THEN, Octave found himself brought into closer contact with the
Duveyriers. Often, when Madame Duveyrier returned from a walk, she
would come through her brother’s shop, and stop to talk a minute with
Berthe; and, the first time that she saw the young man behind one of
the counters, she amiably reproached him for not keeping his word,
reminding him of his long-standing promise to come and see her one
evening, and try his voice at the piano. She wished to give a second
performance of the “Benediction of the Daggers,” at one of her first
Saturdays at home of the coming winter, but with two extra tenors,
something very complete.
“If it does not interfere with your arrangements,” said Berthe one day
to Octave, “you might go up to my sister-in-law’s after dinner. She is
expecting you.”
She maintained toward him the attitude of a mistress, simply polite.
“The fact is,” he observed, “I intended arranging these shelves this
evening.”
“Do not trouble about them,” resumed she, “there are plenty of people
here to do that. I give you your evening.”
Toward nine o’clock, Octave found Madame Duveyrier awaiting him in her
grand white and gold drawing-room. Everything was ready, the piano
open, the candles lit. A lamp placed on a small round table beside the
instrument only imperfectly lighted the room, one half of which
remained in shadow. Seeing the young woman alone, he thought it proper
to ask after Monsieur Duveyrier. She replied that he was very well; his
colleagues had selected him to report on a very grave affair, and he
had just gone out to obtain certain information respecting it.
“You know; the affair of the Rue de Provence,” said she simply.
“Ah! he has that in hand!” exclaimed Octave.
It was a scandal which was the talk of all Paris, quite a clandestine
prostitution, young girls of fourteen procured for high personages.
Clotilde added:
“Yes, it gives him a great deal of work. For a fortnight past all of
his evenings have been taken up with it.”
“No doubt! for he too has the cure of souls,” murmured he, embarrassed
by her clear glance.
“Well! sir, shall we begin?” resumed she. “You will excuse my
importunity, will you not? And open your lungs, display all your
powers, as Monsieur Duveyrier is not here. You, perhaps, heard him
boast that he did not like music.”
She put such contempt into the words, that he thought it right to risk
a faint laugh. Moreover, it was the sole bitter feeling which at times
escaped her before other people with respect to her husband, when
exasperated by his jokes on her piano, she who was strong enough to
hide the hatred and the physical repulsion with which he inspired her.
“How can one help liking music?” remarked Octave with an air of
ecstasy, so as to make himself agreeable.
Then she seated herself on the music-stool. A collection of old tunes
was open on the piano. She had already selected an air out of “Zémire
and Azor,” by Grétry. As the young man could only just manage to read
his notes, she made him go through it first in a low voice. Then she
played the prelude, and he sang the first verse.
“Perfect!” cried she with delight, “a tenor, there is not the least
doubt of it, a tenor! Pray continue, sir.”
Octave, feeling highly flattered, gave out the two other verses. She
was beaming. For three years past she had been seeking for one! And she
told him of all her vexations, Monsieur Trublot, for instance; for it
was a fact, the causes of which were worth studying, that there were no
longer any tenors among the young men of society: no doubt it was owing
to tobacco.
“Be careful, now!” resumed she, “we must put some expression into it.
Begin it boldly.”
Her cold face assumed a languid expression, her eyes turned toward him
with an expiring air. Thinking that she was warming, he became more
animated also, and considered her charming.
“You will get along very well,” said she. “Only, accentuate the time
more. See, like this.”
And she herself sang, repeating quite twenty times: “More trembling
than you,” bringing out the notes with the rigor of a sinless woman,
whose passion for music was not more than skin deep in her mechanism.
Her voice rose little by little, filling the room with shrill cries,
when they both suddenly heard some one exclaiming loudly behind their
backs:
“Madame! madame!”
She started, and, recognizing her maid Clémence, exclaimed:
“Eh? what?”
“Madame, your father has fallen with his face in his papers, and he
doesn’t move. We are so frightened.”
Then, without exactly understanding, and greatly surprised, she quitted
the piano and followed Clémence. Octave, who was uncertain whether to
accompany her, remained walking about the drawing-room. However, after
a few minutes of hesitation and embarrassment, as he heard people
rushing about and calling out distractedly, he made up his mind, and,
crossing a room that was in darkness, he found himself in Monsieur
Vabre’s bedchamber.
“He is in a fit,” said Octave. “He must not be left there. We must get
him onto his bed.”
[Illustration]
But Madame Duveyrier was losing her head. Emotion was little by little
seizing upon her cold nature. She kept repeating:
“Do you think so? do you think so? O good heavens! O my poor father!”
Hippolyte, a prey to an uneasy feeling, to a visible repugnance to
touch the old man, who might go off in his arms, did not hurry himself.
Octave had to call to him to help. Between them they laid him on the
bed.
“Bring some warm water!” resumed the young man, addressing Julie. “Wipe
his face.”
Now, Clotilde became angry with her husband. Ought he to have been
away? What would become of her if anything happened?
“To leave me alone like this!” continued Clotilde. “I don’t know, but
there must be all sorts of affairs to settle. O my poor father!”
“Would you like me to inform the other members of the family?” asked
Octave. “I can fetch your brothers. It would be prudent.” She did not
answer. Two big tears swelled her eyes, whilst Julie and Clémence tried
to undress the old man.
“Madame,” observed Clémence, “one side of him is already quite cold.”
This increased Madame Duveyrier’s anger. She no longer spoke, for fear
of saying too much before the servants. Her husband did not,
apparently, care a button for their interests! Had she only been
acquainted with the law! And she could not remain still; she kept
walking up and down before the bed. Octave, whose attention was
diverted by the sight of the tickets, looked at the formidable
apparatus which covered the table; it was a big oak box, filled with a
series of cardboard tickets, scrupulously sorted, the stupid work of a
lifetime. Just as he was reading on one of these tickets: “‘Isidore
Charbotel;’ ‘Exhibition of 1857,’ ‘Atalanta;’ ‘Exhibition of 1859,’
‘The Lion of Androcles;’ ‘Exhibition of 1861,’ ‘Portrait of Monsieur
P——-,’” Clotilde went and stood before him and said resolutely, in a
low voice:
“Go and fetch him.”
And, as he evinced his surprise, she seemed, with a shrug of her
shoulders, to cast off the story about the report of the affair of the
Rue de Provence, one of those eternal pretexts which she invented for
her acquaintances. She let out everything in her emotion.
“You know, Rue de la Cerisaie. All our friends know it.”
He wished to protest.
“I assure you, madame———-”
“Do not stand up for him!” resumed she. “I am only too pleased; he can
stay there. Ah! good heavens! if it were not for my poor father!”
Octave bowed. Julie was wiping Monsieur Vabre’s eye with the corner of
a towel; but the ink had dried, and the smudge remained in the skin,
which was marked with livid streaks. Madame Duveyrier told her not to
rub so hard; then she returned to the young man, who was already at the
door.
“Not a word to any one,” murmured she. “It is needless to upset the
house. Take a cab, call there, and bring him back in spite of
everything.”
When he had gone, she sank onto a chair beside the patient’s pillow. He
had not recovered consciousness; his breathing alone, a deep and
painful breathing, troubled the mournful silence of the chamber. Then,
the doctor not arriving, finding herself alone with the two servants,
who stood by with frightened looks, she burst out into a terrible fit
of sobbing, in a paroxysm of deep grief.
It was at the Café Anglais that uncle Bachelard had invited Duveyrier
to dine, without any one knowing why, perhaps for the pleasure of
treating a counselor, and of showing him that tradespeople knew how to
spend their money. He had also invited Trublot and Gueulin—four men and
no women—for women do not know how to eat; they interfere with the
truffles, and spoil digestion.
“Drink away! drink away, sir!” he kept saying to Duveyrier; “when wines
are good they never intoxicate. It’s the same with food; it never does
one harm so long as it’s delicate.”
[Illustration]
He, however, was careful. On this occasion he was posing for the
gentleman, shaved and brushed up, and with a rose in his buttonhole,
restraining himself from breaking the crockery, which he was in the
habit of doing. Trublot and Gueulin eat of everything. The uncle’s
theory seemed the right one, for Duveyrier, who suffered a great deal
from his stomach, had drank considerably, and had returned to the
crayfish salad, without feeling the least indisposed, the red blotches
on his face merely assuming a purple hue.
Then, when the coffee had been served, with some liquors and cigars,
and all the attendants had withdrawn, uncle Bachelard suddenly leaned
back in his chair and heaved a sigh of satisfaction.
“Ah!” declared he, “one is comfortable.”
Trublot and Gueulin, also leaning back in their chairs, opened their
arms.
“Completely!” said the one.
“Up to the eyes!” added the other.
Duveyrier, who was puffing, nodded his head, and murmured:
“Oh! the crayfish!”
All four looked at each other and chuckled. Their skins were well-nigh
bursting, and they were digesting in the slow and selfish way of four
worthy citizens who had just had a tuckout away from the worries of
their families. It had cost a great deal; no one had partaken of it
with them; there was no girl there to take advantage of their emotion;
and they unbuttoned their waistcoats, and laid their stomachs as it
were on the table. With eyes half-closed, they even avoided speaking at
first, each one absorbed in his solitary pleasure. Then, free and easy,
and whilst congratulating themselves that there were no women present,
they placed their elbows on the table, and, with their excited faces
close together, they did nothing but talk incessantly of them.
“As for myself, I am disabused,” declared uncle Bachelard. “It is after
all far preferable to be virtuous.”
This conversation tickled Duveyrier’s fancy. He was sipping kummel,
whilst sharp twinges of sensuality kept shooting across his stiff,
magisterial face.
“For my part,” said he, “I cannot bear vice. It shocks me. Now, to be
able to love a woman, one must esteem her, is it not so? Love could not
have a nobler mission. In short, a virtuous mistress, you understand
me? Then, I do not deny I might succumb.”
“Virtuous mistresses! but I have had no end of them!” cried Bachelard.
“They are a far greater nuisance than the others; and such sluts too!
Wenches who, behind your back, lead a life fit to give you every
possible ailment! Take, for instance, my last, a very
respectable-looking little lady, whom I met at a church door. I set her
up in business at Les Ternes as a milliner, just to give her a
position. She never had a single customer, though. Well, sir, believe
me or not as you like, but she had the whole street to sleep with her.”
Gueulin was chuckling, whilst his carroty hair bristled more than
usual, and his forehead was bathed in perspiration from the heat of the
candles. He murmured, as he sucked his cigar:
“And the other, the tall one at Passy, who had a sweet-stuff shop. And
the other, she who had a room over there, with her outfits for orphan
children. And the other, the captain’s widow, you surely remember her!
she used to show the mark of a sword-thrust on her body. All, uncle,
all of them played the fool with you! Now, I may tell you, may I not?
Well! I had to defend myself one night against the one with the
sword-thrust. She wanted to, but I was not such a fool! One never knows
what such women may lead a man to!”
Bachelard seemed annoyed. He recovered his good humor, however, and,
blinking his heavy eyelids, said:
“My little fellow, you can have them all; I have something far better.”
And he refused to explain himself further, delighted at having awakened
the others’ curiosity. Yet he was burning to be indiscreet, to let them
imagine what a treasure he possessed.
“A young girl,” said he at length, “and a genuine one, on my word of
honor.”
“Impossible!” cried Trublot, “Such things no longer exist.”
“Of good family!” asked Duveyrier.
“Of most excellent family,” affirmed the uncle. “Imagine something
stupidly chaste. A mere chance. She submitted quite innocently. She has
no idea of anything even now.”
Gueulin listened to him in surprise; then, making a skeptical gesture,
murmured:
“Ah! yes, I know.”
“What? you know!” said Bachelard angrily. “You know nothing at all, my
little fellow; no one knows anything. She is for yours truly. She is
neither to be seen nor touched. Hands off!” And, turning to Duveyrier,
he added:
“You will understand, sir, you who have feeling. It affects me so much
going there, that when I come away I feel quite young again. In short,
it is a cozy little nook for me, where I can recruit myself after all
those hussies. And, if you only knew, she is so polite and so fresh,
with a skin like a flower, and a figure not in the least thin, sir, but
as round and firm as a peach!”
The counselor’s red blotches were almost bleeding through the rush of
blood to his face. Trublot and Gueulin looked at the uncle; and they
felt a desire to slap him as they beheld him with his set of false
teeth, which were too white, and at the corners of which the saliva
trickled.
Bachelard became quite tender-hearted, and resumed, licking the brim of
his liquor glass with the tip of his tongue:
“After all, my sole dream is to make the child happy! But there, my
pot-belly tells me I am getting old; I’m like a father to her. I give
you my word! if I found a very good young fellow, I’d give her to him,
oh! in marriage, not otherwise.”
“You would make two happy ones,” murmured Duveyrier sentimentally.
It was almost stifling in the small apartment. A glass of chartreuse
that had been upset had made the tablecloth all sticky, and it was also
covered with cigar-ash. The gentlemen were in want of some fresh air.
“Would you like to see her?” abruptly asked the uncle, rising from his
seat.
They consulted one another with a glance. Well, yes, they were willing,
if it could afford him any pleasure; and their affected indifference
hid a gluttonous satisfaction at the thought of going and finishing
their dessert with the old fellow’s little one.
“Let’s get along, uncle! Which is the way?”
Bachelard became quite grave again, tortured by his ridiculously vain
longing to exhibit Fifi, and by his terror of being robbed of her. For
a moment he looked to the left, then to the right, in an anxious way.
At length he boldly said:
“Well! no, I won’t.”
And he obstinately adhered to his determination, without caring a straw
for Trublot’s chaff, nor even deigning to explain by some pretext his
sudden change of mind. They therefore had to turn their steps in
Clarisse’s direction. As it was a splendid evening, they decided to
walk all the way, with the hygienic idea of hastening their digestion.
Then they started off down the Rue de Richelieu, pretty steady on their
legs, but so full that they considered the pavements far too narrow.
The house in the Rue de la Cerisaie seemed asleep amidst the solitude
and the silence of the street. Duveyrier was surprised at not seeing
any lights in the third-floor windows. Trublot said, with a serious
air, that Clarisse had no doubt gone to bed to wait for them; or
perhaps, Gueulin added, she was playing a game of bézique in the
kitchen with her maid. They knocked. The gas on the staircase was
burning with the straight and immovable flame of a lamp in some chapel.
Not a sound, not a breath. But, as the four men passed before the room
of the doorkeeper, the latter hastily came out.
“Sir, sir, the key!”
Duveyrier stood stock-still on the first step.
“Is madame not there, then?” asked he.
“No, sir. And, wait a moment, you must take a candle with you.”
As he handed him the candlestick, the doorkeeper allowed quite a
chuckle of ferocious and vulgar jocosity to pierce through the
exaggerated respect depicted on his pallid countenance. Neither of the
two young men nor the uncle had said a word. It was in the midst of
this silence, and with bent backs, that they ascended the stairs in
single file, the interminable noise of their footsteps resounding up
each mournful flight. At their head, Duveyrier, who was puzzling
himself trying to understand, lifted his feet with the mechanical
movement of a somnambulist; and the candle, which he held with a
trembling hand, cast their four shadows on the wall, resembling in
their strange ascent a procession of broken puppets.
On the third floor, a faintness came over him, and he was quite unable
to find the key-hole. Trublot did him the service of opening the door.
The key turned in the lock with a sonorous and reverberating noise, as
though beneath the vaulted roof of some cathedral.
“Jupiter!” murmured he, “it doesn’t seem as if the place was
inhabited.”
“It sounds empty,” said Bachelard.
“A little family vault,” added Gueulin.
They entered. Duveyrier passed first, holding high the candle. The
ante-room was empty, even the hat-pegs had disappeared. The
drawing-room and the parlor were also empty: not a stick of furniture,
not a curtain at the windows, not even a brass rod. Duveyrier stood as
one petrified, first looking down at his feet, then raising his eyes to
the ceiling, and then searchingly gazing at the walls, as though he had
been seeking the hole through which everything had disappeared.
“What a clear out!” Trublot could not help exclaiming.
“Perhaps the place is going to be done up,” observed Gueulin, without
as much as a smile. “Let us see the bed-room. The furniture may have
been moved in there.”
But the bed-room was also bare, with that ugly and chilly bareness of
plaster walls from which the paper has been torn off. Where the
bedstead had stood, the iron supports of the canopy, also removed, left
gaping holes; and, one of the windows having been left partly open, the
air from the street filled the apartment with the humidity and the
unsavoriness of a public square.
“My God! my God!” stuttered Duveyrier, at length able to weep, unnerved
by the sight of the place where the friction of the mattresses had
rubbed the paper off the wall.
Uncle Bachelard became quite paternal.
“Courage, sir!” he kept repeating. “The same thing happened to me, and
I did not die of it. Honor is safe, damn it all!”
The counselor shook his head, and went into the dressing-room, and then
into the kitchen. The evidence of the disaster increased. The piece of
American cloth behind the washstand in the dressing-room had been taken
down, and the hooks had been removed from the kitchen.
“No, that is too much, it is pure capriciousness!” said Gueulin, in
amazement. “She might have left the hooks.”
“I can’t stand this any longer, you know,” Trublot ended by declaring,
as they visited the drawing-room for the third time.
“Really! I would give ten sous for a chair.”
All four came to a halt, standing.
“When did you see her last?” asked Bachelard.
“Yesterday, sir!” exclaimed Duveyrier.
Gueulin wagged his head. By Jove! it had not taken long, it had been
neatly done. But Trublot uttered an exclamation. He had just caught
sight of a dirty collar and a damaged cigar on the mantelpiece.
“Do not complain,” said he, laughing, “she has left you a keepsake. It
is always something.”
Duveyrier looked at the collar with sudden emotion. Then he murmured:
“Twenty-five thousand francs’ worth of furniture, there was twenty-five
thousand francs’ worth! Well! no, no, it is not that which I regret!”
“You will not have the cigar?” interrupted Trublot. “Then, allow me to.
It has a hole in it, but I can stick a cigarette paper over that.”
He lighted it at the candle which the counselor was still holding, and,
letting himself drop down against the wall, he added:
“So much the worse! I must sit down a while on the floor. My legs will
not bear me any longer.”
“I beg of you,” at length said Duveyrier, “to explain to me where she
can possibly be.”
Bachelard and Gueulin looked at each other. It was a delicate matter.
However, the uncle came to a manly decision, and he told the poor
fellow everything, all Clarisse’s goings-on, her continual escapades,
the lovers she picked up behind his back, at each of their parties. She
had no doubt gone off with the last one, big Payan, that mason of whom
a Southern town wished to make an artist. Duveyrier listened to the
abominable story with an expression of horror. He allowed this cry of
despair to escape him:
“There is, then, no honesty left on earth!”
And suddenly opening his heart, he told them all he had done for her.
“Leave her alone!” exclaimed Bachelard, delighted with the counselor’s
misfortune, “she will humbug you again. There is nothing like virtue,
understand! It is far better to take a little one devoid of malice, as
innocent as the child just born. Then, there is no danger, one may
sleep in peace.”
Trublot meanwhile was smoking, leaning against the wall with his legs
stretched out. He was gravely reposing, the others had forgotten him.
“If you particularly want it, I can find the address for you,” said he.
“I know the maid.”
Duveyrier turned round, surprised at that voice which seemed to issue
from the boards; and, when he beheld him smoking all that remained of
Clarisse, puffing big clouds of smoke, in which he fancied he beheld
the twenty-five thousand francs’ worth of furniture evaporating, he
made an angry gesture and replied:
“No, she is unworthy of me. She must beg my pardon on her knees.”
“Hallo! here she is coming back!” said Gueulin, listening.
And some one was indeed walking in the ante-room, whilst a voice said:
“Well! what’s up? is every one dead?” And Octave appeared. He was quite
bewildered by the open doors and the empty rooms. But his amazement
increased still more when he beheld the four men in the midst of the
denuded drawing-room, one sitting on the floor, and the other three
standing up, and only lighted by the meager candle which the counselor
was holding, like a taper at church. A few words sufficed to inform him
of what had occurred.
“It isn’t possible!” cried he.
“Did they not tell you anything, then, down-stairs?” asked Gueulin.
“No, nothing at all; the doorkeeper quietly watched me come up. Ah! so
she’s gone! It does not surprise me. She had such queer hair and eyes!”
He asked some particulars, and stood talking a minute, forgetful of the
sad news which he had brought. Then, turning abruptly toward Duveyrier,
he said:
“By the way, it’s your wife who sent me to fetch you. Your
father-in-law is dying.”
“Ah!” simply observed the counselor.
“Old Vabre!” murmured Bachelard. “I expected as much.”
“Pooh! when one gets to the end of one’s reel!” remarked Gueulin,
philosophically.
“Yes, it’s best to take one’s departure,” added Trublot, in the act of
sticking a second cigarette paper round his cigar.
The gentlemen at length decided to leave the empty apartment. Octave
repeated he had given his word of honor that he would bring Duveyrier
back with him at once, no matter what state he was in. The latter
carefully shut the door, as though he had left his dead affections
there; but, down-stairs, he was overcome with shame, and Trublot had to
return the key to the doorkeeper. Then, outside on the pavement, there
was a silent exchange of hearty hand-shakes; and, directly the cab had
driven off with Octave and Duveyrier, Uncle Bachelard said to Gueulin
and Trublot, as they stood in the deserted street:
“Jove’s thunder! I must show her to you.”
For a minute past he had been stamping about, greatly excited by the
despair of that big noodle of a counselor, bursting with his own
happiness, with that happiness which he considered due to his own deep
malice, and which he could no longer contain.
“You know, uncle,” said Gueulin, “if it’s only to take us as far as the
door again, and then to leave us——”
“No, Jove’s thunder! you shall see her. It will please me. True, it’s
nearly midnight, but she shall get up if she’s in bed. You know, she’s
the daughter of a captain, Captain Menu, and she has a very respectable
aunt, born at Villeneuve, near Lille, on my word of honor! Messieurs
Mardienne Brothers, of the Rue Saint-Sulpice, will give her a
character. Ah! Jove’s thunder! we’re in need of it; you’ll see what
virtue is!”
And he took hold of their arms, Gueulin on his right, Trublot on his
left, putting his best foot forward as he started off in quest of a
cab, to arrive there the sooner.
Meanwhile Octave briefly related to the counselor all he knew of
Monsieur Vabre’s attack, without hiding that Madame Duveyrier was
acquainted with the address of the Rue de la Cerraise. After a pause,
the counselor asked, in a doleful voice:
“Do you think she will forgive me?”
Octave remained silent. The cab continued to roll along, in the
obscurity lighted up every now and then by a ray from a gas-lamp. Just
as they were reaching their destination Duveyrier, tortured with
anxiety, put another question:
“The best thing for me to do for the present is to make it up with my
wife; do you not think so?”
“It would, perhaps, be wise,” replied the young man, obliged to answer.
Then, Duveyrier felt the necessity of regretting his father-in-law. He
was a man of great intelligence, with an incredible capacity for work.
However, they would, very likely, be able to set him on his legs again.
In the Rue de Choiseul, they found the street-door open, and quite a
group gathered before Monsieur Gourd’s room. But they held their
tongues, directly they caught sight of Duveyrier.
“Well?” inquired the latter.
“The doctor is applying mustard poultices to Monsieur Vabre,” replied
Hippolyte. “Oh! I had such difficulty to find him!”
Up-stairs in the drawing-room, Madame Duveyrier came forward to meet
them. She had cried a great deal, her eyes sparkled beneath the swollen
lids. The counselor, full of embarrassment, opened his arms; and he
embraced her as he murmured:
“My poor Clotilde!”
Surprised at this unusual display of affection, she drew back. Octave
had kept behind; but he heard the husband add, in a low voice:
“Forgive me, let us forget our grievances on this said occasion. You
see, I have come back to you, and for always. Ah! I am well punished!”
She did not reply, but disengaged herself. Then, resuming in Octave’s
presence her attitude of a woman who desires to ignore everything, she
said:
“I should not have disturbed you, my dear, for I know how important
that inquiry respect the Rue de Provence is. But I was all alone, I
felt that your presence was necessary. My poor father is lost. Go and
see him: you will find the doctor there.”
When Duveyrier had gone into the next room, she drew near to Octave,
who, so as not to appear to be listening to them, was standing in front
of the piano.
“Was he there?” asked she briefly.
“Yes, madame.”
“Then, what has happened? what is the matter with him?”
“The person has left him, madame, and taken all the furniture away with
her. I found him with nothing but a candle between the bare walls.”
Clothilde made a gesture of despair. She understood. An expression of
repugnance and discouragement appeared on her beautiful face. It was
not enough that she had lost her father, it seemed as though this
misfortune was also to serve as a pretext for a reconciliation with her
husband! She knew him well, he would be forever after her, now that
there would be nothing elsewhere to protect her; and, in her respect
for every duty, she trembled at the thought that she would be unable to
refuse to submit to the abominable service. For an instant, she looked
at the piano. Bitter tears came to her eyes, as she simply said to
Octave:
“Thank you, sir.”
They both passed in turn into Monsieur Vabre’s bed-chamber. Duveyrier,
looking very pale, was listening to Doctor Juillerat, who was giving
him some explanations in a low voice. It was an attack of serous
apoplexy; the patient might last till the morrow, but there was not the
slightest hope of his recovery. Clotilde just at that moment entered
the room; she heard this giving over of the patient, and dropped into a
chair, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, already soaked with
tears, and twisted up, and almost reduced to a pulp. She, however,
found strength to ask the doctor if her poor father would recover
consciousness. The doctor had his doubts; and, as though he had
penetrated the object of the question, he expressed the hope that
Monsieur Vabre had long since put his affairs in order.
“I presume the family knows what has happened,” said Doctor Juillerat.
“Well! no,” murmured Clotilde. “I received such a shock! My first
thought was to send Monsieur Mouret for my husband.”
Duveyrier gave her another glance. Now they understood each other. He
slowly approached the bed, and examined Monsieur Vabre, stretched out
in his corpse-like stiffness, and whose immovable face was streaked
with yellow blotches. One o’clock struck. The doctor talked of
withdrawing, for he had tried all the usual remedies, and could do
nothing more. He would call again early on the morrow. At length, he
was going off with Octave, when Madame Duveyrier called the latter
back.
“We will wait till to-morrow,” said she, “you can send Berthe to me
under some pretext; I will also get Valérie to come, and they shall
break the news to my brothers. Ah! poor things, let them sleep in peace
this night! There is quite enough with our having to watch in tears.”
And she and her husband remained alone with the old man, whose death
rattle chilled the chamber.