She had raised her voice, and the doctor, who was examining his patient, was obliged to make her leave off.
“Speak lower, madame!” said he; “your husband suffers.”
Then the Abbé Mauduit, whose embarrassment had increased, went up to the bedside, and found some kind words to say. And he afterward withdrew, without again referring to the matter, hiding the confusion of having failed beneath his amiable smile, with a curl of grief and disgust on his lips. As the doctor went off in his turn, he roughly informed Madame Josserand that there was no hope for the invalid: the greatest precautions must be taken, for the least emotion might carry him off. She was thunderstruck, and returned to the dining-room, where her two daughters and their uncle had already withdrawn, to let Monsieur Josserand rest, as he seemed disposed to go to sleep.
“Berthe,” murmured she, “you have killed your father. The doctor has just said so.”
And they all three, seated round the table, gave way to their grief, whilst Uncle Bachelard, also in tears, mixed himself a glass of grog.
When Auguste learned the Josserands’ answer, his rage against his wife knew no bounds, and he swore he would kick her away the day she came to ask for forgiveness. Yet, in reality, he wanted her; there was a voidness in his life; he seemed to be out of his element, amidst the new worries of his abandonment, quite as grave as those of his married life.
Besides all this, another more serious anxiety bothered him: “The Ladies’ Paradise” was prospering, and already menaced his business, which decreased daily. He certainly did not regret that miserable Octave, yet he was just, and recognized that the fellow possessed very great abilities. How swimmingly everything would have gone had they only got on better together! He was seized with the most tender regrets; there were hours when, sick of his loneliness, feeling life giving way beneath him, he felt inclined to go up to the Josserands and ask them to give Berthe back to him for nothing.
Duveyrier, too, moreover, did not yield, and, more and more cut up by the moral disfavor into which such an affair threw his building, he was forever urging his brother-in-law to a reconciliation.
Each day life became more and more cruel for Duveyrier at this mistress’, where he encountered all the worries of his own home again, but this time in the midst of a regular hell. The whole tribe of hawkers—the mother, the big blackguard of a brother, the two little sisters, even the invalid aunt—impudently robbed him, lived on him openly, to the point of emptying his pockets during the nights he slept there. His position was also becoming a serious one in another respect; he had got to the end of his money; he trembled at the thought of being compromised on his judicial bench; he could certainly not be removed, only, the young barristers were beginning to look at him in a saucy kind of way, which made it awkward for him to administer justice. And, when driven away by the filth and the uproar, seized with disgust of himself, he flew from the Rue d’Assas and sought refuge in the Rue de Choiseul, his wife’s malignant coldness completed the crushing of him. Then he would lose his head; he would look at the Seine on his way to the court, with thoughts of jumping in some evening when a final suffering should impart to him the requisite courage.
Clotilde had noticed her husband’s emotion, and felt anxious and irritated with that mistress of his who did not even make a man happy in his misconduct. But, for her part, she was greatly annoyed by a most deplorable adventure, the consequences of which quite revolutionized the house. On going up-stairs one morning for a handkerchief, Clémence had caught Hippolyte with Louise, and, since then, she had taken to slapping him in the kitchen for the least thing, which of course greatly interfered with the attendance. The worst was that madame could no longer close her eyes to the illicit connection existing between her maid and her footman; the other servants laughed, the scandal was reported amongst the tradespeople; it was absolutely necessary to oblige them to get married if she wished to retain them, and, as she continued to be very well satisfied with Clémence, she thought of nothing but this marriage.