"I have the honor to salute Monsieur de La Briere," said Butscha. "I

myself have the honor to be head clerk to Latournelle, chief
councillor of Havre, and my position is a better one than yours. Yes,

I have had the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie
nearly every evening for the last four years, and I expect to live

near her, as a king's servant lives in the Tuileries. If they offered
me the throne of Russia I should answer, 'I love the sun too well.'

Isn't that telling you, monsieur, that I care more for her than for
myself? I am looking after her interests with the most honorable

intentions. Do you believe that the proud Duchesse de Chaulieu would
cast a favorable eye on the happiness of Madame de Canalis if her

waiting-woman, who is in love with Monsieur Germain, not liking that
charming valet's absence in Havre, were to say to her mistress while

brushing her hair--"
"Who do you know about all this?" said La Briere, interrupting

Butscha.
"In the first place, I am clerk to a notary," answered Butscha. "But

haven't you seen my hump? It is full of resources, monsieur. I have
made myself cousin to Mademoiselle Philoxene Jacmin, born at Honfleur,

where my mother was born, a Jacmin,--there are eight branches of the
Jacmins at Honfleur. So my cousin Philoxene, enticed by the bait of a

highly improbable fortune, has told me a good many things."
"The duchess is vindictive?" said La Briere.

"Vindictive as a queen, Philoxene says; she has never yet forgiven the
duke for being nothing more than her husband," replied Butscha. "She

hates as she loves. I know all about her character, her tastes, her
toilette, her religion, and her manners; for Philoxene stripped her

for me, soul and corset. I went to the opera expressly to see her, and
I didn't grudge the ten francs it cost me--I don't mean the play. If

my imaginary cousin had not told me the duchess had seen her fifty
summers, I should have thought I was over-generous in giving her

thirty; she has never known a winter, that duchess!"
"Yes," said La Briere, "she is a cameo--preserved because it is stone.

Canalis would be in a bad way if the duchess were to find out what he
is doing here; and I hope, monsieur, that you will go no further in

this business of spying, which is worthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的；不足道的">unworthy of an honest man."
"Monsieur," said Butscha, proudly; "for me Modeste is my country. I do

not spy; I foresee, I take precautions. The duchess will come here if
it is desirable, or she will stay tranquilly where she is, according

to what I judge best."
"You?"

"I."
"And how, pray?"

"Ha, that's it!" said the little hunchback, plucking a blade of grass.
"See here! this herb believes that men build palaces for it to grow

in; it wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble, and brings
them down, just as the masses forced into the edifice of feudality

have brought it to the ground. The power of the feeble life that can
creep everywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their

cannons. I am one of three who have sworn that Modeste shall be happy,
and we would sell our honor for her. Adieu, monsieur. If you truly

love Mademoiselle de La Bastie, forget this conversation and shake
hands with me, for I think you've got a heart. I longed to see the

Chalet, and I got here just as SHE was putting out her light. I saw
the dogs rush at you, and I overheard your words, and that is why I

take the liberty of saying we serve in the same regiment--that of
loyal devotion."

"Monsieur," said La Briere, wringing the hunchback's hand, "would you
have the friendliness to tell me if Mademoiselle Modeste ever loved

any one WITH LOVE before she wrote to Canalis?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Butscha in an altered voice; "that thought is an

insult. And even now, who knows if she really loves? does she know
herself? She is enamored of genius, of the soul and intellect of that

seller of verses, that literary quack; but she will study him, we
shall all study him; and I know how to make the man's real character

peep out from under that turtle-shell of fine manners,--we'll soon see
the petty little head of his ambition and his vanity!" cried Butscha,

rubbing his hands. "So, unless mademoiselle is desperately taken with
him--"

"Oh! she was seized with admiration when she saw him, as if he were
something marvellous," exclaimed La Briere, letting the secret of his

jealousy escape him.
"If he is a loyal, honest fellow, and loves her; if he is worthy of

her; if he renounces his duchess," said Butscha,--"then I'll manage
the duchess! Here, my dear sir, take this road, and you will get home

in ten minutes."
But as they parted, Butscha turned back and hailed poor Ernest, who,

as a true lover, would gladly have stayed there all night talking of
Modeste.

"Monsieur," said Butscha, "I have not yet had the honor of seeing our
great poet. I am very curious to observe that magnificentphenomenon

in the exercise of his functions. Do me the favor to bring him to the
Chalet to-morrow evening, and stay as long as possible; for it takes

more than an hour for a man to show himself for what he is. I shall be
the first to see if he loves, if he can love, or if he ever will love

Mademoiselle Modeste."
"You are very young to--"

"--to be a professor," said Butscha, cutting short La Briere. "Ha,
monsieur, deformed folks are born a hundred years old. And besides, a

sick man who has long been sick, knows more than his doctor; he knows
the disease, and that is more than can be said for the best of

doctors. Well, so it is with a man who cherishes a woman in his heart
when the woman is forced to disdain him for his ugliness or his

deformity; he ends by knowing so much of love that he becomes
seductive, just as the sick man recovers his health; stupidity alone

is incurable. I have had neither father nor mother since I was six
years old; I am now twenty-five. Public charity has been my mother,

the procureur du roi my father. Oh! don't be troubled," he added,
seeing Ernest's gesture; "I am much more lively than my situation.

Well, for the last six years, ever since a woman's eye first told me I
had no right to love, I do love, and I study women. I began with the

ugly ones, for it is best to take the bull by the horns. So I took my
master's wife, who has certainly been an angel to me, for my first

study. Perhaps I did wrong; but I couldn't help it. I passed her
through my alembic and what did I find? this thought, crouching at the

bottom of her heart, 'I am not so ugly as they think me'; and if a man
were to work upon that thought he could bring her to the edge of the

abyss, pious as she is."
"And have you studied Modeste?"

"I thought I told you," replied Butscha, "that my life belongs to her,
just as France belongs to the king. Do you now understand what you

called my spying in Paris? No one but me really knows what nobility,
what pride, what devotion, what mysterious grace, what unwearying

kindness, what true religion, gaiety, wit, delicacy, knowledge, and
courtesy there are in the soul and in the heart of that adorable

creature!"
Butscha drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, and La Briere

pressed his hand for a long time.
"I live in the sunbeam of her existence; it comes from her, it is

absorbed in me; that is how we are united,--as nature is to God, by
the Light and by the Word. Adieu, monsieur; never in my life have I

talked in this way; but seeing you beneath her windows, I felt in my
heart that you loved her as I love her."

Without waiting for an answer Butscha quitted the poor lover, into
whose heart his words had put an inexpressible balm. Ernest resolved

to make a friend of him, not suspecting that the chief object of the
clerk's loquacity was to gain communication with some one connected

with Canalis. Ernest was rocked to sleep that night by the ebb and
flow of thoughts and resolutions and plans for his future conduct,

whereas Canalis slept the sleep of the conqueror, which is the
sweetest of slumbers after that of the just.