VI
At last Mme. Favoral found herself alone with her children and freeto give herself up to the most frightful despair.
She dropped heavily upon a seat; and, drawing to her bosom Maxenceand Gilberte,
"O my children!" she sobbed, covering them with her kisses and hertears,--"my children, we are most unfortunate."
Not less distressed than herself, they strove, nevertheless, tomitigate her anguish, to inspire her with sufficient courage to bearthis crushing trial; and kneeling at her feet, and kissing her hands,
"Are we not with you still, mother?" they kept repeating.
But she seemed not to hear them.
"It is not for myself that I weep," she went on. "I! what had Istill to wait or hope for in life? Whilst you, Maxence, you, mypoor Gilberte!--If, at least, I could feel myself free from blame!But no. It is my weakness and my want of courage that have broughton this catastrophe. I shrank from the struggle. I purchased mydomestic peace at the cost of your future in the world. I forgotthat a mother has sacred duties towards her children."
Mme. Favoral was at this time a woman of some forty-three years,with delicate and mild features, a countenance overflowing withkindness, and whose whole being exhaled, as it were, an exquisiteperfume of _noblesse_ and distinction.
Happy, she might have been beautiful still,--of that autumnalbeauty whose maturity has the splendors of the luscious fruits ofthe later season.
But she had suffered so much! The livid paleness of her complexion,the rigid fold of her lips, the nervous shudders that shook herframe, revealed a whole existence of bitter deceptions, of exhaustingstruggles, and of proudly concealed humiliations.
And yet every thing seemed to smile upon her at the outset of life.
She was an only daughter; and her parents, wealthy silk-merchants,had brought her up like the daughter of an archduchess desired tomarry some sovereign prince.
But at fifteen she had lost her mother. Her father, soon tired ofhis lonely fireside, commenced to seek away from home some diversionfrom his sorrow.
He was a man of weak mind,--one of those marked in advance to playthe part of eternal dupes. Having money, he found many friends.Having once tasted the cup of facile pleasures, he yielded readilyto its intoxication. Suppers, cards, amusements, absorbed histime, to the utter detriment of his business. And, eighteen monthsafter his wife's death, he had already spent a large portion of hisfortune, when he fell into the hands of an adventuress, whom, withoutregard for his daughter, he audaciously brought beneath his own roof.
In provincial cities, where everybody knows everybody else, suchinfamies are almost impossible. They are not quite so rare in Paris,where one is, so to speak, lost in the crowd, and where therestraining power of the neighbor's opinion is lacking.
For two years the poor girl, condemned to bear this illegitimatestepmother, endured nameless sufferings.
She had just completed her eighteenth year, when, one evening, herfather took her aside.
"I have made up my mind to marry again," he said; "but I wish firstto provide you with a husband. I have looked for one, and found him.He is not very brilliant perhaps; but he is, it seems, a good,hard-working, economical fellow, who'll make his way in the world.I had dreamed of something better for you; but times are hard, tradeis dull: in short, having only a dowry of twenty thousand francs togive you, I have no right to be very particular. To-morrow I'llbring you my candidate."
And, sure enough, the next day that excellent father introduced M.Vincent Favoral to his daughter.
She was not pleased with him; but she could hardly have said thatshe was displeased.
He was, at the age of twenty-five, which he had just reached, a manso utterly lacking in individuality, that he could scarcely haveexcited any feeling either of sympathy or affection.
Suitably dressed, he seemed timid and awkward, reserved, quitediffident, and of mediocre intelligence. He confessed to havereceived a most imperfect education, and declared himself quiteignorant of life. He had scarcely any means outside his profession.He was at this time chief accountant in a large factory of theFaubourg St. Antoine, with a salary of four thousand Francs a year.
The young girl did not hesitate a moment. Any thing appeared toher preferable to the contact of a woman whom she abhorred anddespised.
She gave her consent; and, twenty days after the first interview,she had become Mme. Favoral.
Alas! six weeks had not elapsed, before she knew that she had butexchanged her wretched fate for a more wretched one still.
Not that her husband was in any way unkind to her (he dared not, asyet); but he had revealed himself enough to enable her to judge him.He was one of those formidably selfish men who wither every thingaround them, like those trees within the shadow of which nothing cangrow. His coldness concealed a stupid obstinacy; his mildness, aniron will.
If he had married, 'twas because he thought a wife a necessaryadjunct, because he desired a home wherein to command, because, aboveall, he had been seduced by the dowry of twenty thousand francs.
For the man had one passion,--money. Under his placid countenancerevolved thoughts of the most burning covetousness. He wished tobe rich.
Now, as he had no illusion whatever upon his own merits, as he knewhimself to be perfectly incapable of any of those daring conceptionswhich lead to rapid fortune, as he was in no wise enterprising, heconceived but one means to achieve wealth, that is, to save, toeconomize, to stint himself, to pile penny upon penny.
His profession of accountant had furnished him with a number ofinstances of the financial power of the penny daily saved, andinvested so as to yield its maximum of interest.
If ever his blue eye became animated, it was when he calculated whatwould be at the present time the capital produced by a simple pennyplaced at five per cent interest the year of the birth of our Saviour.
For him this was sublime. He conceived nothing beyond. One penny!He wished, he said, he could have lived eighteen hundred years, tofollow the evolutions of that penny, to see it grow tenfold, ahundred-fold, produce, swell, enlarge, and become, after centuries,millions and hundreds of millions.
In spite of all, he had, during the early months of his marriage,allowed his wife to have a young servant. He gave her from time totime, a five-franc-piece, and took her to the country on Sundays.
This was the honeymoon; and, as he declared himself, this life ofprodigalities could not last.
Under a futile pretext, the little servant was dismissed. Hetightened the strings of his purse. The Sunday excursions weresuppressed.
To mere economy succeeded the niggardly parsimony which counts thegrains of salt in the _pot-au-feu_, which weighs the soap for thewashing, and measures the evening's allowance of candle.
Gradually the accountant took the habit of treating his young wifelike a servant, whose honesty is suspected; or like a child, whosethoughtlessness is to be feared. Every morning he handed her themoney for the expenses of the day; and every evening he expressedhis surprise that she had not made better use of it. He accused herof allowing herself to be grossly cheated, or even to be in collusionwith the dealers. He charged her with being foolishly extravagant;which fact, however, he added, did not surprise him much on the partof the daughter of a man who had dissipated a large fortune.
To cap the climax, Vincent Favoral was on the worst possible termswith his father-in-law. Of the twenty thousand francs of his wife'sdowry, twelve thousand only had been paid, and it was in vain that heclamored for the balance. The silk-merchant's business had becomeunprofitable; he was on the verge of bankruptcy. The eight thousandfrancs seemed in imminent danger.
His wife alone he held responsible for this deception. He repeatedto her constantly that she had connived with her father to "takehim in," to fleece him, to ruin him.
What an existence! Certainly, had the unhappy woman known where tofind a refuge, she would have fled from that home where each of herdays was but a protracted tortur
e. But where could she go? Of whomcould she beg a shelter?
She had terrible temptations at this time, when she was not yettwenty, and they called her the beautiful Mme. Favoral.
Perhaps she would have succumbed, when she discovered that she wasabout to become a mother. One year, day for day, after her marriage,she gave birth to a son, who received the name of Maxence.
The accountant was but indifferently pleased at the coming of thisson. It was, above all, a cause of expense. He had been compelledto give some thirty francs to a nurse, and almost twice as much forthe baby's clothes. Then a child breaks up the regularity of one'shabits; and he, as he affirmed, was attached to his as much as tolife itself. And now he saw his household disturbed, the hours ofhis meals altered, his own importance reduced, his authority evenignored.
But what mattered now to his young wife the ill-humor which he nolonger took the trouble to conceal? Mother, she defied her tyrant.
Now, at least, she had in this world a being upon whom she couldlavish all her caresses so brutally repelled. There existed a soulwithin which she reigned supreme. What troubles would not a smileof her son have made her forget?
With the admirable instinct of an egotist, M. Favoral understood sowell what passed in the mind of his wife, that he dared not complaintoo much of what the little fellow cost. He made up his mind bravely;and when four years later, his daughter Gilberte was born, insteadof lamenting:
"Bash!" said he: "God blesses large families."