The Celibates Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers

ys of provincial life into which he plunges, and his reforming notions leave him. From this there do result, however, certain trifling, slow, successive changes by which Pari

ong brooded and into which they now turn their remaining impulses, no longer restrained by force of will. Those who have not been nursing a fixed idea either travel or rush into the political interests of their municipality. Others take to hunting or fishing and tor

owners, without requiring them to sign the plans and specifications, without explaining to them at full length and in every detail the nature of each article under discussion, where it was manufactured, and what were its various prices. As to the ch

eland has it in his h

"It must be all right

s to have ovolos in the

all those

mademo

ame! I never h

ave seen t

es

understa

N

s eggs-from th

hitects!" cried Rogron. "It is stepp

the corridor?" a

Sylvie. "That would be f

t to have the corridor decorated too," said the man. "

d, as king's attorne

vin

stice some of these da

Monsieur

e's got a pretty wife

s. Shall we pain

Lesourds must be made to see

the workmen, by the surprise occasioned to the townspeople and the replies to questions of all kinds which resulted theref

f the "Chinese Worm," their children and grandchildren; the Guepin family, or rather the Guepin clan, the youngest scion of which now kept the "Three Distaffs"; and thirdly, Madame Guenee from whom they had purchased the "Family Sister," and whose three daughters were married and settled in Provins. These three races,

was to come wholly to him. Consequently the Tiphaines would possess, sooner or later, some forty thousand francs a year, and were not "badly off," as they say. The one overwhelming desire of the beautiful Madame Tiphaine was to get Monsieur Tiphaine elected deputy. As deputy he would become a judge in Paris; and she was firmly resolved to push him up into the Royal courts. For these reasons she tickled all vanities and strove to please all parties; and-what is far more difficult-she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken

sort of court round Madame Tiphaine, whose ideas and advice they followed on all occasions. Monsieur Julliard, the eldest son of the old merchant, who had married the only daughter of a rich farmer, set up a sudden, secret, and disinterested passion for Madame Tiphaine, that angel descended from the Parisian skies. The clever Melanie, too clever to involve herself with Julliard, but quite capable of keeping him in the condition of Amadis and making the most of his folly, advised him to start a journal, intending herself to play the part of Egeria. For the last two years, therefore, Julliard, possessed by his romantic passion, had publis

iphaine. All parties wished to study the Rogrons before admitting them. It was difficult, of course, to keep out merchants of the rue Saint-Denis, originally from Provins, who had returned to the town to spend their fortunes. Still, the object of all society is to amalgamate persons of equal wealth, education, manners, customs, accomp

choke him; he would get up, try to speak, become frightened, and sit down again, with comical distortion of the lips. Sylvie naively betrayed her natural self at cards. Sharp, irritable, whining when she lost, insolent when she won, nagging and quarrelsome, she annoyed her partners as much as her adversaries, and became the scourge of society. And yet, possessed by a silly, unconcealed ambition, Rogron and his sister were bent on playing a part in the society of a little town already in possession of a close corporation of twelve allied families. Allowing that the restoration of their

o be taken with

wife. When Mademoiselle Sylvie was apprenticed, thirty

ing her pretty foot on the bar of the fender, "to

ceiling, as if to say, "Good hea

ct; and it certainly will not

said Monsieur Tiphaine. "If, after selling threa

s wife in a parenthesis, "canno

nners, if they don't know any better than to mistake the Counts of Champagne for the account

d suppose there was no other handsome house in Provins but theirs. The

hinese puzzle and he will stay in a corner quietly enough; it would take him a whole winter to find it out. But Madem

arted the little woma

eive; these two will fairly kill me. With your pe

rons will fling themselves into the opposition, which hitherto has had no real strengt

here are no opponents, there is no triumph. A liberal conspiracy, an il

is young wife with a so

ne's salon. That lady's speech about an inn was immensely admired. It was a whole month before she

made her lose on purpose; for the old maid, who liked to trip others, could never endure the same game on herself. The next time she was invited out the mistress took care to make up the card-tables before she a

ersons. After a time she and her brother received no invitations, but they still persisted in paying evening visits. Satirical persons made fun of them,-not spit

hom, however the Rogrons had never dined; to Monsieur and Madame Julliard, senior and junior; to Monsieur Lesourd, Monsieur le cure, and Monsieur and Madame Galardon. It was one of those interminable provincial dinners, where you sit at table from five to nine o'clock. Madame Tiphaine had introduced into Provins the Parisian custom of taking leave as soon as co

hted up," said Sylvie, "and t

had been admitted to the now celebrated house, and the company assembled at Madame

Martener, "you've seen the L

uld be like the d

descri

re's a sun dial and a plaster statue of Spartacus, painted to imitate bronze. Behind the kitchen, the builder has put the staircase, and a sort of larder which we are spared the sight of. The staircase, painted to imitate black marble with yellow veins, turns upon itself like those you see in cafes leading from the ground-floor to the

no ante-chamber?" a

seems to play a great part in their existence; Rogron gazed at it as he might at his future wife. Between the two windows is a white porcelain stove in a niche overloaded with ornament. The walls glow with a magnificent paper, crimson and gold, such as you see in the same restaurants, where, no doubt, the Rogrons chose it. Dinner was served on white and gold china, with a dessert service of light blue with green flowers, but they showed us another service in earthenware for everyday use. Opposite to each sideboard was a large cupboard containing linen. All was clean, new, and horribly sharp in tone. However, I admit the dining-room; it has some character, though disagreeable; it represents that of the masters of the house. But there is no enduring the five engravings that hang on the walls; the Minister of the Interior ought really to frame a law against them. One was Poniatowski jumping into the Elster; the others, Napoleon pointing a cannon, t

ner, delighted with the praise the handsome P

d,-the red Mademoiselle Sylvie

ne, whose sparkling saying long re

chandelier carefully wrapped in green muslin, and rightly too, for it is in the worst taste, the sharpest tint of bronze with hideous ornaments. The walls are covered with a red flock paper to imitate velvet enclosed in panels, each panel decorated with a chromo-lithograph in one of those frames festooned with stucco flowers to represent wood-carving. The furniture, in cashmere and elm-wood, consists, with classic uniformity, of two sofas, two easy-chairs, two armchairs, and six common chairs. A vase in alabaster, called a la Medicis, kept under glass stands on a table between the windows; before the windows, which are draped with magnificent re

lder dragged the ignorant pair,-new inventions, fantastic ornaments, a system for preventing smoky chimneys, another for preventing damp walls; painted mar

d to Madame Garceland and the other ladies of the Provins world. The Rogrons had supposed that all that was required to gain a position in society was to give a f

nomy. She gave no more dinners, which had cost her forty or fifty francs without the wines, and did not fulfil her social hopes, hopes that are as hard to r

rs of the social world of Provins, which she called "the clique," and with whom her personal relations became extremely cold. She would gladly have set up a rival clique, but the lesser bourgeoisie was made up of either small shopkeepers who were only free on

and dressing slowly. Rogron shaved himself every day, examined his face, consulted his sister on any changes he thought he saw there, argued with the servant about the temperature of his hot water, wandered into the garden, looked to see if the shrubs were budding, sat at the edge of the water where he had built himself a kiosk, examined the joinery of his house,-had it sprung? had the walls settled, the panels cracked? or he would come in fretting about a s

he lawyer, and Baron Gouraud. Rogron himself carried the paper to Gouraud, who had been a colonel and lived on the square, and whose long yarns were Rogron's delight; the latter sometimes puzzled over the warnings he had received, and asked himself how such a lively companion could be dangerous. He was fool enough to tell the colonel he had been warned

He usually went as far as the Upper town, sometimes to the ravines, according to the weather. Occasionally he would meet old men taking their walks abroad like himself. Such meetings were joyful events to him. There happened to be in Provins a few men weary of Parisian

ns, when the springs here have a superior curative value recognized by the F

pointed governor of Guyenne. His lungs were diseased, and, heaven knows why! the wine of the country did him good and he recovered. Bordeaux instantly made a hundred millions; the marshal widened its territor

et us hope that somewhere in the Upper or Lower town they will set up a bas-relief

revival of Provins is

"the town was made

gron, opening hi

of learning; "for in those days civilization, gaiety, poesy, elegance, and women, in short all social splendors, were not found exclusively in Paris. It is as difficult for towns and ci

lles. "Can sub-prefects replace the poetic, gallant, warlike race of the Thibaults who made

ver a capital?

he added, striking the ground of the Upper town where they stood with his cane

acom

tent and height of whic

of cathedrals, and the

these strange constructions," interposed Monsieur Martener

. The crypts of Provins kept him occupied for a week in explorations, an

e had gone twenty times to the kitchen and back, compared the clocks, and opened and shut all the doors of the house. So long as the brother and sister could spend their evenings in paying visits they managed to get along till bedtime; but after they were compelled to stay at home those evenings became like a parching desert. Sometimes persons passing through the quiet little square would hear unearthly noises as though the brother were throttling the sister; a moment's listening would show that the

ther, who was greatly pleased at the possibility of having a little girl in the house. Sylvie replied to Madame Lorrain's letter half affectionately, half commercially, as one may say, explaining the delay by their ch

e butcher's meat doled out by the keeper, or a retired merchant deprived of the joys of tormenting his clerks, to understand the impatience with which the broth

gly went to call on Madame Tiphaine, of whose reprobation she was conscious, in order to impart the fact of Pierrette's approaching arrival,-deplori

iscovering her," said Madame Ti

ing dealt, recalled to the minds of those who heard her the shameful conduct

irl now?" asked Monsie

any," sai

ge place," remarke

ain wrote to us-when was that, my dea

ere she had bought the stuff for her gown, answered

sold the

nswered the letter, madem

d as red as

itution of Saint-Jacq

ple," said Monsieur Desfondrilles, who knew Nantes.

her grandmother Lo

which your father-no, I mean of course your grandfather-left

pidly, not understandi

about your cousin's p

ur Tip

nt of that kind. I remember now that a house in Nantes belonging to Monsieur and Madame Lorrain was sold under an order

at the news of her benevolence had missed its effect,-in fact, she had lost ground in all minds; and she felt that henceforth she was forbidden to attempt an intimacy with the upper class of Provins. After this evening the Rogrons no longer

ave up the business to Joseph Lebas, their son-in-law. Her father is that Roguin who failed in 1819, and ruined the house of Cesar Birotteau. Madame Tiphaine's fortune was stolen,-for what else are you to call it when a notary's wife who is very r

the liberal party in Provins. And this is how it came about: The launch of the Rogrons in society had been watched with great curiosity by Colonel Gouraud and the lawyer Vinet, two men drawn together, first by their ostracism, next by their opinions. They both professed patriotism and f

d for the scattered elements of the party, made the most of the Rogrons' ill-will against the upper classes of the place. The three had already a slight tie in their united subscription to the "Constitutionnel"; it woul

of hair. His sparse and grizzled whiskers were called in 1799 "fins." His jolly red face was rather discolored, like those of all who had lived to tell of the Beresina. The lower half of his big, pointed stomach marked the straight line which characterizes a cavalry officer. Gouraud had commanded the Second Hussars. His gray moustache hid a huge blustering mouth,-if we may use a term which alone describes that gulf. He did not eat his food, he engulfed it. A sabre cut had slit his nose, by which his speech was made thick and very nasal, like that attributed to Capuchins. His

erred to employ some lawyer who was more congenial to the judges. Vinet was regarded with disfavor in other ways. He was said to have seduced a rich girl in the neighborhood of Coulommiers, and thus have forced her parents to marry her to him. Madame Vinet was a Chargeboeuf, an old and noble family of La Brie,

o protect a plebian? Thus he was driven from branch to branch when he tried to get some good out of his marriage. Repulsed by every one, filled with hatred for the family of his wife, for the government which denied him a place, for the social world of Provins, which refused to admit him, Vinet submitted to his fate; but his gall increased. He became a Liberal in the belief that his fortune might

sometimes frightened as they looked at his viperish, flat head, his slit mouth, his eyes gleaming through glasses, and heard his sharp, persistent voice which rasped their nerves. His muddy skin, with its sickly tones of green and yellow, expressed the jaundice of his balked ambition, his perpetual disappointments and his hi

er at Provins. After studying the Rogrons at a distance (the colonel aiding him) he had come to the conclusion that the brother might be made useful. This time he was not mistaken; his days of poverty were over, after seven wretched years, when even his

r-handsome or ugly-y

and we can organiz

but the fact is they have sent for the daughter

ll in your favor. Ha! you woul

ith a leering and thoroughly wicked look, which proved to a man of Vine