“That poor Monsieur Théophile, he is like me, he drags along. Ah! great praise is due to Valérie, for it is not lively always having by one a man trembling with fever, and whose infirmity usually makes him quarrelsome and unjust.”
During dessert, Octave, seated between the architect and his wife learnt more than he asked. They forgot Angèle, they spoke in hints, with glances which underlined the double meanings of the words; and, when they were at a loss for an expression, they bent towards him one after the other, and coarsely whispered the rest of the disclosure in his ear. In short, that Théophile was a stupid and impotent person, who deserved to be what his wife made him. As for Valérie, she was not worth much, she would have behaved just as badly even if her husband had been different, for with her, nature had so much the mastery. Moreover, no one was ignorant of the fact that, two months after her marriage, in despair at recognising that she would never have a child by her husband, and fearing she would lose her share of old Vabre’s fortune if Théophile happened to die, she had her little Camille got for her by a butcher’s man of the Rue Sainte-Anne.
Campardon bent down and whispered a last time in Octave’s ear:
“Well! you know, my dear fellow, a hysterical woman!”
And he put into the word all the middle-class wantonness of an indelicacy combined with the blobber-lipped smile of a father of a family whose imagination, abruptly let loose, revels in licentiousness. The conversation then took a different turn, they were speaking of the Pichons, and words of praise were not stinted.
“Oh! they are indeed worthy people!” repeated Madame Campardon. “Sometimes, when Marie takes her little Lilitte out, I also let her take Angèle. And I assure you, Monsieur Mouret, I do not trust my daughter to everyone; I must be absolutely certain of the person’s morality. You love Marie very much, do you not, Angèle?”
“Yes, mamma,” answered the child.
The details continued. It was impossible to find a woman better brought up, or according to severer principles. And it was a pleasure to see how happy the husband was! Such a nice little home, and so clean, and a couple that adored each other, who never said one word louder than another!
“Besides, they would not be allowed to remain in the house, if they did not behave themselves properly,” said the architect gravely, forgetting his disclosures about Valérie. “We will only have respectable people here. On my word of honour! I would give notice, the day that my daughter ran the risk of meeting disreputable women on the stairs.”
That evening, he had secretly arranged to take cousin Gasparine to the Opéra-Comique. He therefore went and fetched his hat at once, talking of a business matter which would keep him out till very late. Rose though probably knew of the arrangement, for Octave heard her murmur, in her resigned and maternal voice, when her husband came to kiss her with his habitual effusive tenderness: