The Man with the broken Ear by Edmond About (phonics books .TXT) 📕

/> He went to get his hat, for the purpose of, at least, going home with the aunt, but his hat was not in its place; Fougas, who had not yet one of his own, had helped himself to it without ceremony. The poor lover crowded his head into a cap, and followed Fougas and Clementine, with the respectable Virginie, whose arm cut like a scythe.

By an accident which happened almost daily, the Colonel of cuirassiers met Clementine on the way home. The young lady directed Fougas' attention to him.

"That's M. du Marnet," said she. "His restaurant is at the end of our street, and his room at the side of the park. I think he is very much taken with my little self, but he has never even bowed to me. The only man for whom my heart has ever beaten is Leon Renault."

"Ah, indeed! And me?" said Fougas.

"Oh! as for you, that's another matter. I respect you, and stand in awe of you. It seems to me as if you were a good and respectable parent."

"Thank you!"

"I'm telling you the truth, as far as I can read it in my heart. All this is not very clear, I confess, but I do not understand myself."

"Azure flower of innocence, I adore your sweet perplexity! Let love take care of itself; it will speak to you in master tones."

"I don't know anything about that; it's possible! Here we are at home. Good evening, Monsieur; embrace me.--Good night, Leon; don't quarrel with M. Fougas. I love him with all my heart, but I love you in a different way!"

The aunt Virginie made no response to the "Good evening" of Fougas. When the two men were alone in the street, Leon marched along without saying a word, till they reached the next lamp-post. There, planting himself resolutely opposite the Colonel, he said,

"Well, sir, now that we are alone, we had better have an explanation. I don't know by what philter or incantation you have obtained such prodigious influence over my betrothed; but I know that I love her, that I have been loved by her more than four years, and that I will not stop at any means of retaining and protecting her."

"Friend," answered Fougas, "you can brave me with impunity; my arm is chained by gratitude. It shall never be written in history that Pierre Fougas was an ingrate!"

"Would it have been more ungrateful in you to cut my throat, than to rob me of my wife?"

"Oh, my benefactor! Learn to understand and pardon! God forbid that I should marry Clementine in spite of you, in spite of herself. It is through her consent and your own that I hope to win her. Realize that she has been dear to me, not for four years, as to you, but for nearly half a century. Reflect that I am alone on earth, and that her sweet face is my only consolation. Will you, who have given me life, prevent my spending it happily? Have you called me back to the world only to deliver me over to despair?--Tiger! Take back, then, the life you gave me, if you will not permit me to consecrate it to the adorable Clementine!"

"Upon my soul, my dear fellow, you are superb! The habit of victory must have totally twisted your wits. My hat is on your head:--keep it; so far so good. But because my betrothed happens to remind you vaguely of a girl in Nancy, must I give her up to you? I can't see it!"

"Friend, I will give you back your hat just as soon as you've bought me another one; but do not ask me to give up Clementine. In the first place, do you know that she will reject me?"

"I'm sure of it."

"She loves me."

"You're crazy!"

"You've seen her at my feet."

"What of that? It was from fear, from respect, from superstition, from anything in the devil's name you choose to call it; but it was not from love."

"We'll see about that pretty clearly, after six months of married life."

"But," cried Leon Renault, "have you the right to dispose of yourself? There is another Clementine, the true one; she has sacrificed everything for you; you are engaged, in honor, to her. Is Colonel Fougas deaf to the voice of honor?"

"Are you mocking me? What! I marry a woman sixty-four years old?"

"You ought to; if not for her sake, at least for your child's."

"My child is a pretty big boy. He's forty-six years old; he has no further need of my care."

"He does need your name, though."

"I'll adopt him."

"The law is opposed to it. You're not fifty years old, and he's not fifteen years younger than you are; quite the reverse!"

"Very well; I'll legitimize him by marrying the young Clementine."

"How can you expect her to acknowledge a child twice as old as she is herself?"

"But then I can't acknowledge him any better; so there's no need of my marrying the old woman. Moreover, I'd be excessively accommodating to break my head for a child who is very likely dead. What do I say? It is possible that he never saw the light. I love and am loved--that much is substantial and certain; and you shall be my groomsman."

"Not yet awhile. Mlle. Sambucco is a minor, and her guardian is my father."

"Your father is an honorable man; and he will not have the baseness to refuse her to me."

"At least he will ask you if you have any position, any rank, any fortune to offer to his ward."

"My position? colonel; my rank? colonel; my fortune? the pay of a colonel. And the millions at Dantzic--I mustn't forget them!--Here we are at home; let me have the will of that good old gentleman who wore the lilac wig. Give me some books on history, too--a big pile of them--all that have anything to say about Napoleon."

Young Renault sadly obeyed the master he had given himself. He conducted Fougas to a fine chamber, brought him Herr Meiser's will and a whole shelf of books, and bid his mortal enemy "Good night." The Colonel embraced him impetuously, and said to him,

"I will never forget that to you I owe life and Clementine. Farewell till to-morrow, noble and generous child of my native land! farewell!"

Leon went back to the ground floor, passed the dining-room, where Gothon was wiping the glasses and putting the silver in order, and rejoined his father and mother, who were waiting for him in the parlor. The guests were gone, the candles extinguished. A single lamp lit up the solitude. The two mandarins on the étagère were motionless in their obscure corner, and seemed to meditate gravely on the caprices of fortune.

"Well?" demanded Mme. Renault.

"I left him in his room, crazier and more obstinate than ever. However, I've got an idea."

"So much the better," said the father, "for we have none left. Sadness has made us stupid. But, above all things, no quarrelling. These soldiers of the empire used to be terrible swordsmen."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of him! It's Clementine that makes me anxious. With what sweetness and submission she listened to the confounded babbler!"

"The heart of woman is an unfathomable abyss. Well, what do you think of doing?"

Leon developed in detail the project he had conceived in the street, during his conversation with Fougas.

"The most urgent thing," said he, "is to relieve Clementine from this influence. If we could get him out of the way to-morrow, reason would resume its empire, and we would be married the day after to-morrow. That being done, I'll answer for the rest."

"But how is such a madman to be gotten rid of?"

"I see but one way, but it is almost infallible--to excite his dominant passion. These fellows sometimes imagine that they are in love, but, at the bottom, they love nothing but powder. The thing is, to fling Fougas back into the current of military ideas. His breakfast to-morrow with the colonel of the 23d will be a good preparation. I made him understand to-day that he ought, before all, to reclaim his rank and epaulettes, and he has become inoculated with the idea. He'll go to Paris, then. Possibly he'll find there some leather-breeches of his acquaintance. At all events, he'll reënter the service. The occupations incident to his position will be a powerful diversion; he'll no longer dream of Clementine, whom I will have fixed securely. We will have to furnish him the wherewithal to knock about the world; but all sacrifices of money are nothing in comparison with the happiness I wish to save."

Madame Renault, who was a woman of thrift, blamed her son's generosity a little.

"The Colonel is an ungrateful soul," said she. "We've already done too much in giving him back his life. Let him take care of himself now!"

"No," said the father; "we've not the right to send him forth entirely empty-handed. Decency forbids."

This deliberation, which had lasted a good hour and a quarter, was interrupted by a tremendous racket. One would have declared that the house was falling down.

"There he is again!" cried Leon. "Undoubtedly a fresh paroxysm of raving madness!"

He ran, followed by his parents, and mounted the steps four at a time. A candle was burning at the sill of the chamber door. Leon took it, and pushed the door half open.

Must it be confessed? Hope and joy spoke louder to him than fear. He fancied himself already relieved of the Colonel. But the spectacle presented to his eyes suddenly diverted the course of his ideas, and the inconsolable lover began laughing like a fool. A noise of kicks, blows, and slaps; an undefined group rolling on the floor in the convulsions of a desperate struggle--so much was all he could see and understand at the first glance. Soon Fougas, lit up by the ruddy glow of the candle, discovered that he was struggling with Gothon, like Jacob with the angel, and went back, confused and pitiable, to bed.

The Colonel had gone to sleep over the history of Napoleon, without putting out the candle. Gothon, after finishing her work, saw the light under the door. Her thoughts recurred to that poor Baptiste, who, perhaps, was groaning in purgatory for having let himself tumble from a roof. Hoping that Fougas could give her some news of her lover, she rapped several times, at first softly, then much louder. The Colonel's silence and the lighted candle made it seem to the servant that there was something wrong. The fire might catch the curtains, and from thence the whole building. She accordingly set down the candle, opened the door, and went, with cat-like steps, to put out the light. Possibly the eyes of the sleeper vaguely perceived the passage of a shadow; possibly Gothon, with her big, awkward figure, made a board in the floor creak. Fougas partially awoke, heard the rustling of a dress, dreamed it one of those adventures which were wont to spice garrison life under the first empire, and held out his arms blindly, calling Clementine. Gothon, on finding herself seized by the hair and shoulders, responded by such a masculine blow that the enemy supposed himself attacked by a man. The blow was returned with interest; further exchanges followed, and they finished by clinching and rolling on the floor.

If anybody ever did feel shamefaced, Fougas was