a stout woman, who was cutting some bread and butter for the three children, intervened with an air of quiet authority: “You ought to take those materials away, Mademoiselle Cecile. She’s incapable of doing anything with them. They will end by getting dirty, and then your people won’t take them back.”
This stout woman was a certain Madame Joseph, a widow of forty and a charwoman by calling, whom Benard, the husband, had at first engaged to come two hours every morning to attend to the housework, his wife not having strength enough to put on a child’s shoes or to set a pot on the fire. At first Euphrasie had offered furious resistance to this intrusion of a stranger, but, her physical decline progressing, she had been obliged to yield. And then things had gone from bad to worse, till Madame Joseph became supreme in the household. Between times there had been terrible scenes over it all; but the wretched Euphrasie, stammering and shivering, had at last resigned herself to the position, like some little old woman sunk into second childhood and already cut off from the world. That Benard and Madame Joseph were not bad-hearted in reality was shown by the fact that although Euphrasie was now but an useless encumbrance, they kept her with them, instead of flinging her into the streets as others would have done.
“Why, there you are again in the middle of the room!” suddenly exclaimed the fat woman, who each time that she went hither and thither found it necessary to avoid the other’s chair. “How funny it is that you can never put yourself in a corner! Auguste will be coming in for his four o’clock snack in a moment, and he won’t be at all pleased if he doesn’t find his cheese and his glass of wine on the table.”
Without replying, Euphrasie nervously staggered to her feet, and with the greatest trouble dragged her chair towards the table. Then she sat down again limp and very weary.
Just as Madame Joseph was bringing the cheese, Benard, whose workshop was near by, made his appearance. He was still a full-bodied, jovial fellow, and began to jest with his sister-in-law while showing great politeness towards Mathieu, whom he thanked for taking interest in his unhappy wife’s condition. “Mon Dieu, monsieur,” said he, “it isn’t her fault; it is all due to those rascally doctors at the hospital. For a year or so one might have thought her cured, but you see what has now become of her. Ah! it ought not to be allowed! You are no doubt aware that they treated Cecile just the same. And there was another, too, a baroness, whom you must know. She called here the other day to see Euphrasie, and, upon my word, I didn’t recognize her. She used to be such a fine woman, and now she looks a hundred years old. Yes, yes, I say that the doctors ought to be sent to prison.”
He was about to sit down to table when he stumbled against Euphrasie’s chair. She sat watching him with an anxious, semi-stupefied expression. “There you are, in my way as usual!” said he; “one is always tumbling up against you. Come, make a little room, do.”
He did not seem to be a very terrible customer, but at the sound of his voice she began to tremble, full of childish fear, as if she were threatened with a thrashing. And this time she found strength enough to drag her chair as far as a dark closet, the door of which was open. She there sought refuge, ensconcing herself in the gloom, amid which one could vaguely espy her shrunken, wrinkled face, which suggested that of some very old great-grandmother, who was taking years and years to die.
Mathieu’s heart contracted as he observed that senile terror, that shivering obedience on the part of a woman whose harsh, dry, aggressively quarrelsome disposition he so well remembered. Industrious, self-willed, full of life as she had once been, she was now but a limp human rag. And yet her case was recorded in medical annals as one of the renowned Gaude’s great miracles of cure. Ah! how truly had Boutan spoken in saying that people ought to wait to see the real results of those victorious operations which were sapping the vitality of France.
Cecile, however, with eager affection, kissed the three children, who somehow continued to grow up in that wrecked household. Tears came to her eyes, and directly Madame Joseph had given her back the work-materials entrusted to Euphrasie she hurried Mathieu away. And, as they reached the street, she said: “Thank you, Monsieur Froment; I can go home on foot now — . How frightful, eh? Ah! as I told you, we shall be in Paradise, Norine and I, in the quiet room which you have so kindly promised to rent for us.”
On reaching Beauchene’s establishment Mathieu immediately repaired to the workshops, but he could obtain no precise information respecting his threshing-machine, though he had ordered it several months previously. He was told that the master’s son, Monsieur Maurice, had gone out on business, and that nobody could give him an answer, particularly as the master himself had not put in an appearance at the works that week. He learnt, however, that Beauchene had returned from a journey that very day, and must be indoors with his wife. Accordingly, he resolved to call at the house, less on account of the threshing-machine than to decide a matter of great interest to him, that of the entry of one of his twin sons, Blaise, into the establishment.
This big fellow had lately left college, and although he had only completed his nineteenth year, he was on the point of marrying a portionless young girl, Charlotte Desvignes, for whom he had conceived a romantic attachment ever since childhood. His parents, seeing in this match a renewal of their own former loving improvidence, had felt moved, and unwilling to drive the lad to despair. But, if he was to marry, some employment must first be found for him. Fortunately this could be managed. While Denis, the other of the twins, entered a technical school, Beauchene, by way of showing his esteem for the increasing fortune of his good cousins, as he now called the Froments, cordially offered to give Blaise a situation at his establishment.
On being ushered into Constance’s little yellow salon, Mathieu found her taking a cup of tea with Madame Angelin, who had come back with her from the Rue de Miromesnil. Beauchene’s unexpected arrival on the scene had disagreeably interrupted their private converse. He had returned from one of the debauches in which he so frequently indulged under the pretext of making a short business journey, and, still slightly intoxicated, with feverish, sunken eyes and clammy tongue, he was wearying the two women with his impudent, noisy falsehoods.
“Ah! my dear fellow!” he exclaimed on seeing Mathieu, “I was just telling the ladies of my return from Amiens — . What wonderful duck pates they have there!”
Then, on Mathieu speaking to him of Blaise, he launched out into protestations of friendship. It was understood, the young fellow need only present himself at the works, and in the first instance he should be put with Morange, in order that he might learn something of the business mechanism of the establishment. Thus talking, Beauchene puffed and coughed and spat, exhaling meantime the odor of tobacco, alcohol, and musk, which he always brought back from his “sprees,” while his wife smiled affectionately before the others as was her wont, but directed at him glances full of despair and disgust whenever Madame Angelin turned her head.
As Beauchene continued talking too much, owning for instance that he did not know how far the thresher might be from completion, Mathieu noticed Constance listening anxiously. The idea of Blaise entering the establishment had already rendered her grave, and now her husband’s apparent ignorance of important business matters distressed her. Besides, the thought of Norine was reviving in her mind; she remembered the girl’s child, and almost feared some fresh understanding between Beauchene and Mathieu. All at once, however, she gave a cry of great relief: “Ah! here is Maurice.”
Her son was entering the room — her son, the one and only god on whom she now set her affection and pride, the crown-prince who tomorrow would become king, who would save the kingdom from perdition, and who would exalt her on his right hand in a blaze of glory. She deemed him handsome, tall, strong, and as invincible in his nineteenth year as all the knights of the old legends. When he explained that he had just profitably compromised a worrying transaction in which his father had rashly embarked, she pictured him repairing disasters and achieving victories. And she triumphed more than ever on hearing him promise that the threshing-machine should be ready before the end of that same week.
