Blighted Hopes.
Ruined, stripped of everything, undermined!
He remained seated on the bench, as if stunned by a shock. He cursed
Fate; he would have liked to beat somebody; and, to intensify his
despair, he felt a kind of outrage, a sense of disgrace, weighing down
upon him; for Frederick had been under the impression that the fortune
coming to him through his father would mount up one day to an income of
fifteen thousand livres, and he had so informed the Arnoux' in an
indirect sort of way. So then he would be looked upon as a braggart, a
rogue, an obscure blackguard, who had introduced himself to them in the
expectation of making some profit out of it! And as for her--Madame
Arnoux--how could he ever see her again now?
Moreover, that was completely impossible when he had only a yearly
income of three thousand francs, He could not always lodge on the fourth
floor, have the door keeper as a servant, and make his appearance with
wretched black gloves turning blue at the ends, a greasy hat, and the
same frock-coat for a whole year. No, no! never! And yet without her
existence was intolerable. Many people were well able to live without
any fortune, Deslauriers amongst the rest; and he thought himself a
coward to attach so much importance to matters of trifling consequence.
Need would perhaps multiply his faculties a hundredfold. He excited
himself by thinking on the great men who had worked in garrets. A soul
like that of Madame Arnoux ought to be touched at such a spectacle, and
she would be moved by it to sympathetic tenderness. So, after all, this
catastrophe was a piece of good fortune; like those earthquakes which
unveil treasures, it had revealed to him the hidden wealth of his
nature. But there was only one place in the world where this could be
turned to account--Paris; for to his mind, art, science, and love (those
three faces of God, as Pellerin would have said) were associated
exclusively with the capital. That evening, he informed his mother of
his intention to go back there. Madame Moreau was surprised and
indignant. She regarded it as a foolish and absurd course. It would be
better to follow her advice, namely, to remain near her in an office.
Frederick shrugged his shoulders, "Come now"--looking on this proposal
as an insult to himself.
Thereupon, the good lady adopted another plan. In a tender voice broken
by sobs she began to dwell on her solitude, her old age, and the
sacrifices she had made for him. Now that she was more unhappy than
ever, he was abandoning her. Then, alluding to the anticipated close of
her life:
"A little patience--good heavens! you will soon be free!"
These lamentations were renewed twenty times a day for three months; and
at the same time the luxuries of a home made him effeminate. He found it
enjoyable to have a softer bed and napkins that were not torn, so that,
weary, enervated, overcome by the terrible force of comfort, Frederick
allowed himself to be brought to Maître Prouharam's office.
He displayed there neither knowledge nor aptitude. Up to this time, he
had been regarded as a young man of great means who ought to be the
shining light of the Department. The public would now come to the
conclusion that he had imposed upon them.
At first, he said to himself:
"It is necessary to inform Madame Arnoux about it;" and for a whole week
he kept formulating in his own mind dithyrambic letters and short notes
in an eloquent and sublime style. The fear of avowing his actual
position restrained him. Then he thought that it was far better to write
to the husband. Arnoux knew life and could understand the true state of
the case. At length, after a fortnight's hesitation:
"Bah! I ought not to see them any more: let them forget me! At any rate,
I shall be cherished in her memory without having sunk in her
estimation! She will believe that I am dead, and will regret
me--perhaps."
As extravagant resolutions cost him little, he swore in his own mind
that he would never return to Paris, and that he would not even make any
enquiries about Madame Arnoux.
Nevertheless, he regretted the very smell of the gas and the noise of
the omnibuses. He mused on the things that she might have said to him,
on the tone of her voice, on the light of her eyes--and, regarding
himself as a dead man, he no longer did anything at all.
He arose very late, and looked through the window at the passing teams
of wagoners. The first six months especially were hateful.
On certain days, however, he was possessed by a feeling of indignation
even against her. Then he would go forth and wander through the meadows,
half covered in winter time by the inundations of the Seine. They were
cut up by rows of poplar-trees. Here and there arose a little bridge. He
tramped about till evening, rolling the yellow leaves under his feet,
inhaling the fog, and jumping over the ditches. As his arteries began to
throb more vigorously, he felt himself carried away by a desire to do
something wild; he longed to become a trapper in America, to attend on a
pasha in the East, to take ship as a sailor; and he gave vent to his
melancholy in long letters to Deslauriers.
The latter was struggling to get on. The slothful conduct of his friend
and his eternal jeremiads appeared to him simply stupid. Their
correspondence soon became a mere form. Frederick had given up all his
furniture to Deslauriers, who stayed on in the same lodgings. From time
to time his mother spoke to him. At length he one day told her about the
present he had made, and she was giving him a rating for it, when a
letter was placed in his hands.
"What is the matter now?" she said, "you are trembling?"
"There is nothing the matter with me," replied Frederick.
Deslauriers informed him that he had taken Sénécal under his protection,
and that for the past fortnight they had been living together. So now
Sénécal was exhibiting himself in the midst of things that had come
from the Arnoux's shop. He might sell them, criticise, make jokes about
them. Frederick felt wounded in the depths of his soul. He went up to
his own apartment. He felt a yearning for death.
His mother called him to consult him about a plantation in the garden.
This garden was, after the fashion of an English park, cut in the middle
by a stick fence; and the half of it belonged to Père Roque, who had
another for vegetables on the bank of the river. The two neighbours,
having fallen out, abstained from making their appearance there at the
same hour. But since Frederick's return, the old gentleman used to walk
about there more frequently, and was not stinted in his courtesies
towards Madame Moreau's son. He pitied the young man for having to live
in a country town. One day he told him that Madame Dambreuse had been
anxious to hear from him. On another occasion he expatiated on the
custom of Champagne, where the stomach conferred nobility.
"At that time you would have been a lord, since your mother's name was
De Fouvens. And 'tis all very well to talk--never mind! there's
something in a name. After all," he added, with a sly glance at
Frederick, "that depends on the Keeper of the Seals."
This pretension to aristocracy contrasted strangely with his personal
appearance. As he was small, his big chestnut-coloured frock-coat
exaggerated the length of his bust. When he took off his hat, a face
almost like that of a woman with an extremely sharp nose could be seen;
his hair, which was of a yellow colour, resembled a wig. He saluted
people with a very low bow, brushing against the wall.
Up to his fiftieth year, he had been content with the services of
Catherine, a native of Lorraine, of the same age as himself, who was
strongly marked with small-pox. But in the year 1834, he brought back
with him from Paris a handsome blonde with a sheep-like type of
countenance and a "queenly carriage." Ere long, she was observed
strutting about with large earrings; and everything was explained by the
birth of a daughter who was introduced to the world under the name of
Elisabeth Olympe Louise Roque.
Catherine, in her first ebullition of jealousy, expected that she would
curse this child. On the contrary, she became fond of the little girl,
and treated her with the utmost care, consideration, and tenderness, in
order to supplant her mother and render her odious--an easy task,
inasmuch as Madame Éléonore entirely neglected the little one,
preferring to gossip at the tradesmen's shops. On the day after her
marriage, she went to pay a visit at the Sub-prefecture, no longer
"thee'd" and "thou'd" the servants, and took it into her head that, as a
matter of good form, she ought to exhibit a certain severity towards the
child. She was present while the little one was at her lessons. The
teacher, an old clerk who had been employed at the Mayor's office, did
not know how to go about the work of instructing the girl. The pupil
rebelled, got her ears boxed, and rushed away to shed tears on the lap
of Catherine, who always took her part. After this the two women
wrangled, and M. Roque ordered them to hold their tongues. He had
married only out of tender regard for his daughter, and did not wish to
be annoyed by them.
She often wore a white dress with ribbons, and pantalettes trimmed with
lace; and on great festival-days she would leave the house attired like
a princess, in order to mortify a little the matrons of the town, who
forbade their brats to associate with her on account of her illegitimate
birth.
She passed her life nearly always by herself in the garden, went
see-sawing on the swing, chased butterflies, then suddenly stopped to
watch the floral beetles swooping down on the rose-trees. It was, no
doubt, these habits which imparted to her face an expression at the same
time of audacity and dreaminess. She had, moreover, a figure like
Marthe, so that Frederick said to her, at their second interview:
"Will you permit me to kiss you, mademoiselle?"
The little girl lifted up her head and replied:
"I will!"
But the stick-hedge separated them from one another.
"We must climb over," said Frederick.
"No, lift me up!"
He stooped over the hedge, and raising her off the ground with his
hands, kissed her on both cheeks; then he put her back on her own side
by a similar process; and this performance was repeated on the next
occasions when they found themselves together.
Without more reserve than a child of four, as soon as she heard her
friend coming, she sprang forward to meet him, or else, hiding behind a
tree, she began yelping like a dog to frighten him.
One day, when Madame Moreau had gone out, he brought her up to his own
room. She opened all the scent-bottles, and pomaded her hair
plentifully; then, without the slightest embarrassment, she lay down on
the bed, where she remained stretched out at full length, wide awake.
"I fancy myself your wife," she said to him.
Next day he found her all in tears. She confessed that she had been
"weeping for her sins;" and, when he wished to know what they were, she
hung down her head, and answered:
"Ask me no more!"
The time for first communion was at hand. She had been brought to
confession in the morning. The sacrament scarcely made her wiser.
Occasionally, she got into a real passion; and Frederick was sent for to
appease her.
He often brought her with him in his walks. While he indulged in
day-dreams as he walked along, she would gather wild poppies at the
edges of the corn-fields; and, when she saw him more melancholy than
usual, she tried to console him with her pretty childish prattle. His
heart, bereft of love, fell back on this friendship inspired by a little
girl. He gave her sketches of old fogies, told her stories, and devoted
himself to reading books for her.
He began with the _Annales Romantiques_, a collection of prose and verse
celebrated at the period. Then, forgetting her age, so much was he
charmed by her intelligence, he read for her in succession, _Atala_,
_Cinq-Mars_, and _Les Feuilles d'Automne_. But one night (she had that
very evening heard _Macbeth_ in Letourneur's simple translation) she
woke up, exclaiming:
"The spot! the spot!" Her teeth chattered, she shivered, and, fixing
terrified glances on her right hand, she kept rubbing it, saying:
"Always a spot!"
At last a doctor was brought, who directed that she should be kept free
from violent emotions.
The townsfolk saw in this only an unfavourable prognostic for her
morals. It was said that "young Moreau" wished to make an actress of her
later.
Soon another event became the subject of discussion--namely, the arrival
of uncle Barthélemy. Madame Moreau gave up her sleeping-apartment to
him, and was so gracious as to serve up meat to him on fast-days.
The old man was not very agreeable. He was perpetually making
comparisons between Havre and Nogent, the air of which he considered
heavy, the bread bad, the streets ill-paved, the food indifferent, and
the inhabitants very lazy. "How wretched trade is with you in this
place!" He blamed his deceased brother for his extravagance, pointing
out by way of contrast that he had himself accumulated an income of
twenty-seven thousand livres a year. At last, he left at the end of the
week, and on the footboard of the carriage gave utterance to these by no
means reassuring words:
"I am always very glad to know that you are in a good position."
"You will get nothing," said Madame Moreau as they re-entered the
dining-room.
He had come only at her urgent request, and for eight days she had been
seeking, on her part, for an opening--only too clearly perhaps. She
repented now of having done so, and remained seated in her armchair with
her head bent down and her lips tightly pressed together. Frederick sat
opposite, staring at her; and they were both silent, as they had been
five years before on his return home by the Montereau steamboat. This
coincidence, which presented itself even to her mind, recalled Madame
Arnoux to his recollection.
At that moment the crack of a whip outside the window reached their
ears, while a voice was heard calling out to him.
It was Père Roque, who was alone in his tilted cart. He was going to
spend the whole day at La Fortelle with M. Dambreuse, and cordially
offered to drive Frederick there.
"You have no need of an invitation as long as you are with me. Don't be
afraid!"
Frederick felt inclined to accept this offer. But how would he explain
his fixed sojourn at Nogent? He had not a proper summer suit. Finally,
what would his mother say? He accordingly decided not to go.
From that time, their neighbour exhibited less friendliness. Louise was
growing tall; Madame Éléonore fell dangerously ill; and the intimacy
broke off, to the great delight of Madame Moreau, who feared lest her
son's prospects of being settled in life might be affected by
association with such people.
She was thinking of purchasing for him the registrarship of the Court of
Justice. Frederick raised no particular objection to this scheme. He now
accompanied her to mass; in the evening he took a hand in a game of "all
fours." He became accustomed to provincial habits of life, and allowed
himself to slide into them; and even his love had assumed a character of
mournful sweetness, a kind of soporific charm. By dint of having poured
out his grief in his letters, mixed it up with everything he read, given
full vent to it during his walks through the country, he had almost
exhausted it, so that Madame Arnoux was for him, as it were, a dead
woman whose tomb he wondered that he did not know, so tranquil and
resigned had his affection for her now become.
One day, the 12th of December, 1845, about nine o'clock in the morning,
the cook brought up a letter to his room. The address, which was in big
characters, was written in a hand he was not acquainted with; and
Frederick, feeling sleepy, was in no great hurry to break the seal. At
length, when he did so, he read:
"Justice of the Peace at Havre,
3rd Arrondissement.
"MONSIEUR,--Monsieur Moreau, your uncle, having died intestate----"
He had fallen in for the inheritance! As if a conflagration had burst
out behind the wall, he jumped out of bed in his shirt, with his feet
bare. He passed his hand over his face, doubting the evidence of his own
eyes, believing that he was still dreaming, and in order to make his
mind more clearly conscious of the reality of the event, he flung the
window wide open.
There had been a fall of snow; the roofs were white, and he even
recognised in the yard outside a washtub which had caused him to stumble
after dark the evening before.
He read the letter over three times in succession. Could there be
anything more certain? His uncle's entire fortune! A yearly income of
twenty-seven thousand livres![5] And he was overwhelmed with frantic joy
at the idea of seeing Madame Arnoux once more. With the vividness of a
hallucination he saw himself beside her, at her house, bringing her some
present in silver paper, while at the door stood a tilbury--no, a
brougham rather!--a black brougham, with a servant in brown livery. He
could hear his horse pawing the ground and the noise of the curb-chain
mingling with the rippling sound of their kisses. And every day this was
renewed indefinitely. He would receive them in his own house: the
dining-room would be furnished in red leather; the boudoir in yellow
silk; sofas everywhere! and such a variety of whatnots, china vases, and
carpets! These images came in so tumultuous a fashion into his mind that
he felt his head turning round. Then he thought of his mother; and he
descended the stairs with the letter in his hand.
[Footnote 5: About £1,350.--Translator.]
Madame Moreau made an effort to control her emotion, but could not keep
herself from swooning. Frederick caught her in his arms and kissed her
on the forehead.
"Dear mother, you can now buy back your carriage--laugh then! shed no
more tears! be happy!"
[Illustration: Laugh then! shed no more tears! be happy!]
Ten minutes later the news had travelled as far as the faubourgs. Then
M. Benoist, M. Gamblin, M. Chambion, and other friends hurried towards
the house. Frederick got away for a minute in order to write to
Deslauriers. Then other visitors turned up. The afternoon passed in
congratulations. They had forgotten all about "Roque's wife," who,
however, was declared to be "very low."
When they were alone, the same evening, Madame Moreau said to her son
that she would advise him to set up as an advocate at Troyes. As he was
better known in his own part of the country than in any other, he might
more easily find there a profitable connection.
"Ah, it is too hard!" exclaimed Frederick. He had scarcely grasped his
good fortune in his hands when he longed to carry it to Madame Arnoux.
He announced his express determination to live in Paris.
"And what are you going to do there?"
"Nothing!"
Madame Moreau, astonished at his manner, asked what he intended to
become.
"A minister," was Frederick's reply. And he declared that he was not at
all joking, that he meant to plunge at once into diplomacy, and that his
studies and his instincts impelled him in that direction. He would first
enter the Council of State under M. Dambreuse's patronage.
"So then, you know him?"
"Oh, yes--through M. Roque."
"That is singular," said Madame Moreau. He had awakened in her heart her
former dreams of ambition. She internally abandoned herself to them, and
said no more about other matters.
If he had yielded to his impatience, Frederick would have started that
very instant. Next morning every seat in the diligence had been engaged;
and so he kept eating out his heart till seven o'clock in the evening.
They had sat down to dinner when three prolonged tolls of the
church-bell fell on their ears; and the housemaid, coming in, informed
them that Madame Éléonore had just died.
This death, after all, was not a misfortune for anyone, not even for her
child. The young girl would only find it all the better for herself
afterwards.
As the two houses were close to one another, a great coming and going
and a clatter of tongues could be heard; and the idea of this corpse
being so near them threw a certain funereal gloom over their parting.
Madame Moreau wiped her eyes two or three times. Frederick felt his
heart oppressed.
When the meal was over, Catherine stopped him between two doors.
Mademoiselle had peremptorily expressed a wish to see him. She was
waiting for him in the garden. He went out there, strode over the hedge,
and knocking more or less against the trees, directed his steps towards
M. Roque's house. Lights were glittering through a window in the second
story then a form appeared in the midst of the darkness, and a voice
whispered:
"'Tis I!"
She seemed to him taller than usual, owing to her black dress, no doubt.
Not knowing what to say to her, he contented himself with catching her
hands, and sighing forth:
"Ah! my poor Louise!"
She did not reply. She gazed at him for a long time with a look of sad,
deep earnestness.
Frederick was afraid of missing the coach; he fancied that he could hear
the rolling of wheels some distance away, and, in order to put an end to
the interview without any delay:
"Catherine told me that you had something----"
"Yes--'tis true! I wanted to tell you----"
He was astonished to find that she addressed him in the plural; and, as
she again relapsed into silence:
"Well, what?"
"I don't know. I forget! Is it true that you're going away?"
"Yes, I'm starting just now."
She repeated: "Ah! just now?--for good?--we'll never see one another
again?"
She was choking with sobs.
"Good-bye! good-bye! embrace me then!"
And she threw her arms about him passionately.