He had escorted Madame Constant to her carriage, and came back inspired with respectful indulgence for the grief of his new pupil.
The coachman, Augustin, had such fine furs, the coupé was so well appointed, that the little fellow, Jack, profited by the magnificence of the equipage.
“That is well,” he said, benevolently, to the Egyptian. “Play together; but go to the other room, where it is warmer than here, I shall permit the boys to have a holiday in honor of the new pupil.”
Poor little fellow! He was soon surrounded by a noisy crowd, who questioned him without mercy. With his blonde curls, his plaid suit, and bare legs, he sat motionless and timid, wondering at the frantic gestipulations of these little boys of foreign birth, and among them all, looked much like an elegant little Parisian shut up in the great monkey cage in the Jardin des Plantes.
This was the idea that occurred to Moronval, but he was aroused from his silent hilarity by the noise of a discussion too animated to be altogether amiable. He heard the puffs and sighs of Labassandre and the solemn little voice of madame. Easily divining the bone of contention, he hastened to the assistance of his wife, whom he found heroically defending the money paid by Madame Constant against the demands of the professors, whose salaries were greatly in arrear.
Evariste Moronval, lawyer, politician, and littérateur, had been sent from Pointe-à-Petre in 1848 as secretary to a deputy from Guadaloupe. At that time he was just twenty-five, energetic and ambitious, with considerable ability and cultivation. Being poor, however, he accepted a dependent position which insured his expenses paid to Paris, that marvellous city, the heat of whose lurid flames extends so far over the world that it attracts even the moths from the colonies.
On landing, he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every effort, he was never able to rid himself. The first time he spoke in public, the shouts of laughter that greeted him proved conclusively that he could never make a name, for himself in Paris as a public speaker. He then resolved to write, but he was clever enough to understand that it was far easier to win a reputation at Pointe-à-Petre than in Paris. Haughty and tenacious, and spoiled by small successes, he passed from journal to journal, without being retained for any length of time on the staff of any one. Then began those hard experiences of life which either crush a man to the earth or harden him to iron. He joined the army of the ten thousand men who live by their wits in Paris, who rise each morning dizzy with hunger and ambitious dreams, make their breakfast from off a penny-roll, black the seams of their coats with ink, whiten their shirt-collars with billiard-chalk, and warm themselves in the churches and libraries.
He became familiar with all these degradations and miseries,—to credit refused at the low eating-house, to the non-admittance to his garret at eleven o’clock at night, and to the scanty bit of candle, and to shoes in holes.
He was one of those professors of—it matters not what, who write articles for the encyclopaedias at a half centime a line, a history of the Middle Ages in two volumes, at twenty-five francs per volume, compile catalogues, and copy plays for the theatres.
He was dismissed from one institution, where he taught English, for having struck one of the pupils in his passionate, Creole fashion.