Jacques, having taken his leave of the gardener, cast a last glance at the house and walked sadly away from the village. A thousand plans pa.s.sed through his mind; he thought of going to Paris to look for Adeline; he thought of speaking to his brother, reproaching him for his evil conduct, and making him ashamed of the dest.i.tution in which he had left his wife; with his mind filled with such thoughts as these, he arrived at the farm. His friends there questioned him; they grieved with him, but still they hoped that Madame Murville would come to see them.
Sans-Souci shared that hope; he encouraged his comrade, and urged him to wait a few days before taking any steps.
Jacques"s patience was beginning to be exhausted; he was on the point of leaving the farm and going to Paris, when one morning the joyous outcry of the children announced some good news. It was Adeline, who appeared at the farm with her little Ermance.
Everybody ran to meet her; they surrounded her, pressed against her, embraced her, and manifested the most sincere joy. Adeline, deeply moved by the attachment of the peasants, found that she could still feel a sensation of pleasure.
"Ah!" she said to them, "I have not lost all, since I still have sincere friends."
Jacques did not know what he was doing; he seized Adeline"s hands, kissed them, swore, cried, stamped, and turned away to hide his tears.
Sans-Souci, overjoyed by Adeline"s return, and by the pleasure which his comrade felt, leaped and gamboled about among the hens and the ducks, and played with all the children; which he did only in moments of good humor.
"My friends," said Adeline to the people of the farm, as they crowded about her, "I am no longer what I was; unfortunate events have deprived me of my fortune, and I have nothing now but courage to endure this reverse, and my conscience, which tells me that I did not deserve it. I must work now, to earn my living and to bring up my child; you made me welcome when I was rich; you will not turn me away now that I am poor; and I come to you confidently, to beg you to give me work. Oh! do not refuse me! On no other terms will I consent to remain here."
While Adeline was speaking, profound emotion was depicted on the features of those who surrounded her; Louise could not restrain her tears; Guillot, with wide-open mouth and eyes fastened upon Madame Murville, heaved profound sighs every moment, and Sans-Souci twisted his moustaches and pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes.
But Jacques, more deeply moved, more touched than they, at sight of the resignation of a lovely woman, who came to bury herself in a farm-house, renouncing all the pleasures of the capital and all the customs of aristocratic society, without uttering a word of reproach against the man who was responsible for her misfortunes,--honest Jacques could not restrain himself; he pushed away Louise and Guillot, who stood beside Adeline, and, shaking the young woman"s arm violently, as she gazed at him in amazement:
"No, sacrebleu!" he cried; "you shall not work, you shall not risk your health, you shall not roughen that soft skin by labor beyond your strength; I will take it upon myself to look after the support of you and your child. I will take care of you, I will watch over you both; and morbleu! so long as there is a drop of blood in my veins, I shall find a way to do my duty."
"What do you say, Jacques? your duty?"
"Yes, madame, yes, my duty; my brother has ruined your life, and the least that I can do will be to devote my life to you, and to try to repair his villainy."
"Is it possible? You are----"
"Jacques Murville, the boy who began his travels at fifteen, giving way to quick pa.s.sions, and to his desire to see the world; and I confess, between ourselves, groaning in secret at his mother"s coldness, and jealous of the caresses which were lavished upon his brother and unjustly denied to him. But none the less I possessed a heart, sensitive in the matter of honor, from which I have never departed, even in the midst of my youthful follies.--That is my story; embrace me; I feel that I am worthy of your affection, and you can bestow it upon me without blushing."
Adeline embraced Jacques warmly; she felt the keenest joy in meeting her husband"s brother, and the peasants exclaimed aloud in surprise, while Sans-Souci shouted at the top of his lungs as he rubbed his hands:
"I knew it! I knew it! but my comrade closed my mouth and I wouldn"t have said a word for all of the great Sultan"s pipes!"
"But why conceal from me so long the bond that unites us?" Adeline asked Jacques; "did you doubt it would please me to embrace my husband"s brother?"
"No," replied Jacques, somewhat embarra.s.sed, "no; but I wanted first of all to know you better; people sometimes blush for their relations."
"Ah! my friend, when a man wears this symbol of honor, can he conceive such fears?"
"Ten thousand bombs! that"s what I have been killing myself telling him every day," said Sans-Souci; "but he is a little pig-headed, is my friend; when he gets a thing into his head, he won"t let it go again."
"You have found me now that I can be useful to you; that is all that is necessary. Let us embrace again, and look upon me as your brother, as the father of this poor child; since he who ought to cherish her, and to adore you, has not a heart like other men; since he is unworthy to--Well, well! you want me to hold my tongue; you love him still, I see. Well! I am done; we won"t talk about him any more, and we will try to forget him."
"Oh! if he had seen you," said Adeline; "if he had found his brother, perhaps your advice----"
"If he had seen me!--But I must let that drop.--Let us forget an ingrate, who is not worthy of a single one of the tears you shed for him."
"Yes, yes, let"s be merry and joyful," said Guillot; "morgue! we mustn"t be groaning all the time; that makes a body stupid as a fool. Let"s sit down at the table, and to-night Brother Jacques will tell us about one of his battles, to amuse us. That"s amusing, I tell you! When I have been listening to him, I dream about battles all night long, I take my wife"s rump for a battery of artillery, and her legs for a battalion of infantry; and I think I hear the cannon."
"Hold your tongue, my man."
After the meal, they set about making the preparations required by Adeline"s presence at the farm. Louise arranged for her a small room looking on the fields; she tried to make it as pleasant as possible, by carrying thither such pretty things as she could find in the house. In vain did Adeline try to prevent her; when Louise had determined upon anything, that thing must be done; she refused to listen to the young woman when she implored her to look upon her as nothing but a poor peasant woman; the farmer"s wife desired to make Madame Murville forget her change of fortune, by redoubling her efforts to serve her with zeal and affection. Jacques did not thank the farmer"s wife, but he took her hands and pressed them fondly every time that she did anything for his sister, and Sans-Souci cried, bringing his hand down upon Guillot"s back:
"Morbleu! you have a fine wife, cousin! She manages things right well!"
"That"s so," said Guillot; "that"s why I don"t meddle with anything, not even with the children. Well, well, morgue, they come along well, all the same!"
Thus Adeline became an inmate of the farm house; she worked rapidly with the needle, and Louise was obliged to allow her to employ her whole day, either in sewing or spinning. Jacques felt that his strength was increased twofold since his brother"s wife and his little niece were with him. He alone was worth three farm hands; having become expert in the labor of the farm, he added to the farmer"s income by the pains that he took with everything which he did. Sans-Souci for his part imitated his comrade; he would have been ashamed to remain idle while the others employed their time to such good purpose. So that everything went well at the farm; Guillot and his wife scolded Adeline because she worked too much, and forbade Jacques to do so large a share of the work. But no heed was paid to them, and they had the agreeable certainty that they were not a burden to the worthy peasants.
Several months pa.s.sed thus, without bringing any change in the situation of the people at the farm. Adeline would have been content with her lot, if she could sometimes have heard from her husband; for she still loved the man who had wrecked her life, and the memory of Edouard constantly disturbed her repose. "What is he doing now?" she would ask herself each day; and the thought that Dufresne was with him added to her unhappiness and redoubled her anxiety. Often she formed the plan of going to Paris to make inquiries concerning her husband"s conduct; but she was afraid of offending Jacques, who, being bitterly angry with his brother, did not wish to hear his name mentioned, and had begged Adeline never to talk to him about Edouard.
Jacques feigned an indifference which he was far from feeling. In secret he thought of his brother, and he would have given anything in the world to know that he had repented of his errors, and to have him return and beg for a forgiveness which was already accorded him.
So Adeline and Jacques concealed from each other the thoughts that engrossed them, because each of them feared to distress the other by renewing the memory of his or her grief. Sans-Souci was the confidant of them both; Guillot sometimes had errands to be done in Paris, either to sell his grain, or to buy things that were needed at the farm; it was always Sans-Souci who was sent, because Jacques refused to go, lest he should meet his brother. But every time that Sans-Souci was to pay a visit to the capital, Adeline took him aside and begged him to ascertain what her husband was doing; Jacques dared not give the same commission to his comrade, but he would overtake Sans-Souci a little way from the farm, stop him a moment and say in an undertone:
"If you learn anything unpleasant about the man who has forgotten us, remember to hold your tongue, sacrebleu! If you breathe a word of it to my sister, you are no longer my friend."
And Sans-Souci would depart, charged with this twofold commission; but he always returned without learning anything. As Edouard had changed his name, no one could tell him what had become of him.
XXVIII
THE AUDACIOUS VILLAIN.--THE COWARD.--THE DRUNKARD
Fortune seemed to smile anew upon the wretches who, to obtain money, had been false to honor and had defied all the laws of society; it was a fresh temptation, which impelled them toward crime and prevented them from turning back. The first success seems to warrant impunity for the future; the guilty man grows bolder, and one who enters in fear and trembling the path of vice soon casts aside all shame and seeks to surpa.s.s those who have led him on to dishonor.
The gaming table, to which Edouard abandoned himself more madly than ever, had ceased to be unfavorable to him; he won constantly, and the wretch congratulated himself upon having found an expedient to restore his fortune. Dufresne and Lampin taught him all the methods employed by blacklegs to play, without risk of loss, with such gulls as would play with them. Then the worthy trio would laugh among themselves at the expense of the dupes they had ruined, and each of them tried to invent some more rascally trick, in order to outdo his comrades.
Lampin lived with his two friends; Dufresne had convinced Edouard that it was not safe to break with him. Moreover, Lampin was endowed with an imagination fertile in stratagems and in skilful devices; he was a great help to swindlers.
When fortune had been favorable, or they had found some new dupe, they thought only of enjoying themselves. They would take to their rooms some of those women who go everywhere, and who, for money, sell themselves to the mason, the pensioner, the banker, or the bootblack, indiscriminately. Such women alone were suitable companions for men who took part in the most horrible orgies, the most unbridled debauchery.
One evening, when they were waiting for Lampin before taking their seats at the table, he arrived laughing, and hastened to inform his friends, as a very amusing piece of news, that a certain note had been declared a forgery, and that the discounter was out of pocket to the amount of the note. Edouard was horrified and turned pale; Dufresne rea.s.sured him by declaring that they could never be discovered; they had changed their names and abode since then, and no one could recognize them; there were no proofs to be produced against them. Lampin alone might be sought for; but he was so accomplished in changing his face and his whole person, that he snapped his fingers at the police.
Edouard was not rea.s.sured; however, he tried to divert his thoughts and to drive away his fears. Two young women, frequent guests of these gentlemen, arrived opportunely to enliven the company.
"Parbleu," said Lampin, "Veronique-la-Blonde must tell us some amusing story; she always knows the most interesting news; that will brace up our friend Bellecour--this was Edouard"s new name--who is rather in the dumps to-night."
"Oh! I am not just in the mood for fooling," replied Veronique, with a sigh; "I am sort of upside down myself to-day."
"It seems to me that you ought to be used to that."
"Oh! don"t talk a lot of nonsense. Really, my heart is terribly sore."
"The deuce you say! Have you had trouble with the beaks?"
"No, it ain"t that; but I"ve got a friend who"s mixed up in a bad piece of business, and that troubles me."