To think of a profession, Maxence Favoral had not waited for the paternal warnings.
Modern schoolboys are precocious: they know the strong and the weak side of life; and, when they take their degree, they already have but few illusions left.
And how could it be otherwise? In the interior of the colleges is fatally found the echo of the thoughts, and the reflex of the manners, of the time. Neither walls nor keepers can avail. At the same time, as the city mud that stains their boots, the scholars bring back on their return from holidays their stock of observations and of facts.
And what have they seen during the day in their families, or among their friends?
Ardent cravings, insatiable appet.i.tes for luxuries, comforts, enjoyments, pleasures, contempt for patient labor, scorn for austere convictions, eager longing for money, the will to become rich at any cost, and the firm resolution to ravish fortune on the first favorable occasion.
To be sure, they have dissembled in their presence; but their perceptions are keen.
True, their father has told them in a grave tone, that there is nothing respectable in this world except labor and honesty; but they have caught that same father scarcely noticing a poor devil of an honest man, and bowing to the earth before some clever rascal bearing the stigma of three judgments, but worth six millions.
Conclusion? Oh! they know very well how to conclude; for there are none such as young people to be logical, and to deduce the utmost consequences of a fact.
They know, the most of them, that they will have to do something or other; but what? And it is then, that, during the recreations, their imagination strives to find that hitherto unknown profession which is to give them fortune without work, and freedom at the same time as a brilliant situation.
They discuss and criticise freely all the careers which are open to youthful ambition. And how they laugh, if some simple fellow ventures upon suggesting some of those modest situations where they earn one hundred and fifty francs a month at the start! One hundred and fifty francs!-why, it"s hardly as much as many a boy spends for his cigars, and his cab-fares when he is late.
Maxence was neither better nor worse than the rest. Like the rest he strove to discover the ideal profession which makes a man rich, and amuses him at the same time.
Under the pretext that he drew nicely, he spoke of becoming a painter, calculating coolly what painting may yield, and reckoning, according to some newspaper, the earnings of Corot or Geroine, Ziem, Bouguereau, and some others, who are reaping at last the fruits of unceasing efforts and crushing labors.
But, in the way of pictures, M. Vincent Favoral appreciated only the blue vignettes of the Bank of France.
"I wish no artists in my family," he said, in a tone that admitted of no reply.
Maxence would willingly have become an engineer, for it"s rather the style to be an engineer now-a-days; but the examinations for the Polytechnic School are rather steep. Or else a cavalry officer; but the two years at Saint Cyr are not very gay. Or chief clerk, like M. Desormeaux; but he would have to begin by being supernumerary.
Finally after hesitating for a long time between law and medicine, he made up his mind to become a lawyer, influenced above all, by the joyous legends of the Latin quarter.
That was not exactly M. Vincent Favoral"s dream.
"That"s going to cost money again," he growled.
The fact is, he had indulged in the fallacious hope that his son, as soon as he left college, would enter at once some business-house, where he would earn enough to take care of himself.
He yielded at last, however, to the persistent entreaties of his wife, and the solicitations of his friends.
"Be it so," he said to Maxence: "you will study law. Only, as it cannot suit me that you should waste your days lounging in the billiard-rooms of the left bank, you shall at the same time work in an attorney"s office. Next Sat.u.r.day I shall arrange with my friend Chapelain."
Maxence had not bargained for such an arrangement; and he came near backing out at the prospect of a discipline which he foresaw must be as exacting as that of the college.
Still, as he could think of nothing better, he persevered. And, vacations over, he was duly entered at the law-school, and settled at a desk in M. Chapelain"s office, which was then in the Rue St. Antoine.
The first year every thing went on tolerably. He enjoyed as much freedom as he cared to. His father did not allow him one centime for his pocket-money; but the attorney, in his capacity of an old friend of the family, did for him what he had never done before for an amateur clerk, and allowed him twenty francs a month. Mme. Favoral adding to this a few five-franc pieces, Maxence declared himself entirely satisfied.
Unfortunately, with his lively imagination and his impetuous temper, no one was less fit than himself for that peaceful existence, that steady toil, the same each day, without the stimulus of difficulties to overcome, or the satisfaction of results obtained.
Before long he became tired of it.
He had found at the law-school a number of his old schoolmates whose parents resided in the provinces, and who, consequently, lived as they pleased in the Latin quarter, less a.s.siduous to the lectures than to the Spring Brewery and the Closerie des Lilas.[*]
[ * A noted dancing-garden. ]
He envied them their joyous life, their freedom without control, their facile pleasures, their furnished rooms, and even the low eating-house where they took their meals. And, as much as possible, he lived with them and like them.
But it is not with M. Chapelain"s twenty francs that it would have been possible for him to keep up with fellows, who, with superb recklessness, took on credit everything they could get, reserving the amount of their allowance for those amus.e.m.e.nts which had to be paid for in cash.
But was not Mme. Favoral here?
She had worked so much, the poor woman, especially since Mlle. Gilberte had become almost a young lady; she had so much saved, so much stinted, that her reserve, notwithstanding repeated drafts, amounted to a good round sum.
When Maxence wanted two or three napoleons, he had but a word to say; and he said it often. Thus, after a while, he became an excellent billiard-player; he kept his colored meerschaum in the rack of a popular brewery; he took absinthe before dinner, and spent his evenings in the laudable effort to ascertain how many mugs of beer he could "put away." Gaining in audacity, he danced at Bullier"s, dined at Foyd"s, and at last had a mistress.
So much so, that one afternoon, M. Favoral having to visit on business the other side of the water, found himself face to face with his son, who was coming along, a cigar in his mouth, and having on his arm a young lady, painted in superior style, and harnessed with a toilet calculated to make the cab-horses rear.
He returned to the Rue St. Gilles in a state of indescribable rage.
"A woman!" he exclaimed in a tone of offended modesty. "A woman! -he, my son!"
And when that son made his appearance, looking quite sheepish, his first impulse was to resort to his former mode of correction.
But Maxence was now over nineteen years of age.
At the sight of the uplifted cane, he became whiter than his shirt; and, wrenching it from his father"s hands, he broke it across his knees, threw the pieces violently upon the floor, and sprang out of the house.
"He shall never again set his foot here!" screamed the cashier of the Mutual Credit, thrown beside himself by an act of resistance which seemed to him unheard of. "I banish him. Let his clothes be packed up, and taken to some hotel: I never want to see him again."
For a long time Mme. Favoral and Gilberte fairly dragged themselves at his feet, before he consented to recall his determination.
"He will disgrace us all!" he kept repeating, seeming unable to understand that it was himself who had, as it were, driven Maxence on to the fatal road which he was pursuing, forgetting that the absurd severities of the father prepared the way for the perilous indulgence of the mother, unwilling to own that the head of a family has other duties besides providing food and shelter for his wife and children, and that a father has but little right to complain who has not known how to make himself the friend and the adviser of his son.
At last, after the most violent recriminations, he forgave, in appearance at least.
But the scales had dropped from his eyes. He started in quest of information, and discovered startling enormities.
He heard from M. Chapelain that Maxence remained whole weeks at a time without appearing at the office. If he had not complained before, it was because he had yielded to the urgent entreaties of Mme. Favoral; and he was now glad, he added, of an opportunity to relieve his conscience by a full confession.
Thus the cashier discovered, one by one, all his son"s tricks. He heard that he was almost unknown at the law-school, that he spent his days in the Cafes, and that, in the evening, when he believed him in bed and asleep, he was in fact running out to theatres and to b.a.l.l.s.
"Ah! that"s the way, is it?" he thought. "Ah, my wife and children are in league against me,-me, the master. Very well, we"ll see."
XI
From that morning war was declared.
From that day commenced in the Rue St. Gilles one of those domestic dramas which are still awaiting their Moliere,-a drama of distressing vulgarity and sickening realism, but poignant, nevertheless; for it brought into action tears, blood, and a savage energy.
M. Favoral thought himself sure to win; for did he not have the key of the cash, and is not the key of the cash the most formidable weapon in an age where every thing begins and ends with money?
Nevertheless, he was filled with irritating anxieties.
He who had just discovered so many things which he did not even suspect a few days before, he could not discover the source whence his son drew the money which flowed like water from his prodigal hands.
He had made sure that Maxence had no debts; and yet it could not be with M. Chapelain"s monthly twenty francs that he fed his frolics.
Mme. Favoral and Gilberte, subjected separately to a skillful interrogatory, had managed to keep inviolate the secret of their mercenary labor. The servant, shrewdly questioned, had said nothing that could in any way cause the truth to be suspected.
Here was, then, a mystery; and M. Favoral"s constant anxiety could be read upon his knitted brows during his brief visits to the house; that is, during dinner.
From the manner in which he tasted his soup, it was easy to see that he was asking himself whether that was real soup, and whether he was not being imposed upon. From the expression of his eyes, it was easy to guess this question constantly present to his mind.
"They are robbing me evidently; but how do they do it?"
And he became distrustful, fussy, and suspicious, to an extent that he had never been before. It was with the most insulting precautions that he examined every Sunday his wife"s accounts. He took a look at the grocer"s, and settled it himself every month: he had the butcher"s bills sent to him in duplicate. He would inquire the price of an apple as he peeled it over his plate, and never failed to stop at the fruiterer"s and ascertain that he had not been deceived.
But it was all in vain.
And yet he knew that Maxence always had in his pocket two or three five-franc pieces.
"Where do you steal them?" he asked him one day.
"I save them out of my salary," boldly answered the young man.
Exasperated, M. Favoral wished to make the whole world take an interest in his investigations. And one Sat.u.r.day evening, as he was talking with his friends, M. Chapelain, the worthy Desclavettes, and old man Desormeaux, pointing to his wife and daughter: "Those d---d women rob me," he said, "for the benefit of my son; and they do it so cleverly that I can"t find out how. They have an understanding with the shop-keepers, who are but licensed thieves; and nothing is eaten here that they don"t make me pay double its value."
M. Chapelain made an ill-concealed grimace; whilst M. Desclavettes sincerely admired a man who had courage enough to confess his meanness.
But M. Desormeaux never minced things.
"Do you know, friend Vincent," he said, "that it requires a strong stomach to take dinner with a man who spends his time calculating the cost of every mouthful that his guests swallow?"
M. Favoral turned red in the face.
"It is not the expense that I deplore," he replied, "but the duplicity. I am rich enough, thank Heaven! not to begrudge a few francs; and I would gladly give to my wife twice as much as she takes, if she would only ask it frankly."
But that was a lesson.
Hereafter he was careful to dissimulate, and seemed exclusively occupied in subjecting his son to a system of his invention, the excessive rigor of which would have upset a steadier one than he.
He demanded of him daily written attestations of his attendance both at the law-school and at the lawyer"s office. He marked out the itinerary of his walks for him, and measured the time they required, within a few minutes. Immediately after dinner he shut him up in his room, under lock and key, and never failed, when he came home at ten o"clock to make sure of his presence.
He could not have taken steps better calculated to exalt still more Mme. Favoral"s blind tenderness.
When she heard that Maxence had a mistress, she had been rudely shocked in her most cherished feelings. It is never without a secret jealousy that a mother discovers that a woman has robbed her of her son"s heart. She had retained a certain amount of spite against him on account of disorders, which, in her candor, she had never suspected. She forgave him every thing when she saw of what treatment he was the object.
She took sides with him, believing him to be the victim of a most unjust persecution. In the evening, after her husband had gone out, Gilberte and herself would take their sewing, sit in the hall outside his room, and converse with him through the door. Never had they worked so hard for the shop-keeper in the Rue St. Denis. Some weeks they earned as much as twenty-five or thirty francs.
But Maxence"s patience was exhausted; and one morning he declared resolutely that he would no longer attend the law-school, that he had been mistaken in his vocation, and that there was no human power capable to make him return to M. Chapelain"s.
"And where will you go?" exclaimed his father. "Do you expect me eternally to supply your wants?"
He answered that it was precisely in order to support himself, and conquer his independence, that he had resolved to abandon a profession, which, after two years, yielded him twenty francs a month.
"I want some business where I have a chance to get rich," he replied. "I would like to enter a banking-house, or some great financial establishment."
Mme. Favoral jumped at the idea.
"That"s a fact," she said to her husband. "Why couldn"t you find a place for our son at the Mutual Credit? There he would be under your own eyes. Intelligent as he is, backed by M. de Thaller and yourself, he would soon earn a good salary."
M. Favoral knit his brows.
"That I shall never do," he uttered. "I have not sufficient confidence in my son. I cannot expose myself to have him compromise the consideration which I have acquired for myself."
And, revealing to a certain extent the secret of his conduct: "A cashier," he added, "who like me handles immense sums cannot be too careful of his reputation. Confidence is a delicate thing in these times, when there are so many cashiers constantly on the road to Belgium. Who knows what would be thought of me, if I was known to have such a son as mine?"
Mme. Favoral was insisting, nevertheless, when he seemed to make up his mind suddenly.
"Enough," he said. "Maxence is free. I allow him two years to establish himself in some position. That delay over, good-by: he can find board and lodging where he please. That"s all. I don"t want to hear any thing more about it."
It was with a sort of frenzy that Maxence abused that freedom; and in less than two weeks he had dissipated three months" earnings of his mother and sister.
That time over, he succeeded, thanks to M. Chapelain, in finding a place with an architect.
This was not a very brilliant opening; and the chances were, that he might remain a clerk all his life. But the future did not trouble him much. For the present, he was delighted with this inferior position, which a.s.sured him each month one hundred and seventy-five francs.
One hundred and seventy-five francs! A fortune. And so he rushed into that life of questionable pleasures, where so many wretches have left not only the money which they had, which is nothing, but the money which they had not, which leads straight to the police-court.
He made friends with those shabby fellows who walk up and down in front of the Cafe Riche, with an empty stomach, and a tooth-pick between their teeth. He became a regular customer at those low Cafes of the Boulevards, where plastered girls smile to the men. He frequented those suspicious table d"hotes where they play baccarat after dinner on a wine-stained table-cloth, and where the police make periodical raids. He ate suppers in those night restaurants where people throw the bottles at each other"s heads after drinking their contents.
Often he remained twenty-four hours without coming to the Rue St. Gilles; and then Mme. Favoral spent the night in the most fearful anxiety. Then, suddenly, at some hour when he knew his father to be absent, he would appear, and, taking his mother to one side: "I very much want a few louis," he would say in a sheepish tone.
She gave them to him; and she kept giving them so long as she had any, not, however, without observing timidly to him that Gilberte and herself could not earn very much.
Until finally one evening, and to a last demand: "Alas!" she answered sorrowfully, "I have nothing left, and it is only on Monday that we are to take our work back. Couldn"t you wait until then?"
He could not wait: he was expected for a game. Blind devotion begets ferocious egotism. He wanted his mother to go out and borrow the money from the grocer or the butcher. She was hesitating. He spoke louder.
Then Mlle. Gilberte appeared.
"Have you, then, really no heart?" she said. "It seems to me, that, if I were a man, I would not ask my mother and sister to work for me."
XII