"Perhaps they loved one another platonically," he said to himself.

Besides, Charles was not of those who go to the bottom of things; he

shrank from the proofs, and his vague jealousy was lost in the immensity

of his woe.

Everyone, he thought, must have adored her; all men assuredly must have

coveted her. She seemed but the more beautiful to him for this; he

was seized with a lasting, furious desire for her, that inflamed his

despair, and that was boundless, because it was now unrealisable.

To please her, as if she were still living, he adopted her

predilections, her ideas; he bought patent leather boots and took to

wearing white cravats. He put cosmetics on his moustache, and, like her,

signed notes of hand. She corrupted him from beyond the grave.

He was obliged to sell his silver piece by piece; next he sold the

drawing-room furniture. All the rooms were stripped; but the bedroom,

her own room, remained as before. After his dinner Charles went up

there. He pushed the round table in front of the fire, and drew up her

armchair. He sat down opposite it. A candle burnt in one of the gilt

candlesticks. Berthe by his side was painting prints.

He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, with laceless

boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn down to the hips; for the

charwoman took no care of her. But she was so sweet, so pretty, and her

little head bent forward so gracefully, letting the dear fair hair fall

over her rosy cheeks, that an infinite joy came upon him, a happiness

mingled with bitterness, like those ill-made wines that taste of

resin. He mended her toys, made her puppets from cardboard, or sewed up

half-torn dolls. Then, if his eyes fell upon the workbox, a ribbon lying

about, or even a pin left in a crack of the table, he began to dream,

and looked so sad that she became as sad as he.

No one now came to see them, for Justin had run away to Rouen, where he

was a grocer's assistant, and the druggist's children saw less and less

of the child, Monsieur Homais not caring, seeing the difference of their

social position, to continue the intimacy.

The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure with the pomade, had

gone back to the hill of Bois-Guillaume, where he told the travellers of

the vain attempt of the druggist, to such an extent, that Homais when

he went to town hid himself behind the curtains of the "Hirondelle" to

avoid meeting him. He detested him, and wishing, in the interests of his

own reputation, to get rid of him at all costs, he directed against

him a secret battery, that betrayed the depth of his intellect and the

baseness of his vanity. Thus, for six consecutive months, one could read

in the "Fanal de Rouen" editorials such as these-"All who bend their steps towards the fertile plains of Picardy have, no

doubt, remarked, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a wretch suffering from

a horrible facial wound. He importunes, persecutes one, and levies a

regular tax on all travellers. Are we still living in the monstrous

times of the Middle Ages, when vagabonds were permitted to display in

our public places leprosy and scrofulas they had brought back from the

Crusades?"




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024