Then the relations kissed all around. Clotilde congratulated her brother; she had had full confidence in his heart. Madame Josserand showed a broken-hearted satisfaction, like a widow who is no longer the least affected by the most unhoped-for happiness. She associated her poor husband with the general joy.
“You are doing your duty, my dear son-in-law. He who is now in Heaven thanks you.”
“Come in,” repeated Auguste, quite upset.
But Rachel, attracted by the noise, now appeared in the anteroom; and Berthe hesitated a moment in presence of the speechless exasperation which caused the maid to turn ghastly pale. Then she sternly entered, and disappeared with her black mourning in the shadow of the apartment. Auguste followed her, and the door closed behind them.
A deep sigh of relief ascended the staircase, and filled the house with joy. The ladies pressed the hands of the priest, whose prayers had been granted. Just as Clotilde was taking him off to settle the other matter, Duveyrier, who had lagged behind with Léon and Bachelard, arrived, walking painfully. The happy result had all to be explained to him; but he, who had been desiring it for months past, scarcely seemed to understand, a strange expression overspreading his face, and his mind a prey to a fixed idea, the torture of which quite absorbed him. Whilst the Josserands regained their apartments, he returned to his own, behind his wife and the priest. And they had just reached the ante-room, when some stifled cries caused them to start.
“Do not be uneasy, madame. It is the little lady up-stairs in labor,” Hippolyte complacently explained. “I saw Dr. Juillerat run up just now.”
Then, when he was alone, he added philosophically:
“One goes, another comes.”
Clotilde made the Abbé Mauduit comfortable in the drawingroom, saying that she would first of all send him Clémence; and, to help him to while away the time, she gave him the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” which contained some really charming verses. She wished to prepare her maid for the interview. But, on entering her dressing-room, she found her husband seated on a chair.
Ever since the morning, Duveyrier had been in a state of agony. For the third time he had caught Clarisse with Théodore; and, as he complained, the whole family of hawkers, the mother, the brother, the sisters, had fallen upon him, and driven him down-stairs with kicks and blows; whilst Clarisse had called him a poverty-stricken wretch, and furiously threatened him with the police if he ever dared to show himself there again. It was all over; down below the doorkeeper had told him that for a week past a very rich old fellow had been anxious to provide for madame. Then, driven away, and no longer having a warm nook to nestle in, Duveyrier, after wandering about the streets, had entered an out-of-the-way shop and purchased a pocket revolver. Life was becoming too sad; he could at least put an end to it, as soon as he had found a suitable place for doing so. This selection of a quiet corner was occupying his mind, as he mechanically returned to the Rue de Choiseul to assist at Monsieur Josserand’s funeral. Then, when following the corpse, he had had a sudden idea of killing himself at the cemetery; he would go to the furthest end and hide behind a tombstone. This flattered his taste for the romantic, the necessity for a tender ideal, which was wrecking his life, beneath his rigid middle-class attitude. But, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, he began to tremble, seized with an earthly chill. The spot would decidedly not do; he would have to seek elsewhere. And, having returned in a worse state than ever, entirely a prey to this one idea, he sat thinking on a chair in the dressing-room, trying to decide which was the most suitable place in the house—perhaps the bed-room, beside the bed, or simply just where he was, without moving.