Having said this, Caroline looked at me as if to read in my eyes what I thought about it. But I looked away and did not say a word.
Everybody prepared to retire. We bowed to one another and said good-night. Suddenly I felt a hand on my arm; it was Caroline, who said to me with an offended air:
“So it seems that I must wish you good-night this evening, monsieur! You can certainly flatter yourself that you have made yourself very unpleasant!”
That reproach brought me to my senses; I reflected that I proposed to go away before dawn, and that perhaps this was the last time that I should see Mademoiselle Derbin; so I stepped forward to take her hand; but she drew it back, saying in an offhand tone:
“I do not forgive so quickly; to-morrow we will see whether you deserve that I should make peace with you.”
She left me, and I returned to my room. I felt that I must go away, that I must leave that house, that town. I felt that I could not endure to be in Eugénie’s presence; moreover, she was ill and I must have compassion for her. But why had she come to disturb the happiness which I was enjoying in that spot? I had almost forgotten the past, Mademoiselle Derbin was so attractive! But after all, I should have had to leave her a little sooner or a little later. Suppose that she should find out that I was that Blémont, that man who was called a monster in society!—How they abused me! But that did not offend me in the least; on the contrary, I was overjoyed that people were deceived; I would rather be looked upon as a scoundrel than to air my grievances before the courts, like Bélan. Poor Bélan! I suspected that he would come to that.—But Caroline believed that I was a bachelor; an additional reason for going away. What could I hope for from that acquaintance? To have a friend? Oh, no! at Caroline’s age, a husband is what is wanted; love is the essential sentiment; friendship is not enough for a heart of twenty-four years. She would eventually fall in with the man whom she was looking for, and she would forget me as quickly as she had made my acquaintance. And I—oh! as soon as I had my daughter in my arms, I was quite certain that I should forget the whole world.
“I will call Pettermann,” I thought, “and send him to the post-house to order horses, and tell him to pack our trunks.”
I called my faithful companion several times, but I received no reply. He was not in the habit of going to bed before I did. I went up to his room, but he was not there. I asked the people in the hotel if they had seen him; a maid-servant remembered that about noon he had gone into a small cabinet adjoining a building at the end of the garden, and that he had had brought to him there, with an abundant luncheon, several bottles of Burgundy. She assured me that he had not come out since morning. I remembered then that it was the first of the month, the day which Pettermann ordinarily selected to divert himself; so I guessed what he was doing in the cabinet. I requested the maid to show me the way. We went with a light toward the building which the ex-tailor had selected for his celebration.
We saw no light through the window, so we went in. Pettermann, who evidently was as conscientious about getting completely drunk once a month, as in keeping sober the rest of the time, was stretched out, dead drunk, by the table, at the foot of a bench upon which he was probably sitting when he was able to sit erect.
“Mon Dieu! is he dead?” cried the servant; “he doesn’t move!”