Yet, in the early days, Auguste had tried to please her. He liked peace, he longed for a quiet little home, he already had his whims like an old man, and had got thoroughly into the habits of his chaste and economical bachelor life. His old lodging on the “entresol” no longer sufficing, he had taken the suite of apartments on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard, and thought himself sufficiently insane in spending five thousand francs on furniture. Berthe, at first delighted with her room upholstered in thuja and blue silk, had shown the greatest contempt for it after visiting a friend who had just married a banker. Then quarrels arose with respect to the servants. The young woman, used to the waiting of poor semi-idiotic girls, who had their bread even cut for them, insisted on their doing things which set them crying in their kitchens for afternoons together. Auguste, not particularly tender-hearted as a rule, having imprudently gone and consoled one, had to turn her out of the place an hour later on account of madame’s tears, and her request that he should, choose between her and that creature.
Afterward a wench had come who appeared to have made up her mind to stop. Her name was Rachel, and she was probably a Jewess, but she denied it, and let no one know whence she had sprung. She was about twenty-five years old, with harsh features, a large nose, and very black hair. At first, Berthe declared that she would not allow her to stop two days; then, in presence of her dumb obedience, her air of understanding and saying nothing, she had little by little allowed herself to be satisfied, as though she had yielded in her turn, and was keeping her for her good qualities, and also through an unavowed fear. Rachel, who submitted without a murmur to the hardest tasks, accompanied by dry bread, took possession of the establishment, with her eyes open and her mouth shut, like a servant of foresight biding the fatal and foreseen hour when her mistress would be able to refuse her nothing.
Meanwhile, from the ground floor of the house to the servants’ story, a great calm had succeeded to the emotions caused by Monsieur Vabre’s sudden death. The staircase had again become as peaceful as a church; not a breath issued from behind the mahogany doors, which were forever closed upon the profound respectability of the various homes. There was a rumor that Duveyrier had become reconciled with his wife. As for Valérie and Théophile, they spoke to no one, but passed by stiff and dignified. Never before had the house exhaled a more strict severity of principles. Monsieur Gourd, in his cap and slippers, wandered about it with the air of a solemn beadle.
One evening, toward eleven o’clock, Auguste continued going to the door of the warehouse, stretching his head out, and glancing up and down the street. An impatience which had increased little by little was agitating him. Berthe, whom her mother and sister had fetched away during dinner, without even giving her time to finish her dessert, had not returned home after an absence of more than three hours, and in spite of her distinct promise to be back by closing time.
“Ah! good heavens! good heavens!” he ended by saying, clasping his hands together, and making his fingers crack.
And he stood still before Octave, who was ticketing some remnants of silk on a counter. At that late hour of the evening, no customer ever appeared in that out-of-the-way end of the Rue de Choiseul. The shop was merely kept open to put things straight.
“Surely you know where the ladies have gone?” inquired Auguste of the young man.
The latter raised his eyes with an innocent and surprised air.
“But, sir, they told you. To a lecture.”
“A lecture, a lecture,” grumbled the husband. “Their lecture was over at ten o’clock. Respectable women should be home at this hour!”