章节正文
Margueron and the notary of Beaumont, who held in his hand a bundle of
deeds and other papers.
When these various personages saw the count in evening dress, and
wearing his orders, Georges Marest had a slight sensation of colic,
Joseph Bridau quivered, but Mistigris, who was conscious of being in
his Sunday clothes, and had, moreover, nothing on his conscience,
remarked, in a sufficiently loud tone:--
"Well, he looks a great deal better like that."
"Little scamp," said the count, catching him by the ear, "we are both
in the decoration business. I hope you recognize your own work, my
dear Schinner," he added, pointing to the ceiling of the salon.
"Monseigneur," replied the artist, "I did wrong to take such a
celebrated name out of mere bravado; but this day will oblige me to do
fine things for you, and so bring credit on my own name of Joseph
Bridau."
"You took up my defence," said the count, hastily; "and I hope you
will give me the pleasure of dining with me, as well as my lively
friend Mistigris."
"Your Excellency doesn't know to what you expose yourself," said the
saucy rapin; "'facilis descensus victuali,' as we say at the Black
Hen."
"Bridau!" exclaimed the minister, struck by a sudden thought. "Are you
any relation to one of the most devoted toilers under the Empire, the
head of a bureau, who fell a victim to his zeal?"
"His son, monseigneur," replied Joseph, bowing.
"Then you are most welcome here," said the count, taking Bridau's hand
in both of his. "I knew your father, and you can count on me as on--on
an uncle in America," added the count, laughing. "But you are too
young to have pupils of your own; to whom does Mistigris really
belong?"
"To my friend Schinner, who lent him to me," said Joseph. "Mistigris'
name is Leon de Lora. Monseigneur, if you knew my father, will you
deign to think of his other son, who is now accused of plotting
against the State, and is soon to be tried before the Court of Peers?"
"Ah! that's true," said the count. "Yes, I will think about it, be
sure of that. As for Colonel Czerni-Georges, the friend of Ali Pacha,
and Mina's aide-de-camp--" he continued, walking up to Georges.
"He! why that's my second clerk!" cried Crottat.
"You are quite mistaken, Maitre Crottat," said the count, assuming a
stern air. "A clerk who intends to be a notary does not leave
important deeds in a diligence at the mercy of other travellers;
neither does he spend twenty francs between Paris and Moisselles; or
expose himself to be arrested as a deserter--"
"Monseigneur," said Georges Marest, "I may have amused myself with the
bourgeois in the diligence, but--"
"Let his Excellency finish what he was saying," said the notary,
digging his elbow into his clerk's ribs.
"A notary," continued the count, "ought to practise discretion,
shrewdness, caution from the start; he should be incapable of such a
blunder as taking a peer of France for a tallow-chandler--"
"I am willing to be blamed for my faults," said Georges; "but I never
left my deeds at the mercy of--"
"Now you are committing the fault of contradicting the word of a
minister of State, a gentleman, an old man, and a client," said the
count. "Give me that deed of sale."
Georges turned over and over the papers in his portfolio.
"That will do; don't disarrange those papers," said the count, taking
the deed from his pocket. "Here is what you are looking for."
Crottat turned the paper back and forth, so astonished was he at
receiving it from the hands of his client.
"What does this mean, monsieur?" he said, finally, to Georges.
"If I had not taken it," said the count, "Pere Leger,--who is by no
means such a ninny as you thought him from his questions about
agriculture, by which he showed that he attended to his own business,
--Pere Leger might have seized that paper and guessed my purpose. You
must give me the pleasure of dining with me, but one on condition,--
that of describing, as you promised, the execution of the Muslim of
Smyrna, and you must also finish the memoirs of some client which you
have certainly read to be so well informed."
"Schlague for blague!" said Leon de Lora, in a whisper, to Joseph
Bridau.
"Gentlemen," said the count to the two notaries and Messieurs
Margueron and de Reybert, "let us go into the next room and conclude
this business before dinner, because, as my friend Mistigris would
say: 'Qui esurit constentit.'"
"Well, he is very good-natured," said Leon de Lora to Georges Marest,
when the count had left the room.
"Yes, HE may be, but my master isn't," said Georges, "and he will
request me to go and blaguer somewhere else."
"Never mind, you like travel," said Bridau.
"What a dressing that boy will get from Monsieur and Madame Moreau!"
cried Mistigris.
"Little idiot!" said Georges. "If it hadn't been for him the count
would have been amused. Well, anyhow, the lesson is a good one; and if
ever again I am caught bragging in a public coach--"
"It is a stupid thing to do," said Joseph Bridau.
"And common," added Mistigris. "'Vulgarity is the brother of
pretension.'"
While the matter of the sale was being settled between Monsieur
Margueron and the Comte de Serizy, assisted by their respective
notaries in presence of Monsieur de Reybert, the ex-steward walked
with slow steps to his own house. There he entered the salon and sat
down without noticing anything. Little Husson, who was present,
slipped into a corner, out of sight, so much did the livid face of his
mother's friend alarm him.
"Eh! my friend!" said Estelle, coming into the room, somewhat tired
with what she had been doing. "What is the matter?"
"My dear, we are lost,--lost beyond recovery. I am no longer steward
of Presles, no longer in the count's confidence."
"Why not?"
"Pere Leger, who was in Pierrotin's coach, told the count all about
the affair of Les Moulineaux. But that is not the thing that has cost
me his favor."
"What then?"
"Oscar spoke ill of the countess, and he told about the count's
diseases."
"Oscar!" cried Madame Moreau. "Ah! my dear, your sin has found you
out. It was well worth while to warm that young serpent in your bosom.
How often I have told you--"
"Enough!" said Moreau, in a strained voice.
At this moment Estelle and her husband discovered Oscar cowering in
his corner. Moreau swooped down on the luckless lad like a hawk on its
prey, took him by the collar of the coat and dragged him to the light
of a window. "Speak! what did you say to monseigneur in that coach?
What demon let loose your tongue, you who keep a doltish silence
whenever I speak to you? What did you do it for?" cried the steward,
with frightful violence.
Too bewildered to weep, Oscar was dumb and motionless as a statue.
"Come with me and beg his Excellency's pardon," said Moreau.
"As if his Excellency cares for a little toad like that!" cried the
furious Estelle.
"Come, I say, to the chateau," repeated Moreau.
Oscar dropped like an inert mass to the ground.
"Come!" cried Moreau, his anger increasing at every instant.
"No! no! mercy!" cried Oscar, who could not bring himself to submit to
a torture that seemed to him worse than death.
Moreau then took the lad by his coat, and dragged him, as he might a
dead body, through the yards, which rang with the boy's outcries and
sobs. He pulled him up the portico, and, with an arm that fury made
powerful, he flung him, bellowing, and rigid as a pole, into the
salon, at the very feet of the count, who, having completed the
purchase of Les Moulineaux, was about to leave the salon for the
dining-room with his guests.
"On your knees, wretched boy! and ask pardon of him who gave food to
your mind by obtaining your scholarship."
Oscar, his face to the ground, was foaming with rage, and did not say
a word. The spectators of the scene were shocked. Moreau seemed no
longer in his senses; his face was crimson with injected blood.
"This young man is a mere lump of vanity," said the count, after
waiting a moment for Oscar's excuses. "A proud man humiliates himself
because he sees there is grandeur in a certain self-abasement. I am
afraid that you will never make much of that lad."
So saying, his Excellency passed on. Moreau took Oscar home with him;
and on the way gave orders that the horses should immediately be put
to Madame Moreau's caleche.
CHAPTER VII
A MOTHER'S TRIALS
While the horses were being harnessed, Moreau wrote the following
letter to Madame Clapart:--
My dear,--Oscar has ruined me. During his journey in Pierrotin's
coach, he spoke of Madame de Serizy's behavior to his Excellency,
who was travelling incognito, and actually told, to himself, the
secret of his terrible malady. After dismissing me from my
stewardship, the count told me not to let Oscar sleep at Presles,
but to send him away immediately. Therefore, to obey his orders,
the horses are being harnessed at this moment to my wife's
carriage, and Brochon, my stable-man, will take the miserable
child to you to-night.
We are, my wife and I, in a distress of mind which you may perhaps
imagine, though I cannot describe it to you. I will see you in a
few days, for I must take another course. I have three children,
and I ought to consider their future. At present I do not know
what to do; but I shall certainly endeavor to make the count aware
of what seventeen years of the life of a man like myself is worth.
Owning at the present moment about two hundred and fifty thousand
francs, I want to raise myself to a fortune which may some day
make me the equal of his Excellency. At this moment I feel within
me the power to move mountains and vanquish insurmountable
difficulties. What a lever is such a scene of bitter humiliation
as I have just passed through! Whose blood has Oscar in his veins?
His conduct has been that of a blockhead; up to this moment when I
write to you, he has not said a word nor answered, even by a sign,
the questions my wife and I have put to him. Will he become an
idiot? or is he one already? Dear friend, why did you not instruct
him as to his behavior before you sent him to me? How many
misfortunes you would have spared me, had you brought him here
yourself as I begged you to do. If Estelle alarmed you, you might
have stayed at Moisselles. However, the thing is done, and there
is no use talking about it.
Adieu; I shall see you soon.
Your devoted servant and friend,
Moreau
At eight o'clock that evening, Madame Clapart, just returned from a
walk she had taken with her husband, was knitting winter socks for
Oscar, by the light of a single candle. Monsieur Clapart was expecting
a friend named Poiret, who often came in to play dominoes, for never
did he allow himself to spend an evening at a cafe. In spite of the
prudent economy to which his small means forced him, Clapart would not
have answered for his temperance amid a luxury of food and in presence
of the usual guests of a cafe whose inquisitiveobservation would have
piqued him.
"I'm afraid Poiret came while we were out," said Clapart to his wife.
"Why, no, my friend; the portress would have told us so when we came
in," replied Madame Clapart.
"She may have forgotten it."
"What makes you think so?"
"It wouldn't be the first time she has forgotten things for us,--for
God knows how people without means are treated."
"Well," said the poor woman, to change the conversation and escape
Clapart's cavilling, "Oscar must be at Presles by this time. How he
will enjoy that fine house and the beautiful park."
deeds and other papers.
When these various personages saw the count in evening dress, and
wearing his orders, Georges Marest had a slight sensation of colic,
Joseph Bridau quivered, but Mistigris, who was conscious of being in
his Sunday clothes, and had, moreover, nothing on his conscience,
remarked, in a sufficiently loud tone:--
"Well, he looks a great deal better like that."
"Little scamp," said the count, catching him by the ear, "we are both
in the decoration business. I hope you recognize your own work, my
dear Schinner," he added, pointing to the ceiling of the salon.
"Monseigneur," replied the artist, "I did wrong to take such a
celebrated name out of mere bravado; but this day will oblige me to do
fine things for you, and so bring credit on my own name of Joseph
Bridau."
"You took up my defence," said the count, hastily; "and I hope you
will give me the pleasure of dining with me, as well as my lively
friend Mistigris."
"Your Excellency doesn't know to what you expose yourself," said the
saucy rapin; "'facilis descensus victuali,' as we say at the Black
Hen."
"Bridau!" exclaimed the minister, struck by a sudden thought. "Are you
any relation to one of the most devoted toilers under the Empire, the
head of a bureau, who fell a victim to his zeal?"
"His son, monseigneur," replied Joseph, bowing.
"Then you are most welcome here," said the count, taking Bridau's hand
in both of his. "I knew your father, and you can count on me as on--on
an uncle in America," added the count, laughing. "But you are too
young to have pupils of your own; to whom does Mistigris really
belong?"
"To my friend Schinner, who lent him to me," said Joseph. "Mistigris'
name is Leon de Lora. Monseigneur, if you knew my father, will you
deign to think of his other son, who is now accused of plotting
against the State, and is soon to be tried before the Court of Peers?"
"Ah! that's true," said the count. "Yes, I will think about it, be
sure of that. As for Colonel Czerni-Georges, the friend of Ali Pacha,
and Mina's aide-de-camp--" he continued, walking up to Georges.
"He! why that's my second clerk!" cried Crottat.
"You are quite mistaken, Maitre Crottat," said the count, assuming a
stern air. "A clerk who intends to be a notary does not leave
important deeds in a diligence at the mercy of other travellers;
neither does he spend twenty francs between Paris and Moisselles; or
expose himself to be arrested as a deserter--"
"Monseigneur," said Georges Marest, "I may have amused myself with the
bourgeois in the diligence, but--"
"Let his Excellency finish what he was saying," said the notary,
digging his elbow into his clerk's ribs.
"A notary," continued the count, "ought to practise discretion,
shrewdness, caution from the start; he should be incapable of such a
blunder as taking a peer of France for a tallow-chandler--"
"I am willing to be blamed for my faults," said Georges; "but I never
left my deeds at the mercy of--"
"Now you are committing the fault of contradicting the word of a
minister of State, a gentleman, an old man, and a client," said the
count. "Give me that deed of sale."
Georges turned over and over the papers in his portfolio.
"That will do; don't disarrange those papers," said the count, taking
the deed from his pocket. "Here is what you are looking for."
Crottat turned the paper back and forth, so astonished was he at
receiving it from the hands of his client.
"What does this mean, monsieur?" he said, finally, to Georges.
"If I had not taken it," said the count, "Pere Leger,--who is by no
means such a ninny as you thought him from his questions about
agriculture, by which he showed that he attended to his own business,
--Pere Leger might have seized that paper and guessed my purpose. You
must give me the pleasure of dining with me, but one on condition,--
that of describing, as you promised, the execution of the Muslim of
Smyrna, and you must also finish the memoirs of some client which you
have certainly read to be so well informed."
"Schlague for blague!" said Leon de Lora, in a whisper, to Joseph
Bridau.
"Gentlemen," said the count to the two notaries and Messieurs
Margueron and de Reybert, "let us go into the next room and conclude
this business before dinner, because, as my friend Mistigris would
say: 'Qui esurit constentit.'"
"Well, he is very good-natured," said Leon de Lora to Georges Marest,
when the count had left the room.
"Yes, HE may be, but my master isn't," said Georges, "and he will
request me to go and blaguer somewhere else."
"Never mind, you like travel," said Bridau.
"What a dressing that boy will get from Monsieur and Madame Moreau!"
cried Mistigris.
"Little idiot!" said Georges. "If it hadn't been for him the count
would have been amused. Well, anyhow, the lesson is a good one; and if
ever again I am caught bragging in a public coach--"
"It is a stupid thing to do," said Joseph Bridau.
"And common," added Mistigris. "'Vulgarity is the brother of
pretension.'"
While the matter of the sale was being settled between Monsieur
Margueron and the Comte de Serizy, assisted by their respective
notaries in presence of Monsieur de Reybert, the ex-steward walked
with slow steps to his own house. There he entered the salon and sat
down without noticing anything. Little Husson, who was present,
slipped into a corner, out of sight, so much did the livid face of his
mother's friend alarm him.
"Eh! my friend!" said Estelle, coming into the room, somewhat tired
with what she had been doing. "What is the matter?"
"My dear, we are lost,--lost beyond recovery. I am no longer steward
of Presles, no longer in the count's confidence."
"Why not?"
"Pere Leger, who was in Pierrotin's coach, told the count all about
the affair of Les Moulineaux. But that is not the thing that has cost
me his favor."
"What then?"
"Oscar spoke ill of the countess, and he told about the count's
diseases."
"Oscar!" cried Madame Moreau. "Ah! my dear, your sin has found you
out. It was well worth while to warm that young serpent in your bosom.
How often I have told you--"
"Enough!" said Moreau, in a strained voice.
At this moment Estelle and her husband discovered Oscar cowering in
his corner. Moreau swooped down on the luckless lad like a hawk on its
prey, took him by the collar of the coat and dragged him to the light
of a window. "Speak! what did you say to monseigneur in that coach?
What demon let loose your tongue, you who keep a doltish silence
whenever I speak to you? What did you do it for?" cried the steward,
with frightful violence.
Too bewildered to weep, Oscar was dumb and motionless as a statue.
"Come with me and beg his Excellency's pardon," said Moreau.
"As if his Excellency cares for a little toad like that!" cried the
furious Estelle.
"Come, I say, to the chateau," repeated Moreau.
Oscar dropped like an inert mass to the ground.
"Come!" cried Moreau, his anger increasing at every instant.
"No! no! mercy!" cried Oscar, who could not bring himself to submit to
a torture that seemed to him worse than death.
Moreau then took the lad by his coat, and dragged him, as he might a
dead body, through the yards, which rang with the boy's outcries and
sobs. He pulled him up the portico, and, with an arm that fury made
powerful, he flung him, bellowing, and rigid as a pole, into the
salon, at the very feet of the count, who, having completed the
purchase of Les Moulineaux, was about to leave the salon for the
dining-room with his guests.
"On your knees, wretched boy! and ask pardon of him who gave food to
your mind by obtaining your scholarship."
Oscar, his face to the ground, was foaming with rage, and did not say
a word. The spectators of the scene were shocked. Moreau seemed no
longer in his senses; his face was crimson with injected blood.
"This young man is a mere lump of vanity," said the count, after
waiting a moment for Oscar's excuses. "A proud man humiliates himself
because he sees there is grandeur in a certain self-abasement. I am
afraid that you will never make much of that lad."
So saying, his Excellency passed on. Moreau took Oscar home with him;
and on the way gave orders that the horses should immediately be put
to Madame Moreau's caleche.
CHAPTER VII
A MOTHER'S TRIALS
While the horses were being harnessed, Moreau wrote the following
letter to Madame Clapart:--
My dear,--Oscar has ruined me. During his journey in Pierrotin's
coach, he spoke of Madame de Serizy's behavior to his Excellency,
who was travelling incognito, and actually told, to himself, the
secret of his terrible malady. After dismissing me from my
stewardship, the count told me not to let Oscar sleep at Presles,
but to send him away immediately. Therefore, to obey his orders,
the horses are being harnessed at this moment to my wife's
carriage, and Brochon, my stable-man, will take the miserable
child to you to-night.
We are, my wife and I, in a distress of mind which you may perhaps
imagine, though I cannot describe it to you. I will see you in a
few days, for I must take another course. I have three children,
and I ought to consider their future. At present I do not know
what to do; but I shall certainly endeavor to make the count aware
of what seventeen years of the life of a man like myself is worth.
Owning at the present moment about two hundred and fifty thousand
francs, I want to raise myself to a fortune which may some day
make me the equal of his Excellency. At this moment I feel within
me the power to move mountains and vanquish insurmountable
difficulties. What a lever is such a scene of bitter humiliation
as I have just passed through! Whose blood has Oscar in his veins?
His conduct has been that of a blockhead; up to this moment when I
write to you, he has not said a word nor answered, even by a sign,
the questions my wife and I have put to him. Will he become an
idiot? or is he one already? Dear friend, why did you not instruct
him as to his behavior before you sent him to me? How many
misfortunes you would have spared me, had you brought him here
yourself as I begged you to do. If Estelle alarmed you, you might
have stayed at Moisselles. However, the thing is done, and there
is no use talking about it.
Adieu; I shall see you soon.
Your devoted servant and friend,
Moreau
At eight o'clock that evening, Madame Clapart, just returned from a
walk she had taken with her husband, was knitting winter socks for
Oscar, by the light of a single candle. Monsieur Clapart was expecting
a friend named Poiret, who often came in to play dominoes, for never
did he allow himself to spend an evening at a cafe. In spite of the
prudent economy to which his small means forced him, Clapart would not
have answered for his temperance amid a luxury of food and in presence
of the usual guests of a cafe whose inquisitiveobservation would have
piqued him.
"I'm afraid Poiret came while we were out," said Clapart to his wife.
"Why, no, my friend; the portress would have told us so when we came
in," replied Madame Clapart.
"She may have forgotten it."
"What makes you think so?"
"It wouldn't be the first time she has forgotten things for us,--for
God knows how people without means are treated."
"Well," said the poor woman, to change the conversation and escape
Clapart's cavilling, "Oscar must be at Presles by this time. How he
will enjoy that fine house and the beautiful park."
- bundle [´bʌndl]
n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词) - sensation [sen´seiʃən] n.感觉；轰动；轰动一时 (初中英语单词)
- conscious [´kɔnʃəs] a.意识的；自觉的 (初中英语单词)
- moreover [mɔ:´rəuvə] ad.再者，此外，而且 (初中英语单词)
- sufficiently [sə´fiʃəntli] ad.充分地，足够地 (初中英语单词)
- decoration [,dekə´reiʃən] n.装饰(品)；装璜 (初中英语单词)
- oblige [ə´blaidʒ] vt.责成；迫使；使感激 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- expose [ik´spəuz] vt.揭露，暴露；陈列 (初中英语单词)
- minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
- bureau [´bjuərəu] n.局；编辑部；事务所 (初中英语单词)
- victim [´viktim] n.牺牲者；受害者 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- diligence [´dilidʒəns] n.勤奋，努力 (初中英语单词)
- practise [´præktis] v.实践(行，施)；提倡 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- monsieur [mə´sjə:] n.先生 (初中英语单词)
- stupid [´stju:pid] a.愚蠢的；糊涂的 (初中英语单词)
- collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
- submit [səb´mit] vt.使服从；使忍受 (初中英语单词)
- torture [´tɔ:tʃə] n.&vt.折磨；痛苦；拷问 (初中英语单词)
- wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- distress [di´stres] n.痛苦 vt.使苦恼 (初中英语单词)
- knitting [´nitiŋ] n.编织(物)；接合；联合 (初中英语单词)
- economy [i´kɔnəmi] n.经济；机制；组织 (初中英语单词)
- luxury [´lʌkʃəri] n.奢侈(品)；享受 (初中英语单词)
- observation [,ɔbzə´veiʃən] n.观测；注意；意义 (初中英语单词)
- colonel [´kə:nəl] n.海(陆)军上校 (高中英语单词)
- mistaken [mis´teikən] mistake的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- caution [´kɔ:ʃən] n.&vt.小心；告诫；警告 (高中英语单词)
- execution [,eksi´kju:ʃən] n.执行；演奏；表演 (高中英语单词)
- client [´klaiənt] n.委托人；顾客 (高中英语单词)
- recovery [ri´kʌvəri] n.重获；获得；恢复 (高中英语单词)
- serpent [´sə:pənt] n.大毒蛇；阴险的人 (高中英语单词)
- frightful [´fraitfəl] a.可怕的；不愉快的 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- crimson [´krimzən] a.&n.深(紫)红(的) (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- behavior [bi´heiviə] n.举止，行为 (高中英语单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- incapable [in´keipəbəl] a.无能力的；不能的 (英语四级单词)
- grandeur [´grændʒə] n.伟大；富丽；壮观 (英语四级单词)
- vanquish [´væŋkwiʃ] vt.征服，克服；击败 (英语四级单词)
- temperance [´tempərəns] n.节制；节欲；戒酒 (英语四级单词)
- excellency [´eksələnsi] n.阁下 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- countess [´kauntis] n.伯爵夫人；女伯爵 (英语六级单词)
- malady [´mælədi] n.疾病；不正之风 (英语六级单词)
- inquisitive [in´kwizitiv] a.好奇的，好问的 (英语六级单词)
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