Nobody's Boy. Hector Malot
else! Nothing for supper!" He glanced round the kitchen.
"There's some butter."
He looked up at the ceiling, at the spot where the bacon used to hang, but for a long time there had been nothing on the hook; only a few ropes of onions and garlic hung from the beam now.
"Here's some onions," he said, knocking a rope down with his big stick; "with four or five onions and a piece of butter we'll have a good soup. Take out the pancakes and fry the onions in the pan!"
"Take the pancakes out of the frying pan!"
Without a word, Mother Barberin hurried to do what her husband asked. He sat down on a chair by the corner of the fireplace. I had not dared to leave the place where his stick had sent me. Leaning against the table, I looked at him.
He was a man about fifty with a hard face and rough ways. His head leaned a little bit towards his right shoulder, on account of the wound he had received, and this deformity gave him a still more forbidding aspect.
Mother Barberin had put the frying pan again on the fire.
"Is it with a little bit of butter like that you're going to try and make a soup?" he asked. Thereupon he seized the plate with the butter and threw it all into the pan. No more butter … then … no more pancakes.
At any other moment I should have been greatly upset at this catastrophe, but I was not thinking of the pancakes and fritters now. The thought that was uppermost in my mind was, that this man who seemed so cruel was my father! My father! Absently I said the word over and over again to myself. I had never thought much what a father would be. Vaguely, I had imagined him to be a sort of mother with a big voice, but in looking at this one who had fallen from heaven, I felt greatly worried and frightened. I had wanted to kiss him and he had pushed me away with his stick. Why? My mother had never pushed me away when I went to kiss her; on the contrary, she always took me in her arms and held me tight.
"Instead of standing there as though you're made of wood," he said, "put the plates on the table."
I nearly fell down in my haste to obey. The soup was made. Mother Barberin served it on the plates. Then, leaving the big chimney corner, he came and sat down and commenced to eat, stopping only from time to time to glance at me. I felt so uncomfortable that I could not eat. I looked at him also, but out of the corner of my eye, then I turned my head quickly when I caught his eye.
"Doesn't he eat more than that usually?" he asked suddenly.
"Oh, yes, he's got a good appetite."
"That's a pity. He doesn't seem to want his supper now, though."
Mother Barberin did not seem to want to talk. She went to and fro, waiting on her husband.
"Ain't you hungry?"
"No."
"Well then, go to bed and go to sleep at once. If you don't I'll be angry."
My mother gave me a look which told me to obey without answering. But there was no occasion for this warning. I had not thought of saying a word.
As in a great many poor homes, our kitchen was also the bedroom. Near the fireplace were all the things for the meals—the table, the pots and pans, and the sideboard; at the other end was the bedroom. In a corner stood Mother Barberin's big bed, in the opposite corner, in a little alcove, was my bed under a red figured curtain.
I hurriedly undressed and got into bed. But to go to sleep was another thing. I was terribly worried and very unhappy. How could this man be my father? And if he was, why did he treat me so badly?
With my nose flattened against the wall I tried to drive these thoughts away and go to sleep as he had ordered me, but it was impossible. Sleep would not come. I had never felt so wide awake.
After a time, I could not say how long, I heard some one coming over to my bed. The slow step was heavy and dragged, so I knew at once that it was not Mother Barberin. I felt a warm breath on my cheek.
"Are you asleep?" This was said in a harsh whisper.
I took care not to answer, for the terrible words, "I'll be angry" still rang in my ears.
"He's asleep," said Mother Barberin; "the moment he gets into bed he drops off. You can talk without being afraid that he'll hear."
I ought, of course, to have told him that I was not asleep, but I did not dare. I had been ordered to go to sleep, I was not yet asleep, so I was in the wrong.
"Well, what about your lawsuit?" asked Mother Barberin.
"Lost it. The judge said that I was to blame for being under the scaffold." Thereupon he banged his fist on the table and began to swear, without saying anything that meant anything.
"Case lost," he went on after a moment; "money lost, all gone, poverty staring us in the face. And as though that isn't enough, when I get back here, I find a child. Why didn't you do what I told you to do?"
"Because I couldn't."
"You could not take him to a Foundlings' Home?"
"A woman can't give up a little mite like that if she's fed it with her own milk and grown to love it."
"It's not your child."
"Well, I wanted to do what you told me, but just at that very moment he fell ill."
"Ill?"
"Yes. Then I couldn't take him to that place. He might have died."
"But when he got better?"
"Well, he didn't get better all at once. After that sickness another came. He coughed so it would have made your heart bleed to hear him, poor little mite. Our little Nicolas died like that. It seemed to me that if I sent him to the Foundlings' Home he'd died also."
"But after? … after?"
"Well, time went on and I thought that as I'd put off going I'd put it off a bit longer."
"How old is he now?"
"Eight."
"Well then, he'll go now to the place where he should have gone sooner, and he won't like it so well now."
"Oh, Jerome, you can't … you won't do that!"
"Won't I? and who's going to stop me? Do you think we can keep him always?"
There was a moment's silence. I was hardly able to breathe. The lump in my throat nearly choked me. After a time Mother Barberin went on:
"How Paris has changed you! You wouldn't have spoken like that to me before you went away."
"Perhaps not. But if Paris has changed me, it's also pretty near killed me. I can't work now. We've got no money. The cow's sold. When we haven't enough to feed ourselves, have we got to feed a child that don't belong to us?"
"He's mine."
"He's no more yours than mine. Besides, he ain't a country boy. He's no poor man's child. He's a delicate morsel, no arms, no legs."
"He's the prettiest boy in the village!"
"I don't say he ain't pretty. But sturdy, no! Do you think you can make a working man out of a chit with shoulders like his? He's a city child and there's no place for city children here."
"I tell you he's a fine boy and as intelligent and cute as a little cat, and he's got a good heart, and he'll work for us. … "
"In the meantime we've got to work for him, and I'm no good for much now."
"If his parents claim him, what will you say?"
"His parents! Has he got any parents? They would have found him by now if he had. It was a crazy thing for me to think that his parents would come and claim him some day and pay us for his keep. I was a fool. 'Cause he was wrapped up in fine clothes trimmed with lace, that wasn't to say that his parents were going to hunt for