"What was he to do? poor Montbreton has four children, and none too much
money," said M. Mauperin with a sigh, as he folded up the newspaper in
which he had just been reading the official appointments and put it at
some distance from him on the table.
"Yes, people always say that. As soon as any one ever does anything
mean, people always say 'He has children.' One would think that in
society people only had children for the sake of that--for the sake of
being able to beg, and to do a lot of mean things. It's just as though
the fact of being the father of a family gave you the right to be a
scoundrel."
"Come, come, Renée," M. Mauperin began.
"No, it's quite true. I only know two kinds of people: the
straightforward, honest ones; and then the others. Four children! But
that only ought to serve as an excuse for a father when he steals a
loaf. _Mère Gigogne_ would have had the right to poison hers according
to that, then. I'm sure Denoisel thinks as I do."
"I? Not at all; indeed I don't! I vote for indulgence in favour of
married folks--fathers of families. I should like to see people more
charitable, too, towards any one who has a vice--a vice which may be
rather ruinous, but which one cannot give up. As to the others, those
who have nothing to use their money for, no vice, no wife, no children,
and who sell themselves, ruin themselves, bow down, humiliate, enrich,
and degrade themselves--ah! I'd give all such over to you willingly."
"I'm not going to talk to you," said Renée in a piqued tone. "Anyhow,
papa," she went on, "I cannot understand how it is that it does not make
_you_ indignant, you who have always sacrificed everything to your
opinions. It's disgusting what he has done, and that's the long and
short of it."
"I do not say that it isn't; but you get so excited, child, you get so
excited."
"I should think so. Yes, I do get excited--and enough to make me, too.
Only fancy, a man who owed everything to the other government, and who
said everything bad he could about the present one; and now he joins
this one. Why, he's a wretch!--your friend, Montbreton--a wretch!"
"Ah! my dear child, it's very easy to say that. When you have had a
little more experience of life you will be more indulgent. One has to be
more merciful. You are young."
"No, it's something I've inherited, this is. I'm your daughter, and
there's too much of you in me, that's what it is. I shall never be able
to swallow things that disgust me. It's the way I'm made--how can I help
it? Every time I see any one I know--or even any one I don't know--fail
in what you men call points of honour, well, I can't help it at all, but
it has the same effect on me as the sight of a toad. I have such a
horror of it, and it disgusts me so, that I want to step on it. Come
now, do you call a man honourable because he takes care to only do
abominable things for which he can't be tried in the law courts? Do you
call a man honourable when he has done something for which he must blush
when he is alone? Is a man honourable when he has done things for which
no one can reproach him and for which he cannot be punished, but which
tarnish his conscience? I think there are things that are lower and
viler than cheating at the card-table; and the indulgence with which
society looks on makes me feel as though society is an accomplice, and I
think it is perfectly revolting. There are things that are so disloyal,
so dishonest, that when I think of them it makes me quite merciful
towards out-and-out scoundrels. You see they do risk something; their
life is at stake and their liberty. They go in for things prepared to
win or lose: they don't put gloves on to do their infamous deeds. I like
that better; it's not so cowardly, anyhow!"
Renée was seated on a sofa at the far side of the drawing-room. Her arms
were folded, her hands feverish, and her whole body quivering with
emotion. She spoke in jerks, and her voice vibrated with the wrath she
felt in her very soul. Her eyes looked like fire lighting up her face,
which was in the shade.
"And very interesting, too, he is," she continued, "your M. de
Montbreton. He has an income of six hundred or six hundred and fifty
pounds. If he did not pay quite such a high house-rent, and if his
daughters had not always had their dresses made by Mme. Carpentier----"
"Ah, this requires consideration," put in Denoisel. "A man who has more
than two hundred a year, if a bachelor, and more than four hundred if
married, can perfectly well remain faithful to a government which is no
longer in power. His means allow him to regret----"
"And he will expect you to esteem him, to shake hands with him, and
raise your hat to him as usual," continued Renée. "No, it is rather too
much! I hope when he comes here, papa--well, I shall promptly go
straight out of the room."
"Will you have a glass of water, Renée?" asked M. Mauperin, smiling;
"you know orators always do. You were really fine just then. Such
eloquence--it flowed like a brook."
"Yes, make fun of me by all means. You know I get carried away, as you
tell me. And your Montbreton--but how silly I am, to be sure. He doesn't
belong to us, this man, does he? Oh, if it were one of my family who had
done such a thing, such a dishonourable thing, such a----"
She stopped short for a second, and then began again:
"I think," she said, speaking with an effort, as though the tears were
coming into her eyes, "I think I could never love him again. Yes, it
seems to me as though my heart would be perfectly hard as far as he was
concerned."
"Good! this is quite touching. We had the young orator just now, and at
present it is the little girl's turn. You'd do better to come and look
at this caricature album that Davarande has sent your mother."
"Ah yes, let's look at that," said Renée, going quickly across to her
father and leaning on his shoulder as he turned over the leaves. She
glanced at two or three pages and then looked away.
"There, I've had enough of them, thank you. Goodness, how can people
enjoy making things ugly--uglier than nature? What a queer idea. Now in
art, in books, and in everything, I'm for all that is beautiful, and not
for what is ugly. Then, too, I don't think caricatures are amusing. It's
the same with hunchbacks--it never makes me laugh to see a hunchback.
Do you like caricatures, Denoisel?"
"Do I? No, they make me want to howl. Yes, it is a kind of comical thing
that hurts me," answered Denoisel, picking up a Review that was next the
album. "Caricatures are like petrified jokes to me. I can never see one
on a table without thinking of a lot of dismal things, such as the wit
of the Directory, Carle Vernet's drawings, and the gaiety of
middle-class society."
"Thank you," said M. Mauperin laughing, "and in addition to that you are
cutting my _Revue des Deux Mondes_ with a match. How hopeless he is, to
be sure, Denoisel."
"Do you want a knife, Denoisel?" asked Renée, plunging her hand into her
pockets and pulling out a whole collection of things, which she threw on
the table.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Denoisel, "why, you have a regular museum in your
pockets. You'd have enough for a whole sale at the auction-rooms. What
in the world are all those things?"
"Presents from a certain person, and they go about with me everywhere.
There's the knife for you," and Renée showed it to her father before
passing it to Denoisel. "Do you remember where you bought it for me?"
she asked. "It was at Langres once when we had stopped for a fresh
horse; oh, it's a very old one. This one," she continued, picking up
another, "you brought me from Nogent. It has a silver blade, if you
please; I gave you a halfpenny for it, do you remember?"
"Ah, if we are to begin making inventories!" said M. Mauperin laughing.
"And what's in that?" asked Denoisel, pointing to a little worn-out
pocket-book stuffed full of papers, the dirty crumpled edges of which
could be seen at each end.
"That? Oh, those are my secrets," and, picking up all the things she had
thrown on the table, she put them quickly back in her pocket with the
little book. The next minute, with a burst of laughter and diving once
more into her pockets, she pulled the book out again, opened the flap,
and scattered all the little papers on the table in front of Denoisel,
and without opening them proceeded to explain what they were. "There,
this is a prescription that was given for papa when he was ill. That's a
song he composed for me two years ago for my birthday----"
"There, that's enough! Pack up your relics; put all that out of sight,"
said M. Mauperin, sweeping all the little papers from him just as the
door opened and M. Dardouillet entered.
"Oh, you've mixed them all up for me!" exclaimed Renée, looking annoyed
as she put them back in her pocket-book.