"Perhaps the lady who came yesterday will not forget us!"
"Perhaps not. But don't you think Madame Mathieu would lend us four or five francs, just to keep us from starving? You have worked for her upwards of ten years; and surely she will not see an honest workman like you, burthened with a large and sickly family, perish for want of a little assistance like that?"
"I do not think it is in her power to aid us. She did all in her power when she advanced me little by little 120 francs. That is a large sum for her. Because she buys diamonds, and has sometimes 50,000 francs in her reticule, she is not the more rich for that. If she gains 100 francs a month, she is well content, for she has heavy expenses,—two nieces to bring up; and five francs is as much to her as it would be to me. There are times when one does not possess that sum, you know; and being already so deeply in her debt, I could not ask her to take bread from her own mouth and that of her family to give it to me."
"This comes of working for mere agents in jewelry, instead of procuring employment from first-hand master jewellers. They are sometimes less particular. But you are such a poor, easy creature, you would almost let any one take the eyes out of your head. It is all your fault that—"
"My fault!" exclaimed the unhappy man, exasperated by this absurd reproach. "Was it or was it not your mother who occasioned all our misfortunes, by compelling me to make good the price of the diamond she lost? But for that we should be beforehand with the world; we should receive the amount of my daily earnings; we should have the 1,100 francs in our possession we were obliged to draw out of the savings-bank to put to the 1,300 francs lent us by M. Jacques Ferrand. May every curse light on him!"
"And you still persist in not asking him to help you? Certainly he is so stingy that I daresay he would do nothing for you; but then it is right to try. You cannot know without you do try."
"Ask him to help me!" cried Morel. "Ask him! I had rather be burnt before a slow fire. Hark ye, Madeleine! Unless you wish to drive me mad, mention that man's name no more to me."
As he uttered these words, the usually mild, resigned expression of the lapidary's countenance was exchanged for a look of gloomy energy, while a slight suffusion coloured the ordinarily pale features of the agitated man, as, rising abruptly from the pallet beside which he had been sitting, he began to pace the miserable apartment with hurried steps; and, spite of the deformed and attenuated appearance of poor Morel, his attitude and action bespoke the noblest, purest indignation.
"I am not ill-disposed towards any man," cried he, at length, pausing of a sudden; "and never, to my knowledge, harmed a human being. But, I tell you, when I think of this notary, I wish him—ah! I wish him—as much wretchedness as he has caused me." Then pressing both hands to his forehead, he murmured, in a mournful tone: "Just God! what crime have I committed that a hard fate should deliver me and mine, tied hand and foot, into the power of such a hypocrite? Have his riches been given him only to worry, harass, and destroy those his bad passions lead him to persecute, injure, and corrupt?"
"That's right! that's right!" said Madeleine; "go on abusing him. You will have done yourself a great deal of good, shall you not, when he puts you in prison, as he can do any day, for that promissory note of 1,300 francs on which he obtained judgment against you? He holds you fast as a bird at the end of a string. I hate this notary as badly as you do; but since we are so completely in his power, why you should—"