At the time when Madame Bridau returned to Issoudun to save--as Maitre
Desroches expressed it--an inheritance that was seriously threatened,
Jean-Jacques Rouget had reached by degrees a condition that was
semi-vegetative. In the first place, after Max's instalment, Flore put
the table on an episcopal footing. Rouget, thrown in the way of good
living, ate more and still more, enticed by the Vedie's excellent
dishes. He grew no fatter, however, in spite of this abundant and
luxurious nourishment. From day to day he weakened like a worn-out
man,--fatigued, perhaps, with the effort of digestion,--and his eyes
had dark circles around them. Still, when his friends and neighbors
met him in his walks and questioned him about his health, he always
answered that he was never better in his life. As he had always been
thought extremely deficient in mind, people did not notice the
constant lowering of his faculties. His love for Flore was the one
thing that kept him alive; in fact, he existed only for her, and his
weakness in her presence was unbounded; he obeyed the creature's mere
look, and watched her movements as a dog watches every gesture of his
master. In short, as Madame Hochon remarked, at fifty-seven years of
age he seemed older than Monsieur Hochon, an octogenarian.
Every one will suppose, and with reason, that Max's _appartement_ was
worthy of so charming a fellow. In fact, in the course of six years
our captain had by degrees perfected the comfort of his abode and
adorned every detail of it, as much for his own pleasure as for
Flore's. But it was, after all, only the comfort and luxury of
Issoudun,--colored tiles, rather elegant wallpapers, mahogany
furniture, mirrors in gilt frames, muslin curtains with red borders, a
bed with a canopy, and draperies arranged as the provincial
upholsterers arrange them for a rich bride; which in the eyes of
Issoudun seemed the height of luxury, but are so common in vulgar
fashion-plates that even the petty shopkeepers in Paris have discarded
them at their weddings. One very unusual thing appeared, which caused
much talk in Issoudun, namely, a rush-matting on the stairs, no doubt
to muffle the sound of feet. In fact, though Max was in the habit of
coming in at daybreak, he never woke any one, and Rouget was far from
suspecting that his guest was an accomplice in the nocturnal
performances of the Knights of Idleness.
About eight o'clock the next morning, Flore, wearing a dressing-gown
of some pretty cotton stuff with narrow pink stripes, a lace cap on
her head, and her feet in furred slippers, softly opened the door of
Max's chamber; seeing that he slept, she remained standing beside the
bed.
"He came in so late!" she said to herself. "It was half-past three. He
must have a good constitution to stand such amusements. Isn't he
strong, the dear love! I wonder what they did last night."
"Oh, there you are, my little Flore!" said Max, waking like a soldier
trained by the necessities of war to have his wits and his
self-possession about him the instant that he waked, however suddenly
it might happen.
"You are sleepy; I'll go away."
"No, stay; there's something serious going on."
"Were you up to some mischief last night?"
"Ah, bah! It concerns you and me and that old fool. You never told me
he had a family! Well, his family are coming,--coming here,--no doubt
to turn us out, neck and crop."
"Ah! I'll shake him well," said Flore.
"Mademoiselle Brazier," said Max gravely, "things are too serious for
giddiness. Send me my coffee; I'll take it in bed, where I'll think
over what we had better do. Come back at nine o'clock, and we'll talk
about it. Meanwhile, behave as if you had heard nothing."
Frightened at the news, Flore left Max and went to make his coffee;
but a quarter of an hour later, Baruch burst into Max's bedroom,
crying out to the grand master,--
"Fario is hunting for his barrow!"
In five minutes Max was dressed and in the street, and though he
sauntered along with apparent indifference, he soon reached the foot
of the tower embankment, where he found quite a collection of people.
"What is it?" asked Max, making his way through the crowd and reaching
the Spaniard.
Fario was a withered little man, as ugly as though he were a
blue-blooded grandee. His fiery eyes, placed very close to his nose
and piercing as a gimlet, would have won him the name of a sorcerer in
Naples. He seemed gentle because he was calm, quiet, and slow in his
movements; and for this reason people commonly called him "goodman
Fario." But his skin--the color of gingerbread--and his softness of
manner only hid from stupid eyes, and disclosed to observing ones, the
half-Moorish nature of a peasant of Granada, which nothing had as yet
roused from its phlegmatic indolence.
"Are you sure," Max said to him, after listening to his grievance,
"that you brought your cart to this place? for, thank God, there are
no thieves in Issoudun."
"I left it just there--"
"If the horse was harnessed to it, hasn't he drawn it somewhere."
"Here's the horse," said Fario, pointing to the animal, which stood
harnessed thirty feet away.
Max went gravely up to the place where the horse stood, because from
there the bottom of the tower at the top of the embankment could be
seen,--the crowd being at the foot of the mound. Everybody followed
Max, and that was what the scoundrel wanted.
"Has anybody thoughtlessly put a cart in his pocket?" cried Francois.
"Turn out your pockets, all of you!" said Baruch.
Shouts of laughter resounded on all sides. Fario swore. Oaths, with a
Spaniard, denote the highest pitch of anger.
"Was your cart light?" asked Max.
"Light!" cried Fario. "If those who laugh at me had it on their feet,
their corns would never hurt them again."
"Well, it must be devilishly light," answered Max, "for look there!"
pointing to the foot of the tower; "it has flown up the embankment."
At these words all eyes were lifted to the spot, and for a moment
there was a perfect uproar in the market-place. Each man pointed at
the barrow bewitched, and all their tongues wagged.
"The devil makes common cause with the inn-keepers," said Goddet to
the astonished Spaniard. "He means to teach you not to leave your cart
about in the streets, but to put it in the tavern stables."
At this speech the crowd hooted, for Fario was thought to be a miser.
"Come, my good fellow," said Max, "don't lose heart. We'll go up to
the tower and see how your barrow got there. Thunder and cannon! we'll
lend you a hand! Come along, Baruch."
"As for you," he whispered to Francois, "get the people to stand back,
and make sure there is nobody at the foot of the embankment when you
see us at the top."
Fario, Max, Baruch, and three other knights climbed to the foot of the
tower. During the rather perilous ascent Max and Fario noticed that no
damage to the embankment, nor even trace of the passage of the barrow,
could be seen. Fario began to imagine witchcraft, and lost his head.
When they reached the top and examined into the matter, it really
seemed a thing impossible that the cart had got there.
"How shall I ever get it down?" said the Spaniard, whose little eyes
began for the first time to show fear; while his swarthy yellow face,
which seemed as it if could never change color, whitened.
"How?" said Max. "Why, that's not difficult."
And taking advantage of the Spaniard's stupefaction, he raised the
barrow by the shafts with his robust arms and prepared to fling it
down, calling in thundering tones as it left his grasp, "Look out
there, below!"
No accident happened, for the crowd, persuaded by Francois and eaten
up with curiosity, had retired to a distance from which they could see
more clearly what went on at the top of the embankment. The cart was
dashed to an infinite number of pieces in a very picturesque manner.
"There! you have got it down," said Baruch.
"Ah, brigands! ah, scoundrels!" cried Fario; "perhaps it was you who
brought it up here!"
Max, Baruch, and their three comrades began to laugh at the Spaniard's
rage.
"I wanted to do you a service," said Max coolly, "and in handling the
damned thing I came very near flinging myself after it; and this is
how you thank me, is it? What country do you come from?"
"I come from a country where they never forgive," replied Fario,
trembling with rage. "My cart will be the cab in which you shall drive
to the devil!--unless," he said, suddenly becoming as meek as a lamb,
"you will give me a new one."
"We will talk about that," said Max, beginning to descend.
When they reached the bottom and met the first hilarious group, Max
took Fario by the button of his jacket and said to him,--
"Yes, my good Fario, I'll give you a magnificent cart, if you will
give me two hundred and fifty francs; but I won't warrant it to go,
like this one, up a tower."
At this last jest Fario became as cool as though he were making a
bargain.
"Damn it!" he said, "give me the wherewithal to replace my barrow, and
it will be the best use you ever made of old Rouget's money."
Max turned livid; he raised his formidable fist to strike Fario; but
Baruch, who knew that the blow would descend on others besides the
Spaniard, plucked the latter away like a feather and whispered to
Max,--
"Don't commit such a folly!"
The grand master, thus called to order, began to laugh and said to
Fario,--
"If I, by accident, broke your barrow, and you in return try to
slander me, we are quits."
"Not yet," muttered Fario. "But I am glad to know what my barrow was
worth."
"Ah, Max, you've found your match!" said a spectator of the scene, who
did not belong to the Order of Idleness.
"Adieu, Monsieur Gilet. I haven't thanked you yet for lending me a
hand," cried the Spaniard, as he kicked the sides of his horse and
disappeared amid loud hurrahs.
"We will keep the tires of the wheels for you," shouted a wheelwright,
who had come to inspect the damage done to the cart.
One of the shafts was sticking upright in the ground, as straight as a
tree. Max stood by, pale and thoughtful, and deeply annoyed by Fario's
speech. For five days after this, nothing was talked of in Issoudun
but the tale of the Spaniard's barrow; it was even fated to travel
abroad, as Goddet remarked,--for it went the round of Berry, where the
speeches of Fario and Max were repeated, and at the end of a week the
affair, greatly to the Spaniard's satisfaction, was still the talk of
the three departments and the subject of endless gossip. In
consequence of the vindictive Spaniard's terrible speech, Max and the
Rabouilleuse became the object of certain comments which were merely
whispered in Issoudun, though they were spoken aloud in Bourges,
Vatan, Vierzon, and Chateauroux. Maxence Gilet knew enough of that
region of the country to guess how envenomed such comments would
become.
"We can't stop their tongues," he said at last. "Ah! I did a foolish
thing!"
"Max!" said Francois, taking his arm. "They are coming to-night."
"They! Who!"
"The Bridaus. My grandmother has just had a letter from her
goddaughter."
"Listen, my boy," said Max in a low voice. "I have been thinking
deeply of this matter. Neither Flore nor I ought to seem opposed to
the Bridaus. If these heirs are to be got rid of, it is for you
Hochons to drive them out of Issoudun. Find out what sort of people
they are. To-morrow at Mere Cognette's, after I've taken their
measure, we can decide what is to be done, and how we can set your
grandfather against them."
"The Spaniard found the flaw in Max's armor," said Baruch to his
cousin Francois, as they turned into Monsieur Hochon's house and
watched their comrade entering his own door.
While Max was thus employed, Flore, in spite of her friend's advice,
was unable to restrain her wrath; and without knowing whether she
would help or hinder Max's plans, she burst forth upon the poor
bachelor. When Jean-Jacques incurred the anger of his mistress, the
little attentions and vulgar fondlings which were all his joy were
suddenly suppressed. Flore sent her master, as the children say, into
disgrace. No more tender glances, no more of the caressing little
words in various tones with which she decked her conversation,--"my
kitten," "my old darling," "my bibi," "my rat," etc. A "you," cold and
sharp and ironically respectful, cut like the blade of a knife through
the heart of the miserable old bachelor. The "you" was a declaration
of war. Instead of helping the poor man with his toilet, handing him
what he wanted, forestalling his wishes, looking at him with the sort
of admiration which all women know how to express, and which, in some
cases, the coarser it is the better it pleases,--saying, for instance,
"You look as fresh as a rose!" or, "What health you have!" "How
handsome you are, my old Jean!"--in short, instead of entertaining him
with the lively chatter and broad jokes in which he delighted, Flore
left him to dress alone. If he called her, she answered from the foot
of the staircase, "I can't do everything at once; how can I look after
your breakfast and wait upon you up there? Are not you big enough to
dress your own self?"
"Oh, dear! what have I done to displease her?" the old man asked
himself that morning, as he got one of these rebuffs after calling for
his shaving-water.
"Vedie, take up the hot water," cried Flore.
"Vedie!" exclaimed the poor man, stupefied with fear of the anger that
was crushing him. "Vedie, what is the matter with Madame this
morning?"
Flore Brazier required her master and Vedie and Kouski and Max to call
her Madame.
"She seems to have heard something about you which isn't to your
credit," answered Vedie, assuming an air of deep concern. "You are
doing wrong, monsieur. I'm only a poor servant-woman, and you may say
I have no right to poke my nose into your affairs; but I do say you
may search through all the women in the world, like that king in holy
Scripture, and you won't find the equal of Madame. You ought to kiss
the ground she steps on. Goodness! if you make her unhappy, you'll
only spoil your own life. There she is, poor thing, with her eyes full
of tears."
Vedie left the poor man utterly cast down; he dropped into an armchair
and gazed into vacancy like the melancholy imbecile that he was, and
forgot to shave. These alternations of tenderness and severity worked
upon this feeble creature whose only life was through his amorous
fibre, the same morbid effect which great changes from tropical heat
to arctic cold produce upon the human body. It was a moral pleurisy,
which wore him out like a physical disease. Flore alone could thus
affect him; for to her, and to her alone, he was as good as he was
foolish.
"Well, haven't you shaved yet?" she said, appearing at his door.
Her sudden presence made the old man start violently; and from being
pale and cast down he grew red for an instant, without, however,
daring to complain of her treatment.
"Your breakfast is waiting," she added. "You can come down as you are,
in dressing-gown and slippers; for you'll breakfast alone, I can tell
you."
Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared. To make him breakfast
alone was the punishment he dreaded most; he loved to talk to her as
he ate his meals. When he got to the foot of the staircase he was
taken with a fit of coughing; for emotion excited his catarrh.
"Cough away!" said Flore in the kitchen, without caring whether he
heard her or not. "Confound the old wretch! he is able enough to get
over it without bothering others. If he coughs up his soul, it will
only be after--"
Such were the amenities the Rabouilleuse addressed to Rouget when she
was angry. The poor man sat down in deep distress at a corner of the
table in the middle of the room, and looked at his old furniture and
the old pictures with a disconsolate air.
"You might at least have put on a cravat," said Flore. "Do you think
it is pleasant for people to see such a neck as yours, which is redder
and more wrinkled than a turkey's?"
"But what have I done?" he asked, lifting his big light-green eyes,
full of tears, to his tormentor, and trying to face her hard
countenance.
"What have you done?" she exclaimed. "As if you didn't know? Oh, what
a hypocrite! Your sister Agathe--who is as much your sister as I am
sister of the tower of Issoudun, if one's to believe your father, and
who has no claim at all upon you--is coming here from Paris with her
son, a miserable two-penny painter, to see you."
"My sister and my nephews coming to Issoudun!" he said, bewildered.
"Oh, yes! play the surprised, do; try to make me believe you didn't
send for them! sewing your lies with white bread, indeed! Don't fash
yourself; we won't trouble your Parisians--before they set their feet
in this house, we shall have shaken the dust of it off ours. Max and I
will be gone, never to return. As for your will, I'll tear it in
quarters under your nose, and to your very beard--do you hear? Leave
your property to your family, if you don't think we are your family;
and then see if you'll be loved for yourself by a lot of people who
have not seen you for thirty years,--who in fact have never seen you!
Is it that sort of sister who can take my place? A pinchbeck saint!"
"If that's all, my little Flore," said the old man, "I won't receive
my sister, or my nephews. I swear to you this is the first word I have
heard of their coming. It is all got up by that Madame Hochon--a
sanctimonious old--"
Max, who had overheard old Rouget's words, entered suddenly, and said
in a masterful tone,--
"What's all this?"
"My good Max," said the old man, glad to get the protection of the
soldier who, by agreement with Flore, always took his side in a
dispute, "I swear by all that is most sacred, that I now hear this
news for the first time. I have never written to my sister; my father
made me promise not to leave her any of my property; to leave it to
the Church sooner than to her. Well, I won't receive my sister Agathe
to this house, or her sons--"
"Your father was wrong, my dear Jean-Jacques, and Madame Brazier is
still more wrong," answered Max. "Your father no doubt had his
reasons, but he is dead, and his hatred should die with him. Your
sister is your sister, and your nephews are your nephews. You owe it
to yourself to welcome them, and you owe it to us as well. What would
people say in Issoudun? Thunder! I've got enough upon my shoulders as
it is, without hearing people say that we shut you up and don't allow
you a will of your own, or that we influence you against your
relations and are trying to get hold of your property. The devil take
me if I don't pull up stakes and be off, if that sort of calumny is to
be flung at me! the other is bad enough! Let's eat our breakfast."
Flore, who was now as mild as a weasel, helped Vedie to set the table.
Old Rouget, full of admiration for Max, took him by both hands and led
him into the recess of a window, saying in a low voice:--
"Ah! Max, if I had a son, I couldn't love him better than I love you.
Flore is right: you two are my real family. You are a man of honor,
Max, and what you have just said is true."
"You ought to receive and entertain your sister and her son, but not
change the arrangements you have made about your property," said Max.
"In that way you will do what is right in the eyes of the world, and
yet keep your promise to your father."
"Well! my dear loves!" cried Flore, gayly, "the salmi is getting cold.
Come, my old rat, here's a wing for you," she said, smiling on
Jean-Jacques.
At the words, the long-drawn face of the poor creature lost its
cadaverous tints, the smile of a Theriaki flickered on his pendent
lips; but he was seized with another fit of coughing; for the joy of
being taken back to favor excited as violent an emotion as the
punishment itself. Flore rose, pulled a little cashmere shawl from her
own shoulders, and tied it round the old man's throat, exclaiming:
"How silly to put yourself in such a way about nothing. There, you old
goose, that will do you good; it has been next my heart--"
"What a good creature!" said Rouget to Max, while Flore went to fetch
a black velvet cap to cover the nearly bald head of the old bachelor.
"As good as she is beautiful"; answered Max, "but she is quick-
tempered, like all people who carry their hearts in their hands."
The baldness of this sketch may displease some, who will think the
flashes of Flore's character belong to the sort of realism which a
painter ought to leave in shadow. Well! this scene, played again and
again with shocking variations, is, in its coarse way and its horrible
veracity, the type of such scenes played by women on whatever rung of
the social ladder they are perched, when any interest, no matter what,
draws them from their own line of obedience and induces them to grasp
at power. In their eyes, as in those of politicians, all means to an
end are justifiable. Between Flore Brazier and a duchess, between a
duchess and the richest bourgeoise, between a bourgeoise and the most
luxuriously kept mistress, there are no differences except those of
the education they have received, and the surroundings in which they
live. The pouting of a fine lady is the same thing as the violence of
a Rabouilleuse. At all levels, bitter sayings, ironical jests, cold
contempt, hypocritical complaints, false quarrels, win as much success
as the low outbursts of this Madame Everard of Issoudun.
Max began to relate, with much humor, the tale of Fario and his
barrow, which made the old man laugh. Vedie and Kouski, who came to
listen, exploded in the kitchen, and as to Flore, she laughed
convulsively. After breakfast, while Jean-Jacques read the newspapers
(for they subscribed to the "Constitutionel" and the "Pandore"), Max
carried Flore to his own quarters.
"Are you quite sure he has not made any other will since the one in
which he left the property to you?"
"He hasn't anything to write with," she answered.
"He might have dictated it to some notary," said Max; "we must look
out for that. Therefore it is well to be cordial to the Bridaus, and
at the same time endeavor to turn those mortgages into money. The
notaries will be only too glad to make the transfers; it is grist to
their mill. The Funds are going up; we shall conquer Spain, and
deliver Ferdinand VII. and the Cortez, and then they will be above
par. You and I could make a good thing out of it by putting the old
fellow's seven hundred and fifty thousand francs into the Funds at
eighty-nine. Only you must try to get it done in your name; it will be
so much secured anyhow."
"A capital idea!" said Flore.
"And as there will be an income of fifty thousand francs from eight
hundred and ninety thousand, we must make him borrow one hundred and
forty thousand francs for two years, to be paid back in two
instalments. In two years, we shall get one hundred thousand francs
_in_ Paris, and ninety thousand here, and risk nothing."
"If it were not for you, my handsome Max, what would become of me
now?" she said.
"Oh! to-morrow night at Mere Cognette's, after I have seen the
Parisians, I shall find a way to make the Hochons themselves get rid
of them."
"Ah! what a head you've got, my angel! You are a love of a man."
The place Saint-Jean is at the centre of a long street called at the
upper end the rue Grand Narette, and at the lower the rue Petite
Narette. The word "Narette" is used in Berry to express the same lay
of the land as the Genoese word "salita" indicates,--that is to say, a
steep street. The Grand Narette rises rapidly from the place
Saint-Jean to the port Vilatte. The house of old Monsieur Hochon is
exactly opposite that of Jean-Jacques Rouget. From the windows of the
room where Madame Hochon usually sat, it was easy to see what went on
at the Rouget household, and vice versa, when the curtains were drawn
back or the doors were left open. The Hochon house was like the Rouget
house, and the two were doubtless built by the same architect.
Monsieur Hochon, formerly tax-collector at Selles in Berry, born,
however, at Issoudun, had returned to his native place and married the
sister of the sub-delegate, the gay Lousteau, exchanging his office at
Selles for another of the same kind at Issoudun. Having retired before
1787, he escaped the dangers of the Revolution, to whose principles,
however, he firmly adhered, like all other "honest men" who howl with
the winners. Monsieur Hochon came honestly by the reputation of miser.
but it would be mere repetition to sketch him here. A single specimen
of the avarice which made him famous will suffice to make you see
Monsieur Hochon as he was.
At the wedding of his daughter, now dead, who married a Borniche, it
was necessary to give a dinner to the Borniche family. The bridegroom,
who was heir to a large fortune, had suffered great mortification from
having mismanaged his property, and still more because his father and
mother refused to help him out. The old people, who were living at the
time of the marriage, were delighted to see Monsieur Hochon step in as
guardian,--for the purpose, of course, of making his daughter's dowry
secure. On the day of the dinner, which was given to celebrate the
signing of the marriage contract, the chief relations of the two
families were assembled in the salon, the Hochons on one side, the
Borniches on the other,--all in their best clothes. While the contract
was being solemnly read aloud by young Heron, the notary, the cook
came into the room and asked Monsieur Hochon for some twine to truss
up the turkey,--an essential feature of the repast. The old man dove
into the pocket of his surtout, pulled out an end of string which had
evidently already served to tie up a parcel, and gave it to her; but
before she could leave the room he called out, "Gritte, mind you give
it back to me!" (Gritte is the abbreviation used in Berry for
Marguerite.)
From year to year old Hochon grew more petty in his meanness, and more
penurious; and at this time he was eighty-five years old. He belonged
to the class of men who stop short in the street, in the middle of a
lively dialogue, and stoop to pick up a pin, remarking, as they stick
it in the sleeve of their coat, "There's the wife's stipend." He
complained bitterly of the poor quality of the cloth manufactured
now-a-days, and called attention to the fact that his coat had lasted
only ten years. Tall, gaunt, thin, and sallow; saying little, reading
little, and doing nothing to fatigue himself; as observant of forms as
an oriental,--he enforced in his own house a discipline of strict
abstemiousness, weighing and measuring out the food and drink of the
family, which, indeed, was rather numerous, and consisted of his wife,
nee Lousteau, his grandson Borniche with a sister Adolphine, the heirs
of old Borniche, and lastly, his other grandson, Francois Hochon.
Hochon's eldest son was taken by the draft of 1813, which drew in the
sons of well-to-do families who had escaped the regular conscription,
and were now formed into a corps styled the "guards of honor." This
heir-presumptive, who was killed at Hanau, had married early in life a
rich woman, intending thereby to escape all conscriptions; but after
he was enrolled, he wasted his substance, under a presentiment of his
end. His wife, who followed the army at a distance, died at Strasburg
in 1814, leaving debts which her father-in-law Hochon refused to pay,
--answering the creditors with an axiom of ancient law, "Women are
minors."
The house, though large, was scantily furnished; on the second floor,
however, there were two rooms suitable for Madame Bridau and Joseph.
Old Hochon now repented that he had kept them furnished with two beds,
each bed accompanied by an old armchair of natural wood covered with
needlework, and a walnut table, on which figured a water-pitcher of
the wide-mouthed kind called "gueulard," standing in a basin with a
blue border. The old man kept his winter store of apples and pears,
medlars and quinces on heaps of straw in these rooms, where the rats
and mice ran riot, so that they exhaled a mingled odor of fruit and
vermin. Madame Hochon now directed that everything should be cleaned;
the wall-paper, which had peeled off in places, was fastened up again
with wafers; and she decorated the windows with little curtains which
she pieced together from old hoards of her own. Her husband having
refused to let her buy a strip of drugget, she laid down her own
bedside carpet for her little Agathe,--"Poor little thing!" as she
called the mother, who was now over forty-seven years old. Madame
Hochon borrowed two night-tables from a neighbor, and boldly hired two
chests of drawers with brass handles from a dealer in second-hand
furniture who lived next to Mere Cognette. She herself had preserved
two pairs of candlesticks, carved in choice woods by her own father,
who had the "turning" mania. From 1770 to 1780 it was the fashion
among rich people to learn a trade, and Monsieur Lousteau, the father,
was a turner, just as Louis XVI. was a locksmith. These candlesticks
were ornamented with circlets made of the roots of rose, peach, and
apricot trees. Madame Hochon actually risked the use of her precious
relics! These preparations and this sacrifice increased old Hochon's
anxiety; up to this time he had not believed in the arrival of the
Bridaus.
The morning of the day that was celebrated by the trick on Fario,
Madame Hochon said to her husband after breakfast:--
"I hope, Hochon, that you will receive my goddaughter, Madame Bridau,
properly." Then, after making sure that her grandchildren were out of
hearing, she added: "I am mistress of my own property; don't oblige me
to make up to Agathe in my will for any incivility on your part."
"Do you think, madame," answered Hochon, in a mild voice, "that, at my
age, I don't know the forms of decent civility?"
"You know very well what I mean, you crafty old thing! Be friendly to
our guests, and remember that I love Agathe."
"And you love Maxence Gilet also, who is getting the property away
from your dear Agathe! Ah! you've warmed a viper in your bosom there;
but after all, the Rouget money is bound to go to a Lousteau."
After making this allusion to the supposed parentage and both Max and
Agathe, Hochon turned to leave the room; but old Madame Hochon, a
woman still erect and spare, wearing a round cap with ribbon knots and
her hair powdered, a taffet petticoat of changeable colors like a
pigeon's breast, tight sleeves, and her feet in high-heeled slippers,
deposited her snuff-box on a little table, and said:--
"Really, Monsieur Hochon, how can a man of your sense repeat
absurdities which, unhappily, cost my poor friend her peace of mind,
and Agathe the property which she ought to have had from her father.
Max Gilet is not the son of my brother, whom I often advised to save
the money he paid for him. You know as well as I do that Madame Rouget
was virtue itself--"
"And the daughter takes after her; for she strikes me as uncommonly
stupid. After losing all her fortune, she brings her sons up so well
that here is one in prison and likely to be brought up on a criminal
indictment before the Court of Peers for a conspiracy worthy of
Berton. As for the other, he is worse off; he's a painter. If your
proteges are to stay here till they have extricated that fool of a
Rouget from the claws of Gilet and the Rabouilleuse, we shall eat a
good deal more than half a measure of salt with them."
"That's enough, Monsieur Hochon; you had better wish they may not have
two strings to their bow."
Monsieur Hochon took his hat, and his cane with an ivory knob, and
went away petrified by that terrible speech; for he had no idea that
his wife could show such resolution. Madame Hochon took her
prayer-book to read the service, for her advanced age prevented her
from going daily to church; it was only with difficulty that she got
there on Sundays and holidays. Since receiving her goddaughter's letter
she had added a petition to her usual prayers, supplicating God to open
the eyes of Jean-Jacques Rouget, and to bless Agathe and prosper the
expedition into which she herself had drawn her. Concealing the fact
from her grandchildren, whom she accused of being "parpaillots," she
had asked the curate to say a mass for Agathe's success during a
neuvaine which was being held by her granddaughter, Adolphine
Borniche, who thus made her prayers in church by proxy.
Adolphine, then eighteen,--who for the last seven years had sewed at
the side of her grandmother in that cold household of monotonous and
methodical customs,--had undertaken her neuvaine all the more
willingly because she hoped to inspire some feeling in Joseph Bridau,
in whom she took the deepest interest because of the monstrosities
which her grandfather attributed in her hearing to the young Parisian.
All the old people and sensible people of the town, and the fathers of
families approved of Madame Hochon's conduct in receiving her
goddaughter; and their good wishes for the latter's success were in
proportion to the secret contempt with which the conduct of Maxence
Gilet had long inspired them. Thus the news of the arrival of Rouget's
sister and nephew raised two parties in Issoudun,--that of the higher
and older bourgeoisie, who contented themselves with offering good
wishes and in watching events without assisting them, and that of the
Knights of Idleness and the partisans of Max, who, unfortunately, were
capable of committing many high-handed outrages against the Parisians.