Chapter XXII: A Bottle of Absinthe

Georget ran home to his mother without stopping, without drawing breath; he found her sewing, snatched her work from her hands, and threw it aside, saying:

“Drop that, mamma, don’t work any more, don’t tire your eyes any more; hereafter you will be able to enjoy yourself, to be happy, to walk about all day long. Oh, yes; you are going to be very happy, I tell you! Pack up your things quick, we’re going away.”

Honest Mère Brunoy gazed at her son in surprise, utterly unable to understand what he said; but his wild manner, his excitement, frightened her, and she exclaimed:

“What’s the matter with you, Georget? what has happened to you, my boy? You’re not in your usual condition.”

“It’s joy, mother; yes, it’s pleasure, I tell you, good fortune; that upsets a man a little, but I shall get used to it; I will make the best of it and not think of her any more.”

“You will make the best of your good fortune! you won’t think of her any more! I don’t understand at all! You talk of joy and of pleasure, and you have tears in your eyes, and you are as pale as death! Do you know that you don’t look at all like a person who brings good news?”

“You’re mistaken, mother, I am very happy; for I tell you again, you won’t need to ruin your eyes any more, to wear yourself out working.”

“How is that, my dear?”

“Because Monsieur Malberg--you know, that gentleman on the third floor who is so kind to us----”

“Yes, yes; well?”

“Well, we are going to his house in the country--both of us, mother, both of us. Yes, I will go with you and settle down there; I won’t leave you any more; I won’t come to Paris any more--never! never! oh! I have a horror of Paris!”

“What’s that, my boy? Monsieur Malberg has offered you a place at his country house, too?”

“Why, yes, to be sure; I am to look after the workmen, to take care of his garden and plant it; there are eight acres of it--that’s a pretty good-sized garden, eight acres! He told me that I should be at liberty to arrange it all as I pleased; and you, mother, you will have charge of the house, the linen, the furniture, the poultry yard; and he will give us a thousand francs a year for it.”

“A thousand francs! Mon Dieu! why that is a fortune, my boy! It means that our future is provided for; you will not be a messenger any more. We won’t spend the thousand francs; we will save up money to buy you a substitute when you are drafted! For that is what I am always thinking about.--And was it only just now that that generous man offered to employ you at his country house?”

“Just now--oh, no! It was a long time ago, mother. If you knew--but I won’t keep it from you any more; you shall know what a bad son I have been; but you will forgive me, when you know the cause. Mon Dieu! it was too much for me!”

“You, a bad son, Georget; no, that is impossible; you do yourself an injustice, my child!”

“No, for all this comfort that I offer you to-day, Monsieur Malberg proposed to me some time ago, when I spoke to you about going to his country house; it depended only on me to go there then with you, and I did not tell you that, because then I could not make up my mind to leave Paris; for--mon Dieu!--for I was in love--there! that is what I had at the bottom of my heart, and did not dare to tell you!”

“Is it possible! you in love already! Why, you won’t be eighteen for two months.”

“Still I have been in love a long time.”

“Poor boy! then that is the reason why some days you were so sad and other days so gay! Lovers always go to extremes!--And it’s all over now, is it?”

“Oh, yes! it’s all over, mother; I don’t propose to think of her any more; I don’t propose to see her, either, for if I should see her, I should treat her as she deserves; but that wouldn’t do any good, that wouldn’t prevent--what has happened. You see, mother, I believed that she was so virtuous, I would have gone into the fire for her, and she deceived me.”

“Did she tell you that she loved you, my boy?”

“She didn’t tell me so, except with her eyes,--at least it seemed to me that I could read it there. But I deceived myself, no doubt! However, let us not talk any more about her, mother, let us not talk any more about her. Pack up your things, take only what you need for a little while, and later I will come back and fetch the rest; the most important thing now is to go.”

“But, my boy, our furniture, and these lodgings--we haven’t given notice.”

“Don’t worry about all that, we will give it later. While you are getting ready, I will go and ask Baudoin, the concierge, if Monsieur Malberg is at his country house now.”

Georget left his mother and ran quickly down to the concierge. Baudoin was keeping the lodge, for his wife had drunk so much the night before that she had been taken ill, and was not in condition to leave her bed.

“Monsieur Baudoin, could you tell me if Monsieur Malberg is at his house at Nogent now, or if he is living here?” Georget asked as he entered the concierge’s lodge. That functionary, who was in very ill humor at being obliged to serve as his wife’s nurse, swore like several carters and said as he poured water into a cup:

“Herb tea! I think I see myself making her herb tea, the miserable drunkard! Water is what she needs, to put out the fire that she keeps kindled in her insides!”

“Will you answer me, please, Monsieur Baudoin?”

“Ah! Monsieur Georget, you see a man sorely vexed, sorely humiliated by his social position. My wife is my shame, I am not afraid to say so; she behaves like the lowest of the low! Just fancy, monsieur, that one of the chief clerks in my department--you know that I am employed in a department?”

“Yes, you are an office boy.”

“Boy! good God! I wish I was a boy! But it’s true that they call us office boys although we are married; and the day before yesterday one of my superiors, who is satisfied with my intelligence, made me a present of a bottle of absinthe,--as an extra--genuine Swiss absinthe, a liqueur that I am very fond of. So I came home with my bottle, but I took pains to tear off the label, and to say to Hildegarde, whose vicious tastes I know too well: ‘Don’t touch this bottle, don’t think of tasting what there is in it; it’s Chinese opium, and it would put you to sleep right away; but you’d never wake up.’--‘All right, that’s enough,’ said Hildegarde; ‘but I don’t see why you take it into your head to bring poison here.’ At that I says to her: ‘If I choose to do it, it’s none of your business, as I’m the master.’ Then she made some impertinent remark, I administered a healthy punishment, and we went to bed on it. Yesterday morning I started for my office as usual; I was delighted with my trick, and I said to myself that my absinthe was in no danger. Well, monsieur, I returned at night and what did I find? My bottle empty, no absinthe--Hildegarde had drunk it all, all, monsieur, and hadn’t left me a drop! That is what I can never forgive--I didn’t have a taste of it myself! As for my wife, you can judge what a state she was in, and when I undertook to reprove her, if she didn’t have the cheek to answer: ‘It’s your fault, you villain, I poisoned myself on purpose; I wanted to get away from your hard treatment; but you lied--your poison doesn’t put a body to sleep, and it ain’t bad at all, and if there was any more, I’d take another drink.’

“That, Monsieur Georget, is what the wretched creature dared to say to me; and to-day she is on her back, she can’t move, and I like to think that she’ll never get over it!”

“Oh! that’s a wicked thing to say, Monsieur Baudoin--to wish for your wife’s death!”

“It’s for her good, as she will not mend her ways.”

“But I beg you, tell me if Monsieur Malberg is at his country house or in Paris now?”

“Monsieur Malberg--why, I don’t know myself; but wait, he must be in Paris, for I saw his blackamoor going upstairs just now; indeed I believe he was carrying a bottle in a wooden case--you know the kind of bottle I mean; what there is inside must be fine!”

Georget lowered his head sadly, saying to himself:

“If Monsieur Malberg is in Paris now, we can’t go to his country house without his permission, without finding out whether he still wants us; but I would have liked to start to-day, for if I stay in Paris I can’t do otherwise than go out on the boulevard.”

“I say, Monsieur Georget,” continued the concierge, “if you want, I’ll go up to Monsieur Malberg’s and I’ll ask his yellow negro if his master is here.”

“Oh! if you would have that kindness, Monsieur Baudoin, I should be very much obliged to you!”

“With pleasure. I am not sorry to leave the lodge for a minute. If that creature asks for drink, give her water; she don’t like water and it’s a punishment for her.”

Baudoin went up to the third floor, and Georget remained in the lodge, absorbed, not in his thoughts, but in a single thought; for it was impossible for him to think of anything else than Violette’s going to Monsieur Jéricourt’s room. The concierge was absent a long time, but at last he came downstairs again, swearing as usual. “Ten thousand cursed names! how can a man take such animals as that into his service? They are brutes, and nothing else!”

“Well, Monsieur Baudoin, is Monsieur Malberg in Paris?”

“Just imagine, Monsieur Georget; I rang the bell upstairs,--I was very sure that there was someone there; however, it was a long while before anybody opened the door; I rang again and the black fellow appeared at last. ‘Is your master here just now?’ I asked him. That vagabond of a Ponceau began to laugh and showed all his teeth--I must admit that all colored men have extremely white teeth; probably it’s the white that their skin lacks. I asked my question again, and the slave answered, shaking his head violently: ‘No, no, no, master not here! Me here with Broubrou, Babo, and Zima; me come to fetch Zima!’--As I didn’t understand what he meant with his Broubrou and his Babo, I said to him: ‘But I didn’t come to ask for you.’--With that he made a face at me and left me there, and went back into the salon. But I heard him talking and jabbering; you would have sworn that there were two people disputing. That is what makes me think that the negro lied when he said that his master wasn’t in, for it couldn’t be anybody else that I heard him talking to.”

Georget, understanding only vaguely what Baudoin told him, concluded that he would do better to go up to Monsieur Malberg’s himself, and learn what to expect. He wiped his eyes and left the lodge, without answering the concierge, who asked him if his wife Hildegarde was still breathing.

Pongo opened the door to the young messenger and leaped for joy when he saw him.

“Ah! Monsieur Georget! he nice boy, he come to see Pongo.”

“My dear Pongo, Monsieur Malberg is the one I would like to see; it is he that I have business with; is he in Paris?”

“No, no, me tell concierge so. Big fool, he no understand; he stand there like a stick.--Master, he in the country, in the pretty house, at Nogent.”

“He is at Nogent? Oh! I am glad of that, for then I can go there, I can take my mother there! Monsieur Malberg, who is so kind to us, offered me employment there long ago, and work for my mother; I refused then, but to-day I have decided to go; my mother is packing, and she must have finished by this time; but I don’t know what road to take to go to Nogent; can you tell me, Monsieur Pongo?”

“You, go to Nogent? Then you come with me. Me going back right away to master with Mamzelle Zima, what we forgot. Poor Zima! Her not like not to be in the country. Oh! me very glad if you coming, Monsieur Georget! You will see what a pretty place it is! Lots of fruit, fine garden, pretty flowers! Carabi, he play a lot down there; he grow big like a ball! You go fetch your good mother, and we start right away! I beat Broubrou, Babo, and all the little rugs! Dem nice and clean now. Me all ready.”

“I will go and bring my mother and our bundles.”

“Oh! me go up with you, carry all that! The mother, her never carry nothing.”

And the mulatto, without listening to Georget’s thanks, went up with him to the attic and took possession so quickly of all the bundles prepared by Madame Brunoy, that she had no time to remonstrate; Pongo was downstairs before the good woman had closed her door.

The three travellers passed the concierge’s lodge; Baudoin, who stood in the doorway, heaved a deep sigh as he said to them:

“God forgive me! I believe the wretched Hildegarde will recover!”