“This is what I wish, my child. Your Duc d’Herouville has immense estates in Normandy, and I want to be his steward, under the name of Thoul. I have the capacity, and I am honest. A man may borrow of the Government, and yet not steal from a cash-box——”
“H’m, h’m,” said Josepha. “Once drunk, drinks again.”
“In short, I only want to live out of sight for three years—”
“Well, it is soon done,” said Josepha. “This evening, after dinner, I have only to speak. The Duke would marry me if I wished it, but I have his fortune, and I want something better—his esteem. He is a Duke of the first water. He is high-minded, as noble and great as Louis XIV. and Napoleon rolled into one, though he is a dwarf. Besides, I have done for him what la Schontz did for Rochefide; by taking my advice he has made two millions.
“Now, listen to me, old popgun. I know you; you are always after the women, and you would be dancing attendance on the Normandy girls, who are splendid creatures, and getting your ribs cracked by their lovers and fathers, and the Duke would have to get you out of the scrape. Why, can’t I see by the way you look at me that the young man is not dead in you—as Fenelon put it.—No, this stewardship is not the thing for you. A man cannot be off with his Paris and with us, old boy, for the saying! You would die of weariness at Herouville.”
“What is to become of me?” said the Baron, “for I will only stay here till I see my way.”
“Well, shall I find a pigeon-hole for you? Listen, you old pirate. Women are what you want. They are consolation in all circumstances. Attend now.—At the end of the Alley, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, there is a poor family I know of where there is a jewel of a little girl, prettier than I was at sixteen.—Ah! there is a twinkle in your eye already!—The child works sixteen hours a day at embroidering costly pieces for the silk merchants, and earns sixteen sous a day—one sou an hour!—and feeds like the Irish, on potatoes fried in rats’ dripping, with bread five times a week—and drinks canal water out of the town pipes, because the Seine water costs too much; and she cannot set up on her own account for lack of six or seven thousand francs. Your wife and children bore you to death, don’t they?—Besides, one cannot submit to be nobody where one has been a little Almighty. A father who has neither money nor honor can only be stuffed and kept in a glass case.”
The Baron could not help smiling at these abominable jests.
“Well, now, Bijou is to come to-morrow morning to bring me an embroidered wrapper, a gem! It has taken six months to make; no one else will have any stuff like it! Bijou is very fond of me; I give her tidbits and my old gowns. And I send orders for bread and meat and wood to the family, who would break the shin-bones of the first comer if I bid them.—I try to do a little good. Ah! I know what I endured from hunger myself!—Bijou has confided to me all her little sorrows. There is the making of a super at the Ambigu-Comique in that child. Her dream is to wear fine dresses like mine; above all, to ride in a carriage. I shall say to her, ‘Look here, little one, would you like to have a friend of—’ How old are you?” she asked, interrupting herself. “Seventy-two?”
“I have given up counting.”