The old rage had well-nigh filled his soul, when a lovely, pallid face rises upon his memory. Could Manette Duval have really been as charming as that golden-haired girl he had met awhile ago in the woods? The little witch looked as like Fritz as a delicate girl can look like a bearded man, and she had, withal, a foreign grace, the like of which had never hitherto characterized any Leskjewitsch child, and which might perhaps be an inheritance from her Parisian mother.
And suddenly the father's conscience, silenced through all these long years, asserts itself. Yes, the marriage had been a folly, and Fritz had ruined his career by it. But suppose Fritz had, through his own fault, broken both his arms, or put out his eyes, or done anything else that would have destroyed his future, would it have been for his father to turn from him, reproaching him angrily for his folly, saying, "You have annihilated your happiness by your own fault; you have blasted the hopes I had for you; henceforth be as wretched as you deserve to be; I will have none of you, since I can no longer be proud of you!"
The old man bites his lip and hangs his head.
The carriage rolls on. The weather is excessively warm. In front of the shabby cafés on the Boulevard Clichy some people are sitting, brown and languid. Behind the dusty windows of the shops the shop-girls stand gazing drearily out upon their weary world, as if longing for somewhat of which they have read or dreamed,--something fresh and green; long shadows upon moist, fragrant lawns; gurgling brooks mirroring the sun.
An emotion of compassion stirs in the old man's breast at sight of these "prisoners," and if one by chance seems to him prettier, paler, sadder than the rest, he asks himself, "Did she perhaps look so? No wonder Fritz pitied the poor creature! he had such a warm, tender heart!"
The fiacre stops; the old man rubs his eyes. "How much?" he asks the driver.
The man scans his fare from head to foot with a knowing glance:
"Five francs."
Baron Leskjewitsch takes four francs from the left pocket of his waistcoat, and from the right pocket of his trousers, where he keeps his small change, one sou, as a gratuity. These he gives to the driver, and sternly dismisses him. The man drives off with a grin.
"The old miser thinks he has made a good bargain," he mutters.