For a fortnight past, with the view of getting uncle Bachelard to give Berthe a dowry, the Josserands had been inviting him to dinner almost every evening, in spite of his offensive habits.
When the marriage was announced to him, he had contented himself with giving his niece a gentle pat on the cheek, saying:
“What! you are going to get married! Ah! that’s very nice, little girl!”
And he remained deaf to all allusions, exaggerating his air of a silly old boozer who got drunk on liquors, the moment money was mentioned before him.
Madame Josserand had the idea to invite him one evening together with Auguste, the bridegroom elect. Perhaps the sight of the young man would decide him. The step was heroical, for the family did not like exhibiting the uncle, always fearing that he would give people a bad impression of them. He had, however, behaved pretty well; his waistcoat alone had a big syrup stain, which it had obtained no doubt in some café. But when his sister questioned him, after Auguste had taken his departure, and asked him what he thought of the young fellow, he answered without involving himself:
“Charming, charming.”
This would never do. It was a pressing matter. Therefore, Madame Josserand determined to plainly place the position of affairs before him.
“As we are by ourselves,” resumed she, “we may as well take advantage of it. Leave us, my darlings; we want to have some talk with your uncle. You, Berthe, just look after Saturnin, and see that he does not take the lock off the door again.”
Saturnin, ever since they had been busy about his sister’s marriage, hiding everything from him, had taken to wandering about the rooms, an anxious look in his eyes, and scenting that there was something up; and he imagined most diabolical things which gave the family awful frights.
“I have obtained every information,” said the mother, when she had shut herself in with the father and the uncle. “This is the position of the Vabres.”
And she went into long details of figures. Old Vabre had brought half a million with him from Versailles. If the house had cost him three hundred thousand francs, he had two hundred thousand left, which, during the twelve years that had past had been producing interest. Moreover, he received each year twenty-two thousand francs in rent; and, as he lived with the Duveyriers, scarcely spending anything at all, he must consequently be altogether worth five or six hundred thousand francs, besides the house. Thus, there were some very handsome expectations on that side.
“Has he no vices, then?” asked uncle Bachelard. “I thought he speculated at the Bourse.”
But Madame Josserand cried out. Such a quiet old gentleman, and occupied on a such a great task! That one, at least, had shown himself capable of putting a fortune by; and she smiled bitterly as she looked at her husband, who bowed his head.
As for Monsieur Vabre’s three children, Auguste, Clotilde and Théophile, they had each had a hundred thousand francs on their mother’s death. Théophile, after some ruinous enterprises, was living as best he could on the crumbs of this inheritance. Clotilde, with no other passion than her piano, had probably invested her share. And Auguste had purchased the business on the ground floor and gone in for the silk trade with his hundred thousand francs, which he had long kept in reserve.
“And the old fellow naturally gives nothing to his children when they marry,” observed the uncle.
Well! he did not much like giving, that was a fact which was unfortunately indisputable.
“Well!” declared Bachelard, “it is always hard on the parents. Dowries are never really paid.”
“Let us return to Auguste,” continued Madame Josserand. “I have told you his expectations, and the only danger comes from the Duveyriers, whom Berthe will do well to watch very closely, if she enters the family. At the present moment, Auguste, after purchasing the business for sixty thousand francs, has started with the other forty thousand. Only, the sum is not sufficient; besides which, he is single, and requires a wife; that is why he wishes to marry. Berthe is pretty, he already sees her in his counting-house; and as for the dowry, fifty thousand francs are a respectable sum which has decided him.”
Uncle Bachelard did not so much as blink his eyes. He ended by saying, in a tender-hearted way, that he had dreamed of something better. And he commenced to pick the future husband to pieces: a charming fellow, certainly; but too old, a great deal too old, thirty-three years and over; besides which, always ill, his face distorted by neuralgia; in short, a sorry object, not near lively enough for trade.
“Have you another?” asked Madame Josserand, whose patience was wearing out. “I searched all Paris before finding him.”
However, she did not deceive herself much. She too picked him to pieces.
“Oh! he is not a phoenix, in fact I think him a bit of a fool. Besides which, I mistrust those men who have never had any youth and who do not risk a stride in life without thinking about it for years beforehand. On leaving college, where his headaches prevented him completing his studies, he remained for fifteen years a mere clerk before daring to touch his hundred thousand francs, the interest of which, it seems, his father was cheating him out of all the time. No, no, he is not up to much.”
Monsieur Josserand, who until then had kept silent, ventured an observation.
“But, my dear, why insist so obstinately on this marriage? If the young man’s health is so bad——”
“Oh! it is not bad health that need prevent it,” interrupted Bachelard. “Berthe would find no difficulty in marrying again.”
“However, if he is incapable,” resumed the father, “if he is likely to make our daughter unhappy——”
“Unhappy!” cried Madame Josserand. “Say at once that I throw my child at the head of the first-comer! We are among ourselves, we discuss him: he is this, he is that, not young, not handsome, not intelligent. We just talk the matter over, do we not? it is but natural. Only, he is very well, we shall never find a better; and, shall I tell you? it is a most unexpected match for Berthe. I was about to give up all hope, on my word of honor!” She rose to her feet. Monsieur Josserand, reduced to silence, pushed back his chair.
“I have only one fear,” continued she, making a resolute stand before her brother, “and that is that he may break it off if he is not paid the dowry on the day the contract is to be signed. It is easy to understand, he is in want of money——”
But at this moment a hot breathing, which she heard behind her, caused her to turn round. Saturnin was there, passing his head round the partly opened door, his eyes glaring like a wolf’s as he listened to what was being said. And it created quite a panic, for he had stolen a spit from the kitchen, to spit the geese, said he. Uncle Bachelard, feeling very uneasy at the turn the conversation was taking, availed himself of the general alarm.
“Don’t disturb yourselves,” cried he, from the ante-room. “I’m off, I’ve an appointment at midnight, with one of my customers, who’s come specially from Brazil.”
When they had succeeded in getting Saturnin to bed, Madame Josserand, exasperated, declared that it was impossible to keep him any longer. He would end by doing some one an injury, if he was not shut up in a madhouse. Life was unbearable with him always to be kept in hiding. His sisters would never get married, so long as he was there to disgust and frighten people.
“Wait a bit longer,” murmured Monsieur Josserand, whose heart bled at the thought of this separation.
“No, no!” declared the mother, “I do not want him to spit me in the end! I had brought my brother to the point, I was about to get him to do something. Never mind! we will go with Berthe to-morrow to his own place, and we will see if he will have the cheek to escape from his promises. Besides, Berthe owes her godfather a visit. It is only proper.”
On the morrow, all three, the mother, the father, and the daughter, paid an official visit to the uncle’s warehouses, which occupied the basement and the ground floor of an enormous house in the Rue d’Enghien.
“Hallo! you here!” said he, greatly annoyed.
And he received them in a little closet, from which he watched his men through a window.
“I have brought Berthe to see you,” explained Madame Josserand. “She knows what she owes you.”
Then, when the young girl, after kissing her uncle, had, on a glance from her mother, returned to look at the goods in the courtyard, the latter resolutely broached the subject.
“Listen, Narcisse; this is how we are situated. Counting on your kindness of heart and on your promises, I have engaged to give a dowry of fifty thousand francs. If I do not give it, the marriage will be broken off. It would be a disgrace, things having gone as far as they have. You cannot leave us in such an embarrassing position.”
But a vacant look had come into Bachelard’s eyes, and he stuttered, as though very drunk:
“Eh? what? you’ve promised. You should never promise; it’s a bad thing to promise.”
He pleaded poverty. For instance, he had bought a whole stock of horsehair, thinking that the price of horsehair would go up; but not at all; the price had fallen lower still, and he had been obliged to dispatch them at a loss. And he pounced on his books, opened his ledgers, and insisted on showing the invoices, it was ruination.
“Nonsense!” Monsieur Josserand ended by saying, completely out of patience. “I know your business; you make no end of money, and you would be rolling in wealth if you did not squander it in the way you do. I ask you for nothing myself. It was Eléonore who persisted in applying to you. But allow me to tell you, Bachelard, that you have been fooling us. Every Saturday for fifteen years past, when I come to look over your books for you, you are forever promising me——”
The uncle interrupted him, and violently slapped himself on the chest.
“I promise? impossible! No, no; let me alone, you’ll see. I don’t like being asked, it annoys me—it makes me ill. You’ll see one day.”
Madame Josserand herself could get nothing further out of him. He shook their hands, wiped away a tear, talked of his soul and of his love for the family, imploring them not to worry him any more, and swearing before heaven that they would never repent it. He knew his duty; he would perform it to the uttermost. Later on, Berthe would know how her uncle loved her.
“And what about the dotal insurance,” asked he, in his natural tone of voice, “the fifty thousand francs you had insured the little one for?”
Madame Josserand shrugged her shoulders.
“It has been dead and buried for fourteen years past. You have been told twenty times already that when the fourth premium fell due, we were unable to pay the two thousand francs.”
“That doesn’t matter,” murmured he, with a wink, “the thing is to talk of this insurance to the family, and then get time for paying the dowry. One never pays a dowry.”
Monsieur Josserand rose indignantly.
“What! that is all you can find to say?”
But the uncle mistook his meaning, and went on to show that it was quite a usual thing.
“Never, I tell you I One gives something on account, and then merely pays the interest. Look at Monsieur Vabre himself. Did our father ever pay you Eléonore’s dowry? why, no, of course not. Every one sticks to his money; its only natural!”
“In short, you advise me to commit a most abominable action!” cried Monsieur Josserand. “I should lie; it would be a forgery to produce the policy of that insurance——”
Madame Josserand stopped him. The idea suggested by her brother had rendered her grave. She was surprised she had not thought of it herself.
“Dear me! how excited you become, my dear. Narcisse has not told you to forge anything.”
“Of course not,” murmured the uncle. “There is no occasion to show any documents.”
“It is simply a question of gaining time,” continued she. “Promise the dowry, we shall always manage to give it later on.”
Then the worthy man’s conscience spoke out. No! he refused; he would not again venture on such a precipice. They were always taking advantage of his complacency, to get him to agree little by little to things which afterward made him ill, so deeply did they wound his feelings. As he had no dowry to give, he could not promise one.
Bachelard was strumming on the little window with his fingers, and whistling a march, as though to show his great contempt for such scruples. Madame Josserand had listened to her husband, her face all pale with an anger which had been slowly rousing, and which suddenly exploded.
“Well! sir, as this is how you look at it, this marriage shall take place. It was my daughter’s last chance. I will cut my hand off sooner than she will lose it. So much the worse for the others! One becomes capable of anything at last.”
“So, madame, you would commit murder to get your daughter married?”
She rose to her full height.
“Yes!” said she furiously.
Then she smiled. The uncle had to quell the storm. What was the use of wrangling? It was far better to agree together. And, still trembling from the quarrel, bewildered and worn out, Monsieur Josserand ended by promising to talk the matter over with Duveyrier, on whom everything depended, according to Madame Josserand. Only to get hold of the counselor when he was in good humor, the uncle offered to put his brother-in-law in the way of meeting him at a house where he could refuse nothing.
“It is merely to be an interview,” declared Monsieur Josserand, still struggling. “I swear that I will not enter into any engagements.”
“Of course, of course,” said Bachelard. “Eléonore does not wish you to do anything dishonorable.”
Berthe just then returned. She had seen some boxes of preserved fruits, and, after some lively caresses, she tried to get one given her. But the uncle’s speech again became thick; impossible, they were counted, and had to leave that very evening for Saint-Petersburg. He slowly got them in the direction of the street, whilst his sister lingered before the activity of the vast warehouses, full to the rafters with every imaginable commodity, suffering from the sight of that fortune made by a man without any principles, and bitterly comparing it with her husband’s incapable honesty.
“Well! to-morrow night, then, toward nine o’clock, at the Café de Mulhouse,” said Bachelard outside, as he shook Monsieur Josserand’s hand.
It so happened that, on the morrow, Octave and Trublot, who had dined together before going to see Clarisse, Duveyrier’s mistress, entered the Café de Mulhouse, so as not to call too early, although she lived in the Rue de la Cerisaie, which was some distance off. It was scarcely eight o’clock. As they entered, the sound of a violent quarrel attracted them to a rather out-of-the-way room at the end. And there they beheld Bachelard already drunk, enormous in size, and his cheeks flaring red, having an altercation with a little gentleman, pale and quarrelsome.
“You have again spat in my beer!” roared he in his voice of thunder. “I’ll not stand it, sir!”
“Go to blazes, do you hear? or I’ll give you a thrashing!” said the little man, standing on the tips of his toes.
Then Bachelard raised his voice very provokingly, without drawing back an inch.
“If you think proper, sir! As you please!”
And the other having with a blow knocked in his hat, which he always wore swaggeringly on the side of his head, even in the cafés, he repeated more energetically still:
“As you please, sir! If you think proper!”
Then, after picking up his hat, he sat himself down with a superb air, and called to the waiter:
“Alfred, change my beer!”
Octave and Trublot, greatly astonished, had caught sight of Gueulin seated at the uncle’s table, his back against the wall, smoking with a tranquillity amounting to indifference. As they questioned him on the cause of the quarrel.
“I don’t know,” replied he, watching the smoke ascend from his cigar. “Always a lot of rot! Oh! a mania for getting his head punched! He never retreats.”
Bachelard shook hands with the new-comers. He adored young people. When he heard that that they were going to call on Clarisse, he was delighted, for he himself was going there with Gueulin; only he had to wait for his brother-in-law, Josserand, whom he had an appointment with. And he filled the little room with the sounds of his voice, covering the table with every drink imaginable for the benefit of his young friends, with the insane prodigality of a man who does not care what he spends when out on pleasure. Illformed, with his teeth too new and his nose in a blaze beneath his short, snow-white hair, he talked familiarly to the waiters and thoroughly tired them out, and made himself unbearable to his neighbors to such a point that the landlord came twice to beg him to leave, if he could not keep quiet. The night before, he had been turned out of the Café de Madrid.
But a girl having put in an appearance, and then gone away, after walking round the room with a wearied air, Octave began to talk of women. This set Bachelard off again. Women had cost him too much money; he flattered himself that he had had the best in Paris. In his business, one never bargained about such things; just to show that one had something to fall back upon. Now he was giving all that up, he wished to be loved. And, in presence of this bawler chucking bank notes about, Octave thought with surprise of the uncle who exaggerated his stuttering drunkenness to escape the family extortions.
“Don’t boast, uncle,” said Gueulin. “One can always have more women than one wants.”
“Then, you silly fool, why do you never have any?” asked Bachelard.
Gueulin contemptuously shrugged his shoulders.
“Why? Listen! Only yesterday I dined with a friend and his mistress. The mistress at once began to kick me under the table. It was an opportunity, wasn’t it? Well! when she asked me to see her home, I made off, and I haven’t been near her since. Oh! I don’t deny that, for the time being, it might have been very agreeable. But afterward, afterward, uncle! Perhaps one of those women a fellow can never get rid of. I’m not such a fool!”
Trublot nodded his head approvingly, for he also had renounced women of society, through a dread of the troublesome morrows. And Gueulin, coming out of his shell, continued to give examples. One day in the train, a superb brunette, whom he did not know, had fallen asleep on his shoulder; but he had thought twice, what would he have done with her on arriving at the station? Another day, after a wedding, he had found a neighbor’s wife in his room, eh? that was rather cool; and he would have made a fool of himself had it not been for the idea that afterward she would have wanted him to keep her in boots.
“Opportunities, uncle!” said he, coming to an end, “no one has such opportunities as I! But I keep myself in check. Every one, moreover, does the same; one is afraid of what may follow. Were it not for that, it would, of course, be very pleasant! Good morning! good evening! one would see nothing else in the streets.”
Bachelard, becoming wrapped in thought, was no longer listening to him. His bluster had calmed down, his eyes were wet.
“If you are very good,” said he suddenly, “I will show you something.”
And, after paying, he led them out. Octave reminded him of old Josserand. That did not matter, they would come back for him.
Then, after leaving the room, the uncle, casting a furious glance around, stole the sugar left by a customer on a neighboring table.
“Follow me,” said he, when he was outside. “It’s close by.”
He walked along, grave and thoughtful, without uttering a word. He drew up before a door in the Rue Saint-Marc. The three young men were about to follow him, when he appeared to give way to a sudden hesitation.
“No, let us go off, I won’t.”
But they cried out at this. Was he trying to make fools of them?
“Well! Gueulin mustn’t come up, nor you either, Monsieur Trublot. You’re not nice enough, you respect nothing, you’d joke. Come, Monsieur Octave, you’re a serious sort of fellow.”
He made Octave walk up before him, whilst the other two laughed, and called to him from the pavement to give their compliments to the ladies. On reaching the fourth floor, he knocked, and an old woman opened the door.
“What! it’s you, Monsieur Narcisse? Fifi did not expect you this evening,” said she, with a smile.
She was fat, with the calm, white face of a nun. In the narrow dining-room into which she ushered them, a tall, fair young girl, pretty and simple looking, was embroidering an altar cloth.
“Good day, uncle,” said she, rising to offer her forehead to Bachelard’s thick, trembling lips.
When the latter had introduced Monsieur Octave Mouret, a distinguished young man whom he counted amongst his friends, the two women curtesied in an old-fashioned way, and then they all seated themselves round the table, lighted by a petroleum lamp. It was like a quiet country home, two regulated existences, out of sight of all, and living upon next to nothing. As the room overlooked an inner courtyard, one could not even hear the sound of the passing vehicles.
Whilst Bachelard paternally questioned the child on her feelings and her occupations since the night before, the aunt, Mademoiselle Menu, at once began to tell Octave their history, with the familiarity of a worthy woman who thinks she has nothing to hide.
“Yes, sir, I came from Villeneuve, near Lille. I am well known to Messieurs Mardienne Frères, in the Rue Saint-Sulpice, where I worked as an embroiderer for thirty years. Then, a cousin having left me a house in our part of the country, I was lucky enough to let it as a life interest at a thousand francs a year, sir, to people who thought they would bury me on the morrow, and who are nicely punished for their wicked idea, for I am still alive, in spite of my seventy-five years.”
She laughed, displaying teeth as white as a young girl’s.
“I was doing nothing, my eyes being quite worn put,” continued she, “when my niece, Fanny, came to me. Her father, Captain Menu, had died without leaving a sou, and no other relation, sir. So, I at once took the child away from her school, and made an embroiderer out of her—a very unprofitable craft; but what could be done? whether that, or something else, women always have to starve. Fortunately, she met Monsieur Narcisse. Now, I can die happy.”
And, her hands clasped on her stomach, in her inaction of an old workwoman who has sworn never again to touch a needle, she looked tenderly at Bachelard and Fifi with tearful eyes. The old man was just then saying to the child:
“Really, you thought of me! And what did you think?”
Fifi raised her limpid eyes, without ceasing to draw her golden thread.
“Why, that you were a good friend, and that I loved you very much.”
She had scarcely looked at Octave, as though indifferent to the youth of so handsome a fellow. Yet he smiled on her, surprised, and moved by her gracefulness, not knowing what to think; whilst the aunt, who had grown old in a celibacy and a chastity which had cost her nothing, continued, lowering her voice:
“I might have married her, might I not? A workman would have beaten her, a clerk would have given her no end of children. It is better far that she should behave well with Monsieur Narcisse, who looks a very worthy man.”
And, raising her voice:
“Ah! Monsieur Narcisse, it will not have been my fault if she does not please you. I am always telling her: do all you can to please him, show yourself grateful. It is but natural, I am so thankful to know that she is at last provided for. It is so difficult to get a young girl settled in life, when one has no friends!”
Then Octave abandoned himself to the happy simplicity of this home. In the still atmosphere of the room floated an odor of fruit. Fifi’s needle, as it pierced the silk, alone made a slight monotonous noise, like the ticking of a little clock, which might have regulated the placidity of the uncle’s amours. Moreover, the old maid was honesty itself; she lived on the thousand francs of her income, never touching Fifi’s money, which the latter spent as she chose. Her scruples yielded only to white wine and chestnuts, which her niece occasionally treated her to, after opening the money box in which she collected four sou pieces, given as medals by her good friend.
“My little duck,” at length said Bachelard, rising, “we have business to attend to. Good-bye till to-morrow. Now, mind you are very good.”
He kissed her on the forehead. Then, after looking at her with emotion, he said to Octave:
“You may kiss her too, she is a mere child.”
The young man pressed his lips to her fair skin. She smiled, she was very modest; however, it was merely like a family gathering, he had never seen such sober-minded people. The uncle was going off, when he re-entered the room, exclaiming:
“I was forgetting, I’ve a little present.”
And, turning out his pocket, he gave Fifi the sugar which he had just stolen at the café. She thanked him very heartily, and, as she crunched up a piece, she became quite red with pleasure. Then, becoming bolder, she asked:
“Do you not happen to have some four sou pieces?”
Bachelard searched his pockets without result. Octave had one, which the young girl accepted as a memorial. She did not accompany them to the door, no doubt out of propriety; and they heard her drawing her needle, having at once resumed her altar cloth, whilst Mademoiselle Menu saw them to the landing, with her good old woman’s amiability.
“Eh? it’s worth seeing,” said uncle Bachelard, stopping on the stairs. “You know, it doesn’t cost me five louis a month. I’ve had enough of the hussies who almost devoured me. On my word! what I required was a heart.”
But, as Octave laughed, he became mistrustful.
“You’re a decent fellow; you won’t take advantage of what I have shown you. Not a word to Gueulin, you swear it on your honor? I am waiting till he is worthy of her to show her to him. An angel, my dear fellow! No matter what is said, virtue is good: it refreshes one. I have always gone in for the ideal.”
His old drunkard’s voice trembled; tears swelled his heavy eyelids. Down below, Trublot chaffed, pretending to take the number of the house, whilst Gueulin shrugged his shoulders, asking Octave, who was astounded, what he thought of the little thing. Whenever the uncle’s feelings had been softened by a booze, he could not resist taking people to see these ladies, divided between the vanity of showing his treasure and the fear of having it stolen from him; then, on the morrow, he forgot all about it, and returned to the Rue-Saint-Marc with an air of mystery.
“Everyone knows Fifi,” said Gueulin, quietly.
Meanwhile, Bachelard was looking out for a cab, when Octave exclaimed:
“And Monsieur Josserand, who is waiting at the café?”
The others had forgotten him entirely. Monsieur Josserand, very annoyed at wasting his evening, was impatiently waiting at the entrance, for he never took anything but of doors. At length they started for the Rue de la Cerisaie. But they had to take two cabs; the commission agent and the cashier in the one, and the three young men in the other.
Gueulin, his voice drowned by the jingling noise of the old vehicle, at first talked of the insurance company where he was employed. Insurance companies and stockbrokers were equally unpleasant, affirmed Trublot. Then the conversation turned to Duveyrier. Was it not unfortunate that a rich man, a magistrate, should let himself be fooled by women in that way? He always wanted them in out-of-the-way neighborhoods, right at the end of the omnibus routes; modest little ladies in their own apartments, playing the parts of widows; unknown milliners, having shops and no customers; girls picked out of the gutter, clothed and shut up, as though in a convent, whom he would go to see regularly once a week, like a clerk trudging to his office.
Trublot, however, found excuses for him: to begin with, it was the fault of his constitution; then, it was impossible to put up with a confounded wife like his. On the very first night, so it was said, she could not bear him, affecting to be disgusted at his red blotches, so that she willingly allowed him to have mistresses, whose complacencies relieved her of him, though at times she accepted the abominable burden, with the resignation of a virtuous woman who makes a point of accomplishing all her duties.
“Then, she is virtuous, is she?” asked Octave, interested.
“Virtuous? Oh! yes, my dear fellow! Every good quality; pretty, serious, well brought up, learned, full of taste, chaste, and unbearable!”
A block of vehicles at the bottom of the Rue Montmartre stopped the cab. The young men, who had let down the windows, could hear Bachelard’s voice, furiously abusing the coachman. Then, when the cab moved on again, Gueulin gave some information about Clarisse. Her name was Clarisse Bocquet, and she was the daughter of a former toy merchant in a small way, who now attended all the fairs with his wife and quite a troop of dirty children. Duveyrier had come across her one night when it was thawing, just as her lover had chucked her out. No doubt, this strapping wench answered to an ideal long sought after; for as early as the morrow he was hooked; he wept as he kissed her eyelids, all shaken by his need to cultivate the little blue flower of romance in his huge masculine appetites. Clarisse had consented to live in the Rue de la Cerisaie, so as not to expose him; but she led