CHAPTER XII.
LITTLE LOUISE GROWS UP.
Deslauriers had carried away from Frederick's house the copy of the deedof subrogation, with a power of attorney in proper form, giving him fullauthority to act; but, when he had reascended his own five flights ofstairs and found himself alone in the midst of his dismal room, in hisarmchair upholstered in sheep-leather, the sight of the stamped paperdisgusted him.
He was tired of these things, and of restaurants at thirty-two sous, oftravelling in omnibuses, of enduring want and making futile efforts. Hetook up the papers again; there were others near them. They wereprospectuses of the coal-mining company, with a list of the mines andthe particulars as to their contents, Frederick having left all thesematters in his hands in order to have his opinion about them.
An idea occurred to him--that of presenting himself at M. Dambreuse'shouse and applying for the post of secretary. This post, it wasperfectly certain, could not be obtained without purchasing a certainnumber of shares. He recognised the folly of his project, and said tohimself:
"Oh! no, that would be a wrong step."
Then he ransacked his brains to think of the best way in which he couldset about recovering the fifteen thousand francs. Such a sum was a meretrifle to Frederick. But, if he had it, what a lever it would be in hishands! And the ex-law-clerk was indignant at the other being so welloff.
"He makes a pitiful use of it. He is a selfish fellow. Ah! what do Icare for his fifteen thousand francs!"
Why had he lent the money? For the sake of Madame Arnoux's bright eyes.She was his mistress! Deslauriers had no doubt about it. "There wasanother way in which money was useful!"
And he was assailed by malignant thoughts.
Then he allowed his thoughts to dwell even on Frederick's personalappearance. It had always exercised over him an almost feminine charm;and he soon came to admire it for a success which he realised that hewas himself incapable of achieving.
"Nevertheless, was not the will the main element in every enterprise?and, since by its means we may triumph over everything----"
"Ha! that would be funny!"
But he felt ashamed of such treachery, and the next moment:
"Pooh! I am afraid?"
Madame Arnoux--from having heard her spoken about so often--had come tobe depicted in his imagination as something extraordinary. Thepersistency of this passion had irritated him like a problem. Herausterity, which seemed a little theatrical, now annoyed him. Besides,the woman of the world--or, rather, his own conception of her--dazzledthe advocate as a symbol and the epitome of a thousand pleasures. Poorthough he was, he hankered after luxury in its more glittering form.
"After all, even though he should get angry, so much the worse! He hasbehaved too badly to me to call for any anxiety about him on my part! Ihave no assurance that she is his mistress! He has denied it. So then Iam free to act as I please!"
He could no longer abandon the desire of taking this step. He wished tomake a trial of his own strength, so that one day, all of a sudden, hepolished his boots himself, bought white gloves, and set forth on hisway, substituting himself for Frederick, and almost imagining that hewas the other by a singular intellectual evolution, in which there was,at the same time, vengeance and sympathy, imitation and audacity.
He announced himself as "Doctor Deslauriers."
Madame Arnoux was surprised, as she had not sent for any physician.
"Ha! a thousand apologies!--'tis a doctor of law! I have come inMonsieur Moreau's interest."
This name appeared to produce a disquieting effect on her mind.
"So much the better!" thought the ex-law-clerk.
"Since she has a liking for him, she will like me, too!" buoying up hiscourage with the accepted idea that it is easier to supplant a loverthan a husband.
He referred to the fact that he had the pleasure of meeting her on oneoccasion at the law-courts; he even mentioned the date. This remarkablepower of memory astonished Madame Arnoux. He went on in a tone of mildaffectation:
"You have already found your affairs a little embarrassing?"
She made no reply.
"Then it must be true."
He began to chat about one thing or another, about her house, about theworks; then, noticing some medallions at the sides of the mirror:
"Ha! family portraits, no doubt?"
He remarked that of an old lady, Madame Arnoux's mother.
"She has the appearance of an excellent woman, a southern type."
And, on being met with the objection that she was from Chartres:
"Chartres! pretty town!"
He praised its cathedral and public buildings, and coming back to theportrait, traced resemblances between it and Madame Arnoux, and castflatteries at her indirectly. She did not appear to be offended at this.He took confidence, and said that he had known Arnoux a long time.
"He is a fine fellow, but one who compromises himself. Take thismortgage, for example--one can't imagine such a reckless act----"
"Yes, I know," said she, shrugging her shoulders.
This involuntary evidence of contempt induced Deslauriers to continue."That kaolin business of his was near turning out very badly, a thingyou may not be aware of, and even his reputation----"
A contraction of the brows made him pause.
Then, falling back on generalities, he expressed his pity for the "poorwomen whose husbands frittered away their means."
"But in this case, monsieur, the means belong to him. As for me, I havenothing!"
No matter, one never knows. A woman of experience might be useful. Hemade offers of devotion, exalted his own merits; and he looked into herface through his shining spectacles.
She was seized with a vague torpor; but suddenly said:
"Let us look into the matter, I beg of you."
He exhibited the bundle of papers.
"This is Frederick's letter of attorney. With such a document in thehands of a process-server, who would make out an order, nothing could beeasier; in twenty-four hours----" (She remained impassive; he changedhis manoeuvre.)
"As for me, however, I don't understand what impels him to demand thissum, for, in fact, he doesn't want it."
"How is that? Monsieur Moreau has shown himself so kind."
"Oh! granted!"
And Deslauriers began by eulogising him, then in a mild fashiondisparaged him, giving it out that he was a forgetful individual, andover-fond of money.
"I thought he was your friend, monsieur?"
"That does not prevent me from seeing his defects. Thus, he showed verylittle recognition of--how shall I put it?--the sympathy----"
Madame Arnoux was turning over the leaves of a large manuscript book.
She interrupted him in order to get him to explain a certain word.
He bent over her shoulder, and his face came so close to hers that hegrazed her cheek. She blushed. This heightened colour inflamedDeslauriers, he hungrily kissed her head.
"What are you doing, Monsieur?" And, standing up against the wall, shecompelled him to remain perfectly quiet under the glance of her largeblue eyes glowing with anger.
"Listen to me! I love you!"
She broke into a laugh, a shrill, discouraging laugh. Deslauriers felthimself suffocating with anger. He restrained his feelings, and, withthe look of a vanquished person imploring mercy:
"Ha! you are wrong! As for me, I would not go like him."
"Of whom, pray, are you talking?"
"Of Frederick."
"Ah! Monsieur Moreau troubles me little. I told you that!"
"Oh! forgive me! forgive me!" Then, drawling his words, in a sarcastictone:
"I even imagined that you were sufficiently interested in him personallyto learn with pleasure----"
She became quite pale. The ex-law-clerk added:
"He is going to be married."
"He!"
"In a month at latest, to Mademoiselle Roque, the daughter of M.Dambreuse's agent. He has even gone down to N
ogent for no other purposebut that."
She placed her hand over her heart, as if at the shock of a great blow;but immediately she rang the bell. Deslauriers did not wait to beordered to leave. When she turned round he had disappeared.
Madame Arnoux was gasping a little with the strain of her emotions. Shedrew near the window to get a breath of air.
On the other side of the street, on the footpath, a packer in hisshirt-sleeves was nailing down a trunk. Hackney-coaches passed. Sheclosed the window-blinds and then came and sat down. As the high housesin the vicinity intercepted the sun's rays, the light of day stolecoldly into the apartment. Her children had gone out; there was not astir around her. It seemed as if she were utterly deserted.
"He is going to be married! Is it possible?"
And she was seized with a fit of nervous trembling.
"Why is this? Does it mean that I love him?"
Then all of a sudden:
"Why, yes; I love him--I love him!"
It seemed to her as if she were sinking into endless depths. The clockstruck three. She listened to the vibrations of the sounds as they diedaway. And she remained on the edge of the armchair, with her eyeballsfixed and an unchanging smile on her face.
The same afternoon, at the same moment, Frederick and MademoiselleLouise were walking in the garden belonging to M. Roque at the end ofthe island.
Old Catherine was watching them, some distance away. They were walkingside by side and Frederick said:
"You remember when I brought you into the country?"
"How good you were to me!" she replied. "You assisted me in makingsand-pies, in filling my watering-pot, and in rocking me in the swing!"
"All your dolls, who had the names of queens and marchionesses--what hasbecome of them?"
"Really, I don't know!"
"And your pug Moricaud?"
"He's drowned, poor darling!"
"And the _Don Quixote_ of which we coloured the engravings together?"
"I have it still!"
He recalled to her mind the day of her first communion, and how prettyshe had been at vespers, with her white veil and her large wax-taper,whilst the girls were all taking their places in a row around the choir,and the bell was tinkling.
These memories, no doubt, had little charm for Mademoiselle Roque. Shehad not a word to say; and, a minute later:
"Naughty fellow! never to have written a line to me, even once!"
Frederick urged by way of excuse his numerous occupations.
"What, then, are you doing?"
He was embarrassed by the question; then he told her that he wasstudying politics.
"Ha!"
And without questioning him further:
"That gives you occupation; while as for me----!"
Then she spoke to him about the barrenness of her existence, as therewas nobody she could go to see, and nothing to amuse her or distract herthoughts. She wished to go on horseback.
"The vicar maintains that this is improper for a young lady! How stupidthese proprieties are! Long ago they allowed me to do whatever Ipleased; now, they won't let me do anything!"
"Your father, however, is fond of you!"
"Yes; but----"
She heaved a sigh, which meant: "That is not enough to make me happy."
Then there was silence. They heard only the noise made by their boots inthe sand, together with the murmur of falling water; for the Seine,above Nogent, is cut into two arms. That which turns the millsdischarges in this place the superabundance of its waves in order tounite further down with the natural course of the stream; and a personcoming from the bridge could see at the right, on the other bank of theriver, a grassy slope on which a white house looked down. At the left,in the meadow, a row of poplar-trees extended, and the horizon in frontwas bounded by a curve of the river. It was flat, like a mirror. Largeinsects hovered over the noiseless water. Tufts of reeds and rushesbordered it unevenly; all kinds of plants which happened to spring upthere bloomed out in buttercups, caused yellow clusters to hang down,raised trees in distaff-shape with amaranth-blossoms, and made greenrockets spring up at random. In an inlet of the river white water-liliesdisplayed themselves; and a row of ancient willows, in which wolf-trapswere hidden, formed, on that side of the island, the sole protection ofthe garden.
In the interior, on this side, four walls with a slate coping enclosedthe kitchen-garden, in which the square patches, recently dug up, lookedlike brown plates. The bell-glasses of the melons shone in a row on thenarrow hotbed. The artichokes, the kidney-beans, the spinach, thecarrots and the tomatoes succeeded each other till one reached abackground where asparagus grew in such a fashion that it resembled alittle wood of feathers.
All this piece of land had been under the Directory what is called "afolly." The trees had, since then, grown enormously. Clematisobstructed the hornbeams, the walks were covered with moss, bramblesabounded on every side. Fragments of statues let their plaster crumblein the grass. The feet of anyone walking through the place got entangledin iron-wire work. There now remained of the pavilion only twoapartments on the ground floor, with some blue paper hanging in shreds.Before the facade extended an arbour in the Italian style, in which avine-tree was supported on columns of brick by a rail-work of sticks.
Soon they arrived at this spot; and, as the light fell through theirregular gaps on the green herbage, Frederick, turning his head on oneside to speak to Louise, noticed the shadow of the leaves on her face.
She had in her red hair, stuck in her chignon, a needle, terminated by aglass bell in imitation of emerald, and, in spite of her mourning, shewore (so artless was her bad taste) straw slippers trimmed with pinksatin--a vulgar curiosity probably bought at some fair.
He remarked this, and ironically congratulated her.
"Don't be laughing at me!" she replied.
Then surveying him altogether, from his grey felt hat to his silkstockings:
"What an exquisite you are!"
After this, she asked him to mention some works which she could read. Hegave her the names of several; and she said:
"Oh! how learned you are!"
While yet very small, she had been smitten with one of those childishpassions which have, at the same time, the purity of a religion and theviolence of a natural instinct. He had been her comrade, her brother,her master, had diverted her mind, made her heart beat more quickly,and, without any desire for such a result, had poured out into the verydepths of her being a latent and continuous intoxication. Then he hadparted with her at the moment of a tragic crisis in her existence, whenher mother had only just died, and these two separations had beenmingled together. Absence had idealised him in her memory. He had comeback with a sort of halo round his head; and she gave herself upingenuously to the feelings of bliss she experienced at seeing him oncemore.
For the first time in his life Frederick felt himself beloved; and thisnew pleasure, which did not transcend the ordinary run of agreeablesensations, made his breast swell with so much emotion that he spreadout his two arms while he flung back his head.
A large cloud passed across the sky.
"It is going towards Paris," said Louise. "You'd like to followit--wouldn't you?"
"I! Why?"
"Who knows?"
And surveying him with a sharp look:
"Perhaps you have there" (she searched her mind for the appropriatephrase) "something to engage your affections."
"Oh! I have nothing to engage my affections there."
"Are you perfectly certain?"
"Why, yes, Mademoiselle, perfectly certain!"
In less than a year there had taken place in the young girl anextraordinary transformation, which astonished Frederick. After aminute's silence he added:
"We ought to 'thee' and 'thou' each other, as we used to do longago--shall we do so?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because----"
He persisted. She answered, with downcast face:
"I dare not!"
br /> They had reached the end of the garden, which was close to theshell-bank. Frederick, in a spirit of boyish fun, began to send pebblesskimming over the water. She bade him sit down. He obeyed; then, lookingat the waterfall:
"'Tis like Niagara!" He began talking about distant countries and longvoyages. The idea of making some herself exercised a fascination overher mind. She would not have been afraid either of tempests or of lions.
Seated close beside each other, they collected in front of them handfulsof sand, then, while they were chatting, they let it slip through theirfingers, and the hot wind, which rose from the plains, carried to themin puffs odours of lavender, together with the smell of tar escapingfrom a boat behind the lock. The sun's rays fell on the cascade. Thegreenish blocks of stone in the little wall over which the water slippedlooked as if they were covered with a silver gauze that was perpetuallyrolling itself out. A long strip of foam gushed forth at the foot with aharmonious murmur. Then it bubbled up, forming whirlpools and a thousandopposing currents, which ended by intermingling in a single limpidstream of water.
Louise said in a musing tone that she envied the existence of fishes:
"It must be so delightful to tumble about down there at your ease, andto feel yourself caressed on every side."
Can I live without you?]
She shivered with sensuously enticing movements; but a voice exclaimed:
"Where are you?"
"Your maid is calling you," said Frederick.
"All right! all right!" Louise did not disturb herself.
"She will be angry," he suggested.
"It is all the same to me! and besides----" Mademoiselle Roque gave himto understand by a gesture that the girl was entirely subject to herwill.
She arose, however, and then complained of a headache. And, as they werepassing in front of a large cart-shed containing some faggots:
"Suppose we sat down there, _under shelter_?"
He pretended not to understand this dialectic expression, and eventeased her about her accent. Gradually the corners of her mouth werecompressed, she bit her lips; she stepped aside in order to sulk.
Frederick came over to her, swore he did not mean to annoy her, and thathe was very fond of her.
"Is that true?" she exclaimed, looking at him with a smile which lightedup her entire face, smeared over a little with patches of bran.
He could not resist the sentiment of gallantry which was aroused in himby her fresh youthfulness, and he replied:
"Why should I tell you a lie? Have you any doubt about it, eh?" and, ashe spoke, he passed his left hand round her waist.
A cry, soft as the cooing of a dove, leaped up from her throat. Her headfell back, she was going to faint, when he held her up. And his virtuousscruples were futile. At the sight of this maiden offering herself tohim he was seized with fear. He assisted her to take a few stepsslowly. He had ceased to address her in soothing words, and no longercaring to talk of anything save the most trifling subjects, he spoke toher about some of the principal figures in the society of Nogent.
Suddenly she repelled him, and in a bitter tone:
"You would not have the courage to run away with me!"
He remained motionless, with a look of utter amazement in his face. Sheburst into sobs, and hiding her face in his breast:
"Can I live without you?"
He tried to calm her emotion. She laid her two hands on his shoulders inorder to get a better view of his face, and fixing her green eyes on hiswith an almost fierce tearfulness:
"Will you be my husband?"
"But," Frederick began, casting about in his inner consciousness for areply. "Of course, I ask for nothing better."
At that moment M. Roque's cap appeared behind a lilac-tree.
He brought his young friend on a trip through the district in order toshow off his property; and when Frederick returned, after two days'absence, he found three letters awaiting him at his mother's house.
The first was a note from M. Dambreuse, containing an invitation todinner for the previous Tuesday. What was the occasion of thispoliteness? So, then, they had forgiven his prank.
The second was from Rosanette. She thanked him for having risked hislife on her behalf. Frederick did not at first understand what shemeant; finally, after a considerable amount of circumlocution, whileappealing to his friendship, relying on his delicacy, as she put it, andgoing on her knees to him on account of the pressing necessity of thecase, as she wanted bread, she asked him for a loan of five hundredfrancs. He at once made up his mind to supply her with the amount.
The third letter, which was from Deslauriers, spoke of the letter ofattorney, and was long and obscure. The advocate had not yet taken anydefinite action. He urged his friend not to disturb himself: "'Tisuseless for you to come back!" even laying singular stress on thispoint.
Frederick got lost in conjectures of every sort; and he felt anxious toreturn to Paris. This assumption of a right to control his conductexcited in him a feeling of revolt.
Moreover, he began to experience that nostalgia of the boulevard; andthen, his mother was pressing him so much, M. Roque kept revolving abouthim so constantly, and Mademoiselle Louise was so much attached to him,that it was no longer possible for him to avoid speedily declaring hisintentions.
He wanted to think, and he would be better able to form a right estimateof things at a distance.
In order to assign a motive for his journey, Frederick invented a story;and he left home, telling everyone, and himself believing, that he wouldsoon return.