On the Wednesday morning, when Marie brought Berthe to Madame Josserand, the latter, bursting with anger at the thought of an adventure which she felt was a sad blow to her pride, became quite pale and unable to utter a word.
She caught hold of her daughter’s hand with the roughness of a teacher dragging a refractory scholar to the black-hole, and, leading her to Hortense’s room, she pushed her inside, saying at length:
“Hide yourself, never show yourself again. You will kill your father if you do.”
“What’s up? Whatever have you done?” asked her sister, whose astonishment increased on seeing her wrapped in an old shawl which Marie had lent her. “Has poor Auguste fallen ill at Lyons?”
But Berthe would not answer. No, later on; there were things she could not speak about; and she beseeched Hortense to go away, to let her have the room to herself, so that she could at least weep there in peace. The day passed thus. Monsieur Josserand had gone off to his office, without having the faintest idea of what had occurred; then, when he returned home in the evening, Berthe still remained in hiding. As she had refused all food, she ended by ravenously devouring the little dinner which Adèle brought to her in secret. The maid remained watching her, and, in presence of her appetite, said:
“Don’t worry yourself so much, pick up your strength. The house is quite quiet. And as for any one being killed or wounded, there’s nobody hurt at all.”
“Ah!” said the young woman.
She questioned Adèle, who gave her a long account of how the day had passed; the duel which had not come off; what Monsieur Auguste had said, and what the Duveyriers and the Vabres had done. She listened to her, and seemed to live again, gobbling everything up, and asking for more bread. In all truth it was foolish of her to take the matter so much to heart when the others seemed to be already consoled!
“So you won’t tell me?” asked Hortense again.
“But, my darling,” answered Berthe, “you’re not married. I really can’t. It’s a quarrel I’ve had with Auguste. He came back, you know——”
And as she interrupted herself, her sister resumed, impatiently:
“Get along with you! What a fuss! Good heavens! at my age, I’m quite old enough to know!”
Then Berthe confessed herself, at first choosing her words, then letting out everything, talking of Octave and talking of Auguste. Hortense listened as she lay on her back in the dark, and merely uttered a few words to question her sister or to give an opinion: “What did he say to you then? And you, how did you feel? Well, that’s funny; I shouldn’t like that! Ah! really! so that’s the way!” Midnight, one o’clock, then two struck; still they went on with the story, their limbs little by little irritated by the sheets, and themselves gradually becoming drowsy.
“Oh! as for me, with Verdier, it will be very simple,” declared Hortense, abruptly. “I shall do just as he wishes.”
At the mention of Verdier’s name Berthe gave a movement of surprise. She thought the marriage was broken off, for the woman with whom he had been living for fifteen years past had just had a child, at the very moment that he intended leaving her.
“Do you, then, expect to marry him all the same?” asked she. “Well land why not? I was stupid enough to wait too long. But the child will die. It’s a girl, and all scrofulous.”
“Poor woman!” Berthe was unable to help exclaiming.
“How, poor woman!” cried Hortense, sourly. “It’s easy to see that you also have things to reproach yourself with!”
She at once regretted her cruelty, and, taking her sister in her arms, kissed her, and swore that she did not mean it. Then they were silent. But still they could not sleep, so continued the story, their eyes wide open in the darkness.
The next morning, Monsieur Josserand did not feel very well. Up till two o’clock, he had persisted in addressing wrappers, in spite of a lowness of spirits, and of a gradual loss of strength, of which he had been complaining for some time. He got up, however, and dressed himself; but, when he was on the point of starting for his office, he felt so feeble that he sent a messenger with a letter to inform the brothers Bernheim of his indisposition.
The family were about to have their breakfast. On seeing her husband remain, Madame Josserand decided not to hide Berthe any longer; she was already sick of all the mystery, and was, moreover, expecting every minute to see Auguste come up and create a disturbance.
“What! you’re going to breakfast with us! whatever is the matter?” asked the father in great surprise, on beholding his daughter, her eyes heavy with sleep, her bosom half-bursting through Hortense’s too tight dressing-gown.
“My husband has written to say that he is obliged to stay at Lyons,” answered she, “so I thought of spending the day with you.”
“Is it really true? You are not hiding anything from me?” murmured he.
“What an idea! why should I hide anything from you?”
Madame Josserand merely allowed herself to shrug her shoulders. What was the use of all those precautions? to gain an hour, perhaps; it was not worth while; the father would always have to receive the blow in the end. The breakfast, however, passed off most pleasantly.
But a regrettable scene spoilt the end of the breakfast. All on a sudden, Madame Josserand addressed the servant:
“Whatever are you eating?”
For some little while past she had been watching her. Adèle, dragging her shoes after her, turned clumsily round the table.
“Nothing, madame,” replied she.
“How! nothing! You’re chewing; I’m not blind. See! you’ve got your mouth full of it. Oh! it’s no use drawing in your cheeks; it’s easy to see in spite of that. And you’ve got some in your pocket, haven’t you?”
Adèle became confused, and tried to draw back. But Madame Josserand caught hold of her by the skirt.
“For a quarter of an hour past, I’ve been watching you take something out of there and thrust it under your nose, after hiding it in your hand. It must be something very good. Let me see what it is.”
She dived into the pocket in her turn, and withdrew a handful of cooked prunes. The juice was still trickling from them.
“What is this?” cried she furiously.
“Prunes, madame,” said the servant, who, seeing herself caught, became insolent.
“Ah! you eat my prunes! So that’s why they go so quickly and never again appear on the table! I could never have believed it possible; prunes! in a pocket!”
And she also accused her of drinking her vinegar. Everything disappeared; one could not even have a potato about without being certain of never seeing it again.
“You’re a regular gulf, my girl.”
“Give me sufficient to eat,” retorted Adèle boldly, “and then I won’t touch your potatoes.”
This was too much. Madame Josserand rose from her seat, majestic and terrible.
“Hold your tongue, and don’t answer me! Oh! I know, it’s the other servants who’ve spoilt you. Directly a simpleton arrives in a house from the country, all the hussies in the place at once put her up to all sorts of horrors. You no longer go to mass, and now you steal!”
Adèle, who had indeed been worked up by Lisa and Julie, did not yield.
“When I was a simpleton, as you say, you should not have taken advantage of me. It’s ended now.”
“Leave the room, I discharge you!” cried Madame Josserand, pointing to the door with a tragical gesture.
She sat down quite shaken, whilst the maid, without hurrying herself, dragged her shoes after her, and swallowed another prune before returning to the kitchen.
The breakfast, however, finished in the most affectionate intimacy. Monsieur Josserand, deeply moved, spoke of poor Saturnin, who had had to be taken away the day before during his absence from home; and, as he believed, in a sudden fit of raving madness, with which his son had been seized in the middle of the shop, for such was the story that had been told him.
“How is the marriage getting on?” asked Monsieur Josserand, discreetly.
At first the mother replied in well-chosen phrases, on account of Hortense. Now, she was at the feet of her son, a young fellow who was sure to succeed; and she would even throw his name in the father’s face at times, saying that, thank goodness! he took after her, and would never leave his wife without a pair of shoes. She little by little warmed with her subject.
“In short, he’s had enough of it! It was all very well for a while, and did him no harm. But, if the aunt doesn’t give him the niece, good night! he’ll cut off all supplies. I think he is quite right.”
Hortense, out of decency, sipped her coffee, making a show of obliterating herself behind the cup; whilst Berthe, who for the future might hear anything, gave a slight pout of repugnance at her brother’s successes. The family were about to rise from table, and Monsieur Josserand, who was more cheerful and feeling much better, was talking of going to his office all the same, when Adèle brought in a card. The person was waiting in the drawingroom.
“What, it’s her! and at this hour of the morning!” exclaimed Madame Josserand. “And I who haven’t got my stays on! So much the worse! it’s time I gave her a piece of my mind!”
The visitor was Madame Dambreville. The father and his two daughters remained talking in the dining-room, whilst the mother directed her steps to the drawing-room. But she stopped at the door before opening it, and anxiously examined her old green silk dress, trying to button it up, picking off the threads gathered from the floors, and driving in her immense bosom with a tap.
“Excuse me, dear madame,” said the visitor, with a smile. “I was passing, so could not resist calling to see how you were.”
She was all laced up, and had her hair done in the most correct style, while she conversed in the easy way of an amiable woman who had just come up to wish a friend good-day. Only, her smile, trembled, and behind her society graces one could detect a frightful anguish, with which her whole frame quivered. She at first talked of all sorts of things, avoiding any mention of Léon’s name, but at length she took from her pocket a letter which she had just received from him.
“Oh! such a letter, such a letter,” murmured she, in an altered voice, half-broken with sobs. “Whatever is it he has to complain of, dear madame? He says he will never come to our house again!”
And her feverish hand held out the letter, which quite shook as she offered it to Madame Josserand. The latter read it coldly. It was a breaking off of the acquaintance in three lines of most cruel conciseness.
“Really!” said she, as she returned the letter, “Léon is not perhaps altogether wrong——”
But Madame Dambreville at once began to praise up the widow—a woman scarcely thirty-five years old, most accomplished and sufficiently rich, who would make a Minister of her husband, she was so active. In short, she had kept her promises, she had found a fine match for Léon; whatever had he to be angry about? And, without waiting for a reply, making up her mind with a nervous start, she named Raymonde, her niece. Really, now, was it possible? a chit of sixteen, a young savage who knew nothing of life!
“Why not?” Madame Josserand kept repeating at each interrogation, “why not, if he loves her?”
No! no! he did not love her—he could not love her! Madame Dambreville struggled, and gradually abandoned herself.
“Come,” cried she, “I only ask him for a little gratitude. It’s I who have made him, it’s thanks to me that he is an auditor, and he will receive a higher appointment on his wedding day. Madame, I implore you, tell him to return to me, tell him to do me that pleasure. I appeal to his heart, to your motherly heart, yes, to all that is noble in your nature——”
She clasped her hands, her words became inarticulate. A pause ensued, during which they were standing face to face. Then suddenly she burst out into the most bitter sobs, vanquished, and no longer mistress of herself.
“Not with Raymonde,” stuttered she, “oh! no, not with Raymonde!”
“Keep quiet, my dear, you make me quite ashamed,” replied Madame Josserand, angrily. “I have daughters who might hear you. I know nothing, and I don’t wish to know anything. If you have affairs with my son, you must settle them together. I will never place myself in a questionable position.”
Yet she loaded her with advice. At her age, one should resign oneself to the inevitable.
“Just think, dear friend, he is not yet thirty. I should be grieved to appear unkind, but you might be his mother. Oh, he knows what he owes you, and I myself am filled with gratitude. You will remain his guardian angel. Only, when a thing is ended, it is ended. You could not possibly have hoped to have kept him always!”
And as the wretched woman refused to listen to reason, wishing simply to have him back, and at once, the mother grew quite angry.
“Do have done, madame! It is kind on my part to be so obliging. The boy will have no more of it! it is easily to be understood. Look at yourself, pray! It is I now who would call him back to his duty, if he submitted again to your exactions; for, I ask you, what good can there be in it for both of you in future? It so happens that he is coming here, and if you have counted on me——”
Of all these words, Madame Dambreville only heard the last phrase. For a week past she had been running about after Léon, without succeeding in seeing him. Her face brightened up; she uttered this cry from her heart:
“As he is coming, I shall stay!”
From that moment she made herself at home, seating herself like a heavy mass in an arm-chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy, declining any further questioning with the obstinacy of an animal which will not yield, even when beaten. Madame Josserand, bitterly regretting having said too much, exasperated with this sort of mile-stone which had become a fixture in her drawing-room, yet not daring to turn her out, ended by leaving her to herself. Moreover, some sounds coming from the dining-room made her feel uneasy. She fancied she recognized Auguste’s voice.
“On my word of honor! madame, one never heard of such a thing before!” said she, violently slamming the door. “It is most indiscreet!”
It was indeed Auguste, who had come up to have the explanation with his wife’s parents which he had been meditating since the day before. Monsieur Josserand, feeling jollier still, and more inclined for a little enjoyment than for office duties, was proposing a walk to his daughters, when Adèle came and announced Madame Berthe’s husband. It created quite a scare. The young woman turned pale.
“What! your husband?” said the father. “But he was at Lyons! Ah! you were not speaking the truth. There is some misfortune; for two days past I have seemed to feel it.”
And, as she rose from her seat, he detained her.
“Tell me, have you been quarreling again? about money, is it not? Eh? perhaps because of the dowry, of the ten thousand francs we have not paid him?”
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” stammered Berthe, who released herself and fled.
Hortense also had risen. She ran after her sister, and both took refuge in her room.
“Come in, come in, my dear Auguste,” said he, in a choking tone of voice. “Berthe has just told me of your quarrel. I’m not very well, and they’ve been spoiling me. I regret immensely not being able to give you that money. I did wrong in promising, I know—”
“Yes, sir, I know all. You completely took me in with your lies. I don’t mind so much not having the money; but it’s the hypocrisy of the thing which exasperates me! Why all that nonsense about an assurance which did not exist? Why give yourself such airs of tenderness and affection, by offering to advance sums which, according to you, you would not be entitled to receive till three years later? And you were not even blessed with a sou! Such behavior has only one name in every country.”
Monsieur Josserand opened his mouth to exclaim: “It is not I; it is them!” But he was ashamed to accuse the family; he bowed his head, thus accepting the responsibility of the disgraceful action. Auguste continued:
“Moreover, every one was against me, even that Duveyrier behaved like a rascal, with his scoundrel of a notary; for I asked to have the assurance mentioned in the contract, as a guarantee, and I was made to shut up. Had I insisted, though, you would have been guilty of swindling. Yes, sir, swindling!”
At this accusation, the father, who was very pale, rose to his feet, and he was about to answer, to offer his labor, to purchase his daughter’s happiness with all of his existence that remained to him, when Madame Josserand, quite beside herself through Madame Dambreville’s obstinacy, no longer thinking of her old green silk dress, now splitting, through the heaving of her angry bosom, entered like a blast of wind.
“Eh? what?” cried she; “who talks of swindling? Is it you, sir? You would do better, sir, to go first to Père-Lachaise cemetery to see if it’s your father’s pay-day!”
Auguste had expected this, but he was all the same horribly annoyed. She went on, with head erect, and quite crushing in her audacity:
“We’ve got them, your ten thousand francs. Yes, they’re there in a drawer. But we will only give them to you when Monsieur Vabre returns to give you the others. What a family! a gambler of a father who lets us all in, and a thief of a brother-in-law who pops the inheritance into his own pocket!”
“Thief! thief!” stammered Auguste, unable to contain himself any longer; “the thieves are here, madame!”
They both stood with heated countenances in front of each other. Monsieur Josserand, quite upset by all this wrangling, separated them. He beseeched them to be calm; and, trembling all over, he was obliged to sit down again.
“Anyhow,” resumed the son-in-law, after a pause, “I won’t have any strumpet in my house. Keep your money and keep your daughter That is what I came up to tell you.”
“You are changing the subject,” quietly observed the mother. “Very well, we will discuss the fresh one.”
“I told you she would deceive me!” cried Auguste, with an air of indignant triumph.
“And I answered that you were doing everything to lead to such a result!” declared Madame Josserand, victoriously. “Oh! I do not pretend that Berthe is right; what she has done is simply idiotic; and she won’t lose anything by waiting. I shall let her know what I think of it. But, however, as she is not present, I can state the fact—you alone are guilty.”
“What! I guilty?”
“Undoubtedly, my dear fellow. You don’t know how to deal with women. Here’s an instance! Do you even deign to come to my Tuesday receptions? No; you perhaps put in an appearance three times during the season, and then only stay half-an-hour Though one may have headaches, one should be polite. Oh! of course, it’s no great crime; anyhow, it judges you; you don’t know how to live.”
Her voice hissed with a slowly gathered rancor; for, on marrying her daughter, she had above all counted on her son-in-law to fill her drawing-room. And he brought no one; he did not even come himself; it was the end of one of her dreams; she would never be able to struggle against the Duveyriers’ choruses.
“However,” added she, ironically. “I force no one to come and amuse himself in my home.”
“The truth is, it is not very amusing there,” replied he, out of all patience.
This threw her into a towering rage.
“That’s it, insult away! Learn, sir, that I might have all the high life of Paris if I wished, and that I was not looking to you to help me to keep my rank in society!”
There was no longer any question of Berthe; the adultery had disappeared before this personal quarrel. Monsieur Josserand continued to listen to them, as though he were tossing about in the midst of some nightmare. It was not possible; his daughter could not have caused him this grief; and he ended by painfully rising again from his seat and going, without saying a word, in search of Berthe. Directly she was there, she would throw herself into Auguste’s arms, and then everything would be explained and forgotten. He found her in the midst of a quarrel with Hortense, who was urging her to implore her husband’s forgiveness, having already had enough of her, and being unwilling to share her room any longer. The young woman resisted, yet she ended by following her father. As they returned to the dining-room, where the breakfast cups were still scattered over the table, Madame Josserand was exclaiming:
“No, on my word of honor! I don’t pity you.”
On catching sight of Berthe she stopped speaking, and again retired into her stern majesty. When his wife appeared before him, Auguste made a gesture of protest, as though to remove her from his path.
“Come,” said Monsieur Josserand, in his gentle and trembling voice, “what is the matter with you all? I can’t make it out; you will drive me mad with all your quarreling. Your husband is mistaken, is he not, my child? You will explain things to him. You must have a little consideration for your old parents. Embrace each other; now, come, do it for my sake.”
Berthe, who would all the same have kissed Auguste, stood there awkwardly, and half-choked by her dressing-gown, on seeing him draw back with an air of tragical repugnance.
“What! you refuse to, my darling?” continued the father. “You should take the first step, and you, my dear boy, encourage her; be indulgent.”
The husband at length gave free vent to his anger.
“Encourage her, not if I know it! I found her in her chemise, sir! and with that man! Do you take me for a fool, that you wish me to kiss her! In her chemise, sir!”
Monsieur Josserand stood lost in amazement. Then he caught hold of Berthe’s arm.
“You say nothing; can it be true? On your knees, then!”
But Auguste had reached the door. He was hastening away. “Your comedies are useless! they don’t take me in! Don’t try to shove her on my shoulders again; I’ve had her once too often. You hear me; never again! I would sooner go to law about it. Pass her on to some one else, if she’s in your way. And, besides, you’re no better than she is!”
He waited till he was in the ante-room, and then further relieved himself by shouting out these last words:
“Yes, when one makes a strumpet of one’s daughter, one should not push her into a respectable man’s arms!”
The outer door banged, and a profound silence ensued. Berthe had mechanically gone back to her seat at the table, lowering her eyes, and looking at the coffee dregs in the bottom of her cup; whilst her mother sharply walked about, carried away by the tempest of her violent emotions. The father, utterly worn out, and with a face as white as that of a corpse, had sat down all by himself at the other end of the room, against the wall. An odor of rancid butter—butter of inferior quality purposely bought at the Halles—quite infected the apartment.
“Now that that vulgar person has gone,” said Madame Josserand, “one may be able to hear oneself speak. Ah! sir, these are the results of your incapacity. Do you at length acknowledge your errors? think you that such quarrels would be picked with either of the brothers Bernheim, with one of the owners of the Saint-Joseph glass works?”
Monsieur Josserand, with a lifeless look in his eyes, had not even stirred. She had stopped before him, with an enraged desire for a row; then, seeing he did not move, she continued to pace the room.
“Yes, yes, be disdainful. You know it will not affect me much. And we will see if you will again dare to speak ill of my relations after all that yours have done. Uncle Bachelard is quite a star! my sister is most polite! Listen; do you wish to know my opinion? Well! it is that if my father had not died, you would have killed him. As for your father——”
Monsieur Josserand’s face became whiter than ever as he remarked:
“I beseech you, Eléonore. I abandon my father to you, and also all my relations. Only, I beseech you, let me be. I do not feel well.”
Berthe, taking pity on him, raised her head.
“Do leave him alone, mamma,” said she.
So, turning toward her daughter, Madame Josserand resumed more violently than ever:
“I’ve been keeping you for the last; you won’t lose by waiting! Yes, ever since yesterday I’ve been bottling it up. But, I warn you, I can no longer keep it in—I can no longer keep it in. With that counter-jumper; I can scarcely believe it! Have you, then, lost all pride? I thought that you were making use of him, that you were just sufficiently amiable to cause him to interest himself in the business down-stairs; and I assisted you, I encouraged him. In short, tell me what advantage you saw in it all?”
“None whatever,” stammered the young woman.
“Then, why did you take up with him? It was even more stupid than wicked.”
“How absurd you are, mamma: one can never explain such things.”
Madame Josserand was again walking about.
“Ah! you can’t explain! Well! but you ought to be able to! There is not the slightest shadow of sense in misbehaving oneself like that, and it is this which exasperates me! Did I ever tell you to deceive your husband? did I ever deceive your father? He is here; ask him. Let him say if he ever caught me with any other man.”
Her pace slackened and became quite majestic, and she slapped herself on her green bodice, driving her breasts back under her arms.
“Nothing; not a fault, not the least forgetfulness, even in thought. My life has been a chaste one. Yet God knows what I have had to put up with from your father! I have had every excuse; many women would have avenged themselves. But I had some sense, and that saved me. Before heaven!” said she, “I swear I would have restrained myself, even if the Emperor had pestered me! One loses too much.”
She took a few steps in silence, apparently reflecting, and then added:
“Moreover, it is the greatest possible shame.”
Monsieur Josserand looked at her, looked at his daughter, and his lips moved, though no sound came from them; and his whole suffering being conjured them to put an end to this cruel explanation. But Berthe, who bent before violence, was wounded by her mother’s lesson. She at length rebelled, for she was quite unconscious of her fault, thanks to the old education which she had received when a girl in search of a husband.
“Well!” said she, boldly planting her elbows on the table, “you should not have made me marry a man I did not love. Now I hate him, and I have taken another.”
“In short, he bores me, and I bore him,” declared she. “It’s not my fault, we don’t understand one another. As early as the morrow of our wedding-day, he looked as though he thought we had taken him in; yes, he was cold and put out, just like when he has a bad day’s sale. For my part, I did not amuse myself particularly with him. Really! I don’t think much of marriage if it offers no more pleasure than that! And that’s how it all began. So much the worse! it was bound to come; I’m not the most guilty.”
She left off speaking, but shortly added, with an air of profound conviction:
“Ah! mamma, how well I understand you now! You remember, when you told us you had had more than enough of it.”
Madame Josserand, standing up before her, had been listening for a minute with indignant amazement.
“Eh? I said that!” cried she.
But Berthe, warming with her subject, would not stop.
“You have said so twenty times. And, besides, I should have liked to have seen you in my place. Auguste is not kind like papa. You would have been fighting together about money matters before a week had passed. He would precious soon have made you say that men are only good to be taken in!”
“Eh? I said that!” repeated the mother, quite beside herself.
She advanced so menacingly toward her daughter, that the father held out his hands in a suppliant gesture imploring mercy. The sounds of the two women’s voices struck him to the heart unceasingly; and, at each shock, he felt the wound extend. Tears gushed from his eyes as he stammered:
“Do leave off, spare me.”
“No, it is dreadful!” resumed Madame Josserand, in louder tones than ever. “This wretched creature now pretends I am the cause of her shamelessness! You will see she will soon make out that it is I who have deceived her husband. So, it’s my fault! for that is what you seem to mean. It’s my fault!”
Berthe remained with her elbows on the table, very pale, but resolute.
“It’s very certain that, if you had brought me up differently——”
She did not finish. Her mother gave her a clout with all her might, and such a hard one that it hanged Berthe’s head down onto the table-cover. Her hand had been itching to give it, ever since the day before; it had been making her fingers tingle, the same as in those far-off days when the child used to oversleep herself.
“There!” cried she, “that’s for your education! Your husband ought to have beaten you to a jelly.”
The young woman did not rise, but sat there sobbing, her cheek pressed against her arm. She forgot her twenty-four years, this clout brought her back to the slaps of other times, to a whole past of timorous hypocrisy. All her resolution of an emancipated grownup person melted away in the great sorrow of a little girl.
But, on hearing her weep so bitterly, the father was seized with a terrible emotion. He at length got up, quite distracted, and he pushed the mother away, saying:
“You wish, then, to kill