, poor woman, loved
Philippe, and perished of it. Vice! vice! my dear friends, do you want
to know what vice is? It is the Bonneau of death."

"Then you'll die of a joke," said Desroches, laughing.

Above the fourth floor, the young men were forced to climb one of the
steep, straight stairways that are almost ladders, by which the attics
of Parisian houses are often reached. Though Joseph, who remembered
Flore in all her beauty, expected to see some frightful change, he was
not prepared for the hideous spectacle which now smote his artist's
eye. In a room with bare, unpapered walls, under the sharp pitch of an
attic roof, on a cot whose scanty mattress was filled, perhaps, with
refuse cotton, a woman lay, green as a body that has been drowned two
days, thin as a consumptive an hour before death. This putrid skeleton
had a miserable checked handkerchief bound about her head, which had
lost its hair. The circle round the hollow eyes was red, and the
eyelids were like the pellicle of an egg. Nothing remained of the
body, once so captivating, but an ignoble, bony structure. As Flore
caught sight of the visitors, she drew across her breast a bit of
muslin which might have been a fragment of a window-curtain, for it
was edged with rust as from a rod. The young men saw two chairs, a
broken bureau on which was a tallow-candle stuck into a potato, a few
dishes on the floor, and an earthen fire-pot in a corner of the
chimney, in which there was no fire; this was all the furniture of the
room. Bixiou noticed the remaining sheets of writing-paper, brought
from some neighboring grocery for the letter which the two women had
doubtless concocted together. The word "disgusting" is a positive to
which no superlative exists, and we must therefore use it to convey
the impression caused by this sight. When the dying woman saw Joseph
approaching her, two great tears rolled down her cheeks.

"She can still weep!" whispered Bixiou. "A strange sight,--tears from
dominos! It is like the miracle of Moses."

"How burnt up!" cried Joseph.

"In the fires of repentance," said Flore. "I cannot get a priest; I
have nothing, not even a crucifix, to help me see God. Ah, monsieur!"
she cried, raising her arms, that were like two pieces of carved wood,
"I am a guilty woman; but God never punished any one as he has
punished me! Philippe killed Max, who advised me to do dreadful
things, and now he has killed me. God uses him as a scourge!"

"Leave me alone with her," said Bianchon, "and let me find out if the
disease is curable."

"If you cure her, Philippe Bridau will die of rage," said Desroches.
"I am going to draw up a statement of the condition in which we have
found his wife. He has not brought her before the courts as an
adulteress, and therefore her rights as a wife are intact: he shall
have the shame of a suit. But first, we must remove the Comtesse de
Brambourg to the private hospital of Doctor Dubois, in the rue du
Faubourg-Saint-Denis. She will be well cared for there. Then I will
summon the count for the restoration of the conjugal home."

"Bravo, Desroches!" cried Bixiou. "What a pleasure to do so much good
that will make some people feel so badly!"

Ten minutes later, Bianchon came down and joined them.

"I am going straight to Despleins," he said. "He can save the woman by
an operation. Ah! he will take good care of the case, for her abuse of
liquor has developed a magnificent disease which was thought to be
lost."

"Wag of a mangler! Isn't there but one disease in life?" cried Bixiou.

But Bianchon was already out of sight, so great was his haste to tell
Despleins the wonderful news. Two hours later, Joseph's miserable
sister-in-law was removed to the decent hospital established by Doctor
Dubois, which was afterward bought of him by the city of Paris. Three
weeks later, the "Hospital Gazette" published an account of one of the
boldest operations of modern surgery, on a case designated by the
initials "F. B." The patient died,--more from the exhaustion produced
by misery and starvation than from the effects of the treatment.

No sooner did this occur, than the Comte de Brambourg went, in deep
mourning, to call on the Comte de Soulanges, and inform him of the sad
loss he had just sustained. Soon after, it was whispered about in the
fashionable world that the Comte de Soulanges would shortly marry his
daughter to a parvenu of great merit, who was about to be appointed
brigadier-general and receive command of a regiment of the Royal
Guard. De Marsay told this news to Eugene de Rastignac, as they were
supping together at the Rocher de Cancale, where Bixiou happened to
be.

"It shall not take place!" said the witty artist to himself.

Among the many old friends whom Philippe now refused to recognize,
there were some, like Giroudeau, who were unable to revenge
themselves; but it happened that he had wounded Bixiou, who, thanks to
his brilliant qualities, was everywhere received, and who never
forgave an insult. One day at the Rocher de Cancale, before a number
of well-bred persons who were supping there, Philippe had replied to
Bixiou, who spoke of visiting him at the hotel de Brambourg: "You can
come and see me when you are made a minister."

"Am I to turn Protestant before I can visit you?" said Bixiou,
pretending to misunderstand the speech; but he said to himself, "You
may be Goliath, but I have got my sling, and plenty of stones."

The next day he went to an actor, who was one of his friends, and
metamorphosed himself, by the all-powerful aid of dress, into a
secularized priest with green spectacles; then he took a carriage and
drove to the hotel de Soulanges. Received by the count, on sending in
a message that he wanted to speak with him on a matter of serious
importance, he related in a feigned voice the whole story of the dead
countess, the secret particulars of whose horrible death had been
confided to him by Bianchon; the history of Agathe's death; the
history of old Rouget's death, of which the Comte de Brambourg had
openly boasted; the history of Madame Descoings's death; the history
of the theft from the newspaper; and the history of Philippe's private
morals during his early days.

"Monsieur le comte, don't give him your daughter until you have made
every inquiry; interrogate his former comrades,--Bixiou, Giroudeau,
and others."

Three months later, the Comte de Brambourg gave a supper to du Tillet,
Nucingen, Eugene de Rastignac, Maxime de Trailles, and Henri de
Marsay. The amphitryon accepted with much nonchalance the
half-consolatory condolences they made to him as to his rupture with
the house of Soulanges.

"You can do better," said Maxime de Trailles.

"How much money must a man have to marry a demoiselle de Grandlieu?"
asked Philippe of de Marsay.

"You? They wouldn't give you the ugliest of the six for less than ten
millions," answered de Marsay insolently.

"Bah!" said Rastignac. "With an income of two hundred thousand francs
you can have Mademoiselle de Langeais, the daughter of the marquis;
she is thirty years old, and ugly, and she hasn't a sou; that ought to
suit you."

"I shall have ten millions two years from now," said Philippe Bridau.

"It is now the 16th of January, 1829," cried du Tillet, laughing. "I
have been hard at work for ten years and I have not made as much as
that yet."

"We'll take counsel of each other," said Bridau; "you shall see how
well I understand finance."

"How much do you really own?" asked Nucingen.

"Three millions, excluding my house and my estate, which I shall not
sell; in fact, I cannot, for the property is now entailed and goes
with the title."

Nucingen and du Tillet looked at each other; after that sly glance du
Tillet said to Philippe, "My dear count, I shall be delighted to do
business with you."

De Marsay intercepted the look du Tillet had exchanged with Nucingen,
and which meant, "We will have those millions." The two bank magnates
were at the centre of political affairs, and could, at a given time,
manipulate matters at the Bourse, so as to play a sure game against
Philippe, when the probabilities might all seem for him and yet be
secretly against him.

The occasion came. In July, 1830, du Tillet and Nucingen had helped
the Comte de Brambourg to make fifteen hundred thousand francs; he
could therefore feel no distrust of those who had given him such good
advice. Philippe, who owed his rise to the Restoration, was misled by
his profound contempt for "civilians"; he believed in the triumph of
the Ordonnances, and was bent on playing for a rise; du Tillet and
Nucingen, who were sure of a revolution, played against him for a
fall. The crafty pair confirmed the judgment of the Comte de Brambourg
and seemed to share his convictions; they encouraged his hopes of
doubling his millions, and apparently took steps to help him. Philippe
fought like a man who had four millions depending on the issue of the
struggle. His devotion was so noticeable, that he received orders to
go to Saint-Cloud with the Duc de Maufrigneuse and attend a council.
This mark of favor probably saved Philippe's life; for when the order
came, on the 25th of July, he was intending to make a charge and sweep
the boulevards, when he would undoubtedly have been shot down by his
friend Giroudeau, who commanded a division of the assailants.

A month later, nothing was left of Colonel Bridau's immense fortune
but his house and furniture, his estates, and the pictures which had
come from Issoudun. He committed the still further folly, as he said
himself, of believing in the restoration of the elder branch, to which
he remained faithful until 1834. The not imcomprehensible jealousy
Philippe felt on seeing Giroudeau a colonel drove him to re-enter the
service. Unluckily for himself, he obtained, in 1835, the command of a
regiment in Algiers, where he remained three years in a post of
danger, always hoping for the epaulets of a general. But some
malignant influence--that, in fact, of General Giroudeau,--continually
balked him. Grown hard and brutal, Philippe exceeded the ordinary
severity of the service, and was hated, in spite of his bravery a la
Murat.

At the beginning of the fatal year 1839, while making a sudden dash
upon the Arabs during a retreat before superior forces, he flung
himself against the enemy, followed by only a single company, and fell
in, unfortunately, with the main body of the enemy. The battle was
bloody and terrible, man to man, and only a few horsemen escaped
alive. Seeing that their colonel was surrounded, these men, who were
at some distance, were unwilling to perish uselessly in attempting to
rescue him. They heard his cry: "Your colonel! to me! a colonel of the
Empire!" but they rejoined the regiment. Philippe met with a horrible
death, for the Arabs, after hacking him to pieces with their
scimitars, cut off his head.

Joseph, who was married about this time, through the good offices of
the Comte de Serizy, to the daughter of a millionaire farmer,
inherited his brother's house in Paris and the estate of Brambourg, in
consequence of the entail, which Philippe, had he foreseen this
result, would certainly have broken. The chief pleasure the painter
derived from his inheritance was in the fine collection of paintings
from Issoudun. He now possesses an income of sixty thousand francs,
and his father-in-law, the farmer, continues to pile up the five-franc
pieces. Though Joseph Bridau paints magnificent pictures, and renders
important services to artists, he is not yet a member of the
Institute. As the result of a clause in the deed of entail, he is now
Comte de Brambourg, a fact which often makes him roar with laughter
among his friends in the atelier.




ADDENDUM

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

Note: The Two Brothers is also known as A Bachelor's Establishment and
The Black Sheep. In other Addendum appearances it is referred to as A
Bachelor's Establishment.

Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
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
La Grande Breteche

Birotteau, Cesar
Cesar Birotteau
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
The Purse
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
A Man of Business
Gaudissart II.
The Unconscious Humorists
Cousin Pons

Brambourg, Comte de (Title of Philippe Bridau, later Joseph)
The Unconscious Humorists

Bridau, Philippe
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Bridau, Joseph
The Purse
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
Pierre Grassou
Letters of Two Brides
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis

Bruel, Jean Francois du
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
A Prince of Bohemia
The Middle Classes
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve

Bruel, Claudine Chaffaroux, Madame du
A Prince of Bohemia
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Middle Classes

Cabirolle, Madame
A Start in Life

Cabirolle, Agathe-Florentine
A Start in Life
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Camusot
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Cousin Pons
The Muse of the Department
Cesar Birotteau
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Cardot, Jean-Jerome-Severin
A Start in Life
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Cesar Birotteau

Chaulieu, Henri, Duc de
Letters of Two Brides
Modest Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Thirteen

Chrestien, Michel
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess

Claparon, Charles
Cesar Birotteau
Melmoth Reconciled
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes

Coloquinte
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Coralie, Mademoiselle
A Start in Life
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Desplein
The Atheist's Mass
Cousin Pons
Lost Illusions
The Thirteen
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
The Seamy Side of History
Modest Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine

Desroches (son)
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
A Woman of Thirty
The Commission in Lunacy
The Government Clerks
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes

Finot, Andoche
Cesar Birotteau
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
Gaudissart the Great
The Firm of Nucingen

Gaillard, Madame Theodore
Jealousies of a Country Town
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Beatrix
The Unconscious Humorists

Gerard, Francois-Pascal-Simon, Baron
Beatrix

Giraud, Leon
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
The Unconscious Humorists

Giroudeau
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life

Gobseck, Esther Van
Gobseck
The Firm of Nucingen
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Godeschal, Francois-Claude-Marie
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
The Commission in Lunacy
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons

Godeschal, Marie
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Cousin Pons

Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de
The Gondreville Mystery
The Thirteen
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Grandlieu, Mademoiselle de
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Grassou, Pierre
Pierre Grassou
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons

Gruget, Madame Etienne
The Thirteen
The Government Clerks

Haudry (doctor)
Cesar Birotteau
The Thirteen
The Seamy Side of History
Cousin Pons

Lora, Leon de
The Unconscious Humorists
A Start in Life
Pierre Grassou
Honorine
Cousin Betty
Beatrix

Loraux, Abbe
A Start in Life
Cesar Birotteau
Honorine

Lousteau, Etienne
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
A Prince of Bohemia
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
The Unconscious Humorists

Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
The Muse of the Department
Eugenie Grandet
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Government Clerks
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Ursule Mirouet

Magus, Elie
The Vendetta
A Marriage Settlement
Pierre Grassou
Cousin Pons

Matifat (wealthy druggist)
Cesar Birotteau
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Firm of Nucingen
Cousin Pons

Maufrigneuse, Duc de
The Secrets of a Princess
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Nathan, Madame Raoul
The Muse of the Department
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Government Clerks
Ursule Mirouet
Eugenie Grandet
The Imaginary Mistress
A Prince of Bohemia
A Daughter of Eve
The Unconscious Humorists

Navarreins, Duc de
Colonel Chabert
The Muse of the Department
The Thirteen
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Peasantry
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Country Parson
The Magic Skin
The Gondreville Mystery
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty

Rhetore, Duc Alphonse de
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Letters of Two Brides
Albert Savarus
The Member for Arcis

Ridal, Fulgence
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Unconscious Humorists

Roguin
Cesar Birotteau
Eugenie Grandet
Pierrette
The Vendetta

Rouget, Jean-Jacques
The Muse of the Department

Schinner, Hippolyte
The Purse
Pierre Grassou
A Start in Life
Albert Savarus
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
The Imaginary Mistress
The Unconscious Humorists

Serizy, Comte Hugret de
A Start in Life
Honorine
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Tillet, Ferdinand du
Cesar Birotteau
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Pierrette
Melmoth Reconciled
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Cousin Betty
The Unconscious Humorists

Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des
Beatrix
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
Honorine
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department

Vernou, Felicien
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Cousin Betty