The Brotherhood of Consolation. Оноре де Бальзак

before it is caught,” said Monsieur Alain, laughing.

      The perfect indifference of Madame de la Chanterie on hearing of the immediate ingratitude of persons to whom she had, no doubt, given money, surprised Godefroid, who became thoughtful.

      The dinner was enlivened by Monsieur Alain and Monsieur Joseph; but Monsieur Nicolas remained quiet, sad, and cold; he bore on his features the ineffaceable imprint of some bitter grief, some eternal sorrow. Madame de la Chanterie paid equal attentions to all. Godefroid felt himself observed by these persons, whose prudence equalled their piety; his vanity led him to imitate their reserve, and he measured his words.

      This first day was much more interesting than those which succeeded it. Godefroid, who found himself set aside from all the serious conferences, was obliged, during several hours in mornings and evenings when he was left wholly to himself, to have recourse to the “Imitation of Jesus Christ;” and he ended by studying that book as a man studies a book when he has but one, or is a prisoner. A book is then like a woman with whom we live in solitude; we must either hate or adore that woman, and, in like manner, we must either enter into the soul of the author or not read ten lines of his book.

      Now, it is impossible not to be impressed by the “Imitation of Jesus Christ,” which is to dogma what action is to thought. Catholicism vibrates in it, pulses, breathes, and lives, body to body, with human life. The book is a sure friend. It speaks to all passions, all difficulties, even worldly ones; it solves all problems; it is more eloquent than any preacher, for its voice is your own, it is the voice within your soul, you hear it with your spirit. It is, in short, the Gospel translated, adapted to all ages, the summit and crest of all human situations. It is extraordinary that the Church has never canonized John Gersen, for the Divine Spirit evidently inspired his pen.

      For Godefroid, the hotel de la Chanterie now held a woman and a book; day by day he loved the woman more; he discovered flowers buried beneath the snows of winter in her heart; he had glimpses of the joys of a sacred friendship which religion permits, on which the angels smile; a friendship which here united these five persons and against which no evil could prevail.

      This is a sentiment higher than all others; a love of soul to soul, resembling those rarest flowers born on the highest peaks of earth; a love of which a few examples are offered to humanity from age to age, by which lovers are sometimes bound together in one being, and which explains those faithful attachments which are otherwise inexplicable by the laws of the world. It is a bond without disappointment, without misunderstanding, without vanity, without strife, without even contradictions; so completely are the moral natures blended into one.

      This sentiment, vast, infinite, born of Catholic charity, Godefroid foresaw with all its joys. At times he could not believe the spectacle before his eyes, and he sought for reasons to explain the sublime friendship of these five persons, wondering in his heart to find true Catholics, true Christians of the early Church, in the Paris of 1836.

VI. THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF CHANTERIE AND COMPANY

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      Within a week after his arrival Godefroid had seen such a concourse of persons, he had overheard fragments of conversation relating to so many serious topics, that he began to perceive an enormous activity in the lives of the five inmates of the house. He noticed that none of them slept more than five hours at the most.

      They had all made, in some sort, a first day, before the second breakfast. During that time strangers came and went, bringing or carrying away money, sometimes in considerable sums. A messenger from the Mongenod counting-room often came—always very early in the morning, so that his errand might not interfere with the business of the bank.

      One evening Monsieur Mongenod came himself, and Godefroid noticed that he showed to Monsieur Alain a certain filial familiarity added to the profound respect which he testified to the three other lodgers of Madame de la Chanterie.

      On that evening the banker merely put a few matter-of-fact questions to Godefroid: “Was he comfortable? Did he intend to stay?” etc.—at the same time advising him to persevere in his plan.

      “I need only one thing to make me contented,” said Godefroid.

      “What is that?” asked the banker.

      “An occupation.”

      “An occupation!” remarked the Abbe de Veze. “Then you have changed your mind? I thought you came to our cloister for rest.”

      “Rest, without the prayers that enlivened monasteries, without the meditation which peopled the Thebaids, becomes a disease,” said Monsieur Joseph, sententiously.

      “Learn book-keeping,” said Monsieur Mongenod, with a smile; “you might become in a few months very useful to my friends here.”

      “Oh! with pleasure,” cried Godefroid.

      The next day was Sunday; Madame de la Chanterie requested him to give her his arm to high mass.

      “It is,” she said, “the only coercion I shall put upon you. Several times during the past week I have wished to speak to you of religion, but it did not seem to me that the time had come. You would find plenty of occupation if you shared our beliefs, for then you would share our labors as well.”

      During mass Godefroid noticed the fervor of Messieurs Nicolas, Joseph, and Alain; and as during the last few days he had also noticed their superiority and intelligence, and the vast extent of their knowledge; he concluded, when he saw how they humbled themselves, that the Catholic religion had secrets which had hitherto escaped him.

      “After all,” he said to himself, “it is the religion of Bossuet, Pascal, Racine, Saint-Louis, Louis XIV., Raffaelle, Michel-Angelo, Ximenes, Bayard, du Guesclin; and how could I, weakling that I am, compare myself to those intellects, those statesmen, those poets, those heroes?”

      If there were not some real instruction in these minor details it would be imprudent to dwell upon them in these days; but they are indispensable to the interests of this history, in which the present public will be none too ready to believe, and which presents at the outset a fact that is almost ridiculous—namely, the empire which a woman of sixty obtained over a young man disappointed with the world.

      “You did not pray at all,” said Madame de la Chanterie to Godefroid as they left the portal of Notre-Dame; “not for any one—not even for the soul of your mother.”

      Godefroid colored and said nothing.

      “Will you do me the favor,” continued Madame de la Chanterie, “to go to your room and not come into the salon for an hour? You can meditate, if you love me, on the first chapter in the third book of the ‘Imitation’—the one entitled: ‘Of inward communing.’ ”

      Godefroid bowed stiffly and went to his room.

      “The devil take them!” he exclaimed to himself, giving way to downright anger. “What do they want with me here? What is all this traffic they are carrying on? Pooh! all women, even pious ones, are up to the same tricks. If Madame” (giving her the name by which her lodgers spoke of her) “wants me out of the way it is probably because they are plotting something against me.”

      With that thought in his mind he tried to look from his window into that of the salon; but the situation of the rooms did not allow it. He went down one flight, and then returned—reflecting that according to the rigid principles of the house he should be dismissed if discovered spying. To lose the respect of those five persons seemed to him as serious as public dishonor.

      He waited three quarters of an hour; then he resolved to surprise Madame de la Chanterie and come upon her suddenly before she expected him. He invented a lie to excuse himself, saying that his watch was wrong; for which purpose he set it on twenty minutes. Then he went downstairs, making no noise, reached the door of the salon, and opened it abruptly.

      He