"Believe me, I had trouble enough then, monsieur le curé; my soul was
full of it. But what could I do, since I loved them both? Only what I
believed was for their happiness--let them marry. And as Philip had
always lived freely, and spent as he made, I lent him my hoard to buy
the furniture.
"Then they were married, and for a while all went well. They had a
little boy, and I stood sponsor for him and named him Camille, in
remembrance of his mother. It was a little after the birth of the baby
that Philip began to go wrong. I was mistaken in him--he was not made
for marriage; he was too fond of frivolity and pleasure. You live in a
poor quarter, monsieur le curé, and you must know the sad story by
heart--the workman who glides little by little from idleness into
drunkenness, who is off on a spree for two or three days, who does not
bring home his week's wages, and who only returns to his home, broken up
by his spree, to make scenes and to beat his wife. In less than two
years Philip became one of these wretches. At first I tried to reform
him, and sometimes, ashamed of himself, he would attempt to do better;
but that did not last long. Then my remonstrances only irritated him;
and when I went to his house, and he saw me look sadly around the
chamber made bare by the pawn-shop, at poor Catherine, thin and pale
with grief, he became furious. One day he had the audacity to be jealous
of me on account of his wife, who was as pure as the blessed Virgin,
reminding me that I was once her lover and accusing me of still being
so, with slanders and infamies that I should be ashamed to repeat. We
almost flew at each other's throats. I saw what I must do. I would see
Catherine and my godson no more; and as for Philip, I would only meet
him when by chance we worked on the same job.
"Only, you will understand, I loved Catherine and little Camille too
well to lose sight of them entirely. On Saturday evenings, when I knew
that Philip was drinking up his wages with his comrades, I used to prowl
about the quarter, and chat with the boy when I found him; and if it was
too miserable at home, he did not return with empty hands, you know. I
believe that the wretched Philip knew that I was helping his wife, and
that he closed his eyes to the fact, finding it rather convenient. I
will hurry on, for the story is too miserable. Some years have passed;
Philip plunging deeper in vice; but Catherine, whom I had helped all I
could, has educated her son, who is now a fellow of twenty years, good
and courageous like herself. He is not a workman; he is educated; he has
learned to draw at the evening schools, and he is now with an architect,
where he gets good wages. And though the house is saddened by the
presence of the drunkard, things go fairly well, for Camille is a great
comfort to his mother; and for a year or two, when I see Catherine--she
is so changed, the poor woman!--leaning on the arm of her manly son, it
warms my heart.
"But yesterday evening, coming out of my cook-shop, I met Camille; and
shaking hands with him--oh, he is not ashamed of me, and he doesn't
blush at a blouse covered with plaster--I saw that something was the
matter.
"'Let's see--what's the matter now?'
"'I drew the lot yesterday,' he replied, 'and I drew the number ten--a
number that sends you to die with fever in the colonies with the
marines. That will, at all events, send me there for five years, to
leave mother alone, without resources, with father, who has never been
drinking so much, who has never been so wicked. And it will kill her--it
will kill her! How cursed it is to be poor!'
"Oh, what a horrible night I passed! Think of it, monsieur le curé,
that poor woman's labor for twenty years destroyed in a minute by an
unhappy chance; because a child, rummaging in a sack, has drawn an
unfortunate number! In the morning I was broken as by age when I went to
the house we were building on the Boulevard Arago. Of what use is
sorrow? we must work all the same. So I mounted the scaffolding. We had
already built the house to the fourth story, and I began to place my
mortar. Suddenly I felt some one strike me on the shoulder. It was
Philip. He only worked now when the inclination seized him, and he was
apparently putting in a day's work to get something to drink; but the
builder, having a forfeit to pay if the building was not finished by a
certain date, accepted the first-comers.