The Two Brothers

by Honore de Balzac
Tranlated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.

Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are
screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of

domestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often called
chance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which the

moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is
pointed by a scoffer.

To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family
and for Maternity. We shall some day realize, perhaps too

late, the effects produced by the diminution of paternal
authority. That authority, which formerly ceased only at the

death of the father, was the sole human tribunal before which
domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings themselves, on

special occasions, took part in executing its judgments.
However good and tender a mother may be, she cannot fulfil the

function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can
take the place of a king upon the throne. Perhaps I have never

drawn a picture that shows more plainly how essential to
European society is the indissoluble marriage bond, how fatal

the results of feminineweakness, how great the dangers
arising from selfish interests when indulged without

restraint. May a society which is based solely on the power of
wealth shudder as it sees the impotence of the law in dealing

with the workings of a system which deifies success, and
pardons every means of attaining it. May it return to the

Catholic religion, for the purification of its masses through
the inspiration of religious feeling, and by means of an

education other than that of a lay university.
In the "Scenes from Military Life" so many fine natures, so

many high and noble self-devotions will be set forth, that I
may here be allowed to point out the depraving effect of the

necessities of war upon certain minds who venture to act in
domestic life as if upon the field of battle.

You have cast a sagacious glance over the events of our own
time; its philosophy shines, in more than one bitter

reflection, through your elegant pages; you have appreciated,
more clearly than other men, the havoc wrought in the mind of

our country by the existence of four distinct political
systems. I cannot, therefore, place this history under the

protection of a more competent authority. Your name may,
perhaps, defend my work against the criticisms that are

certain to follow it,--for where is the patient who keeps
silence when the surgeon lifts the dressing from his wound?

To the pleasure of dedicating this Scene to you, is joined the
pride I feel in thus making known your friendship for one who

here subscribes himself
Your sincere admirer,

De Balzac
Paris, November, 1842.

THE TWO BROTHERS
CHAPTER I

In 1792 the townspeople of Issoudun enjoyed the services of a
physician named Rouget, whom they held to be a man of consummate

malignity. Were we to believe certain bold tongues, he made his wife
extremely unhappy, although she was the most beautiful woman of the

neighborhood. Perhaps, indeed, she was rather silly. But the prying of
friends, the slander of enemies, and the gossip of acquaintances, had

never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor
Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance, "He is not

pleasant to deal with." Consequently, during his lifetime, his
townsmen kept silence about him and treated him civilly. His wife, a

demoiselle Descoings, feeble in health during her girlhood (which was
said to be a reason why the doctor married her), gave birth to a son,

and also to a daughter who arrived, unexpectedly, ten years after her
brother, and whose birth took the husband, doctor though he were, by

surprise. This late-comer was named Agathe.
These little facts are so simple, so commonplace, that a writer seems

scarcely justified in placing them in the fore-front of his history;
yet if they are not known, a man of Doctor Rouget's stamp would be

thought a monster, an unnatural father, when, in point of fact, he was
only following out the evil tendencies which many people shelter under

the terrible axiom that "men should have strength of character,"--a
masculine phrase that has caused many a woman's misery.

The Descoings, father-in-law and mother-in-law of the doctor, were
commission merchants in the wool-trade, and did a double business by

selling for the producers and buying for the manufacturers of the
golden fleeces of Berry; thus pocketing a commission on both sides. In

this way they grew rich and miserly--the outcome of many such lives.
Descoings the son, younger brother of Madame Rouget, did not like

Issoudun. He went to seek his fortune in Paris, where he set up as a
grocer in the rue Saint-Honore. That step led to his ruin. But nothing

could have hindered it: a grocer is drawn to his business by an
attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives

artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social
potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would

be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer
rather than a baker; since, in our day, sons are not compelled to

follow the calling of their fathers, as they were among the Egyptians.
In this instance, love decided the vocation of Descoings. He said to

himself, "I, too, will be a grocer!" and in the same breath he said
(also to himself) some other things regarding his employer,--a

beautiful creature, with whom he had fallen desperately in love.
Without other help than patience and the trifling sum of money his

father and mother sent him, he married the widow of his predecessor,
Monsieur Bixiou.

In 1792 Descoings was thought to be doing an excellent business. At
that time, the old Descoings were still living. They had retired from

the wool-trade, and were employing their capital in buying up the
forfeited estates,--another golden fleece! Their son-in-law Doctor

Rouget, who, about this time, felt pretty sure that he should soon
have to mourn for the death of his wife, sent his daughter to Paris to

the care of his brother-in-law, partly to let her see the capital, but
still more to carry out an artful scheme of his own. Descoings had no

children. Madame Descoings, twelve years older than her husband, was
in good health, but as fat as a thrush after harvest; and the canny

Rouget knew enough professionally to be certain that Monsieur and
Madame Descoings, contrary to the moral of fairy tales, would live

happy ever after without having any children. The pair might therefore
become attached to Agathe.

That young girl, the handsomest maiden in Issoudun, did not resemble
either father or mother. Her birth had caused a lastingbreach between

Doctor Rouget and his intimate friend Monsieur Lousteau, a former sub-
delegate who had lately removed from the town. When a family

expatriates itself, the natives of a place as attractive as Issoudun
have a right to inquire into the reasons of so surprising a step. It

was said by certain sharp tongues that Doctor Rouget, a vindictive
man, had been heard to exclaim that Monsieur Lousteau should die by

his hand. Uttered by a physician, this declaration had the force of a
cannon-ball. When the National Assembly suppressed the sub-delegates,

Lousteau and his family left Issoudun, and never returned there. After
their departure Madame Rouget spent most of her time with the sister

of the late sub-delegate, Madame Hochon, who was the godmother of her
daughter, and the only person to whom she confided her griefs. The

little that the good town of Issoudun ever really knew of the
beautiful Madame Rouget was told by Madame Hochon,--though not until

after the doctor's death.
The first words of Madame Rouget, when informed by her husband that he

meant to send Agathe to Paris, were: "I shall never see my daughter
again."

"And she was right," said the worthy Madame Hochon.
After this, the poor mother grew as yellow as a quince, and her

appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that
Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of

a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly
accused. Not restrained, possibly encouraged by his father, the young

fellow, who was in every way stupid, paid her neither the attentions