Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (8 page)

The cook announced that Monsieur’s soup was served. The guests discreetly withdrew. Then, as soon as they were alone in the dining-room, his mother said to him in a low tone:

“Well?”

The old man had received him in a very cordial manner, but without disclosing his intentions.

Madame Moreau sighed.

“Where is she now?” he mused dreamily.

The carriage was rolling along the road, and, wrapped up in the shawl, no doubt, she was leaning against the cloth upholstery, her beautiful head nodding off to sleep.

Frédéric and his mother were just going up to their rooms when a waiter from the Swan of the Cross brought him a note.

“What is that, pray?”

“It is Deslauriers, who needs me,” said he.

“Ah! your old chum!” said Madame Moreau, with a disapproving laugh. “He picks his time well, I must say!”

Frédéric hesitated. But friendship was stronger. He got his hat.

“At least don’t be long!” said his mother to him.

Charles Deslauriers’ father, a former infantry officer, who had left the service in 1818, had come back to Nogent, where he had married, and with the amount of the dowry bought up the business of a process-server, which brought him barely enough to live on. Embittered by a long course of unjust treatment, suffering still from the effects of old wounds, and, still harking back to the days of the Emperor, he took out on those around him the rage that seemed to choke him. Few children received so many beatings as his son. In spite of blows, however, the boy did not yield. His mother, when she tried to intervene, was also abused. Finally, the captain planted the boy in his office, and all day long kept him bent over his desk copying documents, with the result that his right shoulder was noticeably higher than his left.

In 1833, on the invitation of the president, the captain sold his post. His wife died of cancer. He then went to live in Dijon. After that he established himself as an army recruiter at Troyes;
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and, having obtained a small scholarship for Charles, placed him at the college of Sens, where he crossed paths with Frédéric. But one was twelve years old, while the other was fifteen; besides which a thousand differences in character and background separated them.

Frédéric had in his chest of drawers all sorts of useful things—luxurious objects, such as a dressing-case. He liked to lounge in bed all morning, looking at the swallows, and reading plays; and, missing the comforts of home, he thought college life rough.

To the process-server’s son it seemed a pleasant life. He worked so hard that, at the end of the second year, he had gotten into the third form. However, due to his poverty or to his quarrelsome disposition, he was disliked intensely. But when on one occasion, in the middle-school yard, a servant openly called him a beggar’s child, he sprang at the fellow’s throat, and would have killed him if three of the school monitors had not intervened. Frédéric, filled with admiration, threw his arms around him and hugged him. From that day forward they became fast friends. The affection of an older boy no doubt flattered the vanity of the younger one, and the other accepted the good fortune of this devotion freely offered to him.

During the holidays Charles’s father allowed him to remain in the college. A translation of Plato which he opened by chance filled him with enthusiasm. Then he became smitten with metaphysical studies; and he made rapid progress, for he approached the subject with all the energy of youth and the self-confidence of a now independent intellect. Jouffroy, Cousin, Laromiguière, Malebranche, and the Scotch metaphysicians
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—everything that could be found in the library dealing with this branch of knowledge passed through his hands. He found it necessary to steal the key in order to get the books.

Frédéric’s intellectual interests were of a less serious nature. He made sketches of the genealogy of Christ carved on a post in the Rue des Trois Rois, then of the gateway of a cathedral. After a mediæval drama course, he took up memoirs—Froissart, Comines, Pierre de l
Estoile, and Brantôme.
^b

The impressions made on his mind by this kind of reading took such a hold of it that he felt a need within him of reproducing those pictures of bygone days. His ambition was to be, one day, the Walter Scott of France.
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Deslauriers dreamed of formulating a vast system of philosophy, which might have the most far-reaching applications.

They chatted over all these matters during recess, in the playground, in front of the moral inscription painted under the clock. They kept whispering to each other about them in the chapel, even with St. Louis staring down at them. They dreamed about them in the dormitory, which looked out on a cemetery. On school walks they lagged behind the others, and talked non-stop.

They spoke of what they would do later, when they had finished college. First of all, they would set out on a long voyage with the money which Frédéric would take out of his own fortune upon reaching adulthood. Then they would come back to Paris; they would work together, and would never part; and, as a relaxation from their labours, they would have love-affairs with princesses in boudoirs lined with satin, or dazzling orgies with famous courtesans. Their rapturous expectations were followed by doubts. After a spell of verbose gaiety, they would often lapse into profound silence.

On summer evenings, when they had been walking for a long time over stony paths which bordered on vineyards, or on the high-road in the open country, and when they saw the wheat waving in the sunlight, while the air was filled with the fragrance of angelica, a sort of suffocating sensation took possession of them, and they stretched themselves on their backs, dizzy, intoxicated. Meanwhile the other lads, in their shirt-sleeves, were playing tag or flying kites. Then, as the school monitor called in the two companions from the playground, they would return, taking the path which led along by the gardens watered by brooks; then they would pass through the boulevards overshadowed by the old city walls. The deserted streets echoed under their steps. The gate flew back; they climbed the stairs; and they felt as sad as if they had indulged in wild debauchery.

The proctor claimed that they egged on each other. Nevertheless, if Frédéric worked his way up to the higher forms, it was through the encouragement of his friend; and, during their vacation in 1837, he brought Deslauriers home to his mother’s house.

Madame Moreau disliked the young man. He had an enormous appetite. He refused to go to church on Sunday. He was fond of making republican speeches. Finally, she got it into her head that he had been leading her son into unsavory places. She kept an eye on their relationship. This only made their friendship grow stronger, and they said good-bye to each other with great sadness when, in the following year, Deslauriers left college in order to study law in Paris.

 

Frédéric anxiously looked forward to the time when they would meet again. For two years they had not seen each other; and, when their embraces were over, they walked over the bridges to talk more at ease.

 

The captain, who now ran a billiard-room at Villenauxe, reddened with anger when his son called to ask for an account of his trusteeship of his mother’s fortune, and even cut the allowance for his living expenses. Since he intended to become a candidate at a later period for a professor’s chair at the school, and as he had no money, Deslauriers accepted the post of principal clerk in an attorney’s office at Troyes. Through sheer self deprivation he hoped to save four thousand francs; and, even if he could not draw upon the sum which came to him through his mother, he would have enough to enable him to work freely for three years while he was waiting for a better position. It was necessary, therefore, to abandon their former plans to live together in the capital, at least for the moment.

 

Frédéric hung his head. This was the first of his dreams which had crumbled into dust.

“Cheer up,” said the captain’s son. “Life is long. We are young. We’ll meet again. Think no more about it!”

He shook his hand warmly, and, to distract him, asked questions about his journey.

Frédéric had nothing to say. But, at the thought of Madame Arnoux, his sadness disappeared. He did not mention her, restrained by a feeling of bashfulness. He made up for it by talking about Arnoux, recalling his stories, his manners, his connections; and Deslauriers urged him strongly to cultivate this new acquaintance.

Frédéric had of late written nothing. His literary opinions were changed. Passion was now above everything else in his estimation. He was equally enthusiastic about Werther, René, Franck, Lara, Lélia,
^c
and other more mediocre works. Sometimes it seemed to him that music alone was capable of giving expression to his troubles. So, he dreamed of symphonies; or else the appearance of things seized hold of him, and he longed to paint. He had, however, composed verses. Deslauriers considered them beautiful, but did not ask for more.

As for himself, he had given up metaphysics. Social economy and the French Revolution absorbed all his attention. He was now a tall fellow of twenty-two, thin, with a wide mouth, and a resolute look. On this particular evening, he wore a shabby wool cardigan; and his shoes were white with dust, for he had come all the way from Villenauxe on foot for the express purpose of seeing Frédéric.

Isidore arrived while they were talking. Madame begged Monsieur to return home, and, for fear of his catching cold, she had sent him his cloak.

“Wait a bit!” said Deslauriers.

And they continued walking from one end to the other of the two bridges which rest on the narrow island formed by the canal and the river.

When they were walking on the side towards Nogent, they had, directly in front of them, a block of houses which leaned a little. At the right the church could be seen behind the wooden watermills, whose sluices had been closed up; and, at the left, the hedges, all along the river bank, formed a boundary for the gardens, which were barely visible. But on the side towards Paris the high road formed a sheer descending line, and the meadows lost themselves in the distance under the mists of the night. Silence reigned along this road, whose stark whiteness clearly showed itself through the surrounding gloom. The odour of damp leaves rose up towards them. The waterfall, where the stream had been diverted from its course a hundred feet away, murmured with that deep soft sound which waves make in the night.

Deslauriers stopped, and said:

“ ‘Tis funny that these good people are sleeping so peacefully! Patience! A new ’89 is in preparation. People are tired of constitutions, charters, evasions, lies! Ah, if I had a newspaper, or a platform, how I would shake up all these things! But, in order to undertake anything whatsoever, one needs money. What a curse it is to be a tavern-keeper’s son, and to waste one’s youth on a quest for bread!”

He hung down his head, bit his lips, and shivered under his threadbare overcoat.

Frédéric flung half his cloak over his friend’s shoulder. They both wrapped themselves up in it; and, with their arms around each other, they walked down the road side by side.

“How do you think I can live over there without you?” said Frédéric. The bitter tone of his friend had brought back his own sadness. “I might have done something if I had a woman who loved me. What are you laughing at? Love is the feeding-ground, and, as it were, the air of genius. Extraordinary emotions produce sublime works. As for seeking the woman of my dreams, I give that up! Besides, if I should ever find her, she will reject me. I belong to the race of the disinherited, and I shall die without knowing whether the treasure within me is of rhinestone or of diamond.”

Somebody’s shadow fell across the road, and at the same time they heard these words:

“Excuse me, gentlemen!”

The person who had uttered them was a little man attired in an ample brown frock-coat, and with a cap under whose peak could be seen a sharp nose.

“Monsieur Roque?” said Frédéric.

“The very man!” returned the voice.

This local gentleman explained his presence by stating that he had come back to inspect the wolf-traps in his garden near the water’s edge.

“And so you are back again in our part of the country? Very good! I ascertained the fact through my little girl. Your health is good, I hope? You are not going away again?”

Then he left them, undoubtedly put off, by Frédéric’s chilly reception.

Madame Moreau, indeed, was not on visiting terms with him. Père Roque lived in peculiar circumstances with his servant-girl, and was held in very low esteem, although he was electoral registrar, and the steward of the Dambreuses’ estate.

“The banker who resides in the Rue d
Anjou,” observed Deslauriers. “Do you know what you ought to do, my fine fellow?”