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Updated: May 29, 2025
La Briere was too much the man of his letters which we have read, his heart was too noble and pure to allow him to hesitate at the call of honor. He at once resolved to find Modeste's father, if he were in Paris, and confess all to him, and to let Canalis know the serious results of their Parisian jest. To a sensitive nature like his, Modeste's large fortune was in itself a determining reason.
"That declaration is equally encouraging and discouraging to two young men who are searching for the philosopher's stone of happiness in marriage," said Canalis. "Don't you consider it useful, necessary, and even politic to stipulate for perfect freedom of action for parents, daughters, and suitors?" asked Charles Mignon. Canalis, at a sign from La Briere, kept silence.
Canalis, on the other hand, had carefully attended to his black coat, his orders, and all those little drawing-room elegancies, which his intimacy with the Duchesse de Chaulieu and the fashionable world of the faubourg had brought to perfection. He had gone into the minutiae of dandyism, while poor La Briere was about to present himself with the negligence of a man without hope.
Butscha's head rolled between his shoulders, and his eyes turned from Germain to La Briere, and from La Briere to Canalis, after the manner of men who, knowing they are tipsy, wish to see what other men are thinking of them; for in the shipwreck of drunkenness it is noticeable that self-love is the last thing that goes to the bottom.
Modeste ran gaily back to the salon, where La Briere, who was sitting by the window, where he had doubtless been watching his idol, rose to his feet as if a groom of the chambers had suddenly announced, "The Queen." It was a movement of spontaneous respect, full of that living eloquence that lies in gesture even more than in speech.
A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and cupid, is a phoenix. And why should I go in search of compliments only to pull the string of a shower-bath of horrid looks from some disillusioned female?" "Then the true poet," said La Briere, "ought to remain hidden, like God, in the centre of his worlds, and be only seen in his own creations." "Glory would cost too dear in that case," answered Canalis.
Butscha, meanwhile, who had been walking about with La Briere, was greatly alarmed at the progress Canalis was evidently making, and he waylaid Modeste at the lower step of the portico when the whole party returned to the house to endure the torments of their inevitable whist. "Mademoiselle," he said, in a low whisper, "I do hope you don't call him Melchior."
Modeste took a seat near the poet, to Ernest's deep disappointment; he watched the face of the wayward girl, and marked the progress of the fascination which Canalis exerted over her. La Briere had not the gift of seduction which Melchior possessed. Nature frequently denies it to true hearts, who are, as a rule, timid.
The Breton had scarcely left the poet's house when La Briere entered his friend's study. Naturally, Canalis told him of the visit of the man from Havre. "Ha!" said Ernest, "Modeste Mignon; that is just what I have come to speak of." "Ah, bah!" cried Canalis; "have I had a triumph by proxy?" "Yes; and here is the key to it.
"Have you never felt your throat tighten when you wished to speak to her?" cried La Briere; "is there never a strange feeling in the roots of your hair and on the surface of your skin when she looks at you, even if she is thinking of something else?" "But you had sufficient judgment to show displeasure when she as good as told her excellent father that he was a dolt."
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