“How absurd!” grandfather was saying. “I never robbed any one of anything. So I am accused of stealing children, am I? Why not of eating them?”
Mockery and irony were, however, too weak a weapon not to be broken in the attack that followed. Not one detail of that scene has faded from my memory. I can see them both, one strong and high-coloured, in the fulness of strength and vigour, and yet uttering such a groan as trees give forth under the woodman’s axe, the other so old, fragile and shrivelled, and yet all insolence, holding up his head and jeering, and I between the two like the stake in a game they were playing.
“Yes,” father replied; “I gave you my son to make him well, not to lead him astray. You yourself promised to do nothing which might one day put him in opposition to our household and religious traditions. Have you kept your promise? I have for some time been doubtful as to what was going on in this little head. I spoke to Valentine about it, and learned that she too was fearful of this misfortune, though in her respect for you she dreaded to make the mistake of attributing an unfortunate influence to you. I do not know how you have managed to take possession of the child’s mind. But I can not but know that you have been taking Francis to the very place where our opponents are in the habit of meeting, and where they take advantage of your weakness and your generosity.”
“I can’t permit you—” grandfather tried to interrupt.
“Of your generosity,” the voice went on more firmly, “or of mine. This morning I received a bill from that place. It is a large one. Martinod no doubt thinks it a joke to treat his heelers at my expense.”
“Who sent you the bill?”
“The proprietor of the café. To whom should he send it? He brought it himself, and by way of argument he simply said, ‘The boy had some of it.’ My son was a partaker as well as my father; I am responsible, since, for my part, I believe in the solidarity of the family. I paid for Casenave, whose body bears already the promise of a drunkard’s death; for Gallus and Merinos, poor wretches, incapable of the slightest work; for that idle Galurin and that scoundrel Martinod. Paying is of no consequence—I have been through worse than that, as you know. But what errors have you taught this child? I must know all, now, that I may uproot them from his heart like weeds from the garden. Where is he going? What will he make of his life with that utopia of liberty to which every hour of real life gives the lie—without the stern discipline of home, without our faith? Don’t you know that what maintains our race, every race, is the spirit of the family? Has not life taught you that?”
I was moved by the tone in which he spoke. Always sensitive to the melody of words, I caught them as they were uttered, and by them I can now easily rise to the ideas which they expressed but which then passed over my head.
“Have you finished?” asked grandfather, with an impertinence that moved me to admiration.
“Yes, I have finished. I beg pardon for having raised my voice in the presence of this child. He should at least know—you can bear witness to that—that I have always been a respectful son.”