The young girls were crossing the Place du Palais-Royal, when a shower came on. It was a regular rout. They stopped, slipping, splashing, looking again at the vehicles passing empty along.
“Walk on!” cried the mother, pitilessly. “We are too near now; it is not worth two francs. And your brother Léon, who refused to leave with us for fear of having to pay for the cab! So much the better for him if he gets what he wants at that lady’s, but we can say that it is not at all decent. A woman who is over fifty and who only receives young men! An old nothing-much whom a high personage married to that fool Dambreville, appointing him head clerk!”
Hortense and Berthe trotted along in the rain, one before the other, without seeming to hear. When their mother thus eased herself, letting everything out, and forgetting the wholesome strictness with which she kept them, it was agreed that they should be deaf. Berthe, however, revolted on entering the gloomy and deserted Rue de l’Echelle.
“Oh, dear!” said she, “the heel of my shoe is coming off. I cannot go a step further!”
Madame Josserand’s wrath became terrible.
“Just walk on! Do I complain? Is it my place to be out in the street at such a time and in such weather? It would be different if you had a father like others! But no, the fine gentleman stays at home taking his ease. It is always my turn to drag you about; he would never accept the burden. Well! I declare to you that I have had enough of it. Your father may take you out in future if he likes; may the devil have me if ever again I accompany you to houses where I am plagued like that! A man who deceived me as to his capacities, and who has never yet procured me the least pleasure! Ah! good heavens! there is one I would not marry now, if it were to come over again!”
The young ladies no longer protested. They were already acquainted with this inexhaustible chapter of their mother’s blighted hopes. With their lace wraps drawn over their faces, their shoes sopping wet, they rapidly followed the Rue Sainte-Anne. But, in the Rue de Choiseul, at the very door of her house, a last humiliation awaited Madame Josserand: the Duveyriers’ carriage splashed her as it passed in.
On the stairs, the mother and the young ladies, worn out and enraged, recovered their gracefulness when they had to pass before Octave. Only, as soon as ever their door was closed behind them, they rushed through the dark apartment, knocking up against the furniture, and tumbled into the dining-room, where Monsieur Josserand was writing by the feeble light of a little lamp.
“Failed!” cried Madame Josserand, letting herself fall on to a chair.
And, with a rough gesture, she tore the lace wrap from her head, threw her fur cloak on to the back of her chair, and appeared in a flaring dress trimmed with black satin and cut very low in the neck, looking enormous, her shoulders still beautiful, and resembling a mare’s shining flanks. Her square face, with its drooping cheeks and too big nose, expressed the tragic fury of a queen restraining herself from descending to the use of coarse, vulgar expressions.