The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence. Эжен Сю
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let us go."
And Frederick turned abruptly toward the door.
Doctor Dufour, no less surprised and grieved than Madame Bastien, turned to David.
"My friend, what does this mean?" he asked.
"Monsieur," added Marie, also turning to the doctor's friend, embarrassed and distressed at the poor opinion this stranger must have formed of Frederick, "I have no idea what my son means. I do not know what has happened, but I must beg you, monsieur, to excuse him."
"It is I who should ask to be excused, madame," replied David, with a kindly smile. "Seeing your son leaning imprudently far out of the window just now, I made the mistake of treating him like a schoolboy. He is proud of his sixteen summers, as he should be, for at that age," continued David, with gentle gravity, "one is almost a man, and must fully understand and appreciate all the charm and happiness of a mother's love."
"Monsieur!" exclaimed Frederick, impetuously, his nostrils quivering with anger, and a deep flush suffusing his pale face, "I need no lesson from you."
And turning on his heel, he left the room.
"Frederick!" cried Marie, reproachfully, but her son was gone; so turning her lovely face, down which tears were now streaming, to David, she said, with touching artlessness:
"Ah, monsieur, I must again ask your pardon. Your kind words lead me to hope that you will understand my regret, and that you will not blame my unhappy son too severely."
"He is evidently suffering, and should be pitied and soothed," replied David, sympathisingly. "When I first saw him I was startled by his pallor and the drawn appearance of his features. But he has gone, madame, and I would advise you not to leave him by himself."
"Come, madame, come at once," said Doctor Dufour, offering his arm to Madame Bastien, and the latter, divided between the surprise the stranger's kindness excited and the intense anxiety she felt in regard to her son, left the room precipitately in company with the doctor to overtake Frederick.
On being left alone, David walked to the window. A moment afterward, he saw Madame Bastien come out of the house with her handkerchief to her eyes and leaning on the doctor, and step into the shabby little vehicle in which Frederick had already seated himself amid the laughs and sneers of the crowd that lingered on the mall, and that had witnessed the old work-horse's misadventure.
"That old nag won't forget the lesson the young marquis gave him for some time, I'll be bound," remarked one lounger.
"Wasn't he a sight when he planted himself with that old rattletrap of a chaise right in the midst of our young marquis's fine carriages?" remarked another.
"Yes, the old plug won't forget St. Hubert's Day in a hurry, I guess," added a third.
"Nor shall I forget it," muttered Frederick, trembling with rage.
At that moment the doctor assisted Madame Bastien into the vehicle, and Frederick, exasperated by the coarse jests he had just overheard, struck the innocent cause of all this commotion a furious blow, and the poor old horse, unused to such treatment, started off almost on a run.
In vain Madame Bastien implored her son to moderate the animal's pace. Several persons narrowly escaped being run over. A child who was slow in getting out of the way received a cut of the whip from Frederick, and whirling rapidly around the corner at the end of the mall, the chaise disappeared from sight amid the jeers and execrations of the angry crowd.
CHAPTER IX.
AFTER he had escorted Marie to her carriage Doctor Dufour reëntered the house and found his friend still standing thoughtfully by the window.
On hearing the door open and close, David awoke from his reverie and turned toward the doctor, who, thinking of the painful scene which they had just witnessed, exclaimed, referring of course to Madame Bastien:
"Poor woman! poor woman!"
"The young woman does indeed seem greatly to be pitied," remarked David.
"Far more than you think, for she lives only for her son; so you can judge how she must suffer."
"Her son? Why, I thought he was her brother. She doesn't look a day over twenty. She must have married very young."
"At the age of fifteen."
"And how beautiful she is!" remarked Henri, after a moment's silence. "Her loveliness, too, is of an unusual type,—the at once virginal and maternal beauty that gives Raphael's virgin mothers such a divine character."
"Virgin mothers! The words are peculiarly appropriate in this connection. I will tell you Madame Bastien's story. I feel sure that it will interest you."
"You are right, my friend. It will give me food for thought during my travels."
"M. Fierval," began the doctor, "was the only son of a well-to-do banker of Angers; but several unfortunate speculations involved him deeply, financially. Among his business friends was a real estate agent named Jacques Bastien, who was a native of this town and the son of a notary. When M. Fierval became embarrassed, Bastien, who had considerable ready money, gave him valuable pecuniary assistance. Marie was fifteen at the time, beautiful, and, like nearly all the daughters of thrifty provincials, brought up like a sort of upper servant in the house."
"What you say amazes me. Madame Bastien's manners are so refined. She has such an air of distinction—"
"In short, you see nothing to indicate any lack of early education in her."
"Quite the contrary."
"You are right; but you would not be so much surprised if you had witnessed the numerous metamorphoses in Madame Bastien that I have. Though she was so young she made a sufficiently deep impression upon our real estate man for him to come to me one day, and say:
"'I want to do a very foolish thing, that is to marry a young girl, but what makes the thing a little less idiotic, perhaps, is that the girl I have in view, though extremely pretty, has very little education, though she is a capital housewife. She goes to market with her father's cook, makes delicious pickles and preserves, and hasn't her equal in mending and darning.' Six weeks afterward, Marie, in spite of her aversion, and in spite of her tears and entreaties, yielded to her father's inexorable will, and became Madame Bastien."
"Was Bastien himself aware of the repugnance he inspired?"
"Perfectly; and this repugnance, by the way, was only too well justified, for Bastien, who was then forty-two years old, was as ugly as I am, to say the least, but had the constitution of a bull,—a sort of Farnese Hercules he was, in short,—though much more inclined to embonpoint, as he is an immense eater, and not at all cleanly in his personal habits. So much for him physically. Mentally, he is coarse, ignorant, arrogant, and bigoted, insufferably proud of the money he has amassed. Strongly inclined to avarice, he thinks he is treating his wife very liberally by allowing her one servant, a gardener, who acts as a Jack-of-all-trades on the place, and an old work-horse to take her to town now and then. The only good thing about Bastien is that his business keeps him away about three-quarters of the time, for he buys large tracts of land all over the country, and, after dividing them up, sells these subdivisions to small farmers. When he does return to his present home, a farm which proved a poor investment, and which he has been unable to dispose of, he devotes his time to making as much money out of it as he can, getting up at sunrise to watch his crops put in, and returning only at night to sup voraciously, drink like a fish, and fall into a drunken sleep."
"You are right, Pierre, this poor woman is much more unfortunate than I supposed. What a husband for such a charming creature! But men like this Bastien, who are endowed with the appetites of the brute combined with the instinct of rapacity, are at least excessively fond of their wives and their young. M. Bastien at least loves his wife and son, does he not?"
"As