by Eugène Sue
“You say then, madame, that all the silver—”
“Monsieur—”
“Come, speak out, you see that I am calm.”
Frederick rose instinctively and stood by his mother as if to protect her, so much did his father’s composure frighten him.
“My child, sit down,” said Marie, in a sweet, gentle voice.
Frederick returned to his place at the table and sat down. This unexpected movement on the part of Frederick had been observed by M. Bastien, who contented himself with questioning his wife, without changing his attitude, and continuing to drum with the ends of his fat fingers upon his left cheek.
“You say, then, madame, that the silver, that my silver—”
“Ah, well, monsieur,” replied Marie, in a firm voice, “your silver, I have sold it.”
“You have sold it?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“And to whom?”
“To a silversmith in Pont Brillant.”
“What is his name?”
“I do not know, monsieur.”
“Truly?”
“It was not I who went to town to sell the silver, monsieur.”
“Then who did?”
“No matter, monsieur, it is sold.”
“That is true,” replied Bastien, emptying his glass again; “and why did you sell it, if you please, — sell this silver which belonged to me and to me alone?”
“My friend,” whispered Bridou to Jacques, “you frighten me; get angry, shriek, storm, howl, I would rather see that than to see you so calm, — your forehead is as white as a sheet and full of sweat.”
Bastien did not reply to his friend and continued:
“You have, madame, sold my silver to buy what?”
“I besought you, monsieur, to send me some money to help the victims of the overflow.”
“The overflow!” exclaimed Jacques, with a burst of derisive laughter. “That overflow has a famous back, it carries a good deal!”
“I will not add another word on this subject,” replied Marie, in a firm and dignified tone.
A long silence followed.
Evidently Jacques was making a superhuman effort to restrain the violence of his feelings. He was obliged to rise from the table and go to the window, which he opened, in spite of the rigour of the weather, to cool his burning forehead, for wicked designs were fermenting in his brain, and he made every effort to conceal them. When he took his place at the table again, he threw on Marie a strange and sinister look, and said to her, with an accent of cruel satisfaction:
“If you knew how it is with me, since you have sold my silver, you would know that you have done me a real service.”
Although the ambiguity of these words caused her some disquietude, and she was alarmed at the incomprehensible calmness of her husband, Marie felt a momentary relief, for she had feared that M. Bastien, yielding to the natural brutality of his character, might so far forget himself as to come to injury and threats in the presence of her son, who would interpose between his mother and father.
Without addressing another word to his wife, Jacques drank another glass of wine and said to his companion:
“Come, old fellow, we are going to eat cold dough, on plates of beaten iron; it is pot luck, as you say.”
“Jacques,” said the bailiff, more and more frightened at the calmness of Bastien, “I assure you I am not at all hungry.”
“I — I am ravenous,” said Jacques, with a satirical laugh; “it is very easily accounted for; joy always increases my appetite, so, at the present moment, I am as hungry as a vulture.”
“Joy, joy,” repeated the bailiff; “you do not look at all joyous.”
And Bridou added, addressing Marie, as if to reassure her, for, notwithstanding the hardness of his heart, he was almost moved to compassion:
“It is all the same, madame, our brave Jacques now and then opens his eyes and grits his teeth, but at the bottom, he is—”
“Good man,” added Bastien, pouring out another drink; “such a good man, that he is a fool for it. It is all the same, you see, my old Bridou, I would not give my evening for fifty thousand francs. I have just realised a magnificent profit.”
Jacques Bastien never jested on money matters, and these words, “I would not give my evening for fifty thousand francs,” he pronounced with such an accent of certainty and satisfaction that not only the bailiff believed in the mysterious words, but Madame Bastien believed in them also, and felt her secret terror increasing.
In fact, the affected calmness of her husband, who — a strange and unnatural thing — grew paler in proportion as he drank, his satirical smile, his eyes glittering with a sort of baleful joy, when from time to time he looked at Frederick and his mother, carried anguish to the soul of the young woman. So, at the end of the repast, she said to Jacques, after having made a sign to Frederick to follow her:
“Monsieur, I feel very much fatigued and quite ill; I ask your permission to retire with my son.”
“As you please,” replied Jacques, with a guttural laugh, already showing excess of drink, “as you please; where there is constraint there is no pleasure. Do not incommode yourself. I shall incommode myself no longer. Be calm, have patience.”
At these words, as ambiguous as the first, which no doubt hid some mental reservation, Marie, having nothing to say, rose, while Frederick, obeying a glance from his mother, approached Jacques, and said to him, respectfully:
“Good night, father.”
Jacques turned around to Bridou, without replying to his son, and said, as he measured Frederick with a satirical glance:
“How do you like him?”
“My faith, a very pretty boy.”
“Seventeen years old, soon,” added Jacques.
“That is a fine age for us,” added the bailiff, exchanging an intelligent glance with Jacques, who said rudely to his son:
“Good evening.”
Marie and Frederick retired, leaving Jacques Bastien and his comrade Bridou at the table.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WHEN MADAME BASTIEN and Frederick, coming out of the dining-room, passed by the library, they saw David there, standing in the door watching for them.
Marie extended her hand to him cordially, and said, making allusion to the two outrages to which the preceptor had so patiently submitted:
“Can you still have the same devotion to us?”
A loud noise of moving chairs and bursts of laughter from the dining-room informed the young woman that her husband and the bailiff were rising from the table. She hastened to her apartment with Frederick, after having said to David, with a look of despair:
“To-morrow morning, M. David. I am now in unspeakable agony.”
“To-morrow, my friend,” said Frederick, in his turn, to David, as he passed him.
Then Marie and her son entered their apartment, while David ascended to the garret chamber he was to share with André.
Scarcely had he entered his mother’s chamber when Frederick threw himself in his mother’s arms and cried with bitterness:
“Oh, mother! we were so happy before the arrival of—”
“Not a word more, my child; you are speaking of your father,” interrupted Marie. “Embrace me more tenderly than ever; you have need of it, and so have I; but no recriminations of your father.”
“My God! mother, you did not hear what he said to M. Bridou?”
“When your father said, ‘Frederick will soon be seventeen?’”
“Yes, and that man said to my father, ‘It is a good age for us.’”
“I, as well as you, my child, heard his words.”
“‘A good age for us,’ — what does he mean by that, mother?”
“I do not know,” replied the young woman, hoping to calm and reassure her son. “Perhaps we attach too much to these words, — more than they deserve.”
After a short silence, Frederick said to Marie, in an altered voice:
“Listen to me, mother. Since
you desire it, I shall always have that respect for my father which I owe to him, but I tell you frankly, understand me, — if my father thinks ever of separating me from you and M. David—”
“Frederick!” cried the young woman, alarmed at the desperate resolution she read in her son’s countenance, “why suppose what is impossible — to separate us! to take you out of the hands of M. David, and that, too, at a time when — But no, I repeat, your father has too much reason, too much good sense, to conceive such an idea.”
“May Heaven hear you, mother, but I swear to you, and you know my will is firm, that no human power shall separate me from you and M. David, and that I will boldly say to my father. Let him respect our affection, our indissoluble ties, and I will bless him; but if he dares to put his hand on our happiness—”
“My son!”
“Oh, mother! our happiness, it is your life, and your life I will defend against my father himself, you understand.”
“My God! my God! Frederick, I beseech you!”
“Oh, let him take care! let him take care! two or three times this evening my blood revolted against his words.”
“Stop, Frederick, do not speak so; you will make me insane. Why, then, oh, my God! will you predict such painful, or rather, such impossible things! You only terrify yourself and render yourself desperate.”
“Very well, mother, we will wait; but believe me, the frightful calmness of my father when he learned of the sale of the silver hides something. We expected to see him burst forth into a passion, but he remained impassible, he became pale. I never saw him so pale, mother,” said Frederick, embracing his mother with an expression of tenderness and alarm. “Mother, I am chilled to the heart, some danger threatens us.”
“Frederick,” replied the young woman, with a tone of agonising reproach, “you frighten me terribly, and after all, your father will act according to his own will.”
“And I also, mother, I will have mine.”
“But why suppose your father has intentions which he has not and cannot have? Believe me, my child, in spite of his roughness, he loves you; why should he wish to grieve you? Why separate us and ruin the most beautiful, and the most assured hopes that a mother ever had for the future of her son? Wait, — I am sure that our friend M. David will say the same thing that I say to you. Come, calm yourself, take courage, we will have perhaps to pass through some disagreeable experiences, but we have already endured so much that is cruel, we cannot have much more to suffer.”
Frederick shook his head sadly, embraced his mother with more than usual tenderness, and entered his room.
Madame Bastien rang for Marguerite.
The old servant soon appeared.
“Marguerite,” said the young woman to her, “is M. Bastien still at table?”
“Unfortunately he is, madame.”
“Unfortunately?”
“Bless me, I have never seen monsieur with such a wicked face; he drinks — he drinks until it is frightful, and in spite of it all he is pale. He has just asked me for a bottle of brandy and—”
“That is sufficient, Marguerite,” said Marie, interrupting her servant; “have you prepared a bed in André’s chamber for M. David?”
“Yes, madame, M. David has just gone up there, but old André says he would rather sleep in the stable than dare stay in the same chamber with M. David. Besides, André will hardly have time to go to sleep to-night.”
“Why so?”
“Monsieur has ordered André to hitch the horse at three o’clock in the morning.”
“What! M. Bastien is going away in the middle of the night?”
“Monsieur said the moon rose at half past two, and he wished to be at Blémur with M. Bridou at the break of day, so as to be able to return here to-morrow evening.”
“That is different. Come, good night, Marguerite.”
“Madame—”
“What do you want?”
“My God, madame! I do not know if I can dare—”
“Come, Marguerite, what is the matter?”
“Madame has interrupted me every time I spoke of monsieur, and yet I had something to say — something—”
And the servant stopped, looking at her mistress so uneasily, so sadly that the young woman exclaimed:
“My God! what is the matter with you, Marguerite? You frighten me.”
“Ah, well, madame, when I went into the dining-room to give to monsieur the bottle of brandy he ordered, M. Bridou said to him, with a surprised and alarmed expression, ‘Jacques, you will never do that.’ Monsieur seeing me enter, made a sign to M. Bridou to hush, but when I went out, I — madame will excuse me perhaps on account of my intention—”
“Go on, Marguerite.”
“I went out of the dining-room, but I stopped a moment behind the door, and I heard M. Bridou say to monsieur, ‘Jacques, I say again, you will not do that.’ Then monsieur replied, ‘You will see.’ I did not dare to listen to more of the conversation, and—”
“You were right, Marguerite; you had already been guilty of an indiscretion which only your attachment to me can excuse.”
“What! What monsieur said does not frighten you?”
“The words of M. Bastien which you have reported to me prove nothing, Marguerite; you are, I think, needlessly alarmed.”
“God grant it, madame.”
“Go and see, I pray you, if M. Bastien and M. Bridou are still at the table. If they have left it, you can go to bed, I have no further need of you.”
Marguerite returned in a few moments, and said to her mistress:
“I have just given a light to monsieur and to M. Bridou, madame, they bade each other good night; but, wait, madame,” said Marguerite, interrupting herself, “do you hear? that is M. Bridou now going up-stairs.”
In fact the steps of Bastien’s boon companion resounded over the wooden staircase which conducted to the chamber formerly occupied by David.
“Has M. Bastien entered his chamber?” asked Marie of the servant.
“I can see from the outside if there is a light in monsieur’s chamber,” replied Marguerite.
The servant went out again, returned in a few moments, and said to her mistress, as she shivered with the cold:
“Monsieur is in his chamber, madame; I can see the light through the blinds. My God, how bitter the cold is; it is snowing in great heaps, and I forgot to make your fire, madame. Perhaps you wish to sit up.”
“No, Marguerite, thank you, I am going to bed immediately.” Marie added, after a moment’s reflection: “My shutters are closed, are they not?”
“Yes, madame.”
“And those of my son’s chamber also?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Good night, Marguerite, come to me to-morrow at the break of day.”
“Madame has need of nothing else?”
“No, thank you.”
“Good night, madame.”
Marguerite went out.
Marie locked her door, went to see if her shutters were closed, and slowly undressed, a prey to the most poignant anxiety, thinking of the various events of the evening, the mysterious words uttered by the bailiff, Bridou on the subject of Frederick, and especially of those words which passed between Jacques and his friend, which Marguerite had overheard:
“Jacques, you will not do that?”
“You will see.”
The young woman, wrapped in her dressing-gown, prepared as usual to embrace her son before going to bed, when she heard heavy walking in the corridor which opened into her apartment.
No doubt it was the step of Jacques Bastien.
Marie listened.
The steps discontinued.
Soon the sound of this heavy walking was succeeded by the noise of two hands, outside the door, groping in the darkness for the lock and key.
Jacques Bastien wished to enter his wife’s apartment.
She, knowing the door was locked, at first felt assured, but soon, reflecting that if she did not open the door
to her husband, he might in his brutal violence make a loud noise, or perhaps break the door, and by this uproar waken her son and call David down-stairs, and thus bring about a collision, the possible consequences of which filled her with alarm, she decided to open the door. Then, remembering that her son was in the next chamber, and that but a few minutes before all her maternal authority and tenderness were required to prevent an expression of his indignation against Jacques Bastien, she recalled his bitter words, and the resolution with which he uttered them:
“To make an attempt on our happiness, would be to attempt your life, mother, and your life I will defend even against my father.”
Marie felt that no human power, not even her own, could prevent Frederick’s interposition this time, if Jacques Bastien, intoxicated as in all probability he was, should enter her chamber, and attack her with invective and threatening.
The alternative was terrible.
Not to open the door would be to expose herself to a deplorable scandal. To open it was to set the son and father face to face, one drunk with anger and wine, the other exasperated by the sense of his mother’s wrongs.
These reflections, as rapid as thought, Marie had scarcely ended, when she heard Jacques Bastien, who had found the key, turn it in the lock and, finding an obstacle inside, shake the door violently.
Then Marie took a desperate resolution; she ran to the door, removed the bolt, and standing on the threshold as if to forbid entrance to Jacques Bastien, she said to him in a low, supplicating voice:
“My son is sleeping, monsieur; if you have something to say to me, come, I beseech you, in the library.”
The unhappy woman paused a moment.
Her courage failed her, so terrible was the expression of Bastien’s countenance.
The rays of the lamp placed upon the chimneypiece in Marie’s bedchamber shone full upon the face of M. Bastien, which, thus brilliantly lighted, seemed to glare upon the darkness of the corridor.
