And he had scarcely reached his own apartment when Duveyrier and Bachelard called. At first, amazed at seeing the uncle, he wished to give them the names of two of his friends. But these gentlemen, without answering, spoke of their age, and preached him a sermon on his misconduct. Then, as in the course of conversation he announced his intention of leaving the house at the earliest possible moment, they both solemnly declared that that proof of his discretion was quite sufficient. There had been more than enough scandal; the time had come when respectable people had the right to expect them to make the sacrifice of their passions. Duveyrier accepted Octave’s notice to quit on the spot, and withdrew, whilst, behind his back, Bachelard invited the young man to dine with him that evening.
“Mind, I count upon you. We’re on the spree; Trublot is waiting below. I don’t care a button for Eléonore. But I don’t wish to see her, and I’ll go down first, so that no one shall meet us together.”
He took his departure, and, five minutes later, Octave, delighted with the issue of affairs, joined him below. He slipped into the cab, and the melancholy horse, which had been dragging the husband about for seven hours, limped along with them to a restaurant near the Halles, where some marvelous tripe was to be obtained.
Duveyrier had gone back to Théophile in the warehouse. Valérie also had just come in, and all three were talking together when Clotilde herself returned from a concert. She had gone there, moreover, with a mind perfectly at ease, certain, said she, that some arrangement satisfactory to every one would be arrived at. Then ensued a pause, a momentary embarrassment between the two families. Théophile, seized with an abominable fit of coughing, was almost spitting his teeth out. As it was to their mutual interest to be reconciled, they ended by taking advantage of the emotion into which the new family troubles had plunged them. The two women embraced; Duveyrier swore to Théophile that the Vabre inheritance was ruining him, yet he promised to indemnify him by remitting his rent for three years.
“I must go and tranquilize poor Auguste,” at length observed the counselor.
He was ascending the stairs, when some terrible cries, resembling those of an animal being butchered, issued from the bed-room. It was Saturnin, who, armed with his kitchen knife, had noiselessly crept as far as the alcove; and there, his eyes as red as flaming coals, his mouth covered with foam, he had rushed upon Auguste.
“Tell me! where have you put her?” cried he. “Give her back to me, or I’ll bleed you like a pig!”
The husband, suddenly roused from his painful slumber, tried to fly. But the madman, with the strength of his fixed idea, had caught him by the tail of his shirt, and, pushing him back on the mattress, placing his neck on the edge of the bed, over a basin which happened to be there, he held him in the position of an animal at the slaughter-house.
“Ah! it’s all right this time. I’m going to bleed you—I’m going to bleed you like a pig!”