Part 19

Three weeks after Madame Germeuil’s death, what she had left was already spent, and they were compelled to have recourse every day to all sorts of expedients to obtain means of subsistence.

One evening, when Dufresne and Edouard had remained at home, having no money to gamble, and cudgeling their brains to think of a way of procuring some, there was a knock at their door, and one Lampin, a consummate scamp, worthy to be Dufresne’s intimate friend, entered their room with a joyous air, and with four bottles under his arm.

“Oho! is that you, Lampin?” said Dufresne, as he opened the door to his friend, and made certain signs to which the other replied without being detected by Edouard, who was absorbed in his thoughts.

“Yes, messieurs, it’s me. Come, come, comrade Monbrun, come, stop your dreaming! I have brought something to brighten you up.”

“What’s that?”

“Wine, brandy and rum.”

“The deuce it is! so you are in funds, are you?”

“Faith, I won ten francs at _biribi_, and I have come to drink ’em up with my friends.”

“That’s right, Lampin, you’re a good fellow. You have come just in time to cheer us up, for we were as dismal as empty pockets, Monbrun and I.”

“Let’s have a drink first; that will set you up, and then we will talk.”

The four bottles were placed on a table; the gentlemen took their places at it, and the glasses were filled and emptied rapidly.

“We haven’t a sou, Lampin, and that’s a wretched disease.”

“Bah! because you are fools!--Here’s your health.”

“What do you mean by that, Jean-Fesse?”

“I mean that if I had your talents, and especially Monbrun’s, I wouldn’t be where you are now, but I would have my bread well buttered.”

“What do you mean?” asked Edouard, pouring out a glass of brandy; “explain yourself.”

“Anybody can understand that, my son; I tell you again that if I knew how to handle a pen as you do, I would speculate on a large scale! But you’re scared to death!”

“We have speculated enough, but it hasn’t succeeded with us.”

“But that’s not what I’m talking about, youngster. Let’s take a drink, messieurs; it’s good stuff, at all events.”

“Tell us, Lampin, what you would have done to----”

“Ah! I’m a blade, I am; I would risk the job! But I write like a cat.”

“But what is it that you’d write?”

“That depends--sometimes one thing, sometimes another.--Look here, here’s a note that a friend entrusted to me; it is the proceeds of his father’s property, which is to be paid him here in Paris, because he means to enjoy himself with us.”

“What is it?”

“A note for twelve hundred francs, accepted by a famous banker of Paris. Oh! it’s good, anyone would discount it for you on the instant; my colleague knows a man who lives in the suburbs of Paris, and who proposed to give him _rocks_ for his paper.--Well, my boy, make one like it, and you can get that discounted too.”

“What? What do you say? Counterfeit this note?”

“Oh, no, not counterfeit it, for instead of twelve hundred francs I would make it twelve thousand; it’s just an imitation. Here’s your health.”

“Why, you villain! that’s forgery!”

“No, it ain’t forgery; it’s a note that we put in circulation; it ain’t forgery; is it, Dufresne? In all this, the banker is the only one that’s fooled; but those rascals are rich enough to make us a little present.”

“In fact,” said Dufresne, “it isn’t exactly a forgery; we create a note, that’s all, and we make someone else pay it.”

“That’s just it, my boy, it’s only a little joke.--Oh! you understand such games, you do; but Monbrun is a little dull.”

“No, no, I understand very well, messieurs; but I cannot consent to resort to such methods. I disapprove of your plan.”

“Is that so? Well, you’ll never get ahead, my man, and you’ll die of hunger, like the fleas in winter!”

“It is true that we have no resources,” said Dufresne; “no linen, no clothes except those we have on!”

“That’s very fine! Just reflect that you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

“What about honor?” said Edouard in a weak voice.

“Honor! Pardi! I rather guess yours has been roaming the country for a long while; as for Dufresne, he’s like me, never had any, for fear of losing it.”

“This rascal of a Lampin is always joking! Let’s have a drink, messieurs.”

“Remember, too, that with the twelve thousand francs you will get, you can make up all your losses. I have discovered a sure way of winning; you only need three hundred louis to catch a thousand.”

“Really?”

“On my word as an honest man; I will teach you my scheme, and we will share the profits.”

“That is really attractive,” said Dufresne, examining the note closely, while Lampin filled Edouard’s glass with rum, and he began to lose command of his wits.

“You say, Lampin, that you know a man who would discount your friend’s note?”

“Yes, he knows that it is all right. It can’t look suspicious to him, I tell you; he will think that the inheritance was larger, that’s all.”

“True,” said Dufresne; “who will ever know about it? It is a secret between ourselves.”

“And our conscience?” faltered Edouard.

“Oh! damn! What an ass he is with his conscience! Do you think you’re talking to small boys?”

“The most essential thing,” continued Dufresne, “is to succeed. For my part, if Monbrun will write the body of the note, I will look after the signature, and I will take the whole thing on myself.”

“Well! what have you got to say to that, booby? Are you going to make more fuss? You hear, he takes the whole thing on himself; I should say that that was acting like a friend?”

“What! Dufresne, would you----”

“Faith, I see no other way of extricating ourselves from poverty; I tell you again, it will not put you forward in any way!”

“Are you sure of it?”

“Bah! What’s the matter with you, Nicodemus, when he tells you that you won’t be put forward? Look here, colleagues, I happen to have on me a blank note, all stamped; just cut a quill, Dufresne, and let’s amuse ourselves by making different kinds of letters.”

“My hand trembles, messieurs,” said Edouard; “I shall never be able to write.”

“Go on, go on! that’s just right! Ah! how rich I should be if I had been able to do as much! But my education was rather neglected.”

“Suppose we should be arrested, identified as the authors of----”

“Bah! it is impossible; and if you should be, you would get off with a few months in prison; and you are very well off there, you enjoy yourself and make acquaintances.”

Edouard, led astray by the talk of the villains who were with him, and having long since lost all sense of delicacy in the haunts of vice and debauchery, crossed the narrow space which still separated him from the miserable wretches who are at odds with the laws; he choked back the last cry of his conscience, and committed the most shameful of crimes.

The note was written, Dufresne exerted himself to counterfeit the signatures, and succeeded perfectly, whereat Edouard alone was surprised. They invented endorsers; the unhappy Murville, who allowed himself to be led wherever they would, disguised his handwriting and wrote on the back of the note the names that they gave him.

Lampin was overjoyed, and for greater safety proposed to carry the note to the man who had agreed to discount the one for twelve hundred francs, and who lived in a small town not far from Paris. This plan was agreed upon: Dufresne was to accompany Lampin, because those gentry did not trust him sufficiently to leave their note in his hands; and Edouard, who was less bold than they, was to await at Paris the result of the affair.

Everything being arranged, they drank again, Edouard to deaden his conscience more completely, the others for conviviality’s sake. They formed plans for the use of their future wealth, and ended by falling asleep with their elbows on the table.

Edouard, who had drunk more, and who was less able to stand excessive indulgence in wine and liqueurs than the others, did not wake until eight o’clock in the morning. The first thought that came to his mind was that of the dishonorable act he had committed the night before. He shuddered, for he realized the full extent of his crime; he looked for Dufresne, to urge him to destroy the false note; but Dufresne was not there, he had gone away early with Lampin, anticipating remorse on Edouard’s part, and by his own absence making it impossible for him to retrace his steps.

Edouard left his room, and went out into the street with no definite object. But he sought some distraction from the anxiety which beset him. Already he was afraid of being recognized as a criminal. He glanced about him fearfully; if anyone looked hard at him as he passed, he blushed, became confused, and fancied that he was about to be arrested; he tried in vain to overcome his terror and his weakness, but he could not succeed, and he already cursed money obtained at so high a price.

At a street corner, he heard a cry; someone uttered his name. He quickened his pace, not daring to look back; but someone ran after him, overtook him and grasped his arm; he trembled, the cold perspiration stood on his brow; he raised his eyes and saw his wife and daughter before him.

“Is it really you? I have found you at last!” said Adeline; “oh! I have been looking for you for a long, long while.”

“You frightened me,” said Edouard, greatly surprised by this meeting. “But why are you here? Why did you leave the country?”

“Your creditors have turned me out of the house I was living in; it no longer belongs to you. Some time ago the notary warned me that your fortune was impaired; that such property as you possessed was subject to numerous mortgages.”

“I know all that, madame; spare me your useless complaints and reproaches.”

“I don’t propose to make any complaints or reproaches; and yet--Oh! my dear, how changed you are!”

“I have been sick.”

“Why not have written to me? I would have come and nursed you.”

“I needed nobody.”

“And this is the way you treat her whom you have reduced to want! I have lost my mother, and I no longer have a husband! Chance alone is responsible for my meeting you; I have asked for you in all the places where you have lived, but no one has been able to give me any news of you. For a fortnight I have been here; I was losing hope when at last I caught sight of you, dear Edouard; and this is the way you speak to me; and you don’t even kiss your daughter!”

“Do you want me to make a show of myself to the passers-by?”

“How can the sight of a father kissing his child be absurd, in the eyes of decent people? But let us go in somewhere, into a café.”

“I haven’t any time.”

“Where do you live now?”

“A long way from here; I was in very straitened circumstances, and Dufresne took me in to lodge with him.”

“You live with Dufresne? A villain who has already been guilty of all sorts of crimes!”

“Hold your tongue, and don’t bore me with your preaching! I do what I choose and I see whom I choose; I give you leave to do the same.”

“What a tone, and what manners!” said Adeline to herself, as she examined Edouard; “but no matter, I must make one last attempt.--Monsieur,” she said aloud, “if it is want that forces you to remain with that scoundrel who deceives you, come and live with me; let us leave this city, which would recall painful memories to you, and come with me to some lonely place in the country; I have nothing, but I will work, I will work nights if necessary, and I will provide means of subsistence for us. In a poor cottage we may still be happy, if we endure adversity with courage, and Heaven, moved by our resignation, will perhaps take pity on us. You will find the repose which eludes you, and I shall find my husband. In pity’s name, do not refuse me; come, I implore you; leave this town, with its treacherous counselors and dangerous acquaintances, or beware lest you become a criminal.”

Edouard was moved; his heart was agitated by pity and remorse, and he looked at his daughter for the first time.

“Well,” he said to Adeline, “I will see; if I can arrange my affairs, I will go with you.”

“What detains you now?”

“A single thing, but a most important one; I must find out--where are you staying now?”

“At a hotel in Faubourg Saint-Antoine; see, here is my address.”

“Give it to me; to-morrow I will go to see you.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes; until to-morrow. Adieu, I leave you.”

Edouard hurried away, and Adeline returned to her hotel, passing from hope to fear and from fear to hope. She knew her husband, she knew how little she could rely upon his promises, so that she awaited the morrow with anxiety. But on the morrow Dufresne and Lampin returned with money. The discounter had fallen into the trap; he had thought that he had recognized the banker’s signature. Those men led Edouard away; they abandoned themselves anew to the pleasures of the table and the gambling house. They made Murville drunk; they put his remorse and his scruples to silence; they laughed at his fears; and Adeline, instead of seeing him whom she expected, received in the morning a note containing only these words:

“Do not try to see me again, do not hope that I will go with you to bury myself in a cottage; that sort of thing does not suit me. Leave Paris without me; this is the last command that you will receive from your husband, who leaves you entirely at liberty to do whatever you please.”

Adeline bathed the letter in her tears.

“You have no father now,” she said to little Ermance; “poor child, what will your lot be? Let us leave this city, let us follow my husband’s last orders. Let us go back to the honest villagers; at the farm they will not spurn me. I shall not blush to ask them for work. O mother! If you were still alive, I should find comfort in your arms. If only I had followed your advice! Perhaps Edouard then--but it’s too late! At all events, you never knew the full extent of my sorrow.”

Adeline sold all that she thought unlikely to be of use to her in the situation which she was about to occupy. No more jewels, no more flowers, no superfluous wardrobe; in a simple dress and a straw hat tied with a modest ribbon, with her daughter on one arm and a small bundle on the other,--thus did Madame Murville set out for Guillot’s farm.

XXVII

ADELINE FINDS A PROTECTOR

The farmer’s family were in despair at Madame Murville’s flight. Since the day that Dufresne had been driven from the village, Adeline, buried in the most profound melancholy, had not left her home; she took no diversion whatever, and the solicitations of the peasants had failed to induce her to emerge from her retirement.

Jacques did not know what to think of his brother’s conduct. He easily guessed that he made his wife unhappy; but he was still far from suspecting the extent of his misbehavior! Edouard’s brother dared not question Adeline, but she read in his eyes his sympathy with her distress, and her grateful heart rewarded the honest laborer with the most sincere friendship. Every two days Jacques went to the village to enquire for Madame Murville’s health. One morning when he rang as usual at the courtyard gate, the old gardener answered the bell, with tears in his eyes.

“What’s the matter, Père Forêt, what has happened to Madame Murville now?” Jacques asked anxiously; “can it be that that scamp of the other day has come again?”

“Ah! my dear monsieur, more than one scamp has come to-day! And they have turned my mistress out of doors!”

“Turned her out! That isn’t possible, ten thousand dead men!”

“It is true, however.”

“What were they? brigands, robbers?”

“No, no, monsieur, they were bailiffs, creditors, what do I know? They showed madame some papers, and told her that she wasn’t in her own house any longer. Poor woman! she cried, but she didn’t make any answer; she just did her clothes up in a bundle, took her daughter in her arms, and left.”

“Left! She has gone away? Is it possible? The villain! he has reduced her to destitution!”

“Monsieur Jacques, I tell you there was a lot of them. Look, here’s the placard; this house is for sale now, and they left me here, so that there might be some one to show it to people.”

“Do you know where Madame Murville has gone?”

“Bless me! she took the Paris road.”

“She has gone to join him.”

“Yes, no doubt she has gone to her husband; but look you, between ourselves, they say that he is a regular good-for-nothing; that he raises the devil at Paris; and you must agree, Monsieur Jacques, that when one has a pretty, good, young wife like madame--For, bless my soul, she is virtue and goodness personified! And then a child, which will be its mother’s portrait; well, I say, when a man has all that, and forgets them all the year round, it ain’t right, and it don’t speak well for him.”

Jacques, having taken his leave of the gardener, cast a last glance at the house and walked sadly away from the village. A thousand plans passed through his mind; he thought of going to Paris to look for Adeline; he thought of speaking to his brother, reproaching him for his evil conduct, and making him ashamed of the destitution in which he had left his wife; with his mind filled with such thoughts as these, he arrived at the farm. His friends there questioned him; they grieved with him, but still they hoped that Madame Murville would come to see them. Sans-Souci shared that hope; he encouraged his comrade, and urged him to wait a few days before taking any steps.

Jacques’s patience was beginning to be exhausted; he was on the point of leaving the farm and going to Paris, when one morning the joyous outcry of the children announced some good news. It was Adeline, who appeared at the farm with her little Ermance.

Everybody ran to meet her; they surrounded her, pressed against her, embraced her, and manifested the most sincere joy. Adeline, deeply moved by the attachment of the peasants, found that she could still feel a sensation of pleasure.

“Ah!” she said to them, “I have not lost all, since I still have sincere friends.”

Jacques did not know what he was doing; he seized Adeline’s hands, kissed them, swore, cried, stamped, and turned away to hide his tears. Sans-Souci, overjoyed by Adeline’s return, and by the pleasure which his comrade felt, leaped and gamboled about among the hens and the ducks, and played with all the children; which he did only in moments of good humor.

“My friends,” said Adeline to the people of the farm, as they crowded about her, “I am no longer what I was; unfortunate events have deprived me of my fortune, and I have nothing now but courage to endure this reverse, and my conscience, which tells me that I did not deserve it. I must work now, to earn my living and to bring up my child; you made me welcome when I was rich; you will not turn me away now that I am poor; and I come to you confidently, to beg you to give me work. Oh! do not refuse me! On no other terms will I consent to remain here.”

While Adeline was speaking, profound emotion was depicted on the features of those who surrounded her; Louise could not restrain her tears; Guillot, with wide-open mouth and eyes fastened upon Madame Murville, heaved profound sighs every moment, and Sans-Souci twisted his moustaches and passed his hand over his eyes.

But Jacques, more deeply moved, more touched than they, at sight of the resignation of a lovely woman, who came to bury herself in a farm-house, renouncing all the pleasures of the capital and all the customs of aristocratic society, without uttering a word of reproach against the man who was responsible for her misfortunes,--honest Jacques could not restrain himself; he pushed away Louise and Guillot, who stood beside Adeline, and, shaking the young woman’s arm violently, as she gazed at him in amazement:

“No, sacrebleu!” he cried; “you shall not work, you shall not risk your health, you shall not roughen that soft skin by labor beyond your strength; I will take it upon myself to look after the support of you and your child. I will take care of you, I will watch over you both; and morbleu! so long as there is a drop of blood in my veins, I shall find a way to do my duty.”

“What do you say, Jacques? your duty?”

“Yes, madame, yes, my duty; my brother has ruined your life, and the least that I can do will be to devote my life to you, and to try to repair his villainy.”

“Is it possible? You are----”

“Jacques Murville, the boy who began his travels at fifteen, giving way to quick passions, and to his desire to see the world; and I confess, between ourselves, groaning in secret at his mother’s coldness, and jealous of the caresses which were lavished upon his brother and unjustly denied to him. But none the less I possessed a heart, sensitive in the matter of honor, from which I have never departed, even in the midst of my youthful follies.--That is my story; embrace me; I feel that I am worthy of your affection, and you can bestow it upon me without blushing.”

Adeline embraced Jacques warmly; she felt the keenest joy in meeting her husband’s brother, and the peasants exclaimed aloud in surprise, while Sans-Souci shouted at the top of his lungs as he rubbed his hands:

“I knew it! I knew it! but my comrade closed my mouth and I wouldn’t have said a word for all of the great Sultan’s pipes!”

“But why conceal from me so long the bond that unites us?” Adeline asked Jacques; “did you doubt it would please me to embrace my husband’s brother?”

“No,” replied Jacques, somewhat embarrassed, “no; but I wanted first of all to know you better; people sometimes blush for their relations.”

“Ah! my friend, when a man wears this symbol of honor, can he conceive such fears?”

“Ten thousand bombs! that’s what I have been killing myself telling him every day,” said Sans-Souci; “but he is a little pig-headed, is my friend; when he gets a thing into his head, he won’t let it go again.”

“You have found me now that I can be useful to you; that is all that is necessary. Let us embrace again, and look upon me as your brother, as the father of this poor child; since he who ought to cherish her, and to adore you, has not a heart like other men; since he is unworthy to--Well, well! you want me to hold my tongue; you love him still, I see. Well! I am done; we won’t talk about him any more, and we will try to forget him.”

“Oh! if he had seen you,” said Adeline; “if he had found his brother, perhaps your advice----”

“If he had seen me!--But I must let that drop.--Let us forget an ingrate, who is not worthy of a single one of the tears you shed for him.”

“Yes, yes, let’s be merry and joyful,” said Guillot; “morgué! we mustn’t be groaning all the time; that makes a body stupid as a fool. Let’s sit down at the table, and to-night Brother Jacques will tell us about one of his battles, to amuse us. That’s amusing, I tell you! When I have been listening to him, I dream about battles all night long, I take my wife’s rump for a battery of artillery, and her legs for a battalion of infantry; and I think I hear the cannon.”

“Hold your tongue, my man.”

After the meal, they set about making the preparations required by Adeline’s presence at the farm. Louise arranged for her a small room looking on the fields; she tried to make it as pleasant as possible, by carrying thither such pretty things as she could find in the house. In vain did Adeline try to prevent her; when Louise had determined upon anything, that thing must be done; she refused to listen to the young woman when she implored her to look upon her as nothing but a poor peasant woman; the farmer’s wife desired to make Madame Murville forget her change of fortune, by redoubling her efforts to serve her with zeal and affection. Jacques did not thank the farmer’s wife, but he took her hands and pressed them fondly every time that she did anything for his sister, and Sans-Souci cried, bringing his hand down upon Guillot’s back:

“Morbleu! you have a fine wife, cousin! She manages things right well!”