Dufresne’s advice was not needed any longer to lure Edouard to the gaming table; the unhappy wretch did not pass a single day without visiting one or more of the gambling hells in which the capital abounds. He sought there to forget his plight, by plunging deeper and deeper into the abyss. The proceeds of his last notes went to join his fortune, which had been divided among Madame de Géran, roulette, trente-et-un, prostitutes and swindlers. What was he to do now, to procure the means to gratify his depraved tastes? The maturity of his notes was approaching; he could not pay them, his country house would be sold, his wife and child would have no roof to cover their heads, no resource except in him; but it was not that that preoccupied him; he thought of himself alone, and if he desired to procure money, it was not to relieve his family. No, he no longer remembered the sacred bonds which united him to an amiable and lovely wife. The cards caused him to forget entirely that he was a husband and father.
Forced to leave the apartment which he occupied alone in a handsome house, he went to Dufresne and took up his abode with him. The latter had been anxious for some days after his return from the country; he was afraid that Jacques would pursue him to Paris, and, in order to avoid his search, he changed his name, and urged his companion to do the same. Dufresne called himself Courval, and Edouard, Monbrun. It was under these names that they hired lodgings, in a wretched lodging house in Faubourg Saint-Jacques, having no other associates than blacklegs and men without means, who like Dufresne had reasons of their own for avoiding the daylight.
Three weeks after Madame Germeuil’s death, what she had left was already spent, and they were compelled to have recourse every day to all sorts of expedients to obtain means of subsistence.
One evening, when Dufresne and Edouard had remained at home, having no money to gamble, and cudgeling their brains to think of a way of procuring some, there was a knock at their door, and one Lampin, a consummate scamp, worthy to be Dufresne’s intimate friend, entered their room with a joyous air, and with four bottles under his arm.
“Oho! is that you, Lampin?” said Dufresne, as he opened the door to his friend, and made certain signs to which the other replied without being detected by Edouard, who was absorbed in his thoughts.
“Yes, messieurs, it’s me. Come, come, comrade Monbrun, come, stop your dreaming! I have brought something to brighten you up.”
“What’s that?”
“Wine, brandy and rum.”
“The deuce it is! so you are in funds, are you?”
“Faith, I won ten francs at biribi, and I have come to drink ’em up with my friends.”