"Mon Dieu! what a face! Your eyes are coming out of your head!"
"I don"t know what"s the matter with me, my dear; but this much is certain, that I don"t feel very well."
"Oh! I see well enough what the matter is; it seems to me that you have been having a good bout!"
Robineau had thrown himself into a chair, and was sighing piteously.
Fifine followed him and stood gazing at him with a scornful shrug. At last, finding that he said nothing, but continued to sigh, she exclaimed:
"How much longer are you going to groan like that? You seem to have come back from your ball in fine spirits!"
"Ah! Fifine, that is because I consider a ball a very foolish thing!--These great parties--the trouble one has to take in dressing--all for the sake of being bored to death!--Ah! I should have done much better to keep my money to go into the country with you."
"Oho! I see how it is; monsieur has lost his money at ecarte; and then morality comes to the front."
"Yes, my darling girl, I have lost my all! I have nothing left!"
"I wish all your ecarte players had the jaundice, and you too!"
"I don"t know if I have the jaundice, but I feel very sick at my stomach."
"Oh! I believe you; your disappointment evidently didn"t interfere with your eating and drinking."
"I took almost nothing, I a.s.sure you; but there was a magnificent supper."
"Did you bring me any good things?"
"I had my pockets full; and I don"t know how it happened, but I haven"t anything at all now!"
"Ah! I recognize you there! How kind of you!"
"Fifine, if you find fault with me, I shall be ill."
"That means that your supper was too much for you. What a charming creature--a lover like this, who goes off to enjoy himself with other people, and comes home with an attack of indigestion!"
"Don"t abandon me, Fifine, I implore you!"
"That"s it! I must nurse him now!--Well, stay there; keep quiet, and I"ll make you some tea."
"Oh, yes! make me some tea; I don"t want to drink anything else."
The young milliner hastened downstairs and bought all that she needed for Robineau, who had a severe attack of indigestion. But Fifine was active, quick-witted and skilful; in an instant she lighted a fire, heated some water and gave the sick man a cup of tea. Thanks to her attentions, he felt better after a little, and at each cup of tea that the girl gave him, he cried:
"Ah! I shall remember your kindness, Fifine; I won"t spend my money with anybody but you. I wish I had a crown to offer you, and even then I should not think that I had paid you for your devotion.--As for these big parties, I shan"t go to any more of them. Society offers no temptations to me;--a cottage and you--that is true happiness!"
IV
UNEXPECTED FORTUNE.--A RIDE.--THE EFFECTS OF WEALTH
A week had pa.s.sed since the ball at Monsieur de Marcey"s. The baron had left Paris on the following day, to visit one of his estates some leagues from the capital. He was in the habit of absenting himself quite often, either to visit some friend, or to inspect his various estates, or simply in search of diversion; but his absences did not ordinarily last more than ten or twelve days. When Monsieur de Marcey set out upon one of these little trips, his son very rarely accompanied him. Alfred, on his side, followed all his own fancies; he went wherever he chose, stayed in the city or in the country, untrammelled by the baron in any respect.
Alfred was in his own apartment, dressing--a very serious occupation for a dandy; but he was doing it carelessly, because for the moment there was no one whom he was especially desirous to please. To be sure he still gave a thought to Madame de Gerville from time to time, for the vivacious Jenny had really attracted him; but she had taken offence because he had thought Clara pretty and had told her so. Alfred, who could not understand how a woman could take offence at anything so natural, had done nothing to appease Jenny"s anger; and as he dressed, he said to himself:
"Women are becoming unreasonably exacting! They would like us not to notice that a woman we happen to have on our arm is pretty; but they are very willing that we should think ugly women pretty. Oh! they are exceedingly kind to those who are ugly; they persist in a.s.suring us that they are good-looking; "you are too particular," they will say; "that woman is not bad-looking."--But when we say: "Look! there"s a lovely woman!" they cry: "Mon Dieu! where in heaven"s name are your eyes? I thought that you had better taste than that. What good points do you see in her?"--Mon Dieu! mesdames, why don"t you remember that one is never a just judge in his own cause? You may say what you please, but men will always be better able than you to detect in a woman that indefinable something that imparts charm to a face which you consider very ordinary; and, by the same token, you should be more just to men than we are."
Alfred was disturbed in his reflections by a great noise in his salon, and an instant later the door of his dressing-room was suddenly thrown open, and Robineau, rushing in like a bombsh.e.l.l, threw himself into his arms so violently that he overturned a very dainty washstand, at which Albert was performing his ablutions.
"Oh! my friend! my dear friend!" cried Robineau, whose face was transfigured by excitement, "how happy I am! Pray embrace me! No, it is my place to embrace you!--Ah! you don"t know,--you have no suspicion!"
"What I do know is that you rush in here like a madman," rejoined Alfred, "and that you have broken a most exquisite washstand from Jacob"s--a perfectly beautiful thing."
"I don"t care for that, my friend; I"ll give you another--two, three, if you choose! I"ll give you anything you want!"
Alfred scrutinized Robineau and tried to read in his eyes, while Robineau tried to calm himself a little and to make himself understood.
"My dear Alfred, my joy, my bewilderment must seem extraordinary to you--I can understand that; they produce the same effect on me, and there are times when I think I am dreaming. But it isn"t a dream, thank G.o.d!--When I left you a week ago, after your ball, what was I?"
"Faith! you were drunk."
"That isn"t what I mean.--I was still a mere clerk, a humble copyist at fifteen hundred francs a year."
"Are you the chief of a bureau now?"
"Better than that, my friend!--I have consigned the bureau to all the devils!--I have twenty-five thousand francs a year!"
"Twenty-five thousand?"
"Yes, my friend! yes, I, Jules-Raoul Robineau! I am going to set up a carriage! I am rich--almost as rich as you; not quite so rich yet to be sure, but it may come. When one is on the road to wealth--Yes--wait a minute, till I sit down. I am exhausted! Since I have had twenty-five thousand francs a year, I have suffered from palpitations; indeed, there are times when I really can"t breathe!"
Robineau threw himself on a couch, took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, loosened the waistband of his trousers so that he could breathe more easily, in fact, made himself perfectly comfortable. It was plain that money had already produced its effect, and that he was no longer the humble government clerk who bowed to the floor before he ventured to take a chair in the salons of his friend the Baron de Marcey. But wealth long ago proved its power to change the temper, the disposition, the aspect and manners of a person, and it is probable that the lessons of the past will always be thrown away, because men will be no better to-morrow than they were yesterday.
Alfred, who considered that there was no reason why his friend"s newly acquired wealth should prevent him from washing, had resumed his suddenly interrupted occupation, and waited tranquilly for Robineau to explain himself more at length. At last, after putting one foot on a stool, and looking about for a chair on which to put the other, the ex-clerk continued:
"My dear fellow, you must have heard me say that I had an uncle who sailed for the Indies when he was very young."
"Oh, yes! and you have never heard from him, and he has come home enormously rich. That"s what happens in all the vaudevilles."
"I am not talking about vaudevilles.--This uncle, my father"s brother, left home.--My dear parents never heard of him again.--They died, leaving me nothing but an education, which, I venture to say, is----"
"Go on, go on! I was at school with you, and I know that somebody else always had to write your translations and your themes; but no matter!"
"Yes; let us drop the Latin.--Yesterday, my dear fellow, when I returned from the department, I found a letter at my rooms. I opened it; it was from a notary, inviting me to call at once at his office, provided with my papers, certificate of baptism, etc. I didn"t quite know what to expect from a letter from a notary; but I complied with his invitation instantly. The notary asked me if I had any parents, and all sorts of details about my family; at last, my dear Alfred, when I had answered all his questions, and proved that I was really Jules-Raoul Robineau, son of Benoit-Etienne Robineau and Cecile Desboulloir, he said to me without any other preamble:
""Monsieur, your uncle, Gratien Robineau, has recently deceased at Havre, where he had just landed. He had turned all his fortune into cash, and proposed to pa.s.s the rest of his life in Paris, when death, which he had defied a hundred times in distant lands, struck him down as he reached the haven. Your uncle has left you all his property, and it amounts to about five hundred thousand francs.""