He was longing for the time when the people who had always looked down upon him should have their eyes opened, and see how little the brilliant and idolized Alphonse was really fit for. He wanted to see him humbled, abandoned by his friends, lonely and poor; and then—!
Beyond that he really did not like to speculate; for at this point feelings stirred within him which he would not acknowledge.
He would hate his former friend; he would have revenge for all the coldness and neglect which had been his own lot in life; and every time the least thought in defence of Alphonse arose in his mind he pushed it aside, and said, like the old banker: “Sentiment won’t do for a business man.”
One day he went to his tailor’s; he bought more clothes in these days than he absolutely needed.
The nimble little man at once ran to meet him with a roll of cloth: “See, here is the very stuff for you. Monsieur Alphonse has had a whole suit made of it, and Monsieur Alphonse is a gentleman who knows how to dress.”
“I did not think that Monsieur Alphonse was one of your favorite customers,” said Charles, rather taken by surprise.
“Oh, mon Dieu!” exclaimed the little tailor, “you mean because I have once or twice mentioned that Monsieur Alphonse owed me a few thousand francs. It was very stupid of me to speak so. Monsieur Alphonse has not only paid me the trifle he was owing, but I know that he has also satisfied a number of other creditors. I have done ce cher beau monsieur great injustice, and I beg you never to give him a hint of my stupidity.”
Charles was no longer listening to the chatter of the garrulous tailor. He soon left the shop, and went up the street quite absorbed in the one thought that Alphonse had paid.
He thought how foolish it really was of him to wait and wait for the other’s ruin. How easily might not the adroit and lucky Alphonse come across many a brilliant business opening, and make plenty of money without a word of it reaching Charles’s ears. Perhaps, after all, he was getting on well. Perhaps it would end in people saying: “See, at last Monsieur Alphonse shows what he is fit for, now that he is quit of his dull and crabbed partner!”
Charles went slowly up the street with his head bent. Many people jostled him, but he heeded not. His life seemed to him so meaningless, as if he had lost all that he had ever possessed—or had he himself cast it from him? Just then some one ran against him with more than usual violence. He looked up. It was an acquaintance from the time when he and Alphonse had been in the Crédit Lyonnais.