For a fortnight past, with the view of getting uncle Bachelard to give
Berthe a dowry, the Josserands had been inviting him to dinner almost
every evening, in spite of his offensive habits.
When the marriage was announced to him, he had contented himself with
giving his niece a gentle pat on the cheek, saying:
“What! you are going to get married! Ah! that’s very nice, little
girl!”
And he remained deaf to all allusions, exaggerating his air of a silly
old boozer who got drunk on liquors, the moment money was mentioned
before him.
Madame Josserand had the idea to invite him one evening together with
Auguste, the bridegroom elect. Perhaps the sight of the young man would
decide him. The step was heroical, for the family did not like
exhibiting the uncle, always fearing that he would give people a bad
impression of them. He had, however, behaved pretty well; his waistcoat
alone had a big syrup stain, which it had obtained no doubt in some
café. But when his sister questioned him, after Auguste had taken his
departure, and asked him what he thought of the young fellow, he
answered without involving himself:
“Charming, charming.”
This would never do. It was a pressing matter. Therefore, Madame
Josserand determined to plainly place the position of affairs before
him.
“As we are by ourselves,” resumed she, “we may as well take advantage
of it. Leave us, my darlings; we want to have some talk with your
uncle. You, Berthe, just look after Saturnin, and see that he does not
take the lock off the door again.”
Saturnin, ever since they had been busy about his sister’s marriage,
hiding everything from him, had taken to wandering about the rooms, an
anxious look in his eyes, and scenting that there was something up; and
he imagined most diabolical things which gave the family awful frights.
“I have obtained every information,” said the mother, when she had shut
herself in with the father and the uncle. “This is the position of the
Vabres.”
And she went into long details of figures. Old Vabre had brought half a
million with him from Versailles. If the house had cost him three
hundred thousand francs, he had two hundred thousand left, which,
during the twelve years that had past had been producing interest.
Moreover, he received each year twenty-two thousand francs in rent;
and, as he lived with the Duveyriers, scarcely spending anything at
all, he must consequently be altogether worth five or six hundred
thousand francs, besides the house. Thus, there were some very handsome
expectations on that side.
“Has he no vices, then?” asked uncle Bachelard. “I thought he
speculated at the Bourse.”
But Madame Josserand cried out. Such a quiet old gentleman, and
occupied on a such a great task! That one, at least, had shown himself
capable of putting a fortune by; and she smiled bitterly as she looked
at her husband, who bowed his head.
As for Monsieur Vabre’s three children, Auguste, Clotilde and
Théophile, they had each had a hundred thousand francs on their
mother’s death. Théophile, after some ruinous enterprises, was living
as best he could on the crumbs of this inheritance. Clotilde, with no
other passion than her piano, had probably invested her share. And
Auguste had purchased the business on the ground floor and gone in for
the silk trade with his hundred thousand francs, which he had long kept
in reserve.
“And the old fellow naturally gives nothing to his children when they
marry,” observed the uncle.
Well! he did not much like giving, that was a fact which was
unfortunately indisputable.
“Well!” declared Bachelard, “it is always hard on the parents. Dowries
are never really paid.”
“Let us return to Auguste,” continued Madame Josserand. “I have told
you his expectations, and the only danger comes from the Duveyriers,
whom Berthe will do well to watch very closely, if she enters the
family. At the present moment, Auguste, after purchasing the business
for sixty thousand francs, has started with the other forty thousand.
Only, the sum is not sufficient; besides which, he is single, and
requires a wife; that is why he wishes to marry. Berthe is pretty, he
already sees her in his counting-house; and as for the dowry, fifty
thousand francs are a respectable sum which has decided him.”
Uncle Bachelard did not so much as blink his eyes. He ended by saying,
in a tender-hearted way, that he had dreamed of something better. And
he commenced to pick the future husband to pieces: a charming fellow,
certainly; but too old, a great deal too old, thirty-three years and
over; besides which, always ill, his face distorted by neuralgia; in
short, a sorry object, not near lively enough for trade.
“Have you another?” asked Madame Josserand, whose patience was wearing
out. “I searched all Paris before finding him.”
However, she did not deceive herself much. She too picked him to
pieces.
“Oh! he is not a phoenix, in fact I think him a bit of a fool. Besides
which, I mistrust those men who have never had any youth and who do not
risk a stride in life without thinking about it for years beforehand.
On leaving college, where his headaches prevented him completing his
studies, he remained for fifteen years a mere clerk before daring to
touch his hundred thousand francs, the interest of which, it seems, his
father was cheating him out of all the time. No, no, he is not up to
much.”
Monsieur Josserand, who until then had kept silent, ventured an
observation.
“But, my dear, why insist so obstinately on this marriage? If the young
man’s health is so bad——”
“Oh! it is not bad health that need prevent it,” interrupted Bachelard.
“Berthe would find no difficulty in marrying again.”
“However, if he is incapable,” resumed the father, “if he is likely to
make our daughter unhappy——”
“Unhappy!” cried Madame Josserand. “Say at once that I throw my child
at the head of the first-comer! We are among ourselves, we discuss him:
he is this, he is that, not young, not handsome, not intelligent. We
just talk the matter over, do we not? it is but natural. Only, he is
very well, we shall never find a better; and, shall I tell you? it is a
most unexpected match for Berthe. I was about to give up all hope, on
my word of honor!” She rose to her feet. Monsieur Josserand, reduced to
silence, pushed back his chair.
“I have only one fear,” continued she, making a resolute stand before
her brother, “and that is that he may break it off if he is not paid
the dowry on the day the contract is to be signed. It is easy to
understand, he is in want of money——”
But at this moment a hot breathing, which she heard behind her, caused
her to turn round. Saturnin was there, passing his head round the
partly opened door, his eyes glaring like a wolf’s as he listened to
what was being said. And it created quite a panic, for he had stolen a
spit from the kitchen, to spit the geese, said he. Uncle Bachelard,
feeling very uneasy at the turn the conversation was taking, availed
himself of the general alarm.
“Don’t disturb yourselves,” cried he, from the ante-room. “I’m off,
I’ve an appointment at midnight, with one of my customers, who’s come
specially from Brazil.”
When they had succeeded in getting Saturnin to bed, Madame Josserand,
exasperated, declared that it was impossible to keep him any longer. He
would end by doing some one an injury, if he was not shut up in a
madhouse. Life was unbearable with him always to be kept in hiding. His
sisters would never get married, so long as he was there to disgust and
frighten people.
“Wait a bit longer,” murmured Monsieur Josserand, whose heart bled at
the thought of this separation.
“No, no!” declared the mother, “I do not want him to spit me in the
end! I had brought my brother to the point, I was about to get him to
do something. Never mind! we will go with Berthe to-morrow to his own
place, and we will see if he will have the cheek to escape from his
promises. Besides, Berthe owes her godfather a visit. It is only
proper.”
On the morrow, all three, the mother, the father, and the daughter,
paid an official visit to the uncle’s warehouses, which occupied the
basement and the ground floor of an enormous house in the Rue
d’Enghien.
“Hallo! you here!” said he, greatly annoyed.
And he received them in a little closet, from which he watched his men
through a window.
“I have brought Berthe to see you,” explained Madame Josserand. “She
knows what she owes you.”
Then, when the young girl, after kissing her uncle, had, on a glance
from her mother, returned to look at the goods in the courtyard, the
latter resolutely broached the subject.
“Listen, Narcisse; this is how we are situated. Counting on your
kindness of heart and on your promises, I have engaged to give a dowry
of fifty thousand francs. If I do not give it, the marriage will be
broken off. It would be a disgrace, things having gone as far as they
have. You cannot leave us in such an embarrassing position.”
But a vacant look had come into Bachelard’s eyes, and he stuttered, as
though very drunk:
“Eh? what? you’ve promised. You should never promise; it’s a bad thing
to promise.”
He pleaded poverty. For instance, he had bought a whole stock of
horsehair, thinking that the price of horsehair would go up; but not at
all; the price had fallen lower still, and he had been obliged to
dispatch them at a loss. And he pounced on his books, opened his
ledgers, and insisted on showing the invoices, it was ruination.
“Nonsense!” Monsieur Josserand ended by saying, completely out of
patience. “I know your business; you make no end of money, and you
would be rolling in wealth if you did not squander it in the way you
do. I ask you for nothing myself. It was Eléonore who persisted in
applying to you. But allow me to tell you, Bachelard, that you have
been fooling us. Every Saturday for fifteen years past, when I come to
look over your books for you, you are forever promising me——”
The uncle interrupted him, and violently slapped himself on the chest.
“I promise? impossible! No, no; let me alone, you’ll see. I don’t like
being asked, it annoys me—it makes me ill. You’ll see one day.”
Madame Josserand herself could get nothing further out of him. He shook
their hands, wiped away a tear, talked of his soul and of his love for
the family, imploring them not to worry him any more, and swearing
before heaven that they would never repent it. He knew his duty; he
would perform it to the uttermost. Later on, Berthe would know how her
uncle loved her.
“And what about the dotal insurance,” asked he, in his natural tone of
voice, “the fifty thousand francs you had insured the little one for?”
Madame Josserand shrugged her shoulders.
“It has been dead and buried for fourteen years past. You have been
told twenty times already that when the fourth premium fell due, we
were unable to pay the two thousand francs.”
“That doesn’t matter,” murmured he, with a wink, “the thing is to talk
of this insurance to the family, and then get time for paying the
dowry. One never pays a dowry.”
Monsieur Josserand rose indignantly.
“What! that is all you can find to say?”
But the uncle mistook his meaning, and went on to show that it was
quite a usual thing.
“Never, I tell you I One gives something on account, and then merely
pays the interest. Look at Monsieur Vabre himself. Did our father ever
pay you Eléonore’s dowry? why, no, of course not. Every one sticks to
his money; its only natural!”
“In short, you advise me to commit a most abominable action!” cried
Monsieur Josserand. “I should lie; it would be a forgery to produce the
policy of that insurance——”
Madame Josserand stopped him. The idea suggested by her brother had
rendered her grave. She was surprised she had not thought of it
herself.
“Dear me! how excited you become, my dear. Narcisse has not told you to
forge anything.”
“Of course not,” murmured the uncle. “There is no occasion to show any
documents.”
“It is simply a question of gaining time,” continued she. “Promise the
dowry, we shall always manage to give it later on.”
Then the worthy man’s conscience spoke out. No! he refused; he would
not again venture on such a precipice. They were always taking
advantage of his complacency, to get him to agree little by little to
things which afterward made him ill, so deeply did they wound his
feelings. As he had no dowry to give, he could not promise one.
Bachelard was strumming on the little window with his fingers, and
whistling a march, as though to show his great contempt for such
scruples. Madame Josserand had listened to her husband, her face all
pale with an anger which had been slowly rousing, and which suddenly
exploded.
“Well! sir, as this is how you look at it, this marriage shall take
place. It was my daughter’s last chance. I will cut my hand off sooner
than she will lose it. So much the worse for the others! One becomes
capable of anything at last.”
“So, madame, you would commit murder to get your daughter married?”
She rose to her full height.
“Yes!” said she furiously.
Then she smiled. The uncle had to quell the storm. What was the use of
wrangling? It was far better to agree together. And, still trembling
from the quarrel, bewildered and worn out, Monsieur Josserand ended by
promising to talk the matter over with Duveyrier, on whom everything
depended, according to Madame Josserand. Only to get hold of the
counselor when he was in good humor, the uncle offered to put his
brother-in-law in the way of meeting him at a house where he could
refuse nothing.
“It is merely to be an interview,” declared Monsieur Josserand, still
struggling. “I swear that I will not enter into any engagements.”
“Of course, of course,” said Bachelard. “Eléonore does not wish you to
do anything dishonorable.”
Berthe just then returned. She had seen some boxes of preserved fruits,
and, after some lively caresses, she tried to get one given her. But
the uncle’s speech again became thick; impossible, they were counted,
and had to leave that very evening for Saint-Petersburg. He slowly got
them in the direction of the street, whilst his sister lingered before
the activity of the vast warehouses, full to the rafters with every
imaginable commodity, suffering from the sight of that fortune made by
a man without any principles, and bitterly comparing it with her
husband’s incapable honesty.
“Well! to-morrow night, then, toward nine o’clock, at the Café de
Mulhouse,” said Bachelard outside, as he shook Monsieur Josserand’s
hand.
It so happened that, on the morrow, Octave and Trublot, who had dined
together before going to see Clarisse, Duveyrier’s mistress, entered
the Café de Mulhouse, so as not to call too early, although she lived
in the Rue de la Cerisaie, which was some distance off. It was scarcely
eight o’clock. As they entered, the sound of a violent quarrel
attracted them to a rather out-of-the-way room at the end. And there
they beheld Bachelard already drunk, enormous in size, and his cheeks
flaring red, having an altercation with a little gentleman, pale and
quarrelsome.
“You have again spat in my beer!” roared he in his voice of thunder.
“I’ll not stand it, sir!”
“Go to blazes, do you hear? or I’ll give you a thrashing!” said the
little man, standing on the tips of his toes.
Then Bachelard raised his voice very provokingly, without drawing back
an inch.
“If you think proper, sir! As you please!”
And the other having with a blow knocked in his hat, which he always
wore swaggeringly on the side of his head, even in the cafés, he
repeated more energetically still:
“As you please, sir! If you think proper!”
Then, after picking up his hat, he sat himself down with a superb air,
and called to the waiter:
“Alfred, change my beer!”
Octave and Trublot, greatly astonished, had caught sight of Gueulin
seated at the uncle’s table, his back against the wall, smoking with a
tranquillity amounting to indifference. As they questioned him on the
cause of the quarrel.
“I don’t know,” replied he, watching the smoke ascend from his cigar.
“Always a lot of rot! Oh! a mania for getting his head punched! He
never retreats.”
Bachelard shook hands with the new-comers. He adored young people. When
he heard that that they were going to call on Clarisse, he was
delighted, for he himself was going there with Gueulin; only he had to
wait for his brother-in-law, Josserand, whom he had an appointment
with. And he filled the little room with the sounds of his voice,
covering the table with every drink imaginable for the benefit of his
young friends, with the insane prodigality of a man who does not care
what he spends when out on pleasure. Illformed, with his teeth too new
and his nose in a blaze beneath his short, snow-white hair, he talked
familiarly to the waiters and thoroughly tired them out, and made
himself unbearable to his neighbors to such a point that the landlord
came twice to beg him to leave, if he could not keep quiet. The night
before, he had been turned out of the Café de Madrid.
But a girl having put in an appearance, and then gone away, after
walking round the room with a wearied air, Octave began to talk of
women. This set Bachelard off again. Women had cost him too much money;
he flattered himself that he had had the best in Paris. In his
business, one never bargained about such things; just to show that one
had something to fall back upon. Now he was giving all that up, he
wished to be loved. And, in presence of this bawler chucking bank notes
about, Octave thought with surprise of the uncle who exaggerated his
stuttering drunkenness to escape the family extortions.
“Don’t boast, uncle,” said Gueulin. “One can always have more women
than one wants.”
“Then, you silly fool, why do you never have any?” asked Bachelard.
Gueulin contemptuously shrugged his shoulders.
“Why? Listen! Only yesterday I dined with a friend and his mistress.
The mistress at once began to kick me under the table. It was an
opportunity, wasn’t it? Well! when she asked me to see her home, I made
off, and I haven’t been near her since. Oh! I don’t deny that, for the
time being, it might have been very agreeable. But afterward,
afterward, uncle! Perhaps one of those women a fellow can never get rid
of. I’m not such a fool!”
Trublot nodded his head approvingly, for he also had renounced women of
society, through a dread of the troublesome morrows. And Gueulin,
coming out of his shell, continued to give examples. One day in the
train, a superb brunette, whom he did not know, had fallen asleep on
his shoulder; but he had thought twice, what would he have done with
her on arriving at the station? Another day, after a wedding, he had
found a neighbor’s wife in his room, eh? that was rather cool; and he
would have made a fool of himself had it not been for the idea that
afterward she would have wanted him to keep her in boots.
“Opportunities, uncle!” said he, coming to an end, “no one has such
opportunities as I! But I keep myself in check. Every one, moreover,
does the same; one is afraid of what may follow. Were it not for that,
it would, of course, be very pleasant! Good morning! good evening! one
would see nothing else in the streets.”
Bachelard, becoming wrapped in thought, was no longer listening to him.
His bluster had calmed down, his eyes were wet.
“If you are very good,” said he suddenly, “I will show you something.”
And, after paying, he led them out. Octave reminded him of old
Josserand. That did not matter, they would come back for him.
Then, after leaving the room, the uncle, casting a furious glance
around, stole the sugar left by a customer on a neighboring table.
“Follow me,” said he, when he was outside. “It’s close by.”
He walked along, grave and thoughtful, without uttering a word. He drew
up before a door in the Rue Saint-Marc. The three young men were about
to follow him, when he appeared to give way to a sudden hesitation.
“No, let us go off, I won’t.”
But they cried out at this. Was he trying to make fools of them?
“Well! Gueulin mustn’t come up, nor you either, Monsieur Trublot.
You’re not nice enough, you respect nothing, you’d joke. Come, Monsieur
Octave, you’re a serious sort of fellow.”
He made Octave walk up before him, whilst the other two laughed, and
called to him from the pavement to give their compliments to the
ladies. On reaching the fourth floor, he knocked, and an old woman
opened the door.
“What! it’s you, Monsieur Narcisse? Fifi did not expect you this
evening,” said she, with a smile.
She was fat, with the calm, white face of a nun. In the narrow
dining-room into which she ushered them, a tall, fair young girl,
pretty and simple looking, was embroidering an altar cloth.
“Good day, uncle,” said she, rising to offer her forehead to
Bachelard’s thick, trembling lips.
When the latter had introduced Monsieur Octave Mouret, a distinguished
young man whom he counted amongst his friends, the two women curtesied
in an old-fashioned way, and then they all seated themselves round the
table, lighted by a petroleum lamp. It was like a quiet country home,
two regulated existences, out of sight of all, and living upon next to
nothing. As the room overlooked an inner courtyard, one could not even
hear the sound of the passing vehicles.
Whilst Bachelard paternally questioned the child on her feelings and
her occupations since the night before, the aunt, Mademoiselle Menu, at
once began to tell Octave their history, with the familiarity of a
worthy woman who thinks she has nothing to hide.
“Yes, sir, I came from Villeneuve, near Lille. I am well known to
Messieurs Mardienne Frères, in the Rue Saint-Sulpice, where I worked as
an embroiderer for thirty years. Then, a cousin having left me a house
in our part of the country, I was lucky enough to let it as a life
interest at a thousand francs a year, sir, to people who thought they
would bury me on the morrow, and who are nicely punished for their
wicked idea, for I am still alive, in spite of my seventy-five years.”
She laughed, displaying teeth as white as a young girl’s.
“I was doing nothing, my eyes being quite worn put,” continued she,
“when my niece, Fanny, came to me. Her father, Captain Menu, had died
without leaving a sou, and no other relation, sir. So, I at once took
the child away from her school, and made an embroiderer out of her—a
very unprofitable craft; but what could be done? whether that, or
something else, women always have to starve. Fortunately, she met
Monsieur Narcisse. Now, I can die happy.”
And, her hands clasped on her stomach, in her inaction of an old
workwoman who has sworn never again to touch a needle, she looked
tenderly at Bachelard and Fifi with tearful eyes. The old man was just
then saying to the child:
“Really, you thought of me! And what did you think?”
Fifi raised her limpid eyes, without ceasing to draw her golden thread.
“Why, that you were a good friend, and that I loved you very much.”
She had scarcely looked at Octave, as though indifferent to the youth
of so handsome a fellow. Yet he smiled on her, surprised, and moved by
her gracefulness, not knowing what to think; whilst the aunt, who had
grown old in a celibacy and a chastity which had cost her nothing,
continued, lowering her voice:
“I might have married her, might I not? A workman would have beaten
her, a clerk would have given her no end of children. It is better far
that she should behave well with Monsieur Narcisse, who looks a very
worthy man.”
And, raising her voice:
“Ah! Monsieur Narcisse, it will not have been my fault if she does not
please you. I am always telling her: do all you can to please him, show
yourself grateful. It is but natural, I am so thankful to know that she
is at last provided for. It is so difficult to get a young girl settled
in life, when one has no friends!”
Then Octave abandoned himself to the happy simplicity of this home. In
the still atmosphere of the room floated an odor of fruit. Fifi’s
needle, as it pierced the silk, alone made a slight monotonous noise,
like the ticking of a little clock, which might have regulated the
placidity of the uncle’s amours. Moreover, the old maid was honesty
itself; she lived on the thousand francs of her income, never touching
Fifi’s money, which the latter spent as she chose. Her scruples yielded
only to white wine and chestnuts, which her niece occasionally treated
her to, after opening the money box in which she collected four sou
pieces, given as medals by her good friend.
“My little duck,” at length said Bachelard, rising, “we have business
to attend to. Good-bye till to-morrow. Now, mind you are very good.”
He kissed her on the forehead. Then, after looking at her with emotion,
he said to Octave:
“You may kiss her too, she is a mere child.”
[Illustration]
The young man pressed his lips to her fair skin. She smiled, she was
very modest; however, it was merely like a family gathering, he had
never seen such sober-minded people. The uncle was going off, when he
re-entered the room, exclaiming:
“I was forgetting, I’ve a little present.”
And, turning out his pocket, he gave Fifi the sugar which he had just
stolen at the café. She thanked him very heartily, and, as she crunched
up a piece, she became quite red with pleasure. Then, becoming bolder,
she asked:
“Do you not happen to have some four sou pieces?”
Bachelard searched his pockets without result. Octave had one, which
the young girl accepted as a memorial. She did not accompany them to
the door, no doubt out of propriety; and they heard her drawing her
needle, having at once resumed her altar cloth, whilst Mademoiselle
Menu saw them to the landing, with her good old woman’s amiability.
“Eh? it’s worth seeing,” said uncle Bachelard, stopping on the stairs.
“You know, it doesn’t cost me five louis a month. I’ve had enough of
the hussies who almost devoured me. On my word! what I required was a
heart.”
But, as Octave laughed, he became mistrustful.
“You’re a decent fellow; you won’t take advantage of what I have shown
you. Not a word to Gueulin, you swear it on your honor? I am waiting
till he is worthy of her to show her to him. An angel, my dear fellow!
No matter what is said, virtue is good: it refreshes one. I have always
gone in for the ideal.”
His old drunkard’s voice trembled; tears swelled his heavy eyelids.
Down below, Trublot chaffed, pretending to take the number of the
house, whilst Gueulin shrugged his shoulders, asking Octave, who was
astounded, what he thought of the little thing. Whenever the uncle’s
feelings had been softened by a booze, he could not resist taking
people to see these ladies, divided between the vanity of showing his
treasure and the fear of having it stolen from him; then, on the
morrow, he forgot all about it, and returned to the Rue-Saint-Marc with
an air of mystery.
“Everyone knows Fifi,” said Gueulin, quietly.
Meanwhile, Bachelard was looking out for a cab, when Octave exclaimed:
“And Monsieur Josserand, who is waiting at the café?”
The others had forgotten him entirely. Monsieur Josserand, very annoyed
at wasting his evening, was impatiently waiting at the entrance, for he
never took anything but of doors. At length they started for the Rue de
la Cerisaie. But they had to take two cabs; the commission agent and
the cashier in the one, and the three young men in the other.
Gueulin, his voice drowned by the jingling noise of the old vehicle, at
first talked of the insurance company where he was employed. Insurance
companies and stockbrokers were equally unpleasant, affirmed Trublot.
Then the conversation turned to Duveyrier. Was it not unfortunate that
a rich man, a magistrate, should let himself be fooled by women in that
way? He always wanted them in out-of-the-way neighborhoods, right at
the end of the omnibus routes; modest little ladies in their own
apartments, playing the parts of widows; unknown milliners, having
shops and no customers; girls picked out of the gutter, clothed and
shut up, as though in a convent, whom he would go to see regularly once
a week, like a clerk trudging to his office.
Trublot, however, found excuses for him: to begin with, it was the
fault of his constitution; then, it was impossible to put up with a
confounded wife like his. On the very first night, so it was said, she
could not bear him, affecting to be disgusted at his red blotches, so
that she willingly allowed him to have mistresses, whose complacencies
relieved her of him, though at times she accepted the abominable
burden, with the resignation of a virtuous woman who makes a point of
accomplishing all her duties.
“Then, she is virtuous, is she?” asked Octave, interested.
“Virtuous? Oh! yes, my dear fellow! Every good quality; pretty,
serious, well brought up, learned, full of taste, chaste, and
unbearable!”
A block of vehicles at the bottom of the Rue Montmartre stopped the
cab. The young men, who had let down the windows, could hear
Bachelard’s voice, furiously abusing the coachman. Then, when the cab
moved on again, Gueulin gave some information about Clarisse. Her name
was Clarisse Bocquet, and she was the daughter of a former toy merchant
in a small way, who now attended all the fairs with his wife and quite
a troop of dirty children. Duveyrier had come across her one night when
it was thawing, just as her lover had chucked her out. No doubt, this
strapping wench answered to an ideal long sought after; for as early as
the morrow he was hooked; he wept as he kissed her eyelids, all shaken
by his need to cultivate the little blue flower of romance in his huge
masculine appetites. Clarisse had consented to live in the Rue de la
Cerisaie, so as not to expose him; but she led him a fine dance—had
made him buy her twenty-five thousand francs’ worth of furniture, and
was devouring him heartily, in company with some actors of the
Montmartre Theater.
“I don’t care a hang!” said Trublot, “so long as one amuses oneself at
her place. Anyhow, she doesn’t make you sing, and she isn’t forever
strumming away on a piano like the other. Oh! that piano! Listen, when
one is deafened at home, when one has had the misfortune to marry a
mechanical piano which frightens everybody away, one would be precious
stupid not to arrange a pleasant little nest elsewhere, where one could
receive one’s friends in their slippers.”
“Last Sunday,” related Gueulin, “Clarisse wanted me to lunch alone with
her. I declined. After those sort of lunches, one always does something
foolish; and I was afraid of seeing her take up her quarters with me
the day she left Duveyrier for good. You know, she detests him. Oh! her
disgust almost makes her ill. Well, the girl doesn’t care much for
pimples either. But she hasn’t the resource of sending him elsewhere
like his wife has; otherwise, if she could pass him over to her maid, I
assure you she’d get rid of the job precious quick.”
The cab stopped. They alighted before a dark and silent house in the
Rue de la Cerisaie. But they had to wait for the other cab fully ten
minutes, Bachelard having taken his driver with him to drink a grog
after the quarrel in the Rue Montmartre. On the staircase, as
severe-looking as those of the middle classes, Monsieur Josserand again
asked some questions respecting Duveyrier’s lady friend, but the uncle
merely answered:
“A woman of the world, a very decent girl. She won’t eat you.”
It was a little maid, with a rosy complexion, who opened the door to
them. She took the gentlemen’s coats with familiar and and tender
smiles. For a moment, Trublot kept her in a corner of the ante-room,
whispering things in her ear which almost made her choke, as though
being tickled. But Bachelard had pushed open the drawing-room door, and
he at once introduced Monsieur Josserand. The latter stood for a moment
embarrassed, finding Clarisse ugly, and not understanding how the
counselor could prefer this sort of creature—black and skinny, and with
a head of hair like a poodle—to his wife, one of the most beautiful
women of society. Clarisse, however, was charming. She had preserved
the Parisian cackle, a superficial and borrowed wit, an itch of
drollery caught by rubbing up against men, but was able to put on a
grand lady sort of air when she chose.
“Sir, I am charmed. All Alphonse’s friends are mine. Now you are one of
us, the house is yours.”
Duveyrier, warned by a note from Bachelard, also greeted Monsieur
Josserand very amiably. Octave was surprised at the counselor’s
youthful appearance. He was no longer the severe and ill-at-ease
individual, who never seemed to be in his own home in the drawing-room
of the Rue de Choiseul. The deep red blotches on his face were turning
to a rosy hue, his oblique eyes shone with a childish delight, whilst
Clarisse related in the midst of a group how he sometimes hastened to
come and see her during a short adjournment of the court—just time to
jump into a cab, to kiss her, and start back again. Then he complained
of being overworked. Four sittings a week, from eleven to five; always
the same skein of bickerings to unravel, it ended by destroying all
feeling in one’s heart.
“It is true,” said he, laughing, “one requires a few roses amongst all
that. I feel better afterward.”
However, he did not wear his bit of red ribbon, but always took it off
when visiting his mistress; a last scruple, a delicate distinction,
which his sense of decency obstinately persisted in. Clarisse, without
wishing to say so, felt very much hurt at it.
Octave, who had at once shook hands with the young woman like a
comrade, listened and looked about him. Clarisse never received other
women, out of decency, she said. When her acquaintances complained that
her drawing-room was in want of a few ladies, she would answer with a
laugh:
“Well! and I—am I not enough?”
She had arranged a decent home for Alphonse, very middle-class in the
main, having a mania for what was proper all through the ups and downs
of her existence. When she received she would not be addressed
familiarly.
The little maid handed round some glasses of punch, with her agreeable
air. Octave took one, and, leaning toward his friend, whispered in his
ear:
“The servant is better than the mistress.”
“Why, of course! always!” said Trublot, with a shrug of the shoulders,
full of a disdainful conviction.
Clarisse came and talked with them for a moment. She multiplied
herself, going from one to another, casting a word here, a laugh or
gesture there. As each new-comer lighted a cigar the drawing-room was
soon full of smoke.
“Oh! the horrid men!” exclaimed she, prettily, as she went and opened a
window.
Without losing any time, Bachelard made Monsieur Josserand comfortable
in the recess of this window, to enable him to breathe, said he. Then,
thanks to a masterly maneuver, he brought Duveyrier to an anchor there
also, and quickly broached the affair. So the two families were about
to be united by a close tie; he felt highly honored. Then he inquired
what day the marriage contract was going to be signed, and that led him
up to the matter in hand.
“We intended calling on you to-morrow, Josserand and I, to settle
everything, for we are aware that Monsieur Auguste would do nothing
without you. It is with respect to the payment of the dowry; and,
really, as we are so comfortable here——”
Monsieur Josserand, again suffering the greatest anguish, looked out
into the gloomy depths of the Rue de la Cerisaie, with its deserted
pavements, and its dark façades. He regretted having come. They were
again going to take advantage of his weakness and engage him in some
disgraceful affair, which would cause him no end of suffering
afterward. A feeling of revolt made him interrupt his brother-in-law.
“Another time; this is not a fitting place, really.”
“But why, pray?” exclaimed Duveyrier, very graciously. “We are better
here than anywhere else. You were saying, sir?”
“We give Berthe fifty thousand francs,” continued the uncle. “Only,
these fifty thousand francs are represented by a dotal insurance at
twenty years’ date, which Josserand took out for his daughter when she
was four years old. She will, therefore, only receive the money in
three years’ time——”
“Allow me!” again interrupted the cashier, with a scared look.
“No, let me finish; Monsieur Duveyrier understands perfectly. We do not
wish the young couple to wait three years for money they may need at
once, and we engage ourselves to pay the dowry in installments of ten
thousand francs every six months, on the understanding that we repay
ourselves later on with the insurance money.”
A pause ensued. Monsieur Josserand, feeling frozen and choking, again
looked into the dark street.
“All that seems to me very reasonable,” said he, at length. “It is for
us to thank you. It is very seldom that a dowry is paid at once in
full.”
“Never, sir!” affirmed the uncle, energetically. “Such a thing is never
done.”
And the three men shook hands as they arranged to meet on the Thursday
at the notary’s. When Monsieur Josserand came back into the light, he
was so pale that he was asked if he was unwell. As a matter of fact he
did not feel very well, and he withdrew, without being willing to wait
for his brother-in-law, who had just gone into the dining-room where
the classic tea was represented by champagne.
Gueulin, stretched on a sofa near the window, murmured:
“That scoundrel of an uncle!”
He had overheard some words about the insurance, and he chuckled as he
confided the truth of the matter to Octave and Trublot. It had been
done at his office; there was not a sou to receive, the Vabres were
being taken in. Then, as the two others laughed at this good joke,
holding their sides meanwhile, he added, with comical earnestness.
“I want a hundred francs. If the uncle doesn’t give me a hundred
francs, I’ll split.”
The voices were becoming louder, the champagne was upsetting the good
behavior established by Clarisse. In her drawing-room the conclusion of
all the parties was invariably rather lively. She herself would make a
mistake sometimes. Trublot drew Octave’s attention to her as she stood
behind a door with her arms round the neck of a fellow with the build
of a peasant, a stone carver just arrived from the South, and whom his
native town wished to make an artist of. But, Duveyrier having pushed
the door, she quickly removed her arms, and recommended the young man
to him: Monsieur Payan, a sculptor with a very graceful talent; and
Duveyrier, delighted, promised to obtain some work for him.
“Work, work,” repeated Gueulin, in a low voice; “he has as much here as
he can want, the big ninny!”
Toward two o’clock, when the three young men and the uncle left the Rue
de la Cerisaie, the latter was completely drunk.
“Hang it all, uncle! keep yourself up! you’re breaking our arms!”
He, with his throat full of sobs, had become very tender hearted and
very moral.
“Go away, Gueulin,” stuttered he; “go away! I won’t have you see your
uncle in such a state. No, my boy, it’s not right; go away!”
And as his nephew called him an old rogue:
“Rogue! that’s nothing. One must make oneself respected. I esteem
women—always decent women; and when there’s no feeling it disgusts me.
Go away, Gueulin, you’re making your uncle blush. These gentlemen are
sufficient.”
“Then,” declared Gueulin, “you must give me a hundred francs. Really, I
want them for my rent. They’re going to turn me out.”
At this unexpected demand, Bachelard’s intoxication increased to such
an extent that he had to be propped up against the shutters of a
warehouse. He stuttered:
“Eh! what! a hundred francs! Don’t search me. I’ve nothing but coppers.
You want ’em to squander in bad places! No, I’ll never encourage you in
your vices. I know my duty; your mother confided you to my care on her
death-bed. You know, I’ll call out if I am searched.”
He continued, his indignation increasing against the dissolute life led
by youth, and returning to the necessity there was for the display of
virtue.
“I say,” Gueulin ended by saying, “I’ve not got to the point of taking
families in. Ah! you know what I mean! If I were to talk, you’d soon
give me my hundred francs!”
But the uncle at once became deaf to everything. He went grunting and
stumbling along. In the narrow street where they then were, behind the
church of Saint-Gervaise, a white lantern alone burned with the palish
glimmer of a night-light, displaying a gigantic number painted on its
roughened glass. A stifled trepidation issued from the house, whilst
the closed shutters emitted a tew narrow rays of light.
“I’ve had enough of it,” declared Gueulin, abruptly. “Excuse me, uncle,
I forgot my umbrella up there.”
And he entered the house. Bachelard was indignant and full of disgust.
He demanded at least a little respect for women. With such morals
France was done for. On the Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville, Octave and
Trublot at length found a cab, inside which they shoved him like some
bundle.
“Rue d’Enghien,” said they to the driver. “You must pay yourself.
Search him.”
The marriage contract was signed on the Thursday before Maitre
Renandin, notary in the Rue de Grammont. At the moment of starting,
there had been another awful row at the Josserands’, the father having,
in a supreme revolt, made the mother responsible for the lie they had
forced him to countenance; and they had once more cast their families
in each other’s teeth. How did they expect him to earn another ten
thousand francs every six months? The obligation was driving him mad.
Uncle Bachelard, who was there, kept placing his hand on his heart,
full of fresh promises, now that he had so managed that he would not
have to part with a sou, and overflowing with affection, and swearing
that he would never leave his little Berthe in an awkward position. But
the father, in his exasperation, had merely shrugged his shoulders,
asking Bachelard if he really took him for a fool.
On the evening of that day, a cab came to fetch Saturnin away. His
mother had declared that it was too dangerous for him to be at the
ceremony; one could not cast loose a madman who talked of spitting
people in the midst of a wedding party; and, Monsieur Josserand,
broken-hearted, had been obliged to apply for the admission of the poor
fellow into the Asile des Moulineaux, kept by Doctor Chassagne. The cab
was brought under the porch at twilight. Saturnin came down holding
Berthe’s hand, and thinking he was going with her into the country. But
when he was inside the cab, he struggled furiously, breaking the
windows and thrusting his bloody fists through them. And Monsieur
Josserand returned up-stairs weeping, all upset by this departure in
the dark, his ears ringing with the wretched creature’s yells, mingled
with the cracking of the whip and the gallop of the horse.