Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (72 page)

Where was he to get the money? Frédéric was well aware from his own experience how hard it was to obtain it immediately, no matter at what cost. There was only one person who could help him in the matter—Madame Dambreuse. She always kept a good supply of bank-notes in her desk. He called at her house; and asked her straight out:

“Have you twelve thousand francs to lend me?”

“What for?”

That was another person’s secret. She wanted to know who this person was. He would not give way on this point. They were equally determined not to yield. Finally, she declared that she would give nothing until she knew the reason.

Frédéric’s face became very flushed; and he stated that one of his comrades had committed a theft. It was necessary to replace the sum this very day. “Let me know his name? His name? Come! what’s his name?”

“Dussardier!”

And he threw himself on his knees, imploring of her to say nothing about it.

“What idea have you got into your head about me?” Madame Dambreuse replied. “One would imagine that you were the guilty party yourself. Be done with your tragic airs! Hold on! here’s the money! and much good may it do him!”

He hurried off to see Arnoux. That worthy merchant was not in his shop. But he was still residing in the Rue de Paradis, for he had two addresses.

In the Rue de Paradis, the concierge said that M. Arnoux had been away since the evening before. As for Madame, he ventured to say nothing; and Frédéric, having rushed like an arrow up the stairs, put his ear to the keyhole. Finally, the door was opened. Madame had gone out with Monsieur. The servant could not say when they would be back; her wages had been paid, and she was leaving herself.

Suddenly he heard the door creaking.

“But is there anyone in the room?”

“Oh, no, Monsieur! it is the wind.”

Thereupon he withdrew. There was something inexplicable in such a rapid disappearance.

Regimbart, being Mignot’s intimate friend, could perhaps enlighten him? And Frédéric got himself driven to that gentleman’s house at Montmartre in the Rue l’Empereur.

Attached to the house there was a small garden shut in by a gate which was reinforced by sheets of iron. Three front steps set off the white façade; and a person passing along the sidewalk could see the two rooms on the ground-floor, the first of which was a parlour with ladies’ dresses lying all over the furniture, and the second the workshop for Madame Regimbart’s dress-making assistants.

They were all convinced that Monsieur had important occupations, distinguished connections, that he was a man altogether beyond comparison. When he was passing through the lobby with his hat turned up at the sides, his long grave face, and his green over-coat, the girls stopped in the midst of their work. Besides, he never failed to address to them a few words of encouragement, some observation which showed his ceremonious courtesy; and, afterwards, in their own homes they felt unhappy, because they had him held up as their ideal.

No one, however, was so devoted to him as Madame Regimbart, an intelligent little woman, who supported him with her business.

As soon as M. Moreau had given his name, she came out quickly to meet him, knowing through the servants what his relations were with Madame Dambreuse. Her husband would be back in a moment; and Frédéric, while he followed her, admired the appearance of the house and the profusion of oil-cloth that was displayed in it. Then he waited a few minutes in a kind of office, into which the Citizen was in the habit of retiring, in order to be alone with his thoughts.

When they met, Regimbart’s manner was less cranky than usual.

He related Arnoux’s recent story. The ex-earthenware-manufacturer had excited the vanity of Mignot, a patriot who owned a hundred shares in the
Siècle
,
^db
by professing to show that it would be necessary from the democratic standpoint to change the management and the editorship of the newspaper; and under the pretext of making his views prevail in the next meeting of shareholders, he had given the other fifty shares, telling him that he could pass them on to reliable friends who would back up his vote. Mignot would have no personal responsibility, and need not annoy himself about anyone; then, when he had achieved success, he would be able to secure a good place in the administration of at least five to six thousand francs. The shares had been delivered. But Arnoux had at once sold them, and with the money had entered into partnership with a dealer in religious articles. Thereupon came complaints from Mignot, to which Arnoux sent evasive answers. At last the patriot had threatened to bring against him a charge of cheating if he did not restore his share certificates or pay an equivalent sum—fifty thousand francs.

Frédéric’s face wore a look of despondency.

“That is not the whole of it,” said the Citizen. “Mignot, who is an honest fellow, has reduced his claim to one fourth. New promises on the part of the other, and, of course, new dodges. In short, on the morning of the day before yesterday Mignot sent him a written application to pay up, within twenty-four hours, twelve thousand francs, without prejudice to the balance.”

“But I have the amount!” said Frédéric.

The Citizen slowly turned round:

“You’re joking!”

“Excuse me! I have the money in my pocket. I brought it with me.”

“How do you do it! I’ll be darned! However, it’s too late now—the complaint has been lodged, and Arnoux is gone.”

“Alone?”

“No! along with his wife. They were seen at the Le Havre station.”

Frédéric grew exceedingly pale. Madame Regimbart thought he was going to faint. He regained his self-possession with an effort, and had even sufficient presence of mind to ask two or three questions about the occurrence. Regimbart was grieved at the affair, considering that it would injure the cause of Democracy. Arnoux had always been lax in his conduct and disorderly in his life.

“A regular hare-brained fellow! He burned the candle at both ends! His skirt-chasing has ruined him! It’s not he that I pity, but his poor wife!” For the Citizen admired virtuous women, and had a great esteem for Madame Arnoux.

“She must have suffered a lot!”

Frédéric felt grateful to him for his sympathy; and, as if Regimbart had done him a service, shook his hand effusively.

“Did you see to everything?” was Rosanette’s greeting to him when she saw him again.

He had not been able to pluck up courage, he answered, and walked about the streets at random trying to forget.

At eight o’clock, they passed into the dining-room; but they remained seated face to face in silence, each let out deep sigh every now and then, and pushed away their plates.

Frédéric drank some brandy. He felt quite shattered, crushed, annihilated, no longer conscious of anything except a sensation of extreme fatigue.

She went to look at the portrait. The red, the yellow, the green, and the indigo made glaring stains that jarred with each other, so that it looked hideous—almost ridicuous.

Besides, the dead child was now unrecognisable. The purple hue of his lips made the whiteness of his skin more remarkable. His nostrils were more drawn than before, his eyes more hollow; and his head rested on a pillow of blue taffeta, surrounded by petals of camelias, autumn roses, and violets. This was an idea suggested by the chambermaid, and both of them had thus with pious care arranged the little corpse. The mantelpiece, covered with a lace cloth, supported silver-gilt candlesticks interspersed with bouquets of holly-box. At the corners there were a pair of vases in which incense was burning. All these things, taken in conjunction with the cradle, looked like an altar; and Frédéric remembered the night when he had watched beside M. Dambreuse’s death-bed.

Nearly every quarter of an hour Rosanette drew aside the curtains in order to take a look at her child. She saw him in her imagination, a few months hence, beginning to walk; then at college, in the middle of the recreation-ground, running races; then at twenty years a full-grown young man; and all these pictures conjured up by her brain made her feel that she had lost so many sons, the excess of her grief intensifying the maternal instinct in her.

Frédéric, sitting motionless in another armchair, was thinking of Madame Arnoux.

No doubt she was at that moment in a train, with her face leaning against a carriage window, while she watched the country disappearing behind her in the direction of Paris, or else on the deck of a steamboat, as on the occasion when they first met; but this vessel carried her away into distant countries, from which she would never return. He next saw her in a room at an inn, with trunks covering the floor, the wallpaper hanging in shreds, and the door shaking in the wind. And after that—what would become of her? Would she have to become a schoolmistress or a lady’s companion, or perhaps a chambermaid? She was exposed to all the vicissitudes of poverty. His utter ignorance as to what her fate might be tortured his mind. He ought either to have opposed her departure or to have followed her. Was he not her real husband? And as the thought impressed itself on his consciousness that he would never meet her again, that it was all over forever, that she was lost to him beyond recall, he felt, so to speak, a rending of his entire being, and the tears that had been gathering since morning in his heart overflowed.

Rosanette noticed the tears in his eyes.

“Ah! You are crying just like me! You are grieving, too?”

“Yes! Yes! I am—”

He pressed her to his heart, and they both sobbed, locked in each other’s arms.

Madame Dambreuse was weeping too, as she lay, face downwards, on her bed, with her head in her hands.

Olympe Regimbart having come that evening to try on her first coloured gown after mourning, had told her about Frédéric’s visit, and even about the twelve thousand francs which he was ready to transfer to M. Arnoux.

So, then, this money, her very own money, was intended to be used simply for the purpose of preventing the other from leaving Paris—for the purpose, in fact, of preserving a mistress!

At first, she broke into a violent rage, and was determined to dismiss him like a lackey. A copious flow of tears produced a soothing effect upon her. It was better to keep it all to herself, and say nothing about it.

Frédéric brought her back the twelve thousand francs on the following day.

She begged of him to keep the money lest he might require it for his friend, and she asked a number of questions about this gentleman. Who, then, had tempted him to such a breach of trust? A woman, no doubt! Women drag you into every kind of crime.

This mocking tone disconcerted Frédéric. He felt deep remorse for the calumny he had invented. He was reassured by the reflection that Madame Dambreuse could not be aware of the facts. All the same, she was very persistent about the subject; for, two days later, she again made enquiries about his young friend, and, after that, about another—Deslauriers.

“Is this young man trustworthy and intelligent?”

Frédéric spoke highly of him.

“Ask him to call on me one of these mornings; I want to consult him about a business matter.”

She had found a roll of old papers in which there were some bills of Arnoux, which had been duly protested, and which had been signed by Madame Arnoux. It was about these very bills Frédéric had called on M. Dambreuse on one occasion while the latter was at breakfast; and, although the capitalist had not sought to enforce repayment of this outstanding debt, he had not only gotten a judgment from the Tribunal of Commerce against Arnoux, but also against his wife, who knew nothing about the matter, as her husband had not thought fit to give her any information on the point.

Here was a weapon placed in Madame Dambreuse’s hands-she had no doubt about it. But her notary would advise her to take no step in the affair. She would have preferred to act through some obscure person, and she thought of that big fellow with such an impudent expression of face, who had offered her his services.

Frédéric innocently performed this commission for her.

The lawyer was enchanted at the idea of having business relations with such an aristocratic lady.

He hurried to Madame Dambreuse’s house.

She informed him that the inheritance belonged to her niece, a further reason for setting the debts owed to her husband in order to kill the Martinons with kindness.

Deslauriers guessed that there was some hidden design underlying all this. He reflected while he was examining the bills. Madame Arnoux’s name, traced by her own hand, brought once more before his eyes her entire person, and the insult which he had received at her hands. Since vengeance was offered to him, why should he not snatch at it?

He accordingly advised Madame Dambreuse to have the bad debts which went with the inheritance sold at auction. An agent whose name would not be divulged, would buy them up, and would exercise the legal rights thus given him to realise them. He would take it on himself to provide a man to discharge this function.

Towards the end of the month of November, Frédéric, happening to pass through the street in which Madame Arnoux had lived, raised his eyes towards the windows of her house, and saw posted on the door a sign on which was printed in large letters:

“Sale of valuable furniture, consisting of kitchen utensils, personal and table linen, shirts and chemises, lace, petticoats, trousers, French and Indian cashmeres, an Erard piano, two Renaissance oak chests, Venetian mirrors, Chinese and Japanese porcelain.”

“It’s their furniture!” said Frédéric to himself, and his suspicions were confirmed by the concierge.

As for the person who had given instructions for the sale, he could get no information. But perhaps the auctioneer, Maitre Berthelmot, might be able to throw light on the subject.

The official did not at first want to tell what creditor was having the sale carried out. Frédéric pressed him on the point. It was a gentleman named Sénécal, an agent; and Maitre Berthelmot even carried his politeness so far as to lend his newspaper—the
Petites Affiches
—to Frédéric.