He became a sort of Don Juan, about whose conquests the ill-natured
tongues of the town were always wagging. When I grew up, how many
great-uncles were pointed out to me!
Having been deprived of wine in Germany, he loved it all the more on
his return to France. Very sober in the morning until breakfast hour,
at which time he returned home after having performed his operations
at the hospital or in the town, he drank regularly every day a dozen
bottles of a light Mâcon wine, always the same. To say that this great,
portly man got drunk would be an exaggeration, but in the afternoon he
was talkative, full of jokes and braggings to such a degree that all
the white lies, all the jests that were told at Chauny and its environs
were called “seronades.”
My grandmother’s passion for her husband faded away, illusion after
illusion, in spite of the prodigious effort she made not to condemn
my grandfather on the first proofs he gave of his sensual appetites,
of his brutal way of enjoying life. Pierre’s strength was so great
that in all physical exercises, hunting, and fishing he wore out the
most intrepid; his love for excitement was so artless, his gaiety so
exuberant that people overlooked the sensual self-indulgence of his
temperament, his excesses even, when they would not have pardoned them
in others.
But little by little they wearied of all this at his home, while his
friends could not have enough of him. His wife saw him depart at dawn
and not return until far into the night without regret. He was never
late for meals, about which great care had to be taken for him.
“It is elementary politeness,” he would say, drawing out his lisping
accent on the word “elementary,” “not to leave the companion of one’s
home, if not of one’s life, alone at table.”
III
THE MARRIAGE OF MY FATHER AND MOTHER
A daughter, Olympe, was born to them after the German woman’s
departure; her mother nursed her, brought her up with loving care, and
you may be sure that the imaginative Pélagie dreamed at an early hour
of the possible romance of the future marriage of her only child.
Unfortunately Olympe distressed her by the fantastical turn of her
mind. She took great interest from her earliest age in the details of
housekeeping, was troublesome, humdrum even, said her mother.
She disliked to read, was much annoyed at her father’s absence from
home, whose motives she loudly incriminated. Urged to this by the
servants’ stories, she quarrelled with him, bitterly reproached her
mother for the number of books she read; and she introduced into the
home, where the careless indifference of one member, the resignation of
the other, might have brought about peace, an agitation which fed the
constant disputes.
However, the husband and wife, so much disunited, were proud of their
daughter’s beauty. Her father would often say: “She deserves a
prince,” while her mother would reply: “A shepherd would please her
better.”
Nothing foretold that this admirable statue would be animated some day.
Olympe was fifteen years old, and in her family the marriage bells
had always rung at that age. Olympe’s parents were humiliated at the
thought that no one had as yet asked for their daughter’s hand.
The romantic Pélagie dreamed of an “unforeseen” marriage for Olympe,
as she had done formerly for herself. But no predictions had been made
concerning it. Madame Seron could never induce her daughter to go to a
fortune-teller with her. Alas! the way seemed obscure, but just as it
had been impossible for her to find her own hero among the youths of
the town, so did it seem impossible to discover another hero for Olympe
at Chauny.
How was it, one would say, that she did not judge her own experience
of the “unforeseen” lamentable? On the contrary, Pélagie regretted
nothing, and, were it to be done over again, she would have made the
same marriage, taking all its consequences.
The desired romance had, after all, been written. How many finalities
of marriage resembled hers! The important thing was to have loved. Her
Don Juan of a husband did not disgust her. She, the faithful wife,
although living in a manner separated from him, still preserved, in
the romance of her life, a rôle in no wise commonplace. Her husband,
obliged to respect her, could not forget the past either, and he
sometimes courteously alluded to it, adding: “I am always constant to
my affection for my better half, even amid my inconstancies.”
And this was quite true. He did really love his wife, and would not
have hesitated to sacrifice his most devoted women friends to her. He
never opposed any of her plans, and he repeated her words: “What shall
we do, where shall we seek, how shall we discover a husband for Olympe?”
They lived in the Rue de Noyon, the house on the square having
become hateful to Madame Seron, who had lost, while living in it,
her grandmother and her twins, and had also suffered there from the
invasion and from scenes with the German woman. Now, in this street,
opposite to one of the windows of the large drawing-room where Pélagie
passed the greater part of her days embroidering, and especially
devouring novels by the dozen, was the large front door of a young
boys’ school. Madame Seron knew every pupil, every professor.
She had remarked among the latter a young man of tall stature and
handsome presence, who never left the school without a book in his
hand. He bowed respectfully to her several times a day, for she
involuntarily raised her eyes every time the door opposite was shut
noisily.
One evening, when the master of the school, M. Blangy, came to consult
Doctor Seron, whom he knew he would find at meal-time, Madame Seron
questioned him about his new professor.
“He has a very romantic history.”
“Tell us about him.”
“His name is Jean Louis Lambert. His father, when a baby, was brought
one day dressed in a richly embroidered frock covered with lace by a
midwife to a well-to-do farmer of Pontoise, near Noyon, who, having no
children, consented to receive the child (who, the midwife said, was an
orphan), and to bring him up. A girl was born to the farmer five years
later, and the two young persons, who loved each other, were married
afterwards.
“My professor is the eldest of four children. His father wished to make
him a priest and placed him at the Seminary of Beauvais. On entering
there he was remarked for his intelligence, his religious ardour, his
poetic talent, and for his theological science, and they soon endowed
him with the minor orders.
“The archbishop of Beauvais became his protector and made Jean Louis
Lambert his secretary. He was not bigoted, but very pious, even
mystical, and they hastened on for him the moment when he should be
invested with the major orders.
“On the evening before the day when he was to pronounce his new
sacerdotal vows, he was present at a dinner which the archbishop gave
to the members of the high clergy of his diocese, and he heard these
gentlemen talk at table like ordinary convivial guests. As the dinner
went on, they exchanged witty remarks on things terrestrial and even
celestial, which seemed to Jean Louis Lambert suggested by the devil
himself. A stupid joke about the pillars of the church confessing idle
nonsense completely revolted the young postulant. On account of a few
jests the young fellow, who was so artless, so little worldly, felt the
whole scaffolding of his faith fall to the ground. He wished to speak,
to cry anathema to those who seemed blasphemers to him, but, trembling,
he slid out of the dining-room, went up to his room, took a valise,
in which he packed his books, the manuscript of his ‘Canticles to the
Virgin,’ his scant wardrobe, and left the archbishop’s residence half
wild. Almost running, he walked twenty-four leagues, and arrived at his
father’s house exhausted, in despair, and declared he would never be a
priest.
“His excitement, the mad race he had run, gave him so bad a fever that
his life was in danger. When he was cured he was obliged to suffer the
pious exhortations of the old village priest who had instructed him;
his masters came themselves to endeavour to win him back and calm his
indignation. They succeeded in proving to him that he had exaggerated
things to a ridiculous degree, but the ideal of his vocation was so
shattered that his disillusions soon made him an atheist.
“I confess to you,” added M. Blangy, “that I am somewhat alarmed at
having him as professor of philosophy, and I made some observations
lately which offended him; but he is such a hard worker, and so
intelligent, so full of loyalty and so conscientious, that in spite of
my fears I do not regret having taken him into my school. His pupils
adore him and make rapid progress with him, and were it not for his
passion for negation, I think I should take him as my partner.”
This was sufficient to inflame Olympe’s mother’s imagination. A romance
was within her reach. She would protect this young man, thrown out of
place, who had abandoned his first proposed career and who was without
fortune; she would make something of him, and induce him to accept the
career she proposed for him, that of a physician. She would have in him
a grateful son, who should become her daughter’s husband, and, perhaps,
the father of a little girl whom she would love as her grandmother had
loved her, and whom she would bring up as she had been educated.
“As badly?” asked her husband, laughing, to whom she at once confided
her plans.
One Sunday Madame Seron invited Jean Louis Lambert to breakfast. He
almost lost his mind with joy, for he was hopelessly in love with
Olympe, his inaccessible star.
After breakfast my grandfather, according to his habit, hastened to
leave the house, understanding besides that he would be in the way.
Olympe also having left home to pass the afternoon with a friend, the
romantic Pélagie, alone with her _protégé_, whom she already called to
herself her “dear child,” experienced one of the sweetest joys of her
life.
She questioned him, and--miracle of miracles! His great ambition was to
be a doctor! But he could not impose upon his parents the expense that
would necessitate the taking up of a new career. They were all so good
to him, his sisters so devoted; and his young brother had just entered
the army in order that he should not be obliged to perform his military
service.
Madame Seron waded in complete felicity. She talked, and appeared to
the young professor like some unreal, beneficent fairy, who, with
a touch of her magic wand, changes a woodcutter into a prince, a
disinherited man into the most fortunate one in the world.
Jean Louis Lambert’s emotion, his gratitude, were expressed in such
noble, almost passionate, terms that it brought tears to her eyes, and
she at once assumed the rôle of an ideal mother to him.
They agreed, approved, and understood each other in everything. Jean
Louis--his protectrice already left off the Lambert--during the next
three months would prepare himself for his new studies, and then, on
some very plausible pretext, would leave the school and go to Paris,
where his future mother-in-law, as an advance on her daughter’s
_dot_, would provide for all expenses until he should have passed his
examinations.
He would study doubly hard, and, as soon as he should have obtained his
degrees, he would return and marry Olympe, whom, meanwhile, her mother
would influence favourably towards the match.
Isolated in Paris, with but one friend from Chauny, Bergeron, who later
fired a pistol at Louis Philippe, Jean Louis worked with passionate
ardour. In love for the first time and with the woman whom he knew
would be his wife, infatuated with his studies, his mystical adoration
for the Virgin transformed into a desire to possess the object he
adored, he lived in a fever, impatient to deserve the promised
happiness, and finding the reward for all his struggles far superior to
the efforts he made to acquire it.
Doctor Seron completely approved his wife’s romantic plan, considering
that it was without question his place, who had been so cruelly
abandoned by all save the humble, to protect a young, hard-working, and
virtuous man.
This latter adjective he rolled out with great emphasis, which much
amused Olympe’s mother every time he pronounced it.
“No one more than myself esteems, admires, and honours purity and
virtue,” said Pélagie’s amusing husband, “for no one is so conscious of
the rarity, the beauty of these two traits.”
A renewal of good feeling flourished between the husband and wife.
Every letter from their future son-in-law was read, commented upon,
admired, and even re-read by them both; these youthful, exuberant,
loving letters, often containing very good poetry, rejuvenated the
parents’ hearts, already extremely proud of him whom they called
between themselves: “Our son.”
Olympe, while her parents were enthusiastic, was perfectly indifferent.
One day, when they were both exasperated at her, they asked whether or
not she would consent to this marriage. The young girl replied to her
anxious mother, and to her father, revolted at seeing her so prosaic:
“Since you desire it, since you have committed yourselves so far that
you cannot withdraw, I will resign myself to it. Where you have tied
the goat she will browse.”
Ah! that phrase, what a rôle it played in the disputes between the
Lambert and Seron families, so frequent in later years.
Olympe’s parents were assailed day and night by these words, which they
repeated to themselves aghast. “Where you have tied the goat she will
browse.”
Jean Louis Lambert returned to Chauny and was married, a little
disappointed at his wife’s coldness, but trusting to his passion to
inspire her with the love he himself felt.
Olympe Lambert was tall, with a handsome figure like her mother’s; she
had an olive complexion, large, velvety, and luminous eyes, a charming
mouth with small teeth, a delicate nose with pink nostrils, brown hair
with ruddy tints in it, handsome arms and hands, and a very small foot.
It was impossible to discover a more fascinating creature to look at
and one of less good-humour.
IV
BORN IN AN INN
Doctor Seron, after the death of his parents, had renewed acquaintance
with one of his uncles on the maternal side, a physician in a hamlet in
the department of Oise, between Verberie and Seulis. This uncle, then
very old, had become a widower and, being without children, he ceded
his practice to the son-in-law of his only remaining relative, and
gladly welcomed the young couple in his house.
Living with his uncle, following his counsels, Jean Louis Lambert
succeeded marvellously well with his new patients for three years.
A son was born to them, and the young people were happy, he
singing always the praise of love in his letters to his mother and
father-in-law, while she “browsed” agreeably without wishing to confess
it.
Doctor and Madame Seron congratulated themselves daily for the happy
choice they had made in their daughter’s husband.
But misfortunes came, one after another, to the young couple. Their
great-uncle died suddenly of an attack of apoplexy. Their well-beloved
son, who, even at the age of eighteen months, gave proof of exceptional
intelligence, died after a three days’ illness from the effects of a
violent scolding from his mother, which gave him convulsions; finally,
the small borough they inhabited was entirely burned down, except their
grand-uncle’s house which his nephews had inherited, and which Madame
Lambert, with a heroism admired by everyone, saved from the flames with
a small watering-pump, in spite of the wounds she received from the
burning brands.
The small borough was completely destroyed, deserted, ruined; the young
physician’s patients were dispersed and captured by competition in an
adjacent town. The uncle’s house was sold at a very bad bargain, the
furniture given away, so to say, and, after some debts had been paid,
there remained very little for the young couple, who took refuge at
Verberie at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs.
The _dot_, broken into for Jean Louis Lambert’s studies, and wasted
afterwards in expensive chemical experiments--he had had a laboratory
built for himself--dripped away as money always dripped through the
impracticable hands of Olympe’s husband.
As he was very intimate with the Decamps, Alexandre, and the painter,
who lived near Verberie during the summer, Jean Louis hoped to create a
position for himself in new surroundings.
A certain Doctor Bernhardt, a great chemist, who lived at Compiègne and
often went to visit his friends, the Decamps, struck with the science
and original views of the young physician, proposed to make him a
partner in certain researches which were to bring about a discovery as
extraordinary as that of the philosopher’s stone.
One fine day, influenced by the Decamps, fascinated by a sort of German
Mephistopheles, he left his wife, who was expecting the birth of a
child, at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs; but he was to receive a
large salary and go to see her every Sunday until the time came when he
could settle her in a home at Compiègne.
Madame Lambert, after her baby son’s death, had wounded her mother
cruelly. The latter had scarcely seen her and her husband more than
three times at Chauny in three years. She invited her to make her a
visit, saying they could mourn over the child together and adding that
only a mother with her affection could console a daughter for a son’s
loss.
Olympe wrote to her mother that her sorrow was too dumb to be
understood by her. Madame Seron, in despair at receiving such a letter,
addressed one to her son-in-law; but as it was at the time when the
fire took place, her letter received no direct response. Jean Louis
merely related to her in full the details of the catastrophe of the
small borough and of Olympe’s heroism which had saved the house, and
he added unkindly, being ungrateful for the first time in his life:
“Your daughter’s heroism was not expressed merely in words.” He thus
accentuated the tone of his wife’s letter instead of attenuating it.
He did not wish to have any explanations with his mother-in-law,
neither to have her come to his house, nor to go to hers, knowing very
well that if circumstances had turned against him he was responsible
for them in part from the manner in which he had mismanaged his
resources.
The sale of the house, the departure for Verberie, his entering Doctor
Bernhardt’s employ, all was done without a word from Jean Louis to his
father and mother-in-law.
Doctor Seron heard of these things from his friend, the herbalist of
Compiègne, who came to warn him about Doctor Bernhardt and to give
him the most alarming information concerning him. He was worse than
an impostor, living a luxurious life, and pulling wool over people’s
eyes; it was said he was a swindler.
Madame Seron, on hearing this, addressed a supreme appeal to her
son-in-law, enlightening him on the danger he was running, but, alas!
it was too late. Jean Louis, completely hypnotised by Doctor Bernhardt,
following his researches with passion, not only received no salary, but
he had thrown the money received from the sale of the house and what
remained of his wife’s _dot_ into Doctor Bernhardt’s crucible, which
was like that of the philosopher’s stone.
I was born at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs. My father announced the
happy event to my grandmother by this simple note: “Your grandchild,
born on the 4th of October at five o’clock in the afternoon, is called
Juliette.”
What! this granddaughter, so much dreamed of, so much desired, was
there, at Verberie, not far off, and she could not run to embrace her,
to take and hold her for an instant in her arms?
My grandmother did not cease weeping and my grandfather shed tears with
her.
“Think, Pierre, of that little one in an inn, of Olympe, our daughter,
in such a place, with, perhaps, only a partition separating her from
some drunken brute making a noise. Oh! it will kill me.”
“And her husband far from her, and in his perpetual goings and
comings not able to watch over our only child’s health or that of our
granddaughter,” added Doctor Seron, “it is dreadful.” And, with hands
clasped together, they sobbed. What was to be done?
They wrote again several times, but received only one answer as curt as
it was short:
“The mother and child are well.”
A commercial traveller, a patient of my grandfather, had heard at
Verberie that my father was a victim of a miserable fellow, who imposed
upon him, making him work like a labourer, promising him everything
under heaven, and spending every cent he possessed, and that my mother,
still at Verberie, owed a large sum at the hotel and might at any
moment, together with her daughter, be turned out of doors without
resources.
My grandmother at these revelations wished to leave immediately
for Verberie; my grandfather prevented her. He sent the commercial
traveller to the proprietor of The Three Monarchs to assure him that he
would be paid by Madame Lambert’s parents, but that he must say nothing
of it to her, and must, on no account, acquaint her husband about it.
On the commercial traveller’s return my grandmother had all the
details she desired, some of which were lamentable, others consoling.
My mother nursed me herself. I was a very healthy baby, but Madame
Lambert, suffering from poverty and cold, for she often deprived
herself of fire, the commercial traveller said, was evidently losing
her health. But the hotel proprietor, reassured about his debt, would
arrange things so that the young mother should suffer no longer.
My grandfather loved his daughter Olympe more than did my grandmother,
because she resembled his own mother. She was submissive to her husband
to the point of sacrificing her child to her wifely duties, and
therefore he suffered about his child as well as his grandchild, while
my grandmother suffered especially on my account.
Again, my grandmother wished to leave to come to us, but her husband
calmed her with his oft-repeated words:
“You will only upset her, and, as she is nursing her child, she will
give her fever and you will kill her. Wait at least for nine months,
and then you can wean Juliette, and we will decide what to do according
to circumstances.”
Hour by hour, day by day, week by week, the nine months, sadly counted,
passed at last. At the end of the ninth month the commercial traveller
received a letter from the proprietor of The Three Monarchs, saying
that my father had gone to Brussels with Doctor Bernhardt, who went
there ostensibly to make some final experiments, in reality to escape
legal prosecution by flight, and that my mother and I were abandoned.
As soon as this letter was communicated to my grandparents there was no
longer any hesitation, and my grandmother left for Verberie.
My mother, clad in a worn-out gown, was shivering over a small fire of
shavings, thin, pale, her handsome face grown more sombre than ever.
She welcomed her mother with a violent scene, but my grandmother had
come with prepared resolutions which nothing could move.
“You have not the right, through fidelity to I know not what wifely
duty and which your husband, it seems to me, is far from reciprocating,
to live here in this wretchedness, and, above all, to impose it on your
child. You shall leave this hotel to-morrow and return to your parents,
and your husband, when he desires to do so, can come to find you as
well at their home as here in this inn.”
“Where you have tied the goat she must browse,” she replied.
My grandmother, exasperated at these words, exclaimed: “Your husband
doesn’t even give you grass to browse on.”
My mother remained obstinate with her habitual sourness, her bad
temper, and her motiveless recriminations which she tried, as usual,
to combine together, in order to prove that she was made unhappy by
everyone.
“But, if you are turned out of doors with your daughter, where will you
go?”
“Into the street, and Jean Louis will have the responsibility of having
put me there. I do not wish that he should be absolved for his conduct
by any one.”
It was therefore in order to prove her husband’s wrong-doing that she
suffered abandonment and privations.
My grandmother said nothing more; but she arranged in her mind a plan
for carrying me off.