Society practises none of the virtues it demands from individuals:
every hour it commits crimes, but the crimes are committed in words;it paves the way for evil actions with a jest; it degrades nobility of soul by ridicule; it jeers at sons who mourn their fathers, anathematizes those who do not mourn them enough, and finds diversion (the hypocrite!) in weighing the dead bodies before they are cold.
The evening of the day on which Madame Claes died, her friends cast a few flowers upon her memory in the intervals of their games of whist, doing homage to her noble qualities as they sorted their hearts and spades.Then, after a few lachrymal phrases,--the fi, fo, fum of collective grief, uttered in precisely the same tone, and with neither more nor less of feeling, at all hours and in every town in France,--they proceeded to estimate the value of her property.Pierquin was the first to observe that the death of this excellent woman was a mercy, for her husband had made her unhappy; and it was even more fortunate for her children: she was unable while living to refuse her money to the husband she adored; but now that she was dead, Claes was debarred from touching it.Thereupon all present calculated the fortune of that poor Madame Claes, wondered how much she had laid by (had she, in fact, laid by anything?), made an inventory of her jewels, rummaged in her wardrobe, peeped into her drawers, while the afflicted family were still weeping and praying around her death-bed.
Pierquin, with an appraising eye, stated that Madame Claes's possessions in her own right--to use the notarial phrase--might still be recovered, and ought to amount to nearly a million and a half of francs; basing this estimate partly on the forest of Waignies,--whose timber, counting the full-grown trees, the saplings, the primeval growths, and the recent plantations, had immensely increased in value during the last twelve years,--and partly on Balthazar's own property, of which enough remained to "cover" the claims of his children, if the liquidation of their mother's fortune did not yield sufficient to release him.Mademoiselle Claes was still, in Pierquin's slang, "a four-hundred-thousand-franc girl." "But," he added, "if she doesn't marry,--a step which would of course separate her interests and permit us to sell the forest and auction, and so realize the property of the minor children and reinvest it where the father can't lay hands on it, --Claes is likely to ruin them all."Thereupon, everybody looked about for some eligible young man worthy to win the hand of Mademoiselle Claes; but none of them paid the lawyer the compliment of suggesting that he might be the man.
Pierquin, however, found so many good reasons to reject the suggested matches as unworthy of Marguerite's position, that the confabulators glanced at each other and smiled, and took malicious pleasure in prolonging this truly provincial method of annoyance.Pierquin had already decided that Madame Claes's death would have a favorable effect upon his suit, and he began mentally to cut up the body in his own interests.
"That good woman," he said to himself as he went home to bed, "was as proud as a peacock; she would never gave given me her daughter.Hey, hey! why couldn't I manage matters now so as to marry the girl? Pere Claes is drunk on carbon, and takes no care of his children.If, after convincing Marguerite that she must marry to save the property of her brothers and sister, I were to ask him for his daughter, he will be glad to get rid of a girl who is likely to thwart him."He went to sleep anticipating the charms of the marriage contract, and reflecting on the advantages of the step and the guarantees afforded for his happiness in the person he proposed to marry.In all the provinces there was certainly not a better brought-up or more delicately lovely young girl than Mademoiselle Claes.Her modesty, her grace, were like those of the pretty flower Emmanuel had feared to name lest he should betray the secret of his heart.Her sentiments were lofty, her principles religious, she would undoubtedly make him a faithful wife: moreover, she not only flattered the vanity which influences every man more or less in the choice of a wife, but she gratified his pride by the high consideration which her family, doubly ennobled, enjoyed in Flanders,--a consideration which her husband of course would share.
The next day Pierquin extracted from his strong-box several thousand-franc notes, which he offered with great friendliness to Balthazar, so as to relieve him of pecuniary annoyance in the midst of his grief.
Touched by this delicate attention, Balthazar would, he thought, praise his goodness and his personal qualities to Marguerite.In this he was mistaken.Monsieur Claes and his daughter thought it was a very natural action, and their sorrow was too absorbing to let them even think of the lawyer.
Balthazar's despair was indeed so great that persons who were disposed to blame his conduct could not do otherwise than forgive him,--less on account of the Science which might have excused him, than for the remorse which could not undo his deeds.Society is satisfied by appearances: it takes what it gives, without considering the intrinsic worth of the article.To the world real suffering is a show, a species of enjoyment, which inclines it to absolve even a criminal; in its thirst for emotions it acquits without judging the man who raises a laugh, or he who makes it weep, making no inquiry into their methods.
