VII
But already, at this time, M. Vincent Favoral's situation had beensingularly modified.
The revolution of 1848 had just taken place. The factory in theFaubourg St. Antoine, where he was employed, had been compelled toclose its doors.
One evening, as he came home at the usual hour, he announced thathe had been discharged.
Mme. Favoral shuddered at the thought of what her husband might be,without work, and deprived of his salary.
"What is to become of us?" she murmured.
He shrugged his shoulders. Visibly he was much excited. His cheekswere flushed; his eyes sparkled.
"Bash!" he said: "we shan't starve for all that." And, as his wifewas gazing at him in astonishment:
"Well," he went on, "what are you looking at? It is so: I know many a onewho affects to live on his income, and who are not as well off aswe are."
It was, for over six years since he was married, the first time thathe spoke of his business otherwise than to groan and complain, toaccuse fate, and curse the high price of living. The very day before,he had declared himself ruined by the purchase of a pair of shoesfor Maxence. The change was so sudden and so great, that she hardlyknew what to think, and wondered if grief at the loss of his situationhad not somewhat disturbed his mind.
"Such are women," he went on with a giggle. "Results astonish them,because they know nothing of the means used to bring them about. AmI a fool, then? Would I impose upon myself privations of all sorts,if it were to accomplish nothing? Parbleu! I love fine livingtoo, I do, and good dinners at the restaurant, and the theatre, andthe nice little excursions in the country. But I want to be rich.At the price of all the comforts which I have not had, I have saveda capital, the income of which will support us all. Eh, eh! That'sthe power of the little penny put out to fatten!"
As she went to bed that night, Mme. Favoral felt more happy than shehad done since her mother's death. She almost forgave her husbandhis sordid parsimony, and the humiliations he had heaped upon her.
"Well, be it so," she thought. "I shall have lived miserably, I shallhave endured nameless sufferings; but my children shall be rich, theirlife shall be easy and pleasant."
The next day M. Favoral's excitement had completely abated.Manifestly he regretted his confidences.
"You must not think on that account that you can waste and pillageevery thing," he declared rudely. "Besides, I have greatlyexaggerated."
And he started in search of a situation.
To find one was likely to be difficult. Times of revolution are notexactly propitious to industry. Whilst the parties discussed in theChamber, there were on the street twenty thousand clerks, who, everymorning as they rose, wondered where they would dine that day.
For want of any thing better, Vincent Favoral undertook to keepbooks in various places,--an hour here, an hour there, twice a weekin one house, four times in another.
In this way he earned as much and more than he did at the factory;but the business did not suit him.
What he liked was the office from which one does not stir, thestove-heated atmosphere, the elbow-worn desk, the leather-cushionedchair, the black alpaca sleeves over the coat. The idea that heshould on one and the same day have to do with five or six differenthouses, and be compelled to walk an hour, to go and work another hourat the other end of Paris, fairly irritated him. He found himselfout of his reckoning, like a horse who has turned a mill for tenyears; if he is made to trot straight before him.
So, one morning, he gave up the whole thing, swearing that he wouldrather remain idle until he could find a place suited to his tasteand his convenience; and, in the mean time, all they would have todo would be to put a little less butter in the soup, and a littlemore water in the wine.
He went out, nevertheless, and remained until dinner-time. And hedid the same the next and the following days.
He started off the moment he had swallowed the last mouthful of hisbreakfast, came home at six o'clock, dined in haste, and disappearedagain, not to return until about midnight. He had hours of deliriousjoy, and moments of frightful discouragement. Sometimes he seemedhorribly uneasy.
"What can he be doing?" thought Mme. Favoral.
She ventured to ask him the question one morning, when he was infine humor.
"Well," he answered, "am I not the master? I am operating at thebourse, that's all!"
He could hardly have owned to any thing that would have frightenedthe poor woman as much.
"Are you not afraid," she objected, "to lose all we have sopainfully accumulated? We have children--"
He did not allow her to proceed.
"Do you take me for a child?" he exclaimed; "or do I look to youlike a man so easy to be duped? Mind to economize in your householdexpenses, and don't meddle with my business."
And he continued. And he must have been lucky in his operations;for he had never been so pleasant at home. All his ways had changed.He had had clothes made at a first-class tailor's, and was evidentlytrying to look elegant. He gave up his pipe, and smoked only cigars.He got tired of giving every morning the money for the house, andtook the habit of handing it to his wife every week, on Sunday. Amark of vast confidence, as he observed to her. And so, the firsttime:
"Be careful," he said, "that you don't find yourself pennilessbefore Thursday."
He became also more communicative. Often during the dinner, hewould tell what he had heard during the day, anecdotes, gossip.He enumerated the persons with whom he had spoken. He named anumber of people whom he called his friends, and whose names Mme.Favoral carefully stored away in her memory.
There was one especially, who seemed to inspire him with a profoundrespect, a boundless admiration, and of whom he never tired oftalking. He was, said he, a man of his age,--M. de Thaller, theBaron de Thaller.
"This one," he kept repeating, "is really mad: he is rich, he hasideas, he'll go far. It would be a great piece of luck if I couldget him to do something for me!"
Until at last one day:
"Your parents were very rich once?" he asked his wife.
"I have heard it said," she answered.
"They spent a good deal of money, did they not? They had friends:they gave dinner-parties."
"Yes, they received a good deal of company."
"You remember that time?"
"Surely I do."
"So that if I should take a fancy to receive some one here, someone of note, you would know how to do things properly?"
"I think so."
He remained silent for a moment, like a man who thinks before takingan important decision, and then:
"I wish to invite a few persons to dinner," he said. She couldscarcely believe her ears. He had never received at his table anyone but a fellow-clerk at the factory, named Desclavettes, who hadjust married the daughter of a dealer in bronzes, and succeeded tohis business.
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Mme. Favoral.
"So it is. The question is now, how much would a first-class dinnercost, the best of every thing?"
"That depends upon the number of guests."
"Say three or four persons."
The poor woman set herself to figuring diligently for some time;and then timidly, for the sum seemed formidable to her:
"I think," she began, "that with a hundred francs--"
Her husband commenced whistling.
"You'll need that for the wines alone;" he interrupted. "Do youtake me for a fool? But here, don't let us go into figures. Do asyour parents did when they did their best; and, if it's well, Ishall not complain of the expense. Take a good cook, hire a waiterwho understands his business well."
She was utterly confounded; and yet she was not at the end of hersurprises.
Soon M. Favoral declared that their table-ware was not suitable, andthat he must buy a new set. He discovered a hundred purchases tobe made, and swore that he would make them. He even hesitated amoment about renewing the parlor furniture, although it was
intolerably good condition still, and was a present from hisfather-in-law.
And, having finished his inventory:
"And you," he asked his wife: "what dress will you wear?"
"I have my black silk dress--"
He stopped her.
"Which means that you have none at all," he said. "Very well. Youmust go this very day and get yourself one,--a very handsome, amagnificent one; and you'll send it to be made to a fashionabledressmaker. And at the same time you had better get some littlesuits for Maxence and Gilberte. Here are a thousand francs."
Completely bewildered:
"Who in the world are you going to invite, then?" she asked.
"The Baron and the Baroness de Thaller," he replied with an emphasisfull of conviction. "So try and distinguish yourself. Our fortuneis at stake."
That this dinner was a matter of considerable import, Mme. Favoralcould not doubt when she saw her husband's fabulous liberalitycontinue without flinching for a number of days.
Ten times of an afternoon he would come home to tell his wife thename of some dish that had been mentioned before him, or to consulther on the subject of some exotic viand he had just noticed in someshop-window. Daily he brought home wines of the most fantasticvintages,--those wines which dealers manufacture for the specialuse of verdant fools, and which they sell in odd-shaped bottlespreviously overlaid with secular dust and cobwebs.
He subjected to a protracted cross-examination the cook whom Mme.Favoral had engaged, and demanded that she should enumerate thehouses where she had cooked. He absolutely required the man who wasto wait at the table to exhibit the dress-coat he was to wear.
The great day having come, he did not stir from the house, goingand coming from the kitchen to the dining-room, uneasy, agitated,unable to stay in one place. He breathed only when he had seen thetable set and loaded with the new china he had purchased and themagnificent silver he had gone to hire in person. And when hisyoung wife made her appearance, looking lovely in her new dress,and leading by the hands the two children, Maxence and Gilberte, intheir new suits:
"That's perfect," he exclaimed, highly delighted. "Nothing could bebetter. Now, let our four guests come!"
They arrived a few minutes before seven, in two carriages, themagnificence of which astonished the Rue St. Gilles.
And, the presentations over, Vincent Favoral had at last theineffable satisfaction to see seated at his table the Baron andBaroness de Thaller, M. Saint Pavin, who called himself a financialeditor, and M. Jules Jottras, of the house of Jottras & Brother.
It was with an eager curiosity that Mme. Favoral observed thesepeople whom her husband called his friends, and whom she saw herselffor the first time.
M. de Thaller, who could not then have been much over thirty, wasalready a man without any particular age.
Cold, stiff, aping evidently the English style, he expressedhimself in brief sentences, and with a strong foreign accent.Nothing to surprise on his countenance. He had the foreheadprominent, the eyes of a dull blue, and the nose very thin. Hisscanty hair was spread over the top of his head with laboredsymmetry; and his red, thick, and carefully-trimmed whiskers seemedto engross much of his attention.
M. Saint Pavin had not the same stiff manner. Careless in hisdress, he lacked breeding. He was a robust fellow, dark and bearded,with thick lips, the eye bright and prominent, spreading upon thetable-cloth broad hands ornamented at the joints with small tufts ofhair, speaking loud, laughing noisily, eating much and drinking more.
By the side of him, M. Jules Jottras, although looking like afashion-plate, did not show to much advantage. Delicate, blonde,sallow, almost beardless, M. Jottras distinguished himself only bya sort of unconscious impudence, a harmless cynicism, and a sort ofspasmodic giggle, that shook the eye-glasses which he wore stuckover his nose.
But it was above all Mme. de Thaller who excited Mme. Favoral'sapprehensions.
Dressed with a magnificence of at least questionable taste, verymuch _decolletee_, wearing large diamonds at her ears, and rings onall her fingers, the young baroness was insolently handsome, of abeauty sensuous even to coarseness. With hair of a bluish black,twisted over the neck in heavy ringlets, she had skin of a pearlywhiteness, lips redder than blood, and great eyes that threw flamesfrom beneath their long, curved lashes. It was the poetry of flesh;and one could not help admiring. Did she speak, however, or makea gesture, all admiration vanished. The voice was vulgar, the motioncommon. Did M. Jottras venture upon a double-entendre, she wouldthrow herself back upon her chair to laugh, stretching her neck, andthrusting her throat forward.
Wholly absorbed in the care of his guests, M. Favoral remarkednothing. He only thought of loading the plates, and filling theglasses, complaining that they ate and drank nothing, askinganxiously if the cooking was not good, if the wines were bad, andalmost driving the waiter out of his wits with questions andsuggestions.
It is a fact, that neither M. de Thaller nor M. Jottras had muchappetite. But M. Saint Pavin officiated for all; and the sole taskof keeping up with him caused M. Favoral to become visibly animated.
His cheeks were much flushed, when, having passed the champagne allaround, he raised his froth-tipped glass, exclaiming:
"I drink to the success of the business."
"To the success of the business," echoed the others, touching hisglass.
And a few moments later they passed into the parlor to take coffee.
This toast had caused Mme. Favoral no little uneasiness. But shefound it impossible to ask a single question; Mme. de Thallerdragging her almost by force to a seat by her side on the sofa,pretending that two women always have secrets to exchange, even whenthey see each other for the first time.
The young baroness was fully _au fait_ in matters of bonnets anddresses; and it was with giddy volubility that she asked Mme.Favoral the names of her milliner and her dressmaker, and to whatjeweler she intrusted her diamonds to be reset.
This looked so much like a joke, that the poor housekeeper of theRue St. Gilles could not help smiling whilst answering that she hadno dressmaker, and that, having no diamonds, she had no possibleuse for the services of a jeweler.
The other declared she could not get over it. No diamonds! Thatwas a misfortune exceeding all. And quick she seized the opportunitycharitably to enumerate the parures in her jewel-case, and laces inher drawers, and the dresses in her wardrobes. In the first place, itwould have been impossible for her, she swore, to live with a husbandeither miserly or poor. Hers had just presented her with a lovelycoupe, lined with yellow satin, a perfect bijou. And she made gooduse of it too; for she loved to go about. She spent her daysshopping, or riding in the Bois. Every evening she had the choiceof the theatre or a ball, often both. The genre theatres were thoseshe preferred. To be sure, the opera and the Italiens were morestylish; but she could not help gaping there.
Then she wished to kiss the children; and Gilberte and Maxence hadto be brought in. She adored children, she vowed: it was herweakness, her passion. She had herself a little girl, eighteenmonths old, called Cesarine, to whom she was devoted; and certainlyshe would have brought her, had she not feared she would have beenin the way.
All this verbiage sounded like a confused murmur to Mme. Favoral'sears. "Yes, no," she answered, hardly knowing to what she did answer.
Her head heavy with a vague apprehension, it required her utmostattention to observe her husband and his guests.
Standing by the mantel-piece, smoking their cigars, they conversedwith considerable animation, but not loud enough to enable her tohear all they said. It was only when M. Saint Pavin spoke that sheunderstood that they were still discussing the "business;" for hespoke of articles to publish, stocks to sell, dividends to distribute,sure profits to reap.
They all, at any rate, seemed to agree perfectly; and at a certainmoment she saw her husband and M. de Thaller strike each other'shand, as people do who exchange a pledge.
Eleven o'clock struck.
M. Favoral was insisting to make his guests accept a cup of tea ora glass of punch; but M. de Thaller declared that he had some workto do, and that, his carriage having come, he must go.
And go he did, taking with him the baroness, followed by M. SaintPavin and M. Jottras. And when, the door having closed upon them,M. Favoral found himself alone with his wife,
"Well," he exclaimed, swelling with gratified vanity, "what do youthink of our friends?"
"They surprised me," she answered.
He fairly jumped at that word.
"I should like to know why?"
Then, timidly, and with infinite precautions, she commencedexplaining that M. de Thaller's face inspired her with no confidence;that M. Jottras had seemed to her a very impudent personage; that M.Saint Pavin appeared low and vulgar; and that, finally, the youngbaroness had given her of herself the most singular idea.
M. Favoral refused to hear more.
"It's because you have never seen people of the best society," heexclaimed.
"Excuse me. Formerly, during my mother's life--"
"Eh! Your mother never received but shop-keepers."
The poor woman dropped her head.
"I beg of you, Vincent," she insisted, "before doing any thing withthese new friends, think well, consult--"
He burst out laughing.
"Are you not afraid that they will cheat me?" he said,--"people tentimes as rich as we are. Here, don't let us speak of it any more,and let us go to bed. You'll see what this dinner will bring us, andwhether I ever have reason to regret the money we have spent."