Porriquet spent an hour in telling him about the persecutions directed against him ever since the Revolution of July. The worthy man, having a liking for strong governments, had expressed the patriotic wish that grocers should be left to their counters, statesmen to the management of public business, advocates to the Palais de Justice, and peers of France to the Luxembourg; but one of the popularity-seeking ministers of the Citizen King had ousted him from his chair, on an accusation of Carlism, and the old man now found himself without pension or post, and with no bread to eat. As he played the part of guardian angel to a poor nephew, for whose schooling at Saint Sulpice he was paying, he came less on his own account than for his adopted child’s sake, to entreat his former pupil’s interest with the new minister. He did not ask to be reinstated, but only for a position at the head of some provincial school.
QRaphael had fallen a victim to unconquerable drowsiness by the time that the worthy man’s monotonous voice ceased to sound in his ears. Civility had compelled him to look at the pale and unmoving eyes of the deliberate and tedious old narrator, till he himself had reached stupefaction, magnetized in an inexplicable way by the power of inertia.
“Well, my dear pere Porriquet,” he said, not very certain what the question was to which he was replying, “but I can do nothing for you, nothing at all. I wish very heartily that you may succeed——”
All at once, without seeing the change wrought on the old man’s sallow and wrinkled brow by these conventional phrases, full of indifference and selfishness, Raphael sprang to his feet like a startled roebuck. He saw a thin white line between the black piece of hide and the red tracing about it, and gave a cry so fearful that the poor professor was frightened by it.
“Old fool! Go!” he cried. “You will be appointed as headmaster! Couldn’t you have asked me for an annuity of a thousand crowns rather than a murderous wish? Your visit would have cost me nothing. There are a hundred thousand situations to be had in France, but I have only one life. A man’s life is worth more than all the situations in the world.—Jonathan!”
Jonathan appeared.
“This is your doing, double-distilled idiot! What made you suggest that I should see M. Porriquet?” and he pointed to the old man, who was petrified with fright. “Did I put myself in your hands for you to tear me in pieces? You have just shortened my life by ten years! Another blunder of this kind, and you will lay me where I have laid my father. Would I not far rather have possessed the beautiful Foedora? And I have obliged that old hulk instead—that rag of humanity! I had money enough for him. And, moreover, if all the Porriquets in the world were dying of hunger, what is that to me?”
Raphael’s face was white with anger; a slight froth marked his trembling lips; there was a savage gleam in his eyes. The two elders shook with terror in his presence like two children at the sight of a snake. The young man fell back in his armchair, a kind of reaction took place in him, the tears flowed fast from his angry eyes.
“Oh, my life!” he cried, “that fair life of mine. Never to know a kindly thought again, to love no more; nothing is left to me!”
He turned to the professor and went on in a gentle voice—“The harm is done, my old friend. Your services have been well repaid; and my misfortune has at any rate contributed to the welfare of a good and worthy man.”