From that morning war was declared.
From that day commenced in the Rue St. Gilles one of those domestic
dramas which are still awaiting their Moliere,--a drama of
distressing vulgarity and sickening realism, but poignant,
nevertheless; for it brought into action tears, blood, and a savage
energy.
M. Favoral thought himself sure to win; for did he not have the key
of the cash, and is not the key of the cash the most formidable
weapon in an age where every thing begins and ends with money?
Nevertheless, he was filled with irritating anxieties.
He who had just discovered so many things which he did not even
suspect a few days before, he could not discover the source whence
his son drew the money which flowed like water from his prodigal
hands.
He had made sure that Maxence had no debts; and yet it could not be
with M. Chapelain’s monthly twenty francs that he fed his frolics.
Mme. Favoral and Gilberte, subjected separately to a skillful
interrogatory, had managed to keep inviolate the secret of their
mercenary labor. The servant, shrewdly questioned, had said nothing
that could in any way cause the truth to be suspected.
Here was, then, a mystery; and M. Favoral’s constant anxiety could
be read upon his knitted brows during his brief visits to the house;
that is, during dinner.
From the manner in which he tasted his soup, it was easy to see that
he was asking himself whether that was real soup, and whether he was
not being imposed upon. From the expression of his eyes, it was
easy to guess this question constantly present to his mind.
“They are robbing me evidently; but how do they do it?”
And he became distrustful, fussy, and suspicious, to an extent that
he had never been before. It was with the most insulting precautions
that he examined every Sunday his wife’s accounts. He took a look at
the grocer’s, and settled it himself every month: he had the butcher’s
bills sent to him in duplicate. He would inquire the price of an
apple as he peeled it over his plate, and never failed to stop at the
fruiterer’s and ascertain that he had not been deceived.
But it was all in vain.
And yet he knew that Maxence always had in his pocket two or three
five-franc pieces.
“Where do you steal them?” he asked him one day.
“I save them out of my salary,” boldly answered the young man.
Exasperated, M. Favoral wished to make the whole world take an
interest in his investigations. And one Saturday evening, as he
was talking with his friends, M. Chapelain, the worthy Desclavettes,
and old man Desormeaux, pointing to his wife and daughter:
“Those d---d women rob me,” he said, “for the benefit of my son;
and they do it so cleverly that I can’t find out how. They have
an understanding with the shop-keepers, who are but licensed thieves;
and nothing is eaten here that they don’t make me pay double its
value.”
M. Chapelain made an ill-concealed grimace; whilst M. Desclavettes
sincerely admired a man who had courage enough to confess his
meanness.
But M. Desormeaux never minced things.
“Do you know, friend Vincent,” he said, “that it requires a strong
stomach to take dinner with a man who spends his time calculating
the cost of every mouthful that his guests swallow?”