My friends were seventeen in number; nine was therefore the majority.
Each man put his ball into the wicker basket with a narrow throat, used to hold the numbered balls when card-players draw for their places at pool.We were all roused to a more or less keen curiosity;for this balloting to clarify morality was certainly original.
Inspection of the ballot-box showed the presence of nine white balls!
The result did not surprise me; but it came into my heard to count the young men of my own age whom I had brought to sit in judgment.These casuists were precisely nine in number; they all had the same thought.
"Oh, oh!" I said to myself, "here is secret unanimity to forbid the marriage, and secret unanimity to sanction it! How shall I solve that problem?""Where does the father-in-law live?" asked one my school-friends, heedlessly, being less sophisticated than the others.
"There's no longer a father-in-law," I replied."Hitherto, my conscience has spoken plainly enough to make your verdict superfluous.
If to-day its voice is weakened, here is the cause of my cowardice.Ireceived, about two months ago, this all-seducing letter."And I showed them the following invitation, which I took from my pocket-book:--"You are invited to be present at the funeral procession, burial services, and interment of Monsieur Jean-Frederic Taillefer, of the house of Taillefer and Company, formerly Purveyor of Commissary-meats, in his lifetime chevalier of the Legion of honor, and of the Golden Spur, captain of the first company of the Grenadiers of the National Guard of Paris, deceased, May 1st, at his residence, rue Joubert; which will take place at, etc., etc.
"On the part of, etc."
"Now, what am I do to?" I continued; "I will put the question before you in a broad way.There is undoubtedly a sea of blood in Mademoiselle Taillefer's estates; her inheritance from her father is a vast Aceldama.I know that.BUT Prosper Magnan left no heirs; BUT, again, I have been unable to discover the family of the merchant who was murdered at Andernach.To whom therefore can I restore that fortune? And ought it to be wholly restored? Have I the right to betray a secret surprised by me,--to add a murdered head to the dowry of an innocent girl, to give her for the rest of her life bad dreams, to deprive her of all her illusions, and say, 'Your gold is stained with blood'? I have borrowed the 'Dictionary of Cases of Conscience'
from an old ecclesiastic, but I can find nothing there to solve my doubts.Shall I found pious masses for the repose of the souls of Prosper Magnan, Wahlenfer, and Taillefer? Here we are in the middle of the nineteenth century! Shall I build a hospital, or institute a prize for virtue? A prize for virtue would be given to scoundrels; and as for hospitals, they seem to me to have become in these days the protectors of vice.Besides, such charitable actions, more or less profitable to vanity, do they constitute reparation?--and to whom do Iowe reparation? But I love; I love passionately.My love is my life.
If I, without apparent motive, suggest to a young girl accustomed to luxury, to elegance, to a life fruitful of all enjoyments of art, a young girl who loves to idly listen at the opera to Rossini's music,--if to her I should propose that she deprive herself of fifteen hundred thousand francs in favor of broken-down old men, or scrofulous paupers, she would turn her back on me and laugh, or her confidential friend would tell her that I'm a crazy jester.If in an ecstasy of love, I should paint to her the charms of a modest life, and a little home on the banks of the Loire; if I were to ask her to sacrifice her Parisian life on the altar of our love, it would be, in the first place, a virtuous lie; in the next, I might only be opening the way to some painful experience; I might lose the heart of a girl who loves society, and balls, and personal adornment, and ME for the time being.
Some slim and jaunty officer, with a well-frizzed moustache, who can play the piano, quote Lord Byron, and ride a horse elegantly, may get her away from me.What shall I do? For Heaven's sake, give me some advice!"The honest man, that species of puritan not unlike the father of Jeannie Deans, of whom I have already told you, and who, up to the present moment hadn't uttered a word, shrugged his shoulders, as he looked at me and said:--"Idiot! why did you ask him if he came from Beauvais?"