Chapter XXXV

When Madame Bastien, her husband, and the bailiff entered the dining-room, they found there David and Frederick.

The latter exchanged a glance with his preceptor, approached Jacques Bastien, and said to him, in a respectful tone:

"Good morning, father, I thought you wished to be alone with my mother, and that is why I withdrew upon your arrival."

"It seems that your hysterics are gone," said Bastien to his son, in a tone of sarcasm, "and you no longer need to travel for pleasure. That is a pity, for I wanted to humour you with pleasure."

"I do not know what you mean, father."

Instead of replying to his son, Bastien, still standing, occupied himself in counting the plates on the table; he saw five and said to his wife, curtly:

"Why are there five plates?"

"Why, monsieur, because we are five," replied Marie.

"How five? I, Bridou, you and your son, does that make five?"

"You forget M. David," said Marie.

Jacques then addressed the preceptor.

"Monsieur, I do not know upon what conditions my wife has engaged you. As for me, I am master here, and I do not like to have strangers at my table. That is my opinion."

At this new rudeness, the calmness of David did not forsake him, the consciousness of insult brought an involuntary blush to his brow, but he bowed, without uttering a word, and started toward the door.

Frederick, his face flushed with indignation and distress at this second outrage against the character and dignity of David, was preparing to follow him, when a supplicating glance from his friend arrested him.

At this moment, Marie said to the preceptor:

"M. David, M. Bastien having disposed of your chamber for a few days, will you consent to having a bed prepared for you in the chamber with old Andre?--unfortunately we have no other place for you."

"Nothing easier, madame," replied David, smiling. "I have the honour of being somewhat at home; so it is for me to yield the chamber I occupy to a stranger."

David bowed again and left the dining-room.

After the departure of the preceptor, Jacques Bastien, entirely unconscious of his coarseness, sat down to the table, for he was very hungry in spite of the anger he nursed against his wife and son.

Each one took his place.

Jacques Bastien had Bridou on his right, Frederick on his left, and Marie sat opposite.

The anxiety of the young woman made her seek to change the subject of conversation constantly; she feared Jacques might discover the absence of the silver plate.

This revelation, however, hung upon a new incident.

Jacques Bastien, removing the cover from the soup tureen, dilated his wide nostrils, so as to inhale the aroma of the cabbage soup he had ordered, but, finding his expectation mistaken, he cried furiously, addressing his wife:

"What! no cabbage soup? and I wrote to you expressly that I wanted it. Perhaps there is no leg of mutton with cloves either?"

"I do not know, monsieur, I forgot to--"

"By God's thunder, what a woman,--there!" cried Jacques, furiously, throwing the tureen cover down on the table so violently that it broke in pieces.

At the brutal exclamation of his father, Frederick betrayed his indignation by an abrupt movement.

Immediately Marie, pressing her son's hand under the table, signified her disapproval, and he restrained himself, but his quick resentment did not escape the eye of Jacques, who, after looking a long time at his son in silence, said to Bridou:

"Come, my comrade, we must content ourselves with this slop."

"It is pot luck, my old fellow," said the bailiff. "Pot luck, eh, eh, we all know that."

"Come," said Jacques, "let us at least say our grace before eating."

And he poured out a bumper for Bridou, after which he emptied almost the rest of the bottle in an enormous glass, which he was accustomed to use, and which held a pint.

The obese Hercules swallowed this bumper at one draught, then, disposing himself comfortably to serve the soup, he took in his hand an iron spoon, plated over, and bright with cleanliness.

"Why in the devil did you put this pot ladle here?" said he to Marie.

"Monsieur, I do not know," replied the young woman, looking down and stammering, "I--"

"Why not put on the table my large silver ladle, as usual," asked Jacques. "Is it because my comrade Bridou has come to dine here?"

Then, addressing his son, he said, abruptly:

"Get the silver ladle from the buffet."

"It is useless, father," said Frederick, resolutely, seeing the anguish of his mother and wishing to turn his father's anger toward himself. "The large silver ladle is not in the house; neither is the rest of the silver."

"What?" asked Jacques, stupidly.

But, not believing his ears, he seized the plate at his side, looked at it, and convinced of the truth of his son's words, he remained a moment, besotted with amazement.

Frederick and his mother exchanged glances at this critical moment.

The young man, determined to bring his father's anger on himself alone, replied, resolutely:

"It was I, father; without telling my mother, I sold the silver for--"

"Monsieur," cried Marie, addressing Jacques, "do not believe Frederick; it was I, and I alone, who--ah, well, yes, it was I who sold the silver."

Notwithstanding his wife's confession, Jacques Bastien could not believe what he had heard, so preposterous, so impossible did the whole thing appear.

Bridou himself, this time, sincerely shared the bewilderment of his friend, and the bailiff broke the silence by saying to Jacques:

"Humph, humph, old fellow, this is another affair to selling your fir-trees, I think."

Marie expected an explosion of wrath from her passionate husband. There was no such thing.

Jacques remained silent, immovable, and absorbed for a long time. His broad face was more florid than usual. He drank, one after another, two great glasses of wine, leaned his elbows on the table, with his chin in the palm of his hand, drumming convulsively on his fat cheek with his contracted fingers. Fixing on his wife's face his two little gray eyes, which glittered under his frowning eyebrows with a sinister light, he said, with apparent calmness:

"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.