The arrival of this letter threw Moronval into a terrible fit of rage, which rage shook the equilibrium of the academy as a violent tornado might have done in the tropics.
The countess gone! and gone too, apparently, with that brainless fellow, who had neither wit nor imagination. Was it not shameful that a woman of her years—for she was by no means in her earliest youth—should be so heartless as to leave her child alone in Paris, among strangers.
But even while he pitied Jack, Moronval said to himself, “Wait a while, young man, and I will show you how paternally I shall manage you.”
But if he was enraged when he thought of the Review, his cherished project, he was more indignant that D’Argenton and Ida should have made use of him and his house to advance their own plans. He hurried off to the Boulevard Haussmann to learn all he could; but the mystery was no nearer elucidation.
Constant was expecting a letter from her mistress, and knew only that she had broken entirely with all past relations; that the house was to be given up, and the furniture sold.
“Ah! sir,” said Constant, mournfully, “it was an unfortunate day for us when we set foot in your old barracks!”
The preceptor returned home convinced that at the termination of the next quarter Jack would be withdrawn from the school. Deciding, therefore, that the child was no longer a mine of wealth, he determined to put an end to all the indulgences with which he had been treated. Poor Jack after this day sat at the table no longer as an equal, but as the butt for all the teachers. No more dainties, no more wine for him. There were constant allusions made to D’Argenton: he was selfish and vain, a man totally without genius; as to his noble birth, it was more than doubtful; the château in the mountains, of which he discoursed so fluently, existed only in his imagination. These fierce attacks on the man whom he detested, amused the child; but something prevented him from joining in the servile applause of the other children, who eagerly laughed at each one of Moronval’s witticisms. The fact was, that Jack dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks invariably terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning, but he saw by the contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly. Madame Moronval would sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly word to Jack, or by sending him on some trifling errand. During his absence, she administered a reproof to her husband and his friends.
“Pshaw!” said Labassandre, “he does not understand.” Perhaps he did not fully, but he comprehended enough to make his heart very sore.
He had known for a long time that he had a father whose name was not the same as his own, that his mother had no husband; and, one day, when one of the schoolboys made some taunting allusion, he flew at him in a rage. The boy was nearly choked; his cries summoned Moronval to the scene, and Jack for the first time was severely flogged.
From that day the charm was broken, and Jack’s daily life did not greatly differ from that of Mâdou, who was at this time very unhappy. The pleasant weather, and the day at the Jardin d’Aclimation, had given him a terrible fit of homesickness. His melancholy at first took the form of a sullen revolt against his exacting masters. Suddenly all this was changed, the boy’s eyes grew bright, and he seemed to go about the house and the garden as if in a dream.