“Eh! what! a hundred francs! Don’t search me. I’ve nothing but coppers. You want ’em to squander in bad places! No, I’ll never encourage you in your vices. I know my duty; your mother confided you to my care on her death-bed. You know, I’ll call out if I am searched.”
He continued, his indignation increasing against the dissolute life led by youth, and returning to the necessity there was for the display of virtue.
“I say,” Gueulin ended by saying, “I’ve not got to the point of taking families in. Ah! you know what I mean! If I were to talk, you’d soon give me my hundred francs!”
But the uncle at once became deaf to everything. He went grunting and stumbling along. In the narrow street where they then were, behind the church of Saint-Gervaise, a white lantern alone burned with the palish glimmer of a night-light, displaying a gigantic number painted on its roughened glass. A stifled trepidation issued from the house, whilst the closed shutters emitted a tew narrow rays of light.
“I’ve had enough of it,” declared Gueulin, abruptly. “Excuse me, uncle, I forgot my umbrella up there.”
And he entered the house. Bachelard was indignant and full of disgust. He demanded at least a little respect for women. With such morals France was done for. On the Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville, Octave and Trublot at length found a cab, inside which they shoved him like some bundle.
“Rue d’Enghien,” said they to the driver. “You must pay yourself. Search him.”
The marriage contract was signed on the Thursday before Maitre Renandin, notary in the Rue de Grammont. At the moment of starting, there had been another awful row at the Josserands’, the father having, in a supreme revolt, made the mother responsible for the lie they had forced him to countenance; and they had once more cast their families in each other’s teeth. How did they expect him to earn another ten thousand francs every six months? The obligation was driving him mad. Uncle Bachelard, who was there, kept placing his hand on his heart, full of fresh promises, now that he had so managed that he would not have to part with a sou, and overflowing with affection, and swearing that he would never leave his little Berthe in an awkward position. But the father, in his exasperation, had merely shrugged his shoulders, asking Bachelard if he really took him for a fool.
On the evening of that day, a cab came to fetch Saturnin away. His mother had declared that it was too dangerous for him to be at the ceremony; one could not cast loose a madman who talked of spitting people in the midst of a wedding party; and, Monsieur Josserand, broken-hearted, had been obliged to apply for the admission of the poor fellow into the Asile des Moulineaux, kept by Doctor Chassagne. The cab was brought under the porch at twilight. Saturnin came down holding Berthe’s hand, and thinking he was going with her into the country. But when he was inside the cab, he struggled furiously, breaking the windows and thrusting his bloody fists through them. And Monsieur Josserand returned up-stairs weeping, all upset by this departure in the dark, his ears ringing with the wretched creature’s yells, mingled with the cracking of the whip and the gallop of the horse.