in his holidays even, excepting some days given to his family, his time had been given to travelling. During the last years he had not even appeared in Alsheim.
The end of it was that the administration no longer suspected him. Besides, one of the great obstacles to a public reconciliation between the functionaries of Alsace and M. Joseph Oberlé had disappeared. The old protesting deputy, seized by the illness which became chronic, retired from political life in 1890. From that moment dated, for the son, the smiles, the promises, the favours so long solicited. M. Joseph Oberlé recognised in the development his affairs had taken—in the Rhenish country and even beyond it—in the diminution of the official reports directed against his employés, or against himself in cases of contravention, in the signs of deference which the small officials showed him—formerly the most arrogant of all, in the ease with which he had ruled disputable points, obtained authorisations, altered the rules in divers points—in all these signs, as well as in others, he recognised that the governmental mind, present everywhere, incarnate everywhere in a multitude of men of gold lace—was no longer against him.
More definite advances were made to him. The preceding winter, while Lucienne, who had returned from the Mündner school, pretty, witty, charming, was dancing in the German salons of Strasburg, the father was talking with the representatives of the Empire. One of them, the prefect of Strasburg, Count Kassewitz, acting probably in accordance with superior orders, had let drop that the Government would see, without displeasure, M. Joseph Oberlé present himself as candidate for the deputyship in one of the districts of Alsace, and that the official support of the administration would be given to the son of the old protesting deputy.
This prospect filled M. Oberlé with joy. It had revived the ambition of this man who found himself up to then repaid but badly for the sacrifices of self-respect, friendships, and memories, which he had had to make. It gave new energies and a definite object to this official temperament, depressed by circumstances. M. Oberlé saw his justification in it, without being able to reveal it. He said to himself that, thanks to his energy, to his contempt for Utopia, to his clear sight of what was possible and what was not, he could hope for a future for himself—a participation in public life—a part he had believed to be reserved for his son. And henceforward it would be the answer that he would make to himself; if ever a doubt entered his mind, it would be his revenge against the mute insults offered him by some backward peasants, who forgot to recognise him in the streets, and by certain citizens of Strasburg or Alsheim, who scarcely, or no longer, saluted him.
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