The Celibates Part 43

Thus, at twenty-eight years of age, the Rabouilleuse felt for the first time a true love, an idolatrous love, the love which includes all ways of loving,--that of Gulnare and that of Medora. As soon as the penniless officer found out the respective situations of Flore and Jean-Jacques Rouget, he saw something more desirable than an "amourette" in an intimacy with the Rabouilleuse. He asked nothing better for his future prosperity than to take up his abode at the Rouget's, recognizing perfectly the feeble nature of the old bachelor.

Flore's pa.s.sion necessarily affected the life and household affairs of her master. For a month the old man, now grown excessively timid, saw the laughing and kindly face of his mistress change to something terrible and gloomy and sullen. He was made to endure flashes of angry temper purposely displayed, precisely like a married man whose wife is meditating an infidelity. When, after some cruel rebuff, he nerved himself to ask Flore the reason of the change, her eyes were so full of hatred, and her voice so aggressive and contemptuous, that the poor creature quailed under them.

"Good heavens!" she cried; "you have neither heart nor soul! Here's sixteen years that I have spent my youth in this house, and I have only just found out that you have got a stone there (striking her breast). For two months you have seen before your eyes that brave captain, a victim of the Bourbons, who was cut out for a general, and is down in the depths of poverty, hunted into a hole of a place where there's no way to make a penny of money! He's forced to sit on a stool all day in the mayor's office to earn--what? Six hundred miserable francs,--a fine thing, indeed! And here are you, with six hundred and fifty-nine thousand well invested, and sixty thousand francs' income, --thanks to me, who never spend more than three thousand a year, everything included, even my own clothes, yes, everything!--and you never think of offering him a home here, though there's the second floor empty! You'd rather the rats and mice ran riot in it than put a human being there,--and he a lad your father always allowed to be his own son! Do you want to know what you are? I'll tell you,--a fratricide! And I know why, too. You see I take an interest in him, and that provokes you. Stupid as you seem, you have got more spite in you than the spitefullest of men. Well, yes! I do take an interest in him, and a keen one--"

"But, Flore--"

"'_But, Flore_', indeed! What's that got to do with it? You may go and find another Flore (if you can!), for I hope this gla.s.s of wine may poison me if I don't get away from your dungeon of a house. I haven't, G.o.d be thanked! cost you one penny during the twelve years I've been with you, and you have had the pleasure of my company into the bargain. I could have earned my own living anywhere with the work that I've done here,--was.h.i.+ng, ironing, looking after the linen, going to market, cooking, taking care of your interests before everything, slaving myself to death from morning till night,--and this is my reward!"

"But, Flore--"

"Oh, yes, '_Flore_'! find another Flore, if you can, at your time of life, fifty-one years old, and getting feeble,--for the way your health is failing is frightful, I know that! and besides, you are none too amusing--"

"But, Flore--"

"Let me alone!"

She went out, slamming the door with a violence that echoed through the house, and seemed to shake it to its foundations. Jean-Jacques softly opened the door and went, still more softly, into the kitchen where she was muttering to herself.

"But, Flore," said the poor sheep, "this is the first time I have heard of this wish of yours; how do you know whether I will agree to it or not?"

"In the first place," she said, "there ought to be a man in the house.

Everybody knows you have ten, fifteen, twenty thousand francs here; if they came to rob you we should both be murdered. For my part, I don't care to wake up some fine morning chopped in quarters, as happened to that poor servant-girl who was silly enough to defend her master.

Well! if the robbers knew there was a man in the house as brave as Caesar and who wasn't born yesterday,--for Max could swallow three burglars as quick as a flash,--well, then I should sleep easy. People may tell you a lot of stuff,--that I love him, that I adore him,--and some say this and some say that! Do you know what you ought to say?

You ought to answer that you know it; that your father told you on his deathbed to take care of his poor Max. That will stop people's tongues; for every stone in Issoudun can tell you he paid Max's schooling--and so! Here's nine years that I have eaten your bread--"

"Flore,--Flore!"

"--and many a one in this town has paid court to me, I can tell you!

Gold chains here, and watches there,--what don't they offer me? 'My little Flore,' they say, 'why won't you leave that old fool of a Rouget,'--for that's what they call you. 'I leave him!' I always answer, 'a poor innocent like that? I think I see myself! what would become of him? No, no, where the kid is tethered, let her browse--'"

"Yes, Flore; I've none but you in this world, and you make me happy.

If it will give you pleasure, my dear, well, we will have Maxence Gilet here; he can eat with us--"

"Heavens! I should hope so!"

"There, there! don't get angry--"

"Enough for one is enough for two," she answered laughing. "I'll tell you what you can do, my lamb, if you really mean to be kind; you must go and walk up and down near the Mayor's office at four o'clock, and manage to meet Monsieur Gilet and invite him to dinner. If he makes excuses, tell him it will give me pleasure; he is too polite to refuse. And after dinner, at dessert, if he tells you about his misfortunes, and the hulks and so forth--for you can easily get him to talk about all that--then you can make him the offer to come and live here. If he makes any objection, never mind, I shall know how to settle it."

Walking slowly along the boulevard Baron, the old celibate reflected, as much as he had the mind to reflect, over this incident. If he were to part from Flore (the mere thought confused him) where could he find another woman? Should he marry? At his age he should be married for his money, and a legitimate wife would use him far more cruelly than Flore. Besides, the thought of being deprived of her tenderness, even if it were a mere pretence, caused him horrible anguish. He was therefore as polite to Captain Gilet as he knew how to be. The invitation was given, as Flore had requested, before witnesses, to guard the hero's honor from all suspicion.

A reconciliation took place between Flore and her master; but from that day forth Jean-Jacques noticed many a trifle that betokened a total change in his mistress's affections. For two or three weeks Flore Brazier complained to the tradespeople in the markets, and to the women with whom she gossiped, about Monsieur Rouget's tyranny, --how he had taken it into his head to invite his self-styled natural brother to live with him. No one, however, was taken in by this comedy; and Flore was looked upon as a wonderfully clever and artful creature. Old Rouget really found himself very comfortable after Max became the master of his house; for he thus gained a companion who paid him many attentions, without, however, showing any servility.

Gilet talked, discussed politics, and sometimes went to walk with Rouget. After Max was fairly installed, Flore did not choose to do the cooking; she said it spoiled her hands. At the request of the grand master of the Order of the Knights of Idleness, Mere Cognette produced one of her relatives, an old maid whose master, a curate, had lately died without leaving her anything,--an excellent cook, withal,--who declared she would devote herself for life or death to Max and Flore.

In the name of the two powers, Mere Cognette promised her an annuity of three hundred francs a year at the end of ten years, if she served them loyally, honestly, and discreetly. The Vedie, as she was called, was noticeable for a face deeply pitted by the small-pox, and correspondingly ugly.

After the new cook had entered upon her duties, the Rabouilleuse took the t.i.tle of Madame Brazier. She wore corsets; she had silk, or handsome woollen and cotton dresses, according to the season, expensive neckerchiefs, embroidered caps and collars, lace ruffles at her throat, boots instead of shoes, and, altogether, adopted a richness and elegance of apparel which renewed the youthfulness of her appearance. She was like a rough diamond, that needed cutting and mounting by a jeweller to bring out its full value. Her desire was to do honor to Max. At the end of the first year, in 1817, she brought a horse, styled English, from Bourges, for the poor cavalry captain, who was weary of going afoot. Max had picked up in the purlieus of Issoudun an old lancer of the Imperial Guard, a Pole named Kouski, now very poor, who asked nothing better than to quarter himself in Monsieur Rouget's house as the captain's servant. Max was Kouski's idol, especially after the duel with the three royalists. So, from 1817, the household of the old bachelor was made up of five persons, three of whom were masters, and the expenses advanced to about eight thousand francs a year.

CHAPTER X

At the time when Madame Bridau returned to Issoudun to save--as Maitre Desroches expressed it--an inheritance that was seriously threatened, Jean-Jacques Rouget had reached by degrees a condition that was semi-vegetative. In the first place, after Max's instalment, Flore put the table on an episcopal footing. Rouget, thrown in the way of good living, ate more and still more, enticed by the Vedie's excellent dishes. He grew no fatter, however, in spite of this abundant and luxurious nourishment. From day to day he weakened like a worn-out man,--fatigued, perhaps, with the effort of digestion,--and his eyes had dark circles around them. Still, when his friends and neighbors met him in his walks and questioned him about his health, he always answered that he was never better in his life. As he had always been thought extremely deficient in mind, people did not notice the constant lowering of his faculties. His love for Flore was the one thing that kept him alive; in fact, he existed only for her, and his weakness in her presence was unbounded; he obeyed the creature's mere look, and watched her movements as a dog watches every gesture of his master. In short, as Madame Hochon remarked, at fifty-seven years of age he seemed older than Monsieur Hochon, an octogenarian.

Every one will suppose, and with reason, that Max's _appartement_ was worthy of so charming a fellow. In fact, in the course of six years our captain had by degrees perfected the comfort of his abode and adorned every detail of it, as much for his own pleasure as for Flore's. But it was, after all, only the comfort and luxury of Issoudun,--colored tiles, rather elegant wallpapers, mahogany furniture, mirrors in gilt frames, muslin curtains with red borders, a bed with a canopy, and draperies arranged as the provincial upholsterers arrange them for a rich bride; which in the eyes of Issoudun seemed the height of luxury, but are so common in vulgar fas.h.i.+on-plates that even the petty shopkeepers in Paris have discarded them at their weddings. One very unusual thing appeared, which caused much talk in Issoudun, namely, a rush-matting on the stairs, no doubt to m.u.f.fle the sound of feet. In fact, though Max was in the habit of coming in at daybreak, he never woke any one, and Rouget was far from suspecting that his guest was an accomplice in the nocturnal performances of the Knights of Idleness.

About eight o'clock the next morning, Flore, wearing a dressing-gown of some pretty cotton stuff with narrow pink stripes, a lace cap on her head, and her feet in furred slippers, softly opened the door of Max's chamber; seeing that he slept, she remained standing beside the bed.

"He came in so late!" she said to herself. "It was half-past three. He must have a good const.i.tution to stand such amus.e.m.e.nts. Isn't he strong, the dear love! I wonder what they did last night."

"Oh, there you are, my little Flore!" said Max, waking like a soldier trained by the necessities of war to have his wits and his self-possession about him the instant that he waked, however suddenly it might happen.

"You are sleepy; I'll go away."

"No, stay; there's something serious going on."

"Were you up to some mischief last night?"

"Ah, bah! It concerns you and me and that old fool. You never told me he had a family! Well, his family are coming,--coming here,--no doubt to turn us out, neck and crop."

"Ah! I'll shake him well," said Flore.

"Mademoiselle Brazier," said Max gravely, "things are too serious for giddiness. Send me my coffee; I'll take it in bed, where I'll think over what we had better do. Come back at nine o'clock, and we'll talk about it. Meanwhile, behave as if you had heard nothing."

Frightened at the news, Flore left Max and went to make his coffee; but a quarter of an hour later, Baruch burst into Max's bedroom, crying out to the grand master,--

"Fario is hunting for his barrow!"

In five minutes Max was dressed and in the street, and though he sauntered along with apparent indifference, he soon reached the foot of the tower embankment, where he found quite a collection of people.

"What is it?" asked Max, making his way through the crowd and reaching the Spaniard.

Fario was a withered little man, as ugly as though he were a blue-blooded grandee. His fiery eyes, placed very close to his nose and piercing as a gimlet, would have won him the name of a sorcerer in Naples. He seemed gentle because he was calm, quiet, and slow in his movements; and for this reason people commonly called him "goodman Fario." But his skin--the color of gingerbread--and his softness of manner only hid from stupid eyes, and disclosed to observing ones, the half-Moorish nature of a peasant of Granada, which nothing had as yet roused from its phlegmatic indolence.

"Are you sure," Max said to him, after listening to his grievance, "that you brought your cart to this place? for, thank G.o.d, there are no thieves in Issoudun."

"I left it just there--"

"If the horse was harnessed to it, hasn't he drawn it somewhere."

"Here's the horse," said Fario, pointing to the animal, which stood harnessed thirty feet away.

Max went gravely up to the place where the horse stood, because from there the bottom of the tower at the top of the embankment could be seen,--the crowd being at the foot of the mound. Everybody followed Max, and that was what the scoundrel wanted.

"Has anybody thoughtlessly put a cart in his pocket?" cried Francois.

"Turn out your pockets, all of you!" said Baruch.

Shouts of laughter resounded on all sides. Fario swore. Oaths, with a Spaniard, denote the highest pitch of anger.