The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac. The griffin classics
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