CHAPTER VI.
Blighted Hopes.
Ruined, stripped of everything, undermined!
He remained seated on the bench, as if stunned by a shock. He cursedFate; he would have liked to beat somebody; and, to intensify hisdespair, he felt a kind of outrage, a sense of disgrace, weighing downupon him; for Frederick had been under the impression that the fortunecoming to him through his father would mount up one day to an income offifteen thousand livres, and he had so informed the Arnoux' in anindirect sort of way. So then he would be looked upon as a braggart, arogue, an obscure blackguard, who had introduced himself to them in theexpectation of making some profit out of it! And as for her--MadameArnoux--how could he ever see her again now?
Moreover, that was completely impossible when he had only a yearlyincome of three thousand francs, He could not always lodge on the fourthfloor, have the door keeper as a servant, and make his appearance withwretched black gloves turning blue at the ends, a greasy hat, and thesame frock-coat for a whole year. No, no! never! And yet without herexistence was intolerable. Many people were well able to live withoutany fortune, Deslauriers amongst the rest; and he thought himself acoward to attach so much importance to matters of trifling consequence.Need would perhaps multiply his faculties a hundredfold. He excitedhimself by thinking on the great men who had worked in garrets. A soullike that of Madame Arnoux ought to be touched at such a spectacle, andshe would be moved by it to sympathetic tenderness. So, after all, thiscatastrophe was a piece of good fortune; like those earthquakes whichunveil treasures, it had revealed to him the hidden wealth of hisnature. But there was only one place in the world where this could beturned to account--Paris; for to his mind, art, science, and love (thosethree faces of God, as Pellerin would have said) were associatedexclusively with the capital. That evening, he informed his mother ofhis intention to go back there. Madame Moreau was surprised andindignant. She regarded it as a foolish and absurd course. It would bebetter to follow her advice, namely, to remain near her in an office.Frederick shrugged his shoulders, "Come now"--looking on this proposalas an insult to himself.
Thereupon, the good lady adopted another plan. In a tender voice brokenby sobs she began to dwell on her solitude, her old age, and thesacrifices she had made for him. Now that she was more unhappy thanever, he was abandoning her. Then, alluding to the anticipated close ofher life:
"A little patience--good heavens! you will soon be free!"
These lamentations were renewed twenty times a day for three months; andat the same time the luxuries of a home made him effeminate. He found itenjoyable to have a softer bed and napkins that were not torn, so that,weary, enervated, overcome by the terrible force of comfort, Frederickallowed himself to be brought to Maitre Prouharam's office.
He displayed there neither knowledge nor aptitude. Up to this time, hehad been regarded as a young man of great means who ought to be theshining light of the Department. The public would now come to theconclusion 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 weekhe kept formulating in his own mind dithyrambic letters and short notesin an eloquent and sublime style. The fear of avowing his actualposition restrained him. Then he thought that it was far better to writeto the husband. Arnoux knew life and could understand the true state ofthe 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 herestimation! She will believe that I am dead, and will regretme--perhaps."
As extravagant resolutions cost him little, he swore in his own mindthat he would never return to Paris, and that he would not even make anyenquiries about Madame Arnoux.
Nevertheless, he regretted the very smell of the gas and the noise ofthe 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, regardinghimself as a dead man, he no longer did anything at all.
He arose very late, and looked through the window at the passing teamsof wagoners. The first six months especially were hateful.
On certain days, however, he was possessed by a feeling of indignationeven against her. Then he would go forth and wander through the meadows,half covered in winter time by the inundations of the Seine. They werecut up by rows of poplar-trees. Here and there arose a little bridge. Hetramped about till evening, rolling the yellow leaves under his feet,inhaling the fog, and jumping over the ditches. As his arteries began tothrob more vigorously, he felt himself carried away by a desire to dosomething wild; he longed to become a trapper in America, to attend on apasha in the East, to take ship as a sailor; and he gave vent to hismelancholy in long letters to Deslauriers.
The latter was struggling to get on. The slothful conduct of his friendand his eternal jeremiads appeared to him simply stupid. Theircorrespondence soon became a mere form. Frederick had given up all hisfurniture to Deslauriers, who stayed on in the same lodgings. From timeto time his mother spoke to him. At length he one day told her about thepresent he had made, and she was giving him a rating for it, when aletter 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 Senecal under his protection,and that for the past fortnight they had been living together. So nowSenecal was exhibiting himself in the midst of things that had comefrom the Arnoux's shop. He might sell them, criticise, make jokes aboutthem. Frederick felt wounded in the depths of his soul. He went up tohis 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 middleby a stick fence; and the half of it belonged to Pere Roque, who hadanother for vegetables on the bank of the river. The two neighbours,having fallen out, abstained from making their appearance there at thesame hour. But since Frederick's return, the old gentleman used to walkabout there more frequently, and was not stinted in his courtesiestowards Madame Moreau's son. He pitied the young man for having to livein a country town. One day he told him that Madame Dambreuse had beenanxious to hear from him. On another occasion he expatiated on thecustom of Champagne, where the stomach conferred nobility.
"At that time you would have been a lord, since your mother's name wasDe Fouvens. And 'tis all very well to talk--never mind! there'ssomething in a name. After all," he added, with a sly glance atFrederick, "that depends on the Keeper of the Seals."
This pretension to aristocracy contrasted strangely with his personalappearance. As he was small, his big chestnut-coloured frock-coatexaggerated the length of his bust. When he took off his hat, a facealmost 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 salutedpeople with a very low bow, brushing against the wall.
Up to his fiftieth year, he had been content with the services ofCatherine, a native of Lorraine, of the same age as himself, who wasstrongly marked with small-pox. But in the year 1834, he brought backwith him from Paris a handsome blonde with a sheep-like type ofcountenance and a "queenly carriage." Ere long, she was observedstrutting about with large earrings; and everything was explained by thebirth of a daughter who was introduced to the world under the name ofElisabeth Olympe Louise Roque.
Catherine, in her first ebullition of jealousy, expected that she wouldcurse this child. On the contrary, she became fond of the little girl,and treated her with the utmost care, consideration, and tenderness, inorder to supplant her mother and render her odious--an easy task,inasmuch as Madame Eleonore entirely neglected the little one,preferring to gossip at the tradesmen's shops. On the day after hermarriage, 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 amatter of good form, she oug
ht to exhibit a certain severity towards thechild. She was present while the little one was at her lessons. Theteacher, an old clerk who had been employed at the Mayor's office, didnot know how to go about the work of instructing the girl. The pupilrebelled, got her ears boxed, and rushed away to shed tears on the lapof Catherine, who always took her part. After this the two womenwrangled, and M. Roque ordered them to hold their tongues. He hadmarried only out of tender regard for his daughter, and did not wish tobe annoyed by them.
She often wore a white dress with ribbons, and pantalettes trimmed withlace; and on great festival-days she would leave the house attired likea princess, in order to mortify a little the matrons of the town, whoforbade their brats to associate with her on account of her illegitimatebirth.
She passed her life nearly always by herself in the garden, wentsee-sawing on the swing, chased butterflies, then suddenly stopped towatch the floral beetles swooping down on the rose-trees. It was, nodoubt, these habits which imparted to her face an expression at the sametime of audacity and dreaminess. She had, moreover, a figure likeMarthe, 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 hishands, kissed her on both cheeks; then he put her back on her own sideby a similar process; and this performance was repeated on the nextoccasions when they found themselves together.
Without more reserve than a child of four, as soon as she heard herfriend coming, she sprang forward to meet him, or else, hiding behind atree, she began yelping like a dog to frighten him.
One day, when Madame Moreau had gone out, he brought her up to his ownroom. She opened all the scent-bottles, and pomaded her hairplentifully; then, without the slightest embarrassment, she lay down onthe 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, shehung down her head, and answered:
"Ask me no more!"
The time for first communion was at hand. She had been brought toconfession in the morning. The sacrament scarcely made her wiser.Occasionally, she got into a real passion; and Frederick was sent for toappease her.
He often brought her with him in his walks. While he indulged inday-dreams as he walked along, she would gather wild poppies at theedges of the corn-fields; and, when she saw him more melancholy thanusual, she tried to console him with her pretty childish prattle. Hisheart, bereft of love, fell back on this friendship inspired by a littlegirl. He gave her sketches of old fogies, told her stories, and devotedhimself to reading books for her.
He began with the _Annales Romantiques_, a collection of prose and versecelebrated at the period. Then, forgetting her age, so much was hecharmed by her intelligence, he read for her in succession, _Atala_,_Cinq-Mars_, and _Les Feuilles d'Automne_. But one night (she had thatvery evening heard _Macbeth_ in Letourneur's simple translation) shewoke up, exclaiming:
"The spot! the spot!" Her teeth chattered, she shivered, and, fixingterrified 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 freefrom violent emotions.
The townsfolk saw in this only an unfavourable prognostic for hermorals. It was said that "young Moreau" wished to make an actress of herlater.
Soon another event became the subject of discussion--namely, the arrivalof uncle Barthelemy. Madame Moreau gave up her sleeping-apartment tohim, and was so gracious as to serve up meat to him on fast-days.
The old man was not very agreeable. He was perpetually makingcomparisons between Havre and Nogent, the air of which he consideredheavy, the bread bad, the streets ill-paved, the food indifferent, andthe inhabitants very lazy. "How wretched trade is with you in thisplace!" He blamed his deceased brother for his extravagance, pointingout by way of contrast that he had himself accumulated an income oftwenty-seven thousand livres a year. At last, he left at the end of theweek, and on the footboard of the carriage gave utterance to these by nomeans 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 thedining-room.
He had come only at her urgent request, and for eight days she had beenseeking, on her part, for an opening--only too clearly perhaps. Sherepented now of having done so, and remained seated in her armchair withher head bent down and her lips tightly pressed together. Frederick satopposite, staring at her; and they were both silent, as they had beenfive years before on his return home by the Montereau steamboat. Thiscoincidence, which presented itself even to her mind, recalled MadameArnoux to his recollection.
At that moment the crack of a whip outside the window reached theirears, while a voice was heard calling out to him.
It was Pere Roque, who was alone in his tilted cart. He was going tospend the whole day at La Fortelle with M. Dambreuse, and cordiallyoffered to drive Frederick there.
"You have no need of an invitation as long as you are with me. Don't beafraid!"
Frederick felt inclined to accept this offer. But how would he explainhis 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 wasgrowing tall; Madame Eleonore fell dangerously ill; and the intimacybroke off, to the great delight of Madame Moreau, who feared lest herson's prospects of being settled in life might be affected byassociation with such people.
She was thinking of purchasing for him the registrarship of the Court ofJustice. Frederick raised no particular objection to this scheme. He nowaccompanied her to mass; in the evening he took a hand in a game of "allfours." He became accustomed to provincial habits of life, and allowedhimself to slide into them; and even his love had assumed a character ofmournful sweetness, a kind of soporific charm. By dint of having pouredout his grief in his letters, mixed it up with everything he read, givenfull vent to it during his walks through the country, he had almostexhausted it, so that Madame Arnoux was for him, as it were, a deadwoman whose tomb he wondered that he did not know, so tranquil andresigned 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 bigcharacters, was written in a hand he was not acquainted with; andFrederick, feeling sleepy, was in no great hurry to break the seal. Atlength, 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 burstout behind the wall, he jumped out of bed in his shirt, with his feetbare. He passed his hand over his face, doubting the evidence of his owneyes, believing that he was still dreaming, and in order to make hismind more clearly conscious of the reality of the event, he flung thewindow wide open.
There had been a fall of snow; the roofs were white, and he evenrecognised in the yard outside a washtub which had caused him to stumbleafter dark the evening before.
He read the letter over three times in succession. Could there beanything more certain? His uncle's entire fortune! A yearly income oftwenty-seven thousand livres![5] And he was overwhelmed with frantic joyat the idea of seeing Madame Arnoux once more. With the vividness of ahallucination he saw himself beside her, at her house, bringing her somepresent in silver paper, while at the door stood a tilbury--no, abrougham rather!--a black brougham, with
a servant in brown livery. Hecould hear his horse pawing the ground and the noise of the curb-chainmingling with the rippling sound of their kisses. And every day this wasrenewed indefinitely. He would receive them in his own house: thedining-room would be furnished in red leather; the boudoir in yellowsilk; sofas everywhere! and such a variety of whatnots, china vases, andcarpets! These images came in so tumultuous a fashion into his mind thathe felt his head turning round. Then he thought of his mother; and hedescended the stairs with the letter in his hand.
[Footnote 5: About L1,350.--Translator.]
Madame Moreau made an effort to control her emotion, but could not keepherself from swooning. Frederick caught her in his arms and kissed heron the forehead.
"Dear mother, you can now buy back your carriage--laugh then! shed nomore tears! be happy!"
Laugh then! shed no more tears! be happy!]
Ten minutes later the news had travelled as far as the faubourgs. ThenM. Benoist, M. Gamblin, M. Chambion, and other friends hurried towardsthe house. Frederick got away for a minute in order to write toDeslauriers. Then other visitors turned up. The afternoon passed incongratulations. 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 sonthat she would advise him to set up as an advocate at Troyes. As he wasbetter known in his own part of the country than in any other, he mightmore easily find there a profitable connection.
"Ah, it is too hard!" exclaimed Frederick. He had scarcely grasped hisgood 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 tobecome.
"A minister," was Frederick's reply. And he declared that he was not atall joking, that he meant to plunge at once into diplomacy, and that hisstudies and his instincts impelled him in that direction. He would firstenter 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 herformer dreams of ambition. She internally abandoned herself to them, andsaid no more about other matters.
If he had yielded to his impatience, Frederick would have started thatvery 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 thechurch-bell fell on their ears; and the housemaid, coming in, informedthem that Madame Eleonore had just died.
This death, after all, was not a misfortune for anyone, not even for herchild. The young girl would only find it all the better for herselfafterwards.
As the two houses were close to one another, a great coming and goingand a clatter of tongues could be heard; and the idea of this corpsebeing so near them threw a certain funereal gloom over their parting.Madame Moreau wiped her eyes two or three times. Frederick felt hisheart oppressed.
When the meal was over, Catherine stopped him between two doors.Mademoiselle had peremptorily expressed a wish to see him. She waswaiting for him in the garden. He went out there, strode over the hedge,and knocking more or less against the trees, directed his steps towardsM. Roque's house. Lights were glittering through a window in the secondstory then a form appeared in the midst of the darkness, and a voicewhispered:
"'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 herhands, 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 hearthe rolling of wheels some distance away, and, in order to put an end tothe 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, asshe 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 anotheragain?"
She was choking with sobs.
"Good-bye! good-bye! embrace me then!"
And she threw her arms about him passionately.