Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, about sixteen months ago? You stood for a long
time at the gate of a garden; that barred gate, partly covered with
boards, made it impossible to see anything from the garden except your
face, and I confess that your eyes, your scars and your moustaches
frightened me terribly.”
“What!” said Jacques, after examining Adeline with interest, “you were
in that garden?”
“Yes, monsieur, it is the garden of my house. But at that time, I was
visiting it for the first time with my mother and my husband.”
Jacques made no reply; he became gloomy and thoughtful; he passed his
hand across his forehead, toyed with his moustaches, and uttered a
profound sigh.
“Well,” said Guillot, after drinking a large glass of wine, “that shows
that it don’t make any difference, and although a face may be or
not,--and I say that it ain’t always a moustache behind a gate that does
it; for you see, that when a person is frightened at things like
that--why that’s how it is----”
“That’s all right, my man,” said the farmer’s wife, cutting short
Guillot’s eloquence; “but if madame had seen that cross of honor on our
friend Jacques’s stomach, I guess she wouldn’t have been afraid.”
“Oh!” said Adeline, “I don’t need to see it now, to realize my mistake.
But what can you expect? his strange position--for women are timid, you
know, and that face with moustaches, appearing all alone at the end of
the garden----”
“Oh, yes! that’s so,” rejoined Guillot; “it ain’t surprising, and I
think that I’d have been afraid myself; because the surprise, behind
the gate, and moustaches, in a garden--a body can’t help himself.”
“Hold your tongue, my man! You’re a coward! Ain’t it a shame, cousin?”
“Ten thousand bayonets!” said Sans-Souci; “if robbers attacked the farm
house, I promise you that I would make ’em turn to the right about and
march!”
“Is your husband still at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges?” asked Jacques of
Adeline, after a moment’s silence.
“No, he has been in Paris for a long while.”
The young woman seemed so sad after she had said this that Jacques
regretted his question. The more he looked at his brother’s wife, the
more he felt drawn toward her and disposed to love her; he did not doubt
that Edouard had said nothing of his meeting with him.
“She would not have turned me away,” he said to himself; “with such
gentleness in the features and the voice, a person cannot have a hard
and unfeeling heart. Edouard alone is guilty. But I will not tell her; I
should distress her to no purpose; and, besides, I have no intention of
going near the ingrate who spurned me.”
It was growing dark; Adeline could not remain at the farm; everyone
offered to escort her, but she selected Jacques, to show him that she
harbored no unpleasant memories against him. He was secretly flattered
by the preference. He took little Ermance on one arm and offered the
other to the young woman, who bade the people at the farm adieu, and,
delighted by their cordial welcome, promised to go again to see them.
They walked in silence at first. From time to time Jacques embraced
pretty Ermance, who was only eight months old, but who smiled at the
honest soldier, and passed her little hand over his moustaches.
“I am very sorry to give you so much trouble,” said Adeline, “but I did
not think that I had gone so far.”
“Madame, it is a pleasure to me.”
“That child must tire you.”
“Tire me! No! ten thousand cannons!--Ah! I beg pardon; one should not
swear before ladies.”
“It is very excusable in an old soldier.”
“You see, I am very fond of children; and this little one is really so
pretty.”
“Ah me! she is my only consolation!” murmured Adeline.
Jacques could not hear, but he saw that she was sad, and he changed the
subject.
“Madame will soon return to Paris, no doubt; it is late in the season,
October is almost here.”
“No, I do not expect to leave the country yet; I may pass the winter
here.”
“This is strange,” thought Jacques; “she remains in the country and her
husband in the city; can it be that they do not live happily
together?--In that case,” he said aloud, “I hope that we shall have the
pleasure of seeing madame at the farm sometimes.”
“Yes, I look forward with pleasure to going there again. You are a
relative of the farmer, I suppose?”
“No, madame, my comrade is their cousin, but I am only an old soldier,
without family or acquaintances, whom they have been good enough to
supply with work.”
“I am sure that they congratulate themselves upon it every day.--You are
still young, you cannot have served very long?”
“I beg your pardon, I enlisted very early.”
“And on your return from the army you had no mother, no sister, to take
care of you and to make you forget the fatigues of war?”
“No, madame. I have only one relative, and he treated me with so little
affection! I am proud, I have a keen sense of honor, and I rejected
assistance which was not offered by the heart, and which would have
humiliated me.”
“That must have been some distant relative?”
“Yes, madame.”
“My husband has a brother. By the way, his name is Jacques as yours is.
He left his family many years ago; he is dead, no doubt, but if he were
still alive, if he should return--oh! I am very sure that Edouard would
be overjoyed to see him.”
Jacques made no reply; but he turned his head aside to conceal a tear
that dropped from his eyes.
At that moment they arrived at Murville’s house. Adeline urged Jacques
to come in and rest for a few moments; but he declined; he was afraid of
yielding to his emotions, and of betraying himself.
“At least,” said the young woman, “when you come to
Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, I hope that you will come to see me. I will
show you the gardens which you saw only through the gate.”
“With pleasure, madame; and I urge you not to forget the farm.”
Adeline promised and Jacques went away, after casting a last glance at
the house.
“That is a fine fellow,” said Adeline, as she entered the house, “and
mamma and I judged him very unjustly. I am sure that that rough and
stern exterior conceals a sensitive and honest heart. Ah! appearances
are often deceitful!”
Some time after, Adeline went to the farm one morning, followed by her
nurse, a stout country girl, who carried her child. The villagers
received her joyfully; Adeline was so amiable, so sweet, so simple with
the people at the farm, that they were quite at their ease with her.
Guillot began sentences that never ended; Louise played with little
Ermance; Sans-Souci swore that he had never seen such a lovely woman in
the regiment, and Jacques manifested the greatest regard for the young
woman, and the deepest interest; his attentions to Adeline were so
considerate, his manners so respectful, that she did not know how to
interpret his affecting yet mysterious conduct; but there was in
Jacques’s eyes an expression at which no one could take offence; only
interest and affection could be read in them, and her heart was moved by
those same sentiments, although she could not understand them.
They all disputed for the honor of escorting the young lady home.
Guillot would offer his arm, Louise insist on carrying the child,
Jacques on acting as guide, and Sans-Souci on going before as
skirmisher. But Adeline, in order to make none of them jealous, returned
alone with her maid when it was not late, unless the weather was very
fine; for in that case, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges was a pleasant walk,
which they insisted upon taking with Madame Murville, who was touched by
the attachment which the peasants showed for her.
Several months passed in this way. Winter had come, the verdure had
disappeared, the country was dismal. Adeline received no company. She
was alone in her house with her maid and an old gardener, who had
replaced the insolent concierge, dismissed by Adeline because she had
learned that he turned the poor people and beggars harshly away when
they begged a crust of bread at her door.
Adeline’s only diversion was to go to the farm, when the weather was
fine and the air not too sharp for her child. Jacques was conscious of
a feeling of satisfaction as soon as he saw her; but he concealed a
large part of his sensations, in order not to arouse the curiosity of
the peasants. Sans-Souci was the only one who was in Jacques’s
confidence; he knew that Adeline was the wife of Jacques’s brother; but
he had sworn not to reveal the secret to anyone; and his oath could be
relied upon, although privately he raged at his inability to inform
Adeline of the bond between her and his friend. But Jacques insisted
that it should be so. He had divined a part of his sister-in-law’s
griefs, and he did not wish to intensify them by telling her of
Edouard’s conduct toward him.
Meanwhile, they were very far from suspecting at the farm what was
taking place in Paris. Intelligence arrived only too soon, to destroy
such repose as Adeline still enjoyed. It was Dufresne who had taken it
upon himself to wreck the peace of mind of the woman whose scorn he was
unable to forgive.
One day, Adeline learned that a gentleman just from Paris desired to
speak with her; she went to the salon where the stranger was, and
shuddered with horror when she saw Dufresne, seated in an easy-chair,
and placidly awaiting her arrival.
“You here, monsieur!” she said, striving to recover her courage; “I did
not suppose that you would dare to appear in my presence again!”
“I beg pardon, madame,” Dufresne replied in a hypocritical tone; “I
hoped time would lessen your hatred.”
“Never, monsieur; you know too well that your outrages can never be
effaced from my memory! Make haste to tell me what brings you here.”
“I am going to cause you distress again; but your husband’s orders----”
“Speak; I am prepared for anything.”
“Your mother, you know, of course----”
“My mother! Oh heaven! It cannot be that she is sick? But she wrote me
only a short time ago.”
“An attack of apoplexy, a blood vessel----”
“Great God! she is dead, and I did not see her in her last moments!”
Adeline fell upon a chair, utterly crushed; two streams of tears flowed
from her eyes, and her sobs, her grief, would have moved the most
insensible of mortals; but gentle sentiments were not made for
Dufresne’s heart; he was only moved by the passions which degrade
mankind. He contemplated in silence the despair of a young and lovely
woman, whose unhappiness was his work; he listened to her sighs, he
seemed to count her sobs, and far from feeling the slightest twinge of
repentance, he deliberated upon the fresh torments which he proposed to
inflict on her.
Dufresne’s presence intensified Adeline’s grief; before him she could
not even weep freely and think solely of her mother; she tried to summon
a little courage in order to dismiss the contemptible man who fed upon
her suffering.
“Was your only purpose in coming here to tell me of the cruel loss I
have suffered?” she said, rising and trying to restrain her sobs.
“Madame, the property which Madame Germeuil left must be administered; I
feared that it would be painful to you to attend to these details which
are indeed your husband’s concern, but we require your signature, and I
have brought the papers.”
“Oh! give them to me, give them to me! I will sign anything; I consent
to give up everything! But at least let my retirement no longer be
disturbed by your presence!”
As she spoke, Adeline seized the papers which Dufresne handed her, she
signed them all blindly, and handed them back to him, and was turning
away, but he grasped her with violence by the arm, just as she was about
to leave the salon.
“One moment, madame; you are in a great hurry to leave me. For my own
part, I propose to recompense myself for the time I have passed without
seeing you; besides, I have news of your husband for you.”
A cruel smile gleamed in Dufresne’s eyes; Adeline shuddered and tried to
escape.
“Do not detain me,” she cried, “or I shall find a way to punish your
audacity.”
“Oh! don’t be so proud, my lovely Adeline! Do you suppose that I have
not taken my precautions? Your gardener is busy at the end of the
garden, your maid has gone down to her kitchen, where she cannot hear
you; for I know this house perfectly. You will stay here because I wish
it; you will listen to me, and then we will see.”
“Villain! do not think to frighten me; the hatred which you inspire in
me will double my strength.”
“Ah! so you hate me still; you refuse to be reasonable? I am of better
composition; I would forget your insults if you would consent to love me
at last. But beware; my patience will wear out, and then I shall be
capable of anything.”
“O mon Dieu! must I listen to such infamous words?”
“Come, no temper! you cannot love your husband any longer, for he
abandons you, forgets you, ruins you, consorts with prostitutes and
haunts gambling houses. He is now almost as much of a rake as of a
gambler, and that is not saying little; he will bring you to the
gutter!--But I will give you riches; nothing will cost too much that
will gratify your desires. Open your eyes! and see if I am not the equal
of your imbecile Edouard! You are silent? Good,--I see that you realize
the justice of my words.--Let us make peace.”
Dufresne walked toward Adeline; she uttered a piercing shriek.
“What! still the same harsh treatment? Oh! I will not make this journey
for nothing; I must have a kiss.”
“Monster! I would rather die!”
“Oh, no! one doesn’t die for so small a matter.”
In vain did the unhappy woman try to flee, the villain held her fast; he
was about to sully with his impure breath the lips of beauty, when a
loud noise was heard, and in another instant Jacques entered the salon,
followed by Sans-Souci.
Dufresne had not had time to leave the room; the struggle that Adeline
had sustained had exhausted her strength; she could only falter these
words:
“Deliver me, save me from this monster!” then she fell unconscious to
the floor.
Jacques ran to Adeline, shaking his fist at Dufresne. The latter tried
to go out, but Sans-Souci barred his passage, crying:
“One moment, comrade; you have failed in respect to this young lady, and
you don’t get off like this.”
“You are wrong,” replied Dufresne, doing his utmost to conceal the
perturbation which had seized him at sight of Jacques. “This lady is
subject to attacks of hysteria; I hurried here in response to her cries;
I came to help her. Let me go for her servants.”
Sans-Souci was hesitating, he did not know what to think; but Jacques,
struck by Dufresne’s voice, had turned and was examining him carefully;
he soon recognized him and shouted to Sans-Souci:
“Stop that villain; don’t let him escape; it is Bréville,--that
scoundrel who robbed me at Brussels! Ten thousand cartridges! he has got
to pay me for that!”
“Aha! my comrade,” said Sans-Souci, “you didn’t expect to be recognized!
It is disagreeable, I agree; but you have got to dance. Forward!”
Dufresne saw that it was impossible to escape by stratagem; his only
resource was in flight. Jacques was still busy over Adeline, who had not
recovered her senses; therefore there was only Sans-Souci to stop him;
but Dufresne was stout and strong, Sans-Souci small and thin. He at once
made up his mind; he rushed upon his adversary, whirled him about, threw
him down before he had time to realize what was happening, and leaping
over him, opened the door and descended the stairs four at a time. But
Louise had accompanied Jacques and Sans-Souci to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges;
they had come to invite Madame Murville to be one of a small party,
which they were preparing for Guillot’s birthday. On entering the
courtyard and not finding the gardener, the farmer’s wife had gone to
the kitchen to learn where madame was; and Jacques and his companion
were waiting at the foot of the stairs when they heard shrieks and
hastened up to Adeline’s assistance.
In his flight Dufresne encountered Louise, who was going up to the
salon; he roughly pushed her aside, she stumbled and fell between his
legs. While he was trying to disentangle himself, Sans-Souci, who had
risen, and who was frantic at being worsted by the villain, ran up,
armed with his knotted stick; he overtook Dufresne, and bestowed upon
his head and shoulders a perfect hailstorm of blows, which he had not
time to ward off. Thereupon he ran toward the garden, with Sans-Souci in
pursuit; but Dufresne, who knew all the windings, succeeded in eluding
his enemy. Coming to a wall along which there ran a trellis, he climbed
over, jumped down into the fields, and fled toward Paris, cursing his
misadventure.
Sans-Souci returned to the house when he found that the man he was
looking for had escaped. Adeline had recovered consciousness, thanks to
the attentions of Jacques, who had not left her. She opened her eyes,
and saw Jacques at her feet and the farmer’s wife at her side.
“Ah! my friends,” she said, in a voice trembling with emotion, “without
you I should have been lost!”
“The villain!” said Jacques; “oh! I have known him for a long time; he
robbed me once; I will tell you about that, madame.”
“Ah! the rascal!” said the farmer’s wife in her turn; “he threw me head
over heels just as if I was a dog; but Sans-Souci gave him a fine
beating, I tell you! You couldn’t see the stick!”
At that moment Sans-Souci returned with an air of vexation.
“Well,” said Jacques, “did you stop him?”
“No; I don’t know how he did it, but I lost sight of him in the garden,
which he seems to know. For my part, I didn’t know which way to turn;
but no matter, he got a trouncing. If madame wishes, I will beat up the
fields and search the village.”
“No, it is no use,” said Adeline; “I thank you for your zeal; but we
will let the villain go; I flatter myself that he will never dare to
show his face here again.”
“Didn’t he steal anything, madame?” said Jacques.
“No, he came here about some business, to get some information; then he
dared to speak to me of love; and flying into a rage at my contempt, he
was about to proceed to the last extremity, when you arrived.”
“The monster! Ah! if I find him----”
“Pardi! what a miserable scamp! To think of falling in love with a
sweet, pretty woman like Madame Murville! I wouldn’t let him touch the
end of my finger!”
“He had better not think of touching anything of yours, or of looking at
madame,” said Sans-Souci; “or by the battle of Austerlitz, the hilt of
my sword will serve him for a watch chain.”
Tranquillity was restored; but Adeline, sorely distressed by the loss of
her mother, and by what the treacherous Dufresne had told her of
Edouard, refused to go to Guillot’s party, to the great disappointment
of the people at the farm. In vain did Louise and her companions try to
shake her resolution; they could obtain no promise; they had to return,
sadly enough, without Madame Murville, and to leave her a prey to the
sorrow with which she seemed overwhelmed.
Jacques and Sans-Souci offered to pass the night in the house, in order
to defend her against any new enterprises on the part of the villain who
had escaped them; but Adeline would not consent; she thanked them,
assuring them that she had nothing more to fear; but urged them to come
often to see her.
The people from the farm took their leave regretfully, and Jacques
registered an inward vow to watch over his brother’s wife.
XXV
THE LOTTERY OFFICE
“How does it happen that I am ruined, while I see other men win all the
time? Shall I never be able to find a way to grow rich rapidly?”
Thus did Edouard commune with himself on the day of Dufresne’s departure
for Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. He came out of an academy--a decent method
of designating a gambling hell,--where he had lost a large part of the
sum he had borrowed on his house. He strode angrily along the streets of
Paris; he dreamed of cards, of martingales, of series, of _parolis_, and
of all those unlucky combinations which constantly perturb the brain of
a gambler. A noisy burst of music, the booming of a bass drum, the
strains of two clarinets and a pair of cymbals, roused him from his
reverie; he raised his eyes with the intention of walking away from the
musicians, whose uproar tired him, and saw that he was in front of a
lottery office. The music which he heard was produced by one of those
travelling bands which, for a forty-sou piece given them by the keeper
of the office, raise an infernal tumult before the door and attract all
the gossips of the neighborhood to the “lucky office” where the list of
_ambes_, _ternes_, and even _quaternes_, said to have been won, is hung
at the door with an exact statement of the result of the lottery; the
whole embellished with pink and blue ribbons like the sweetmeats in a
confectioner’s window.
Edouard stopped instinctively, and like all the rest, gazed at the
seductive list. Seventy-five thousand francs won with twenty sous! That
was very enticing! To be sure, the winner had had a _quaterne_; that is
very rare; but still it has been seen, and one man’s chance is as good
as another’s.
“Ah! neighbor, what a fine drawing!” said a fish dealer to a fruit
woman, who stood near Edouard, copying the result of the lottery; “11,
20, 44, 19, 76.--I ought to be as rich as a queen to-day. Here, for more
than a year I have been following up a _dry terne_ on the first three
numbers that come out; the day before yesterday was the last day. I was
waiting for Thomas, who works at La Vallée; he was going to bring me a
goose stuffed with chestnuts for our supper, with some sixteen-sou wine
from Eustache’s at the Barreaux Verts, which has a fine bouquet! It was
my idea to have a nice little supper in a private room--that brings
luck--and to take my ticket when we went home to bed.--But not a bit of
it. Thomas kept me cooling my heels, waiting for him. I got tired of it
and went to his garret, and he had colic in the loins from dancing too
much on Sunday at the _Rabbits_. I had to stay and nurse him, the
closing time passed and I forgot my _dry terne_ while I was giving him
injections.”
“Poor Françoise! that was hard luck.--Well! my poor dead man might have
had pains in his belly--that wouldn’t ‘a’ made me forget my tickets! For
the last ten years I’ve always paid my rent with number 20; it went a
little by the date this time, but I got it all the same--I put my
counterpane up the spout to do it. You see, I’d rather have sold my
chemise than dropped it, for I was bound to have it.”
“Do you know any of those that won the big prize?”
“Why, the dry goods dealer’s cook. Three numbers taken out of the wheel
at random!”
“That’s what I call luck!”
“Oh! it ain’t to be wondered at; she dreamed that her master used the
soup-kettle for a chamber.”
“Then it was sure money! I’m down on my luck; I’ve never been able to
dream of nasty things.”
“Oh! as for me, I often used to dream some in my late husband’s time.”
Edouard turned away, forcing a passage through the crowd in front of the
office. As he walked along he thought of the numbers that had come out.
It was not so quick a way of getting rich as roulette, the chances were
less favorable; but the results, when one is lucky, are much more
advantageous, as one may win a large sum with a modest coin.
He passed the day thinking about the lottery, and the next morning he
decided to tempt fortune in that new manner. He entered the first office
that he saw; and he had not to go far, for lottery offices are more
numerous than poor relief offices.
It was ten o’clock in the morning. It was the last day of a foreign
lottery. The office was full, the crowd was so great that one could
hardly enter, and it was necessary to take one’s place at the end of a
long line in order to exchange one’s money for some slips of paper.
Edouard decided to wait. He glanced at the crowd that surrounded him. It
was composed almost entirely of people of the lower classes--street
hawkers, cooks, menders of lace, cobblers, messengers, rag-pickers.
It is not that the upper classes do not try their luck in the lottery;
but fashionable people send others to buy tickets for them, and the
bourgeois, who are ashamed of what they do, enter only by the private
door.
Edouard held his nose, for that assemblage of ladies and gentlemen
exhaled an odor anything but agreeable; and the muddy boots of the
Savoyard, the fish-woman’s herring, the rag-picker’s bag, the cobbler’s
wax, and the cook’s whiting formed a combination of smells which would
disgust a grenadier. But the purchasers of lottery tickets are engrossed
by their calculations and they smell nothing.