Jack by Alphonse Daudet (web ebook reader txt) 📖

half an hour before he must leave, and he must decide at once on something definite. He must consult Belisaire, whom he heard patiently pacing the corridor, and who would have waited until nightfall without once knocking to see if the interview was over.
"Belisaire, my mother has come to live with me; how shall we manage?"
Belisaire started as he thought, "And now the marriage must be postponed, for Jack will not be one of our little menage!"
But he concealed his disappointment, and exerted himself to suggest some plan that would relieve his friend of present embarrassment. It was decided finally that he should relinquish the room to Jack and his mother and find for himself a closet to sleep in, depositing his stock of hats and his furniture with Madame Weber.
Jack presented his friend to Belisaire, who remembered very well the fair lady at Aulnettes, and at once placed himself for the day at the service of Ida de Barancy; for "Charlotte" was no more heard of. A bed must be purchased, a couple of chairs, and a dressing-bureau. Jack took from the drawer where he kept his savings three or four gold pieces which he gave his mother.
"You know," he said, "that if marketing is disagreeable to you, good Madame Weber will attend to the dinners."
"Not at all; Belisaire will simply tell me where to go. I intend to do everything for you; you will see the nice little dinner I shall have ready for you when you come back to-night."
She had laid aside her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and was all ready to begin her work. Jack, delighted to see her so energetic, embraced her with his whole heart, and left his room in a very joyous frame of mind. With what courage he toiled all day! The present unfortunate career and hopeless future of his mother had troubled him for some time, and marred his joys and his hopes. To what depth of degradation would D'Argenton compel her to sink! To what end was she destined! Now all was changed. Ida, tenderly protected by his filial love, would become worthy of her whom she would some day call "my daughter."
It seemed to Jack, moreover, that this event in some way diminished the distance between Cecile and himself, and he smiled to himself as he thought of it. But after his work, as he drew near his home, he was seized by a panic. Should he find his mother there? He knew with what promptitude Ida gave wings to her fancies and caprices, and he feared lest she had felt the temptation to re-tie the knot so hastily broken. But on the staircase this dread vanished. Above all the noises of the house he heard a fresh, clear voice singing like a lark. Jack stood on the threshold in mute amazement. Thoroughly freshened and cleaned, with Belisaire's goods gone, and with the addition of a pretty bed and dainty dressing-bureau, the room looked like a different place. There were flowers on the chimney, and the table was spread with a white cloth, on which stood a tempting-looking pie and a bottle of wine. Ida, in an embroidered skirt and loose sack, a little cap mounted on the top of her puffs, hardly looked like herself.
"Well!" she said, running to meet him; "and what do you think of it!"
"It is altogether charming. And how quick you have been!"
"Yes; Belisaire helped me, and his nice widow also. I have invited them to dine with us."
"But what will you do for dishes?"
"You will see. I have bought a few, and our neighbors on the other side have lent me some. They are very obliging also."
Jack, who had never thought these people particularly complaisant, opened his eyes wide.
"But this is not all. I went to buy this pie at a place where they sell them fifteen cents less than anywhere else. It was so far, however, that I had to take a carriage to return."
This was thoroughly characteristic. A carriage at two francs to save fifteen cents! She evidently knew where the best things were to be found.
The bread came from the Vienna bakery, and the coffee and dessert from the _Palais Royale_. Jack listened with a sinking heart. She saw that something was wrong.
"Have I spent too much?" she asked.
"No, I think not,--for one occasion," he answered, with same hesitation.
"But I have not been extravagant. Look here," she said, and she showed him a long green book; "in this I mean to keep my accounts. I will show my entries to you after dinner."
Belisaire and Madame Weber with her child now entered the room. It was truly delicious to see the airs of condescension with which Ida received them; but her manner was withal so kind that they were soon entirely at their ease.
Belisaire was somewhat out of spirits, for he saw that his marriage must be indefinitely postponed, as he had lost his "comrade." Ah, one may well compare the events of this world to the see-saws arranged by children, which lifts one of the players, while the other at the same time feels all the hardness of the earth below. Jack mounted toward the light, while his companion descended toward the implacable reality. To begin with, the person called Belisaire--who should in reality have been named Resignation, Devotion, or Patience--was now obliged to relinquish his pleasant room and sleep in a closet, the only place on that floor; not for worlds would he have gone farther from Madame Weber.
Their guests gone, and Jack and his mother alone, she was astonished to see him bring out a pile of books.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I am going to study." And he then told her of the double life he led; of his hopes, and the reward that was held out to him at the end. Until then he had never confided them to her, fearing that she would inform D'Argenton, whom he utterly distrusted, and he feared that in some way his happiness would be compromised. But now that his mother belonged to him alone, he could speak to her of Cecile and of his supreme joy. Jack talked with enthusiasm of his love, but soon saw that his mother did not understand him. She had a certain amount of sentiment, but love had not the same signification for her that it had for him. She listened to him with the same interest that she would have felt in the third act at the _Gymnase_, when the _Ingenue_ in a white dress, with rose-colored ribbons, listened to the declaration of a lover with frizzed hair. She was pleased with the spectacle as presented by her son, and said two or three times, "How nice! how very nice! It makes me think of Paul and Virginia!"
Fortunately, lovers, when speaking of their passion, listen to the echoes of their words in their own hearts, and Jack, thus absorbed, heard none of the commonplace comments of his mother.
Jack had been living a week in this way when, one evening, Belisaire came to meet him with a radiant face. "We are to be married at once! Madame Weber has found a 'comrade.'"
Jack, who had been the unintentional cause of his friend's disappointment, was equally well pleased. This pleasure, however, did not last; for, on seeing "the comrade," he received a most unpleasant impression. The man was tall and powerfully built, but the expression of his face was far from agreeable.
The great day arrived at last. Among the middle classes, a day is generally given to the civil marriage, another to the wedding at the church; but the people to whom time is money cannot afford this. So they generally take Saturday for the two ceremonies.
Belisaire's wedding, therefore, occurred on that day, and was really one of the most imposing of the many processions they met on their way to the municipality. Although the white dress of the bride was missing, Madame Weber, in her quality of widow, wore a dress of brilliant blue of that bright indigo shade so dear to persons who like solid colors; a many-hued shawl was carefully folded on her arm, and a superb cap, ornamented with ribbons and flowers, displayed her beaming peasant face. She walked by the side of Belisaire's father, a little dried-up old man, with a hooked nose and abrupt movements, and a perpetual cough that his new daughter-in-law endeavored to soothe by rubbing his back with considerable violence. These repeated frictions somewhat disturbed the dignity of the wedding procession.
Belisaire came next, giving his arm to his sister, whose nose was as hooked as her father's. Belisaire himself looked almost handsome; he led by one hand Madame Weber's little child. Then came a crowd of relatives and friends, and finally Jack, Madame de Barancy being unwilling to do more than honor the wedding-dinner with her presence. This repast was to take place at Vincennes.
When the train that brought the party reached the restaurant, the room engaged by Belisaire was still occupied. This gave them time to look at the lake and to amuse themselves with examining the crowd of merrymakers. They were dancing and singing, playing blind-man's-buff and innumerable other games; under the trees a girl was mending the flounces of a bride's dress. O, those white dresses! With what joy those girls let them drag over the lawn, imagining themselves for that one occasion women of fashion. It is precisely this illusion that the people seek in their hours of amusement: a pretence of riches, a momentary semblance of the envied and happy of this earth.
Belisaire's party were too hungry to be gay, and they hailed with joy the announcement that dinner was ready at last. The table was laid in one of those large rooms whose walls were frescoed in faded colors, and whose size was apparently increased by innumerable mirrors. At each end of the table was a huge bouquet of artificial orange blossoms, a centrepiece of pink and white sugar, and ornaments of the same, which had officiated at many a wedding-dinner in the previous six months. They took their seats in solemn silence, though Madame do Barancy had not yet arrived.
The guests were somewhat intimidated by the black-coated waiters, who disdainfully looked at these poor people who were dining at a dollar per head, a sum which each one of the guests thought of with respect, and envied Belisaire who could afford such an extravagant entertainment. The waiters were, however, filled with profound contempt, which they expressed by winks at each other, invisible however to the guests.
Belisaire had just at his side one of these gentlemen, who filled him with holy horror; another, opposite behind his wife's chair, watched him so disagreeably that the good man scarcely dared lift his eyes from the _carte_,--on which, among familiar words like ducks, chickens, and beans, appeared the well-known names of generals, towns, and battles--Marengo, Richelieu, and so on. Belisaire, like the others, was stupefied, the more so when two plates of soup were presented with the question, "Bisque, or Puree de Crecy?" Or two bottles: "Xeres, or Pacaset, sir?"
They answered at hazard as one does in some of those society games where you are requested to select one of two flowers. In fact, the answer was of little consequence since both plates contained the same tasteless mixture. There was so much ceremony that the dinner threatened to be very dull, and interminable as well, from the indecision of the guests as to the dishes they should accept. It was Madame Weber's clear head and decided hand that cut this Gordian knot. She turned to her child. "Eat everything," she said, "it costs us enough."
These words of wisdom had their effect on the whole