Damon and Pythias.
Charles Deslauriers' father, an ex-captain in the line, who had left the
service in 1818, had come back to Nogent, where he had married, and with
the amount of the dowry bought up the business of a process-server,[1]
which brought him barely enough to maintain him. Embittered by a long
course of unjust treatment, suffering still from the effects of old
wounds, and always regretting the Emperor, he vented on those around him
the fits of rage that seemed to choke him. Few children received so many
whackings as his son. In spite of blows, however, the brat did not
yield. His mother, when she tried to interpose, was also ill-treated.
Finally, the captain planted the boy in his office, and all the day long
kept him bent over his desk copying documents, with the result that his
right shoulder was noticeably higher than his left.
[Footnote 1: The French word _huissier_ means a sheriff's officer, or a
person whose business it is to serve writs, processes, and legal
documents generally. The word "process-server" must not be understood in
its colloquial English sense, for in France this business is sometimes a
lucrative one.--Translator.]
In 1833, on the invitation of the president, the captain sold his
office. His wife died of cancer. He then went to live at Dijon. After
that he started in business at Troyes, where he was connected with the
slave trade; and, having obtained a small scholarship for Charles,
placed him at the college of Sens, where Frederick came across him. But
one of the pair was twelve years old, while the other was fifteen;
besides, a thousand differences of character and origin tended to keep
them apart.
Frederick had in his chest of drawers all sorts of useful things--choice
articles, such as a dressing-case. He liked to lie late in bed in the
morning, to look at the swallows, and to read plays; and, regretting the
comforts of home, he thought college life rough. To the process-server's
son it seemed a pleasant life. He worked so hard that, at the end of the
second year, he had got into the third form. However, owing to his
poverty or to his quarrelsome disposition, he was regarded with intense
dislike. But when on one occasion, in the courtyard where pupils of the
middle grade took exercise, an attendant openly called him a beggar's
child, he sprang at the fellow's throat, and would have killed him if
three of the ushers had not intervened. Frederick, carried away by
admiration, pressed him in his arms. From that day forward they became
fast friends. The affection of a _grandee_ no doubt flattered the vanity
of the youth of meaner rank, and the other accepted as a piece of good
fortune this devotion freely offered to him. During the holidays
Charles's father allowed him to remain in the college. A translation of
Plato which he opened by chance excited his enthusiasm. Then he became
smitten with a love of metaphysical studies; and he made rapid progress,
for he approached the subject with all the energy of youth and the
self-confidence of an emancipated intellect. Jouffroy, Cousin,
Laromiguière, Malebranche, and the Scotch metaphysicians--everything
that could be found in the library dealing with this branch of knowledge
passed through his hands. He found it necessary to steal the key in
order to get the books.
Frederick's intellectual distractions were of a less serious
description. He made sketches of the genealogy of Christ carved on a
post in the Rue des Trois Rois, then of the gateway of a cathedral.
After a course of mediæval dramas, he took up memoirs--Froissart,
Comines, Pierre de l'Estoile, and Brantôme.
The impressions made on his mind by this kind of reading took such a
hold of it that he felt a need within him of reproducing those pictures
of bygone days. His ambition was to be, one day, the Walter Scott of
France. Deslauriers dreamed of formulating a vast system of philosophy,
which might have the most far-reaching applications.
They chatted over all these matters at recreation hours, in the
playground, in front of the moral inscription painted under the clock.
They kept whispering to each other about them in the chapel, even with
St. Louis staring down at them. They dreamed about them in the
dormitory, which looked out on a burial-ground. On walking-days they
took up a position behind the others, and talked without stopping.
They spoke of what they would do later, when they had left college.
First of all, they would set out on a long voyage with the money which
Frederick would take out of his own fortune on reaching his majority.
Then they would come back to Paris; they would work together, and would
never part; and, as a relaxation from their labours, they would have
love-affairs with princesses in boudoirs lined with satin, or dazzling
orgies with famous courtesans. Their rapturous expectations were
followed by doubts. After a crisis of verbose gaiety, they would often
lapse into profound silence.
On summer evenings, when they had been walking for a long time over
stony paths which bordered on vineyards, or on the high-road in the open
country, and when they saw the wheat waving in the sunlight, while the
air was filled with the fragrance of angelica, a sort of suffocating
sensation took possession of them, and they stretched themselves on
their backs, dizzy, intoxicated. Meanwhile the other lads, in their
shirt-sleeves, were playing at base or flying kites. Then, as the usher
called in the two companions from the playground, they would return,
taking the path which led along by the gardens watered by brooklets;
then they would pass through the boulevards overshadowed by the old city
walls. The deserted streets rang under their tread. The grating flew
back; they ascended the stairs; and they felt as sad as if they had had
a great debauch.
The proctor maintained that they mutually cried up each other.
Nevertheless, if Frederick worked his way up to the higher forms, it was
through the exhortations of his friend; and, during the vacation in
1837, he brought Deslauriers to his mother's house.
Madame Moreau disliked the young man. He had a terrible appetite. He was
fond of making republican speeches. To crown all, she got it into her
head that he had been the means of leading her son into improper
places. Their relations towards each other were watched. This only made
their friendship grow stronger, and they bade one another adieu with
heartfelt pangs when, in the following year, Deslauriers left the
college in order to study law in Paris.
Frederick anxiously looked forward to the time when they would meet
again. For two years they had not laid eyes on each other; and, when
their embraces were over, they walked over the bridges to talk more at
their ease.
The captain, who had now set up a billiard-room at Villenauxe, reddened
with anger when his son called for an account of the expense of
tutelage, and even cut down the cost of victuals to the lowest figure.
But, as he intended to become a candidate at a later period for a
professor's chair at the school, and as he had no money, Deslauriers
accepted the post of principal clerk in an attorney's office at Troyes.
By dint of sheer privation he spared four thousand francs; and, by not
drawing upon the sum which came to him through his mother, he would
always have enough to enable him to work freely for three years while he
was waiting for a better position. It was necessary, therefore, to
abandon their former project of living together in the capital, at least
for the present.
Frederick hung down his head. This was the first of his dreams which had
crumbled into dust.
"Be consoled," said the captain's son. "Life is long. We are young.
We'll meet again. Think no more about it!"
He shook the other's hand warmly, and, to distract his attention,
questioned him about his journey.
Frederick had nothing to tell. But, at the recollection of Madame
Arnoux, his vexation disappeared. He did not refer to her, restrained by
a feeling of bashfulness. He made up for it by expatiating on Arnoux,
recalling his talk, his agreeable manner, his stories; and Deslauriers
urged him strongly to cultivate this new acquaintance.
Frederick had of late written nothing. His literary opinions were
changed. Passion was now above everything else in his estimation. He was
equally enthusiastic about Werther, René, Franck, Lara, Lélia, and other
ideal creations of less merit. Sometimes it seemed to him that music
alone was capable of giving expression to his internal agitation. Then,
he dreamed of symphonies; or else the surface of things seized hold of
him, and he longed to paint. He had, however, composed verses.
Deslauriers considered them beautiful, but did not ask him to write
another poem.
As for himself, he had given up metaphysics. Social economy and the
French Revolution absorbed all his attention. Just now he was a tall
fellow of twenty-two, thin, with a wide mouth, and a resolute look. On
this particular evening, he wore a poor-looking paletot of lasting; and
his shoes were white with dust, for he had come all the way from
Villenauxe on foot for the express purpose of seeing Frederick.
Isidore arrived while they were talking. Madame begged of Monsieur to
return home, and, for fear of his catching cold, she had sent him his
cloak.
"Wait a bit!" said Deslauriers. And they continued walking from one end
to the other of the two bridges which rest on the narrow islet formed by
the canal and the river.
When they were walking on the side towards Nogent, they had, exactly in
front of them, a block of houses which projected a little. At the right
might be seen the church, behind the mills in the wood, whose sluices
had been closed up; and, at the left, the hedges covered with shrubs,
along the skirts of the wood, formed a boundary for the gardens, which
could scarcely be distinguished. But on the side towards Paris the high
road formed a sheer descending line, and the meadows lost themselves in
the distance under the vapours of the night. Silence reigned along this
road, whose white track clearly showed itself through the surrounding
gloom. Odours of damp leaves ascended towards them. The waterfall, where
the stream had been diverted from its course a hundred paces further
away, kept rumbling with that deep harmonious sound which waves make in
the night time.
Deslauriers stopped, and said:
"'Tis funny to have these worthy folks sleeping so quietly! Patience! A
new '89 is in preparation. People are tired of constitutions, charters,
subtleties, lies! Ah, if I had a newspaper, or a platform, how I would
shake off all these things! But, in order to undertake anything
whatever, money is required. What a curse it is to be a tavern-keeper's
son, and to waste one's youth in quest of bread!"
He hung down his head, bit his lips, and shivered under his threadbare
overcoat.
Frederick flung half his cloak over his friend's shoulder. They both
wrapped themselves up in it; and, with their arms around each other's
waists, they walked down the road side by side.
"How do you think I can live over there without you?" said Frederick.
The bitter tone of his friend had brought back his own sadness.
"I would have done something with a woman who loved me. What are you
laughing at? Love is the feeding-ground, and, as it were, the atmosphere
of genius. Extraordinary emotions produce sublime works. As for seeking
after her whom I want, I give that up! Besides, if I should ever find
her, she will repel me. I belong to the race of the disinherited, and I
shall be extinguished with a treasure that will be of paste or of
diamond--I know not which."
Somebody's shadow fell across the road, and at the same time they heard
these words:
"Excuse me, gentlemen!"
The person who had uttered them was a little man attired in an ample
brown frock-coat, and with a cap on his head which under its peak
afforded a glimpse of a sharp nose.
"Monsieur Roque?" said Frederick.
"The very man!" returned the voice.
This resident in the locality explained his presence by stating that he
had come back to inspect the wolf-traps in his garden near the
water-side.
"And so you are back again in the old spot? Very good! I ascertained the
fact through my little girl. Your health is good, I hope? You are not
going away again?"
Then he left them, repelled, probably, by Frederick's chilling
reception.
Madame Moreau, indeed, was not on visiting terms with him. Père Roque
lived in peculiar relations with his servant-girl, and was held in very
slight esteem, although he was the vice-president at elections, and M.
Dambreuse's manager.
"The banker who resides in the Rue d'Anjou," observed Deslauriers. "Do
you know what you ought to do, my fine fellow?"
Isidore once more interrupted. His orders were positive not to go back
without Frederick. Madame would be getting uneasy at his absence.
"Well, well, he will go back," said Deslauriers. "He's not going to stay
out all night."
And, as soon as the man-servant had disappeared:
"You ought to ask that old chap to introduce you to the Dambreuses.
There's nothing so useful as to be a visitor at a rich man's house.
Since you have a black coat and white gloves, make use of them. You must
mix in that set. You can introduce me into it later. Just think!--a man
worth millions! Do all you can to make him like you, and his wife, too.
Become her lover!"
Frederick uttered an exclamation by way of protest.
"Why, I can quote classical examples for you on that point, I rather
think! Remember Rastignac in the _Comédie Humaine_. You will succeed, I
have no doubt."
Frederick had so much confidence in Deslauriers that he felt his
firmness giving way, and forgetting Madame Arnoux, or including her in
the prediction made with regard to the other, he could not keep from
smiling.
The clerk added:
"A last piece of advice: pass your examinations. It is always a good
thing to have a handle to your name: and, without more ado, give up your
Catholic and Satanic poets, whose philosophy is as old as the twelfth
century! Your despair is silly. The very greatest men have had more
difficult beginnings, as in the case of Mirabeau. Besides, our
separation will not be so long. I will make that pickpocket of a father
of mine disgorge. It is time for me to be going back. Farewell! Have you
got a hundred sous to pay for my dinner?"
Frederick gave him ten francs, what was left of those he had got that
morning from Isidore.
Meanwhile, some forty yards away from the bridges, a light shone from
the garret-window of a low-built house.
Deslauriers noticed it. Then he said emphatically, as he took off his
hat:
"Your pardon, Venus, Queen of Heaven, but Penury is the mother of
wisdom. We have been slandered enough for that--so have mercy."
This allusion to an adventure in which they had both taken part, put
them into a jovial mood. They laughed loudly as they passed through the
streets.
Then, having settled his bill at the inn, Deslauriers walked back with
Frederick as far as the crossway near the Hôtel-Dieu, and after a long
embrace, the two friends parted.