A moment's silence followed the entrance of the old blind man into the
parlour.
Dutertre went quickly to meet his father, took hold of his trembling
hand, and said, as he pressed it tenderly:
"Calm yourself, father, it is nothing; a simple discussion, a little
lively. Let me take you back to your chamber."
"Charles," said the old man, shaking his head sadly, "your hand is cold,
you are nervous, your voice is changed; something has happened which you
wish to hide from me."
"You are not mistaken, sir," said Pascal to the old man. "Your son is
hiding something from you, and in his interest, in yours, and in the
interest of your daughter-in-law and her children, you ought not to be
ignorant of it."
"But M. Pascal, can nothing touch your heart?" cried Charles Dutertre.
"Are you without pity, without compassion?"
"It is because I pity your obstinate folly, and that of your wife, my
dear Dutertre, that I wish to appeal from it, to the good sense of your
respectable father."
"Charles," cried Sophie, "however cruel the truth may be, tell it. This
doubt, this agony, is beyond my endurance!"
"My son," added the old man, "be frank, as you have always been, and we
will have courage."
"You see, my dear Dutertre," persisted M. Pascal, "your worthy father
himself wishes to know the truth."
"Monsieur," answered Dutertre, in a broken voice, looking at Pascal with
tears which he could hardly restrain, "be good, be generous, as you have
been until to-day. Your power is immense, I know; with one word you can
plunge us in distress, in disaster; but with one word, too, you can
restore to us the peace and happiness which we have owed to you. I
implore you, do not be pitiless."
At the sight of the tears, which, in spite of his efforts to control,
rose to the eyes of Dutertre, a man so resolute and energetic, Sophie
detected the greatness of the danger, and, turning to M. Pascal, said,
in a heartrending voice:
"My God! I do not know the danger with which you threaten us, but I am
afraid, oh, I am afraid, and I implore you also, M. Pascal."
"After having been our saviour," cried Dutertre, drying the tears which
escaped in spite of him, "surely you will not be our executioner!"
"Your executioner!" repeated Pascal. "Please God, my poor friends, it is
not I, it is you who wish to be your own executioner. This word you
expect from me, this word which can assure your happiness, say it, my
dear Dutertre, and our little feast will be as joyous as it ought to be;
if not, then do not complain of the bad fate which awaits you. Alas, you
will have it so!"
"Charles, if it depends on you," cried Sophie, in a voice of agony, "if
this word M. Pascal asks depends on you, then say it, oh, my God, since
the salvation of your father and your children depend upon it."
"You hear your wife, my dear Dutertre," resumed Pascal. "Will you be
insensible to her voice?"
"Ah, well, then," cried Dutertre, pale and desperate, "since this man is
pitiless, you, my father, and you, too, Sophie, can know all. I
dismissed Marcelange from my employ. M. Pascal has an interest, of which
I am ignorant, in having this man enter the business house of Durand,
and he asks me to give to this firm a voucher for the integrity of a
wretch whom I have thrown out of my establishment as an arrant
impostor."
"Ah, monsieur," said the old man, shocked, as he turned to the side
where he supposed M. Pascal to be, "that is impossible. You cannot
expect such an unworthy action from my son!"
"And if I refuse to do this degrading thing," said Dutertre, "M. Pascal
withdraws from me the capital which I have so rashly accepted, he
refuses me credit, and in our present crisis that would be our loss, our
ruin."
"Great God!" whispered Sophie, terrified.
"That is not all, father," continued Dutertre. "My wife, too, must pay
her tribute of shame. M. Pascal is, he says, in love with Mlle.
Antonine, and Sophie must serve this love, which she knows to be
impossible, and which for honourable reasons she disapproves, or a
threat is still suspended over our heads. Now you have the truth,
father,--submit to a ruin as terrible as unforeseen, or commit a base
action, such is the alternative to which a man whom we have trusted so
long as loyal and generous reduces me."
"That again, always that; so goes the world," interposed M. Pascal,
sighing and shrugging his shoulders. "So long as they can receive your
aid without making any return, oh, then they flatter you and praise you.
It is always 'My noble benefactor, my generous saviour;' they call you
'dear, good man,' load you with attentions; they embroider purses for
you and make a feast for you. The little children repeat compliments to
you, but let the day come when this poor, innocent man presumes in his
turn to ask one or two miserable little favours, then they cry,
'Scoundrel!' 'Unworthy!' 'Infamous!'"
"Any sacrifice, compatible with honour, you might have asked of me, M.
Pascal," said Dutertre, in a voice which told how deeply he was wounded,
"and I would have made it with joy!"
"Then, what is to be expected?" continued Pascal, without replying to
Dutertre, "if the 'good, innocent man,' so good-natured as they suppose
him to be, the benefactor, at last, grows weary, ingratitude breaks his
heart, for he is naturally sensitive, too sensitive?"
"Ingratitude!" cried Sophie, bursting into tears, "we--we--ingrates, oh,
my God!"
"And as the 'good, innocent man' sees a little later that he has been
mistaken," continued Pascal, without replying to Sophie, "as he
recognises the fact, with pain, that he has been dealing with people
incapable of putting their grateful friendship beyond a few puerile
prejudices, he says to himself that he would be by far too much of an
'innocent man' to continue to open his purse for the use of such
lukewarm friends. So he withdraws his money and his credit as I do,
being brought to this resolution by certain circumstances consequent
upon the refusal of this dear Dutertre, whom I loved so much, and whom I
would love still to call my friend. One last word, sir," added Pascal,
addressing the old man. "I have just told you frankly my attitude toward
your son, and his toward me; but as it would cost my own heart too much
to renounce the faith that I had in the affection of this dear Dutertre,
as I know the terrible evils which, through his own fault, must come
upon him and his family, I am willing still to give him one quarter of
an hour for reconsideration. Let him give me the letter in question, let
Madame Dutertre make me the promise that I ask of her, and all shall
become again as in the past, and I shall ask for breakfast, and
enthusiastically drink a toast to friendship. You are the father of
Dutertre, monsieur, you have a great influence over him; judge and
decide."
"Charles," said the old man to his son, in a voice full of emotion, "you
have acted as an honest man. That is well, but there is still another
thing to do; to refuse to vouch for the integrity of a scoundrel is not
enough."
"Ah, ah!" interrupted Pascal, "what more, then, is there to do?"
"If M. Pascal," continued the old man, "persists in this dangerous
design, you ought, my son, to write to the house of Durand, that for
reasons of which you are ignorant, but which are perhaps hostile to
their interests, M. Pascal desires to place this Marcelange with them,
and that they must be on their guard, because to be silent when an
unworthy project is proposed is to become an accomplice."
"I will follow your advice, father," replied Dutertre, in a firm voice.
"Better and better," exclaimed Pascal, sighing, "to ingratitude they add
the odious abuse of confidence. Ah, well, I will drink the cup to the
dregs. Only, my poor former friends," added he, throwing a strange and
sinister glance upon the actors in this scene, "only I fear, you see,
that after drinking it a great deal of bitterness and rancour will
remain in my heart, and then, you know, when a legitimate hatred
succeeds a tender friendship, this hatred, unhappily, becomes a terrible
thing."
"Oh, Charles! he frightens me," whispered the young wife, drawing nearer
her husband.
"As to you, my dear Sophie," added the old man, with imperturbable
calmness, without replying to M. Pascal's threat, "you ought not only to
favour in nothing--the course which you have taken--a marriage which you
must disapprove, but if M. Pascal persists in his intentions, you ought,
by all means, to enlighten Mlle. Antonine as to the character of the man
who seeks her. To do that, you have only to inform her at what an
infamous price he put the continuation of the aid he has rendered your
husband."
"That is my duty," replied Sophie, in a calmer voice, "and I will do it,
father."
"And you, too, my dear Madame Dutertre, to abuse an honest confidence!"
said M. Pascal, hiding his anger under a veil of sweetness, "to strike
me in my dearest hope, ah, this is generous! God grant that I may not
give myself up to cruel retaliation! After two years of friendship to
part with such sentiments! But it must be, it must be!" added Pascal,
looking alternately at Dutertre and his wife. "Is all ended between us?"
Sophie and her husband preserved a silence full of resignation and
dignity.
"Oh, well," said Pascal, taking his hat, "another proof of the
ingratitude of men, alas!"
"Monsieur," cried Dutertre, exasperated beyond measure at the affected
sensibility of Pascal, "in the presence of the frightful blow with which
you intend to crush us, this continued sarcasm is atrocious. Leave us,
leave us!"
"Ah, here I am driven away from this house by people who are conscious
of owing their happiness to me for so long a time,--their salvation
even, they owe to me," said Pascal, walking slowly toward the door.
"Driven away from here! I! Ah, this mortifying grief disappoints me,
indeed!"
Then, pausing, he rummaged his pocket, and drew out the little purse
that Sophie had given him a few moments before, and, handing it to the
young wife, he said, with a pitiless accent of sardonic contrition:
"Happily, they are mute, or these pearls of steel would tell me every
moment how much my name was blessed in this house from which I am driven
away."
Then, with the air of changing his mind, he put the purse back in his
pocket, after looking at it with a melancholy smile, and said:
"No, no, I will keep you, poor little innocent purse. You will recall to
me the little good I have done, and the cruel deception which has been
my reward."
So saying, M. Pascal put his hand on the knob of the door, opened it,
and went out, while Sophie and her husband and her father sat in gloomy
silence.
This oppressive silence was still unbroken when M. Pascal, returning
and opening the door half-way, said across the threshold:
"To tell the truth, Dutertre, I have reflected. Listen to me, my dear
Dutertre."
A ray of foolish hope illumined the face of Dutertre; for a moment he
believed that, in spite of the cold and sarcastic cruelty that Pascal
had first affected, he did feel some pity at last.
Sophie shared the same hope; like her husband she listened with
indescribable anguish to the words of the man who was to dispose so
absolutely of their fate, while Pascal said:
"Next Saturday is your pay-day, is it not, my dear Dutertre? Let me call
you so notwithstanding what has passed between us."
"Thank God, he has some pity," thought Dutertre, and he replied aloud:
"Yes, monsieur."
"I would not wish, you understand, my dear Dutertre," continued Pascal,
"to put you in ruinous embarrassment. I know Paris, and in the present
business crisis you could not get credit for a cent, especially if it
were known that I have withdrawn mine from you, and as, after all, you
relied upon my name to meet your liabilities, did you not?"
"Charles, we are saved!" whispered Sophie, panting, "he was only testing
us."
Dutertre, struck with this idea, which appeared to him all the more
probable as he had at first suspected it, no longer doubted his safety;
his heart beat violently, his contracted features relaxed into their
ordinary cheerful expression, and he replied, stammering from excess of
emotion:
"In fact, sir, trusting blindly to your promises, I relied on your
credit as usual."
"Well, my dear Dutertre, that you may not find yourself in an
embarrassed position, I have come back to tell you that, as you still
have about a week, you had better provide for yourself elsewhere, as you
cannot depend on Paris or on me."
And M. Pascal closed the door, and took his departure.
The reaction was so terrible that Dutertre fell back in his chair, pale,
inanimate, and utterly exhausted. Hiding his face in his hands, he
sobbed:
"Lost, lost!"
"Oh, our children!" cried Sophie, in a heartrending voice, as she threw
herself down at her husband's knees, "our poor children!"
"Charles," said the old man, extending his hands, and timidly groping
his way to his son, "Charles, my beloved son, have courage!"
"Oh, father, it is ruin, it is bankruptcy," said the unhappy man, with
convulsive sobs. "The misery, oh, my God! the misery in store for us
all!"
At the height of this overwhelming sorrow came a cruel contrast; the
little children, clamorous with joy, rushed into the parlour,
exclaiming:
"It is Madeleine; here is Madeleine!"