One morning that Berthe happened to be at her mother’s, Adèle came and said with a scared look that Monsieur Saturnin was there with a man. Doctor Chassagne, the director of the Asile des Moulineaux, had already warned the parents several times that he would he unable to keep their son, for he did not consider him sufficiently mad. And, hearing of the signature which Berthe had obtained from her brother for the three thousand francs, dreading being compromised in the matter, he suddenly sent him home to his family.
It created quite a scare. Madame Josserand, who was afraid of being strangled, wished to argue with the man. But all she could get out of him was:
“The director told me to inform you that when one is sufficiently sensible to give money to one’s parents, one is sensible enough to live with them.”
“But he is mad, sir! he will murder us.”
“Anyhow, he is not too mad to sign his name!” answered the man, going off.
However, Saturnin came home very quietly, with his hands in his pockets, just as though he had returned from a stroll in the Tuileries gardens. He did not even allude to where he had been staying. He embraced his father, who was crying, and likewise heartily kissed his mother and his sister Hortense, whilst they both trembled tremendously. Then, when he caught sight of Berthe, he was indeed delighted, and caressed her with all the pretty ways of a little boy. She at once took advantage of his affected and confused condition to inform him of her marriage. He displayed no anger, not appearing at first to understand, as though he had forgotten his former fits of passion. But when she wished to return to her home down-stairs, he began to howl; he did not mind whether she was married or not, so long as she remained where she was, always with him and close to him. Then, seeing her mother’s frightened looks as she ran and locked herself in another room, it occurred to Berthe to take Saturnin to live with her. They would be able to find him something to do in the basement of the warehouse, though it were only to tie up parcels.
That same evening, Auguste, in spite of his evident repugnance, acceded to Berthe’s desire. They had scarcely been married three months and a secret disunion was already cropping up between them; it was the collision of two different constitutions and educations, a surly, fastidious and passionless husband, and a lively woman who had been reared in the hot-house of false Parisian luxury, who played fast and loose with existence, so as to enjoy it all alone like a spoiled and selfish child.
The husband’s main revolts were on account of these too glaring costumes, the usefulness of which he was unable to see. Why dress himself thus above one’s means and position in life? What need was there to spend in such a manner the money that was so necessary for his business? He generally said that when one sold silks to other women, one should wear woolens oneself.
As a result of matrimony, Berthe was gradually acquiring her mother’s build. She was growing fatter, and resembled her more than she had ever done before. She was no longer the girl who did not seem to care about anything and who quietly submitted to the maternal cuffs; she had grown into a woman, who was rapidly becoming more obstinate every day, and who had formed the intention of making everything bow to her pleasure. Auguste looked at her at times, astounded at such a sudden change. At first, she had felt a vain joy in throning herself at the cashier’s desk, in a studied costume of elegant simplicity. Then she had soon wearied of trade, suffering from constant want of exercise, threatening to fall ill, yet resigning herself to it all the same, but with the attitude of a victim who sacrifices her life to the prosperity of her home. And, from that moment, a struggle at every hour of the day had commenced between her and her husband. She shrugged her shoulders behind his back, the same as her mother did behind her father’s; she went again through all the family quarrels which had disturbed her youth, treating her husband as the gentleman who had simply got to pay, overwhelming him with that contempt for the male sex which was, so to say, the basis of her education.
“Ah! mamma was right!” she would exclaim after each of their quarrels.
Yet, in the early days, Auguste had tried to please her. He liked peace, he longed for a quiet little home, he already had his whims like an old man, and had got thoroughly into the habits of his chaste and economical bachelor life. His old lodging on the “entresol” no longer sufficing, he had taken the suite of apartments on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard, and thought himself sufficiently insane in spending five thousand francs on furniture. Berthe, at first delighted with her room upholstered in thuja and blue silk, had shown the greatest contempt for it after visiting a friend who had just married a banker. Then quarrels arose with respect to the servants. The young woman, used to the waiting of poor semi-idiotic girls, who had their bread even cut for them, insisted on their doing things which set them crying in their kitchens for afternoons together. Auguste, not particularly tender-hearted as a rule, having imprudently gone and consoled one, had to turn her out of the place an hour later on account of madame’s tears, and her request that he should, choose between her and that creature.
Afterward a wench had come who appeared to have made up her mind to stop. Her name was Rachel, and she was probably a Jewess, but she denied it, and let no one know whence she had sprung. She was about twenty-five years old, with harsh features, a large nose, and very black hair. At first, Berthe declared that she would not allow her to stop two days; then, in presence of her dumb obedience, her air of understanding and saying nothing, she had little by little allowed herself to be satisfied, as though she had yielded in her turn, and was keeping her for her good qualities, and also through an unavowed fear. Rachel, who submitted without a murmur to the hardest tasks, accompanied by dry bread, took possession of the establishment, with her eyes open and her mouth shut, like a servant of foresight biding the fatal and foreseen hour when her mistress would be able to refuse her nothing.
Meanwhile, from the ground floor of the house to the servants’ story, a great calm had succeeded to the emotions caused by Monsieur Vabre’s sudden death. The staircase had again become as peaceful as a church; not a breath issued from behind the mahogany doors, which were forever closed upon the profound respectability of the various homes. There was a rumor that Duveyrier had become reconciled with his wife. As for Valérie and Théophile, they spoke to no one, but passed by stiff and dignified. Never before had the house exhaled a more strict severity of principles. Monsieur Gourd, in his cap and slippers, wandered about it with the air of a solemn beadle.
One evening, toward eleven o’clock, Auguste continued going to the door of the warehouse, stretching his head out, and glancing up and down the street. An impatience which had increased little by little was agitating him. Berthe, whom her mother and sister had fetched away during dinner, without even giving her time to finish her dessert, had not returned home after an absence of more than three hours, and in spite of her distinct promise to be back by closing time.
“Ah! good heavens! good heavens!” he ended by saying, clasping his hands together, and making his fingers crack.
And he stood still before Octave, who was ticketing some remnants of silk on a counter. At that late hour of the evening, no customer ever appeared in that out-of-the-way end of the Rue de Choiseul. The shop was merely kept open to put things straight.
“Surely you know where the ladies have gone?” inquired Auguste of the young man.
The latter raised his eyes with an innocent and surprised air.
“But, sir, they told you. To a lecture.”
“A lecture, a lecture,” grumbled the husband. “Their lecture was over at ten o’clock. Respectable women should be home at this hour!”
Then he resumed his walk, casting side glances at his assistant, whom he suspected of being an accomplice of the ladies, or at least of excusing them. Octave, also feeling anxious, slyly observed him. He had never before seen him so nervously excited. What was it all about? And, as he turned his head, he caught sight of Saturnin at the other end of the shop cleaning a looking-glass with a sponge dipped in spirit. Little by little, the family set the madman to do housework, so that he might at least earn his food. But that evening Saturnin’s eyes sparkled strangely. He crept behind Octave, and said, in a very low voice:
“Beware of him. He has found a paper. Yes, he has a paper in his pocket. Look out, if it’s anything of yours!”
And he quickly resumed rubbing his glass. Octave did not understand. For some time past the madman had been displaying a singular affection for him, like the caress of an animal yielding to an instinct. Why did he speak to him of a paper? He had written no letter to Berthe; as yet he only ventured to look at her with tender glances, watching for an opportunity of making her some trifling present. It was a tactic he had adopted after deep reflection.
“Ten minutes past eleven!—damnation! damnation!” suddenly exclaimed Auguste, who never swore.
But at that very moment the ladies returned. Berthe had on a delicious dress, of pink silk, embroidered over with white jet, whilst her sister, always in blue, and her mother, always in mauve, still wore their glaring and laboriously obtained costumes, altered every season. Madame Josserand, broad and imposing, entered first, so as at once to nip in the bud the reproaches which all three had just foreseen, at a council held at the end of the street, her son-in-law would begin to make. She even deigned to explain that they were late through having loitered before the shop-windows. But Auguste, who was very pale, did not utter a single complaint; he answered curtly; it was evident he was keeping it in and waiting. For a moment longer, the mother, who felt the coming storm through her great knowledge of domestic broils, tried to intimidate him; then she was obliged to go up-stairs, merely adding:
“Good night, my child. And sleep well, you know, if you wish to live long.”
Directly she had gone, Auguste, losing all patience, forgetting that Octave and Saturnin were present, withdrew a crumpled paper from his pocket, and thrust it under Berthe’s nose, whilst he stammered out:
“What’s that?”
Berthe had not even had time to take her bonnet off. She turned very red.
“That?” said she; “why, it’s a bill!”
“Yes, a bill! and for false hair, too! Is it possible? for hair! as though you had none left on your head! But that’s not all. You’ve paid the bill; tell me, what did you pay it with?”
The young woman, becoming more and more confused, ended by replying:
“With my own money, of course!”
“Your money! but you haven’t any. Some one must have given you some, or else you have taken it from here. And, listen! I know all; you’re in debt. I will tolerate what you like; but no debts, understand me, no debts!—never!”
And he put into these words all the horror of a prudent fellow, all his commercial integrity, which consisted in never owing anything. For a long while he relieved his pent-up feelings, reproaching his wife with her constant goings-out, her visits all over Paris, her dresses, her luxury, which he could not provide for. Was it sensible for people in their position to stop out till eleven o’clock at night, with pink silk dresses embroidered with white jet? When one had such tastes as those, one should bring five hundred thousand francs as a marriage portion. Moreover, he knew who was the guilty one; it was the silly mother who brought up her daughters to squander fortunes, without even being able to give them so much as a chemise on their wedding-day.
“Don’t say a word against mamma!” cried Berthe, raising her head and thoroughly exasperated at last. “No one can reproach her with anything; she has done her duty. And your family—it’s a nice one! People who killed their father!”
Octave had buried himself in his tickets, and pretended not to hear. But he followed the quarrel from out of the corner of his eye, and especially watched Saturnin, who was all in a tremble, and had left off rubbing the glass, his fists clenched, his eyes glaring, ready to spring at the husband’s throat.
“Let us leave our families alone,” resumed the latter. “We have quite enough with our own home. Listen! you must alter your ways, for I will not give another sou for all this tomfoolery. Oh! I have quite made up my mind. Your place is here at the till, in a quiet dress, like a woman who has some respect for herself. And if you incur any more debts, we’ll see.”
Berthe was almost stifling, in presence of that brutal husband’s foot set down upon her habits, her pleasures, and her dresses. It was the extinction of all she loved, of all she had dreamed of when marrying. But, with a woman’s tactics, she hid the wound from which her heart was bleeding; she gave a pretext to the passion which was swelling her face, and repeated more violently than ever:
“I will not permit you to insult mamma!”
Auguste shrugged his shoulders.
“Your mother! Listen? you’re like her, you’re quite ugly, when you put yourself in that state. Yes, I scarcely know you; it is she herself. On my word, it quite frightens me!”
At this, Berthe calmed down, and, looking him full in the face, exclaimed:
“Only go and tell mamma what you were saying just now, and see how quickly she’ll show you the door.”
“Ah! she’ll show me the door!” yelled the husband, in a fury. “Well, then! I’ll go up and tell her at once.”
And he did indeed move toward the door. It was time he went, for Saturnin, with his wolf-like eyes, was treacherously advancing to strangle him from behind. The young woman had dropped into a chair, where she was murmuring, in a low voice:
“Ah! good heavens! I’d take care not to marry him, if I had my choice over again!”
Up-stairs, Monsieur Josserand, greatly surprised, answered the door, Adèle having just gone up to bed. As he was then preparing to pass the night in addressing wrappers, in spite of the ill-health he had been lately complaining of, it was with a certain embarrassment, a shame at being found out, that he ushered his son-in-law into the dining-room; and he spoke of some pressing work, a copy of the last inventory of the Saint Joseph glass factory. But, when Auguste deliberately accused his daughter, reproaching her with running into debt, relating all the quarrel brought about by the matter of the false hair, the poor old man’s hands were seized with a nervous trembling. Struck to the heart, he could only manage to stammer out a few words, whilst his eyes filled with tears. His daughter in debt, living as he had lived himself, in the midst of constant matrimonial squabbles! All the unhappiness of his life was then going to be gone through again in the person of his daughter! And another fear almost froze him on his chair: he dreaded every minute to hear his son-in-law broach the money question, demand the dowry, and call him a thief. No doubt the young man knew everything, as he burst in upon them at past eleven o’clock at night.
“My wife is going to bed,” stammered he, his head in a whirl. “It is useless to disturb her, is it not? I am really amazed at the things you have told me! Poor Berthe is not wicked, though, I assure you. Be indulgent. I will speak to her. As for ourselves, my dear Auguste, we have done nothing, I think, which can displease you.”
And he sounded him, so to speak, with his glance, already reassured, as he saw that he could know nothing as yet, when Madame Josserand appeared on the threshold of the bed-room. She was in her night-gown, all white and terrible. Auguste, though greatly excited, drew back. No doubt she had been listening at the door, for she commenced with a direct thrust.
“It’s not your ten thousand francs you’ve come for, I suppose? There are still two months before the time they become due. And in two months’ time we will pay them to you, sir. We don’t die to get out of our engagements.”
This superb assurance completely overwhelmed Monsieur Josserand. However, Madame Josserand continued dumbfounding her son-in-law by the most extraordinary declarations, without allowing him time to speak.
“You’re by no means smart, sir. When you’ve made Berthe ill, you’ll have to call in the doctor, and that will occasion some expense at the chemist’s, and it will still be you who’ll have to pay. A little while ago, I went off, when I saw that you were bent on making a fool of yourself. Do as you like! Beat your wife, my maternal heart is easy, for God is watching, and retribution is never long in coming!”
At length Auguste was able to state his grievances. He returned to the constant goings-out, the dresses, and was even so bold as to condemn the way in which Berthe had been brought up. Madame Josserand listened to him with an air of supreme contempt. Then, when he had finished, she retorted:
“What you say is so absurd that it does not deserve an answer, my dear fellow! I’ve my conscience, and that suffices me. A man to whom I confided an angel! I’ll have nothing more to do with the matter, as I’m insulted. Settle it between yourselves.”
“But your daughter will end by deceiving me, madame!” exclaimed Auguste, again overcome with passion.
Madame Josserand, who was going off, turned round, and looked him full in the face.
“You’re doing all you can to bring such a thing about, sir.”
And she retired into her room with the dignity of a colossal triple-breasted Ceres draped in white.
The father kept Auguste a few minutes longer. He was conciliatory, giving him to understand that with women it was best to put up with everything, and finally sent him off calmed and resolved to forgive. But when the poor old man found himself alone again in the dining-room, seated in front of his little lamp, he burst into tears. It was all over; there was no longer any happiness; he would never have time enough of a night to address sufficient wrappers to enable him to assist his daughter clandestinely. The thought that his child might run into debt crushed him like some personal fault. And he felt ill; he had just received another blow; strength would fail him one of those nights. At length, restraining his tears, he painfully recommenced his work.
Down-stairs in the shop, her face buried in her hands, Berthe had remained for a while immovable. After putting up the shutters, the porter had returned to the basement. Then Octave thought he might approach the young woman. Ever since the husband’s departure, Saturnin had been making signs to him over his sister’s head, as though inviting him to console her. Now he was beaming and multiplied his winks; fearing that he was not understood, he emphasized his advice by blowing kisses into space, with a child’s overflowing effusion.
“What! you want me to kiss her?” asked Octave by signs.
“Yes, yes,” replied the madman, with an enthusiastic nod of the head.
And, when he beheld the young man smiling before his sister, who had noticed nothing, he seated himself on the floor, behind a counter, hiding, so as not to be in their way. In the profound silence of the closed warehouse the gas-jets were still burning with tall flames. There reigned a death-like peacefulness, a closeness of atmosphere mingled with the unsavory odor of the dressed silk.
“Do not take it so much to heart, madame, I beg of you,” said Octave, in his caressing tones.
She started at finding him so close to her.
“Excuse me, Monsieur Octave. It is not my fault that you assisted at this painful scene. And I must ask you to excuse my husband, for he could not have been very well this evening. You know that in all families there are little unpleasantnesses——”
Sobs choked her utterance. The mere idea of extenuating her husband’s faults before the world had brought on a copious flood of tears, which quite unnerved her. Saturnin raised his anxious face on a level with the counter; but he dived down again directly he saw Octave take hold of his sister’s hand.
“I beg of you, madame, summon up a little courage,” said the assistant.
“No, I cannot help it,” stammered she. “You were there—you heard everything. For ninety-five francs’ worth of hair! As though all women did not wear false hair now! But he knows nothing—he understands nothing. He knows no more about women than the Grand Turk; he has never had anything to do with them, no never, Monsieur Octave! Ah! I am very miserable!”
She said all this in her feverish spite. A man whom she pretended she had married for love, and who would soon allow her to go without a chemise! Did she not fulfill her duties? Had he the least negligence to reproach her with? If he had not flown into a passion on the day when she asked him for some hair, she would never have been reduced to the necessity of paying for it out of her own pocket! And for the least thing there was the same story over again; she could never express a wish, desire the most insignificant article of dress, without coming into contact with his ferocious sullenness. She naturally had her pride, so she no longer asked for anything, preferring to go without necessaries rather than to humiliate herself to no purpose. Thus, for a fortnight past, she had been ardently longing for a fancy set of ornaments which she had seen with her mother in a jeweler’s window in the Palais-Royal.
“You know, three stars in paste for the hair. Oh! a mere trifle—a hundred francs, I think. Well! although I spoke of them from morning till night, don’t imagine that my husband understood!”
Octave would never have dared to hope for such an opportunity. He hastened matters.
“Yes, yes, I know. You mentioned the subject several times in my presence. And, dear me! madame, your parents received me so well; you yourself have welcomed me so kindly, that I thought I might venture——”
As he spoke he withdrew from his pocket an oblong box, in which the three stars were sparkling on some cotton wool. Berthe had risen from her seat, deeply affected.
“But it is impossible, sir. I will not—you were very wrong indeed.”
He pretended to be very simple, inventing various pretexts. In the South such things were done constantly. And, besides, the ornaments were of no value whatever. She had turned quite rosy, and was no longer weeping, whilst her eyes, fixed on the box, acquired a fresh luster from the sparkling of the imitation gems.
“I beg of you, madame. Just to show me that you are satisfied with my work.”
“No, really, Monsieur Octave; do not insist. You pain me.”
Saturnin had reappeared, and he looked at the jewels in ecstasy, as though he were beholding some reliquary. But his sharp ear heard Auguste’s returning footsteps. He warned Berthe by making a slight noise with his tongue. Then the latter came to a decision just as her husband was about to enter.
“Well! listen,” murmured she rapidly, popping the box into her pocket, “I’ll say that my sister Hortense made me a present of them.”
Auguste gave orders for the gas to be turned out, and then went up with her to bed, without saying a word about the quarrel, delighted at heart at finding her all right again and very lively, as though nothing had taken place between them. The warehouse became wrapped in intense darkness; and, just as Octave was also retiring, he felt hot hands squeezing his own almost sufficient to crush them in the obscurity. It was Saturnin, who slept in the basement.
“Friend—friend—friend,” repeated the madman, with an outburst of wild tenderness.
Disconcerted in his expectations, Octave little by little became seized with a young and passionate desire for Berthe. If he had at first been merely following his old plan, his wish to succeed by the aid of women, he now no longer beheld in her the employer simply, whose possession would place the whole establishment in his hands; he desired above all the Parisian, that adorable creature of luxury and grace, which he had never had an opportunity of tasting at Marseilles; he felt a sudden hunger for her little gloved hands, her tiny feet encased in high-heeled boots, her delicate neck hidden by gewgaws, even for the questionable unseen, the make-shifts which, he suspected, were covered by her gorgeous costumes; and this sudden attack of passion went so far as to get the better of his shrewd economical nature to the extent of causing him to squander in presents and all sorts of other expenses the five thousand francs which he had brought with him from the South, and had already doubled by financial operations which he never mentioned to anybody.
On the morrow of the quarrel, Octave, delighted at having prevailed on the young woman to accept his present, thought that it would be well for him to ingratiate himself with the husband. Therefore, as he took his meals at his employer’s table—the latter being in the habit of feeding his assistants, so as always to have them at hand—he showed him the utmost attention, listened to him at desserts and warmly approved all he said. He even went so far in private as to appear to sympathize with his complaints against his wife, pretending, too, to watch her, and making him little reports. Auguste felt greatly touched; he admitted one night to the young man that he had been on the point of discharging him, under the idea that he was conniving with his mother-in-law.
“You understand me, you do!” he would say to the young man. “I merely want peace. Beyond that I don’t care a hang, virtue excepted, of course, and providing my wife doesn’t carry off the cash-box. Eh? am I not reasonable? I don’t ask her for anything extraordinary?”
And Octave lauded his wisdom, and they celebrated together the sweetness of an uneventful existence, year after year, always the same, passed in measuring off silk. One evening he had alarmed Auguste by reverting to his dream of vast modern bazars, and by advising him, as he had advised Madame Hédouin, to purchase the adjoining house, so as to enlarge his premises. Auguste, whose head was already splitting between his four counters, had looked at him with the frightened air of a tradesman accustomed to dividing farthings into four, that he had hastened to withdraw his suggestion and to go into raptures over the honest security of small dealings.
Days passed by; Octave was making his little nest in the place, a cozy nest lined with wool which would keep him nice and warm. The husband esteemed him; Madame Josserand herself, with whom, however, he avoided being too polite, looked at him encouragingly. As for Berthe, she was becoming charmingly familiar with him. But his great friend was Saturnin, whose dumb affection he felt was increasing daily—a faithful dog’s devotion which grew as his longing for the young woman became more intense. Toward every one else the madman displayed a gloomy jealousy; a man could not approach his sister without his becoming at once uneasy, curling up his lips, and preparing to bite. But if, on the contrary, Octave leant freely toward her, and caused her to laugh with the soft and tender laughter of a happy mistress, he laughed himself with delight, and his face reflected a little of their sensual joy. The poor creature seemed to feel a gratitude full of happiness for the chosen lover. He would detain the latter in all the corners, casting mistrustful glances about; then, if he found they were alone, he would speak to him of her, always repeating the same stories in broken phrases.
“When she was little, she had tiny limbs as large as that; and already plump, and quite rosy, and so gay; then, she used to sprawl about on the floor. It amused me; I would go down on my knees and watch her. Then, bang! bang! bang! she would kick me in the stomach, and I would be so pleased, oh! so pleased!”
Octave thus learnt all about Berthe’s childhood, with its little ailments, its playthings, its growth of a charming, uncontrolled little creature.
His eyes lighted up; he laughed and cried, just as though these events had occurred the day before. From his broken sentences the history of this strange affection could be spun together: his poor, half-witted devotion at the little patient’s bedside, when she had been given up by the doctors, his heart and body devoted to the dying darling, whom he nursed in her nudity with all the tenderness of a mother; his affection and his desires had been arrested there, checked forevermore by this drama of suffering, from the shock of which he never recovered; and, from that time, in spite of the ingratitude which followed the recovery, Berthe remained everything to him, a mistress before whom he trembled, a child and a sister whom he had saved from death, an idol which he worshiped with a jealous adoration. So that he pursued the husband with the furious hatred of a displeased lover, never at a loss for ill-natured remarks as he opened his heart to Octave.
“He’s got his eye bunged up again. His headache’s becoming a nuisance!—You heard him dragging his feet about yesterday—Look, there he is squinting into the street. Eh? isn’t he a fool?—Dirty beast, dirty beast!”
And Auguste could scarcely move without angering the madman. Then would come the disquieting proposals.
“If you like, we’ll bleed him like a pig between us.”
Octave would calm him. Then, on his quiet days, Saturnin would go from Octave to the young woman, with an air of delight, repeating what one had said about the other, doing their errands, and acting like a continual bond of tenderness between them. He would have thrown himself on the floor at their feet, to serve them as a carpet.
Berthe had not again alluded to the present. She did not seem to notice Octave’s trembling attentions, but treated him as a friend, without the least confusion. He had never before been so careful in his dress, and he was ever caressing her with his eyes of the color of old gold, and whose velvety softness he deemed irresistible.
One day, however, she experienced a great emotion. On returning from a dog-show, Octave beckoned to her to descend to the basement; and there handed her a bill, amounting to sixty-two francs, for some embroidered stockings which had been brought during her absence. She turned quite pale,