IX

But the respite granted by fate to Mme. Favoral was drawing to an

end: her trials were about to return more poignant than ever,

occasioned, this time, by her children, hitherto her whole happiness

and her only consolation.

Maxence was nearly twelve. He was a good little fellow, intelligent,

studious at times, but thoughtless in the extreme, and of a

turbulence which nothing could tame.

At the Massin School, where he had been sent, he made his teachers’

hair turn white; and not a week went by that he did not signalize

himself by some fresh misdeed.

A father like any other would have paid but slight attention to the

pranks of a schoolboy, who, after all, ranked among the first of his

class, and of whom the teachers themselves, whilst complaining, said,

“Bash! What matters it, since the heart is sound and the mind sane?”

But M. Favoral took every thing tragically. If Maxence was kept in,

or otherwise punished, he pretended that it reflected upon himself,

and that his son was disgracing him.

If a report came home with this remark, “execrable conduct,” he fell

into the most violent passion, and seemed to lose all control of

himself.

“At your age,” he would shout to the terrified boy, “I was working

in a factory, and earning my livelihood. Do you suppose that I

will not tire of making sacrifices to procure you the advantages

of an education which I lacked myself? Beware. Havre is not far

off; and cabin-boys are always in demand there.”

If, at least, he had confined himself to these admonitions, which,

by their very exaggeration, failed in their object! But he favored

mechanical appliances as a necessary means of sufficiently impressing

reprimands upon the minds of young people; and therefore, seizing

his cane, he would beat poor Maxence most unmercifully, the more so

that the boy, filled with pride, would have allowed himself to be

chopped to pieces rather than utter a cry, or shed a tear.

The first time that Mme. Favoral saw her son struck, she was seized

with one of those wild fits of anger which do not reason, and never

forgive. To be beaten herself would have seemed to her less

atrocious, less humiliating. Hitherto she had found it impossible

to love a husband such as hers: henceforth, she took him in utter

aversion: he inspired her with horror. She looked upon her son as

a martyr for whom she could hardly ever do enough.

And so, after these harrowing scenes, she would press him to her

heart in the most passionate embrace; she would cover with her kisses

the traces of the blows; and she would strive, by the most delirious

caresses, to make him forget the paternal brutalities. With him she

sobbed. Like him, she would shake her clinched fists in the vacant

space; exclaiming, “Coward, tyrant, assassin!” The little Gilberte

mingled her tears with theirs; and, pressed against each other, they

deplored their destiny, cursing the common enemy, the head of the

family.

Thus did Maxence spend his boyhood between equally fatal

exaggerations, between the revolting brutalities of his father, and

the dangerous caresses of his mother; the one depriving him of every

thing, the other refusing him nothing.

For Mme. Favoral had now found a use for her humble savings.

If the idea had never come to the cashier of the Mutual Credit

Society to put a few sous in his son’s pocket, the too weak mother

would have suggested to him the want of money in order to have the

pleasure of gratifying it.

She who had suffered so many humiliations in her life, she could not

bear the idea of her son having his pride wounded, and being unable

to indulge in those little trifling expenses which are the vanity

of schoolboys.

“Here, take this,” she would tell him on holidays, slipping a few

francs into his hands.

Unfortunately, to her present she joined the recommendation not to

allow his father to know any thing about it; forgetting that she was

thus training Maxence to dissimulate, warping his natural sense of

right, and perverting his instincts.

No, she gave; and, to repair the gaps thus made in her treasure, she

worked to the point of ruining her sight, with such eager zeal, that

the worthy shop-keeper of the Rue St. Denis asked her if she did not

employ working girls. In truth, the only help she received was from

Gilberte, who, at the age of eight, already knew how to make herself

useful.

And this is not all. For this son, in anticipation of growing

expenses, she stooped to expedients which formerly would have seemed

to her unworthy and disgraceful. She robbed the household, cheating

on her own marketing. She went so far as to confide to her servant,

and to make of the girl the accomplice of her operations. She

applied all her ingenuity to serve to M. Favoral dinners in which

the excellence of the dressing concealed the want of solid substance.

And on Sunday, when she rendered her weekly accounts, it was without

a blush that she increased by a few centimes the price of each object,

rejoicing when she had thus scraped a dozen francs, and finding, to

justify herself to her own eyes, those sophisms which passion never

lacks.

At first Maxence was too young to wonder from what sources his mother

drew the money she lavished upon his schoolboy fancies. She

recommended him to hide from his father: he did so, and thought it

perfectly natural.

As he grew older, he learned to discern.

The moment came when he opened his eyes upon the system under which

the paternal household was managed. He noticed there that anxious

economy which seems to betray want, and the acrimonious discussions

which arose upon the inconsiderate use of a twenty-franc-piece. He

saw his mother realize miracles of industry to conceal the shabbiness

of her toilets, and resort to the most skillful diplomacy when she

wished to purchase a dress for Gilberte.

And, despite all this, he had at his disposition as much money as

those of his comrades whose parents had the reputation to be the

most opulent and the most generous.

Anxious, he questioned his mother.

“Eh, what does it matter?” she answered, blushing

and confused. “Is that any thing to worry you?”

And, as he insisted,

“Go ahead,” she said: “we are rich enough.” But he could hardly

believe her, accustomed as he was to hear every one talk of poverty;

and, as he fixed upon her his great astonished eyes,

“Yes,” she resumed, with an imprudence which fatally was to bear its

fruits, “we are rich; and, if we live as you see, it is because it

suits your father, who wishes to amass a still greater fortune.”

This was hardly an answer; and yet Maxence asked no further question.

But he inquired here and there, with that patient shrewdness of young

people possessed with a fixed idea.

Already, at this time, M. Favoral had in the neighborhood, and ever

among his friends, the reputation to be worth at least a million.

The Mutual Credit Society had considerably developed itself: he must,

they thought, have benefitted largely by the circumstance; and the

profits must have swelled rapidly in the hands of so able a man,

and one so noted for his rigid economy.

Such is the substance of what Maxence heard; and people did not fail

to add ironically, that he need not rely upon the paternal fortune

to amuse himself.

M. Desormeaux himself, whom he had “pumped” rather cleverly, had

told him, whilst patting him amicably on the shoulder,

“If you ever need money for your frolics, young man, try and earn

it; for I’ll be hanged if it’s the old man who’ll ever supply it.”

Such answers complicated, instead of explaining, the problem which

occupied Maxence.

He observed, he watched; and at last he acquired the certainty that

the money he spent was the fruit of the joint labor of his mother

and sister.

“Ah! why not have told me so?” he exclaimed, throwing his arms

around his mother’s neck. “Why have exposed me to the bitter regrets

which I feel at this moment?”

By this sole word the poor woman found herself amply repaid. She

admired the _noblesse_ of her son’s feelings and the kindness of his

heart.

“Do you not understand,” she told him, shedding tears of joy, “do

you not see, that the labor which can promote her son’s pleasure is

a happiness for his mother?”

But he was dismayed at his discovery.

“No matter!” he said. “I swear that I shall no longer scatter to

the winds, as I have been doing, the money that you give me.”

For a few weeks, indeed, he was faithful to his pledge. But at

fifteen resolutions are not very stanch. The impressions he had

felt wore off. He became tired of the small privations which he had

to impose upon himself.

He soon came to take to the letter what his mother had told him, and

to prove to his own satisfaction that to deprive himself of a

pleasure was to deprive her. He asked for ten francs one day, then

ten francs another, and gradually resumed his old habits.

He was at this time about leaving school.

“The moment has come,” said M. Favoral, “for him to select a career,

and support himself.”

X

To think of a profession, Maxence Favoral had not waited for the

paternal warnings.

Modern schoolboys are precocious: they know the strong and the weak

side of life; and, when they take their degree, they already have

but few illusions left.

And how could it be otherwise? In the interior of the colleges is

fatally found the echo of the thoughts, and the reflex of the manners,

of the time. Neither walls nor keepers can avail. At the same time,

as the city mud that stains their boots, the scholars bring back on

their return from holidays their stock of observations and of facts.

And what have they seen during the day in their families, or among

their friends?

Ardent cravings, insatiable appetites for luxuries, comforts,

enjoyments, pleasures, contempt for patient labor, scorn for austere

convictions, eager longing for money, the will to become rich at any

cost, and the firm resolution to ravish fortune on the first

favorable occasion.

To be sure, they have dissembled in their presence; but their

perceptions are keen.

True, their father has told them in a grave tone, that there is

nothing respectable in this world except labor and honesty; but they

have caught that same father scarcely noticing a poor devil of an

honest man, and bowing to the earth before some clever rascal bearing

the stigma of three judgments, but worth six millions.

Conclusion? Oh! they know very well how to conclude; for there are

none such as young people to be logical, and to deduce the utmost

consequences of a fact.

They know, the most of them, that they will have to do something or

other; but what? And it is then, that, during the recreations,

their imagination strives to find that hitherto unknown profession

which is to give them fortune without work, and freedom at the same

time as a brilliant situation.

They discuss and criticise freely all the careers which are open to

youthful ambition. And how they laugh, if some simple fellow

ventures upon suggesting some of those modest situations where they

earn one hundred and fifty francs a month at the start! One hundred

and fifty francs!--why, it’s hardly as much as many a boy spends

for his cigars, and his cab-fares when he is late.

Maxence was neither better nor worse than the rest. Like the rest

he strove to discover the ideal profession which makes a man rich,

and amuses him at the same time.

Under the pretext that he drew nicely, he spoke of becoming a painter,

calculating coolly what painting may yield, and reckoning, according

to some newspaper, the earnings of Corot or Geroine, Ziem, Bouguereau,

and some others, who are reaping at last the fruits of unceasing

efforts and crushing labors.

But, in the way of pictures, M. Vincent Favoral appreciated only the

blue vignettes of the Bank of France.

“I wish no artists in my family,” he said, in a tone that admitted

of no reply.

Maxence would willingly have become an engineer, for it’s rather

the style to be an engineer now-a-days; but the examinations for

the Polytechnic School are rather steep. Or else a cavalry officer;

but the two years at Saint Cyr are not very gay. Or chief clerk,

like M. Desormeaux; but he would have to begin by being supernumerary.

Finally after hesitating for a long time between law and medicine,

he made up his mind to become a lawyer, influenced above all, by

the joyous legends of the Latin quarter.

That was not exactly M. Vincent Favoral’s dream.

“That’s going to cost money again,” he growled.

The fact is, he had indulged in the fallacious hope that his son,

as soon as he left college, would enter at once some business-house,

where he would earn enough to take care of himself.

He yielded at last, however, to the persistent entreaties of his

wife, and the solicitations of his friends.

“Be it so,” he said to Maxence: “you will study law. Only, as it

cannot suit me that you should waste your days lounging in the

billiard-rooms of the left bank, you shall at the same time work

in an attorney’s office. Next Saturday I shall arrange with my

friend Chapelain.”

Maxence had not bargained for such an arrangement; and he came near

backing out at the prospect of a discipline which he foresaw must

be as exacting as that of the college.

Still, as he could think of nothing better, he persevered. And,

vacations over, he was duly entered at the law-school, and settled

at a desk in M. Chapelain’s office, which was then in the Rue St.

Antoine.

The first year every thing went on tolerably. He enjoyed as much

freedom as he cared to. His father did not allow him one centime

for his pocket-money; but the attorney, in his capacity of an old

friend of the family, did for him what he had never done before for

an amateur clerk, and allowed him twenty francs a month. Mme.

Favoral adding to this a few five-franc pieces, Maxence declared

himself entirely satisfied.

Unfortunately, with his lively imagination and his impetuous temper,

no one was less fit than himself for that peaceful existence, that

steady toil, the same each day, without the stimulus of difficulties

to overcome, or the satisfaction of results obtained.

Before long he became tired of it.

He had found at the law-school a number of his old schoolmates whose

parents resided in the provinces, and who, consequently, lived as

they pleased in the Latin quarter, less assiduous to the lectures

than to the Spring Brewery and the Closerie des Lilas.[*]

[ * A noted dancing-garden. ]

He envied them their joyous life, their freedom without control,

their facile pleasures, their furnished rooms, and even the low

eating-house where they took their meals. And, as much as possible,

he lived with them and like them.

But it is not with M. Chapelain’s twenty francs that it would have

been possible for him to keep up with fellows, who, with superb

recklessness, took on credit everything they could get, reserving

the amount of their allowance for those amusements which had to be

paid for in cash.

But was not Mme. Favoral here?

She had worked so much, the poor woman, especially since Mlle.

Gilberte had become almost a young lady; she had so much saved, so

much stinted, that her reserve, notwithstanding repeated drafts,

amounted to a good round sum.

When Maxence wanted two or three napoleons, he had but a word to

say; and he said it often. Thus, after a while, he became an

excellent billiard-player; he kept his colored meerschaum in the

rack of a popular brewery; he took absinthe before dinner, and

spent his evenings in the laudable effort to ascertain how many mugs

of beer he could “put away.” Gaining in audacity, he danced at

Bullier’s, dined at Foyd’s, and at last had a mistress.

So much so, that one afternoon, M. Favoral having to visit on

business the other side of the water, found himself face to face

with his son, who was coming along, a cigar in his mouth, and having

on his arm a young lady, painted in superior style, and harnessed

with a toilet calculated to make the cab-horses rear.

He returned to the Rue St. Gilles in a state of indescribable rage.

“A woman!” he exclaimed in a tone of offended modesty. “A woman!

--he, my son!”

And when that son made his appearance, looking quite sheepish, his

first impulse was to resort to his former mode of correction.

But Maxence was now over nineteen years of age.

At the sight of the uplifted cane, he became whiter than his shirt;

and, wrenching it from his father’s hands, he broke it across his

knees, threw the pieces violently upon the floor, and sprang out

of the house.

“He shall never again set his foot here!” screamed the cashier of

the Mutual Credit, thrown beside himself by an act of resistance

which seemed to him unheard of. “I banish him. Let his clothes be

packed up, and taken to some hotel: I never want to see him again.”

For a long time Mme. Favoral and Gilberte fairly dragged themselves

at his feet, before he consented to recall his determination.

“He will disgrace us all!” he kept repeating, seeming unable to

understand that it was himself who had, as it were, driven Maxence

on to the fatal road which he was pursuing, forgetting that the

absurd severities of the father prepared the way for the perilous

indulgence of the mother, unwilling to own that the head of a

family has other duties besides providing food and shelter for his

wife and children, and that a father has but little right to

complain who has not known how to make himself the friend and the

adviser of his son.

At last, after the most violent recriminations, he forgave, in

appearance at least.

But the scales had dropped from his eyes. He started in quest of

information, and discovered startling enormities.

He heard from M. Chapelain that Maxence remained whole weeks at a

time without appearing at the office. If he had not complained

before, it was because he had yielded to the urgent entreaties of

Mme. Favoral; and he was now glad, he added, of an opportunity to

relieve his conscience by a full confession.

Thus the cashier discovered, one by one, all his son’s tricks. He

heard that he was almost unknown at the law-school, that he spent

his days in the cafes, and that, in the evening, when he believed

him in bed and asleep, he was in fact running out to theatres and

to balls.

“Ah! that’s the way, is it?” he thought. “Ah, my wife and children

are in league against me,--me, the master. Very well, we’ll see.”