by Eugène Sue
Marguerite was so little in advance of her master that David, Marie, and her son were still under the effects of their astonishment and painful reflections, when Jacques Bastien entered the library, accompanied by his companion, Bridou, the bailiff of Pont Brillant.
Jacques Bastien, as we have said, was an obese Hercules; his large head, covered with a forest of reddish blond curls, was joined close to his broad shoulders by the neck of a bull; his face was large, florid, and almost beardless, as is frequently the case in athletic physiques; his nose big, his lips of the kind called blubber, and his eye at the same time shrewd, wicked, and deceitful. The blue blouse, which, according to his custom, he wore over his riding-coat, distinctly delineated the prominence of his Falstaff-like stomach; he wore a little cap of fox hair, with ear-protectors, trousers of cheap velvet, and iron-tipped boots that had not been cleaned for several days; in one of his short, yet enormous hands, broader than they were long, he carried a stick of holly-wood, fastened to his wrist by a greasy leather string; and if the truth must be told, this man, a sort of mastodon, at ten paces distant, smelled like a goat.
His boon companion, Bridou, also clad in a blouse over his old black coat, and wearing a round hat, was a small man, with spectacles, lank, covered with freckles, with a cunning, sly expression, pinched mouth, and high cheek-bones: one might have taken him for a ferret wearing eyeglasses.
At the sight of Jacques Bastien, David shuddered with pain and apprehension, as he thought that Marie’s life was for ever linked to the life of this man, who even lacked the generosity of remaining absent from the unhappy woman.
Jacques Bastien and Bridou entered the library without salutation; the first words that the master of the domicile, with an angry frown and rude voice, addressed to his wife, who rose to receive him, were these:
“Who gave the order to fell my fir-trees?”
“What fir-trees, monsieur?” asked Marie, without knowing what she said, so much was she upset by her husband’s arrival.
“How, what fir-trees?” replied Jacques Bastien. “What but my fir-trees on the road? Do I speak enigmas? In passing along the road I have just seen that more than a thousand of the finest trees on the border of the plantation have been cut down! I ask you who has allowed them to be sold without my order?”
“They have not been sold, monsieur,” replied Marie, regaining her self-possession.
“If they have not been sold, why were they cut down? Who ordered them cut down?”
“I did, monsieur.”
“You?”
And Jacques Bastien, overwhelmed with astonishment, was silent a moment; then he said:
“Ah! so it was you, madame! A new performance, forsooth! You are drawing it rather strong. What do you say about it, Bridou?”
“Bless me, Jacques, you had better look into it.”
“That is just what I am going to do; and what use did you have for the money, madame, that you had more than a thousand of my finest firs cut down, if you please?”
“Monsieur, it would be better, I think, to talk of business when we are alone. You must see that my son’s preceptor, M. David, is present.”
And Madame Bastien indicated by her glance David, who was sitting apart from the company.
Jacques Bastien turned around abruptly, and after having contemptuously measured David from head to foot, said to him, rudely:
“Monsieur, I wish to speak with my wife.”
David bowed and went out, and Frederick followed him, outraged at the treatment received by his friend.
“Come, madame,” continued Jacques Bastien, “you see your Latin spitter has departed; are you going to answer me at last?”
“When we are alone, monsieur.”
“If it is I who restrain you,” said Bridou, walking toward the door, “I am going to march out.”
“Come now, Bridou, do you make a jest of everybody? Please stay where you are,” cried Jacques.
Then, turning to Marie, he said:
“My companion knows my business as well as I do; now, madame, we are talking of business, for a thousand firs on the edge of my farm is a matter of business, and a big one, too; so Bridou will remain.”
“As you please, monsieur; then I will tell you before M. Bridou that I thought it my duty to have your fir-trees cut down, in order to give them to the unfortunate valley people, that they might rebuild their dwellings half destroyed by the overflow.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
FROM JACQUES BASTIEN’S point of view, the thing was so outrageous that it was incomprehensible to him, as he artlessly said to the bailiff, “Bridou, do you understand it?”
“Why, bless me, yes,” replied Bridou, with an air of assumed good nature, “madame, your wife, has made a present of your fir-trees to the sufferers from the overflow; that is true, is it not, madame?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
Bastien, almost choked with anger and astonishment, at first could do nothing but stammer as he looked furiously at his wife:
“You — have — dared — what! You—”
Then stamping his foot with rage, he made a step toward his wife, shaking his great fists with such a threatening air, that the bailiff jumped before him, and cried: “Come, Jacques, what in the devil are you doing? You will not die of it, old fellow; it is only a present of about two thousand francs that your wife has given to the sufferers.”
“And you think I shall let it go like that?” replied Jacques, trying to restrain himself. “You must be a fool if you thought you could hide it. This destruction of my firs was plain enough before my eyes as I passed. You forgot that, eh?”
“If you had been here, monsieur,” answered Marie, softly, for fear of irritating Bastien still more, “like me, you would have been a witness of this terrible disaster and the evils it caused, and you would have done the same, I do not doubt.”
“I, by thunder, when I myself have a part of my land ruined with sand.”
“But, monsieur, there is enough land and wood left you, while these poor people whom we helped were without bread and shelter.”
“Ah, indeed; then it is my business to give bread and shelter to those who have not got it!” cried Bastien, exasperated; “upon my word of honour, it is making a tool of me. Do you hear her, Bridou?”
“You know very well, old fellow, that ladies understand nothing about business, and they had better not meddle with it at all, ha, ha, ha! especially in cutting wood,” replied the bailiff with a mellifluous giggle.
“But did I tell her to meddle with it?” replied Jacques Bastien, whose fury continued to rise; “could I suppose she would ever have the audacity to — But no, no, there is something else at the bottom of it, she must have her head turned. Ah, by thunder! I came just in time. By this sample, it appears that wonderful things have been going on here in my absence. Come, come, I shall have trouble enough; fortunately I am equal to it, and I have a solid fist.”
Marie, looking up at Jacques with an expression of supplicating sweetness, said to him:
“I cannot regret what I have done, monsieur, only I do regret that an act which seems to me to merit your approval, should cause you such keen disappointment and annoyance. Besides,” added the young woman, trying to smile, “I am certain that you will forget this trouble when you learn how courageously Frederick has behaved at the time of the overflow. At the risk of his life, he saved Jean François and his wife and children from certain death. Two other families of the valley were also—”
“Eh, by God’s thunder! it is precisely because he paid with his own person that you did not need to make yourself so generous at my expense, and pay out of my purse,” cried the booby, interrupting his wife.
“How,” replied Marie, confounded by this reproach, “did you know that Frederick—”
“Had gone, like so many others, to the aid of the inundated families? Zounds! I was bored with that talk in Pont Brillant. That is a fine affair indeed. Who forced him to do it? If he did it, it was because it
suited him to do it. Oh, well, so much the better for him. Besides, the newspapers are full of such tricks. And yet, if the name of my son had at least been put in the journal betimes, that would have pleased me.”
“Perhaps he would have had the cross of honour,” added the bailiff, with a bantering, sarcastic air.
“Besides, we must have a talk about my son, and a serious one,” continued Jacques Bastien. “My companion, Bridou, will also have a say in that.”
“I do not understand you,” answered Marie, stammering. “What relation can M. Bridou possibly have with Frederick?”
“You will know, because we will have a talk to-morrow, and with you, and about a good deal. Do not think you understand that this affair of my thousand fir-trees will pass like a letter by the post. But it is six o’clock, let us have dinner.”
And he rang.
At these words, Marie remembered the silver plate carried to the city and sold in the absence and without the knowledge of her husband. Had she been alone with Jacques, she would have endured his threats and injuries and anger, but when she thought of the transports of rage he would yield to before her son and David, she was frightened at the possible consequences of such a scene, and with reason.
Jacques Bastien went on talking:
“Have you had a good fire made in Bridou’s chamber? I wrote to you that he would spend several days here.”
“I thought you would share your chamber with M. Bridou,” replied Madame Bastien. “Unless you do, I do not see how I can lodge the gentleman.”
“What! there is a chamber up-stairs.”
“But that is occupied by my son’s preceptor.”
“You are very fine, you are, with your preceptor. Ah, well, ’tis easy to take him by the shoulders and put him out, your Latin spitter, and there’s the room.”
“I should be distressed to put him out,” said the bailiff. “I would prefer to go back.”
“Come, come, Bridou, evidently we are going to quarrel,” replied Jacques.
Then, turning to his wife, he said, angrily:
“What! I warned you this morning that Bridou would spend several days here, and nothing is prepared?”
“But, monsieur, I ask again, where do you wish me to put the preceptor of my son if M. Bridou occupies his chamber?”
“The preceptor of my son,” repeated Jacques, puffing up his cheeks and shrugging his shoulders; “you have only that in your mouth, playing the duchess. Ah well! the preceptor of your son can sleep with André, it won’t kill him.”
“But surely, monsieur,” said Marie, “you do not think that—”
“Come now, do not provoke me, or I will go and tell your Latin spitter to march out of my house this instant, and see if I follow him on the road to Pont Brillant. It will amount in the end to my not being master of my own house, by God’s thunder!”
Marie trembled. She knew M. Bastien capable of driving the preceptor brutally out of the house. She was silent a moment, then remembering the untiring devotion of David, she replied, trying to restrain her tears:
“Very well, monsieur, the preceptor will share André’s chamber.”
“Indeed,” answered Jacques, with a sarcastic air, “that is very fortunate.”
“And besides, you see, madame,” added the bailiff with a conciliatory air, “a preceptor is little more than a servant, not anything more, because it is a person who takes wages, or I would not have him put out by the shoulders thus, as this great buffoon Jacques says.”
Marguerite entered at this moment to announce dinner. Bridou took off his blouse, passed his hand through his yellow hair, and with a coquettish air offered his arm to Madame Bastien, who trembled in every limb.
Jacques Bastien threw his holly stick in a corner, kept on his blouse, and followed his wife and the bailiff to the dining-room.
CHAPTER XXXV.
WHEN MADAME BASTIEN, her husband, and the bailiff entered the dining-room, they found there David and Frederick.
The latter exchanged a glance with his preceptor, approached Jacques Bastien, and said to him, in a respectful tone:
“Good morning, father, I thought you wished to be alone with my mother, and that is why I withdrew upon your arrival.”
“It seems that your hysterics are gone,” said Bastien to his son, in a tone of sarcasm, “and you no longer need to travel for pleasure. That is a pity, for I wanted to humour you with pleasure.”
“I do not know what you mean, father.”
Instead of replying to his son, Bastien, still standing, occupied himself in counting the plates on the table; he saw five and said to his wife, curtly:
“Why are there five plates?”
“Why, monsieur, because we are five,” replied Marie.
“How five? I, Bridou, you and your son, does that make five?”
“You forget M. David,” said Marie.
Jacques then addressed the preceptor.
“Monsieur, I do not know upon what conditions my wife has engaged you. As for me, I am master here, and I do not like to have strangers at my table. That is my opinion.”
At this new rudeness, the calmness of David did not forsake him, the consciousness of insult brought an involuntary blush to his brow, but he bowed, without uttering a word, and started toward the door.
Frederick, his face flushed with indignation and distress at this second outrage against the character and dignity of David, was preparing to follow him, when a supplicating glance from his friend arrested him.
At this moment, Marie said to the preceptor:
“M. David, M. Bastien having disposed of your chamber for a few days, will you consent to having a bed prepared for you in the chamber with old André? — unfortunately we have no other place for you.”
“Nothing easier, madame,” replied David, smiling. “I have the honour of being somewhat at home; so it is for me to yield the chamber I occupy to a stranger.”
David bowed again and left the dining-room.
After the departure of the preceptor, Jacques Bastien, entirely unconscious of his coarseness, sat down to the table, for he was very hungry in spite of the anger he nursed against his wife and son.
Each one took his place.
Jacques Bastien had Bridou on his right, Frederick on his left, and Marie sat opposite.
The anxiety of the young woman made her seek to change the subject of conversation constantly; she feared Jacques might discover the absence of the silver plate.
This revelation, however, hung upon a new incident.
Jacques Bastien, removing the cover from the soup tureen, dilated his wide nostrils, so as to inhale the aroma of the cabbage soup he had ordered, but, finding his expectation mistaken, he cried furiously, addressing his wife:
“What! no cabbage soup? and I wrote to you expressly that I wanted it. Perhaps there is no leg of mutton with cloves either?”
“I do not know, monsieur, I forgot to—”
“By God’s thunder, what a woman, — there!” cried Jacques, furiously, throwing the tureen cover down on the table so violently that it broke in pieces.
At the brutal exclamation of his father, Frederick betrayed his indignation by an abrupt movement.
Immediately Marie, pressing her son’s hand under the table, signified her disapproval, and he restrained himself, but his quick resentment did not escape the eye of Jacques, who, after looking a long time at his son in silence, said to Bridou:
“Come, my comrade, we must content ourselves with this slop.”
“It is pot luck, my old fellow,” said the bailiff. “Pot luck, eh, eh, we all know that.”
“Come,” said Jacques, “let us at least say our grace before eating.”
And he poured out a bumper for Bridou, after which he emptied almost the rest of the bottle in an enormous glass, which he was accustomed to use, and which held a pint.
The obese Hercules swallowed this bumper at one draught, then, disposing himself comfortably to serve the soup, he took in his hand a
n iron spoon, plated over, and bright with cleanliness.
“Why in the devil did you put this pot ladle here?” said he to Marie.
“Monsieur, I do not know,” replied the young woman, looking down and stammering, “I—”
“Why not put on the table my large silver ladle, as usual,” asked Jacques. “Is it because my comrade Bridou has come to dine here?”
Then, addressing his son, he said, abruptly:
“Get the silver ladle from the buffet.”
“It is useless, father,” said Frederick, resolutely, seeing the anguish of his mother and wishing to turn his father’s anger toward himself. “The large silver ladle is not in the house; neither is the rest of the silver.”
“What?” asked Jacques, stupidly.
But, not believing his ears, he seized the plate at his side, looked at it, and convinced of the truth of his son’s words, he remained a moment, besotted with amazement.
Frederick and his mother exchanged glances at this critical moment.
The young man, determined to bring his father’s anger on himself alone, replied, resolutely:
“It was I, father; without telling my mother, I sold the silver for—”
“Monsieur,” cried Marie, addressing Jacques, “do not believe Frederick; it was I, and I alone, who — ah, well, yes, it was I who sold the silver.”
Notwithstanding his wife’s confession, Jacques Bastien could not believe what he had heard, so preposterous, so impossible did the whole thing appear.
Bridou himself, this time, sincerely shared the bewilderment of his friend, and the bailiff broke the silence by saying to Jacques:
“Humph, humph, old fellow, this is another affair to selling your fir-trees, I think.”
Marie expected an explosion of wrath from her passionate husband. There was no such thing.
Jacques remained silent, immovable, and absorbed for a long time. His broad face was more florid than usual. He drank, one after another, two great glasses of wine, leaned his elbows on the table, with his chin in the palm of his hand, drumming convulsively on his fat cheek with his contracted fingers. Fixing on his wife’s face his two little gray eyes, which glittered under his frowning eyebrows with a sinister light, he said, with apparent calmness: