Jack (7 page)

And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and Mβdou confided to Jack his projects of vengeance.

“When Mβdou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will cut off his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big drum with his skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,—Boum! boum! boum!”

Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro’s white eyes, and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the drum, and was frightened. He fancied that he heard the whizzing of the sabres, and the heavy thud of the falling heads; he pulled the blanket over his head, and held his breath.

Mβdou, who was excited by his own story, wished to talk on, but he thought his solitary auditor asleep. But when Jack drew a long breath, Mβdou said gently, “Shall we talk some more, sir?”

“Yes,” answered Jack; “only don’t let us say any more about that drum, nor the copper basin.” The negro laughed silently. “Very well, sir; Mβdou won’t talk—you must talk now. What is your name?”

“Jack, with a k. Mamma thinks a great deal about that—”

“Is your mamma very rich?”

“Rich! I guess she is,” said Jack, by no means unwilling to dazzle Mβdou in his turn. “We have a carriage, a beautiful house on the boulevard, horses, servants, and all. And then you will see, when mamma comes here, how beautiful she is. Everybody in the street turns to look at her, she has such beautiful dresses and such jewels. We used to live at Tours; it was a pretty place. We walked in the Rue Royale, where we bought nice cakes, and where we met plenty of officers in uniform. The gentlemen were all good to me. I had Papa Leon, and Papa Charles,—not real papas, you know, because my own father died when I was a little fellow. When we first went to Paris I did not like it; I missed the trees and the country; but mamma petted me so much, and was so good to me, that I was soon happy again. I was dressed like the little English boys, and my hair was curled, and every day we went to the Bois. At last my mamma’s old friend said that I ought to learn something; so mamma took me to the Jesuit College—”

Here Jack stopped suddenly. To say that the Fathers would not receive him, wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and innocence of his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to his mother in this avowal, as well as to himself; and then this recital, on which he had so heedlessly entered, carried him back to the only serious trouble of his life. Why had they not been willing to receive him? why did his mother weep? and why did the Superior pity him?

“Say, then, little master,” asked the negro suddenly, “what is a cocotte?”

“A cocotte?” asked Jack in astonishment. “I don’t know. Is it a chicken?”

“I heard the father with a stick say to Madame Moronval that your mother was a cocotte.”

“What an ideal. You misunderstood,” and at the thought of his mother being a hen, with feathers, wings, and claws, the boy began to laugh; and Mβdou, without knowing why, followed his example.

This gayety soon obliterated the painful impressions of their previous conversation, and the two little, lonely fellows, after having confided to each other all their sorrows, fell asleep with smiles on their lips.

CHAPTER IV.~~THE REUNION.

Children are like grown people,—the experiences of others are never of any use to them.

Jack had been terrified by Madou’s story, but he thought of it only as a frightful tale, or a bloody battle seen at the theatre. The first months were so happy at the academy, every one was so kind, that he forgot that Mβdou for a time had been equally happy.

At table he occupied the next seat to Moronval, drank his wine, shared his dessert; while the other children, as soon as the cakes and fruit appeared, rose abruptly from the table. Opposite Jack sat Dr. Hirsch, whose finances, to judge from his appearance, were in a most deplorable condition. He enlivened the repast by all sorts of scientific jokes, by descriptions of surgical operations, by accounts of infectious diseases, and, in fact, kept his hearers au courant with all the ailments of the day; and, if he heard of a case of leprosy, of elephantiasis, or of the plague, in any quarter of the globe, he would nod his head with delight, and say, “It will be here before long—before long!”

As a neighbor at the table he was not altogether satisfactory: first, his near-sightedness made him very awkward; and, next, he had a way of dropping into your plate, or glass, a pinch of powder, or a few drops from a vial in his pocket The contents of this vial were never the same, for the doctor made new scientific discoveries each week, but in general bicarbonate, alkalies, and arsenic (in infinitesimal doses fortunately) made the base of these medicaments. Jack submitted to these preventives, and did not venture to say that he thought they tasted very badly. Occasionally the other professors were invited, and everybody drank the health of the little De Barancy, every one was enthusiastic over his sweetness and cleverness. The singing teacher, Labassandre, at the least joke made by the child, threw himself back in his chair with a loud laugh, pounded the table with his fist, and wiped his eyes with a corner of his napkin.

Even D’Argenton, the handsome D’Argenton, relaxed, a pale smile crossed his big moustache, and his cold blue eyes were turned on the child with haughty approval. Jack was delighted. He did not understand, nor did he wish to understand, the signs made to him by Mβdou, as he waited upon the table, with a napkin in one hand and a plate in the other. Mβdou knew better than any one else the real value of these exaggerated praises and the vanity of human greatness.

He too had occupied the seat of honor, had drunk of his master’s wine, flavored by the powder from the doctor’s bottle; and the tunic, with its silver chevrons, was it not too large for Jack only because it had been made for Mβdou? The story of the little negro should have been a warning to the small De Barancy against the sin of pride, for the installation of both boys in the Moronval Academy had been precisely of the same character.

The holiday instituted in honor of Jack was insensibly prolonged into weeks. Lessons were few and far between, except from Madame Moronval, who snatched every opportunity of testing her method.

As to Moronval himself, he professed a great weakness for his new pupil. He had made inquiries in regard to the little hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann, and had fully acquainted himself with the resources of the lady there. When, therefore, Madame de Barancy came to see Jack, which was very often, she met with a warm reception, and had an attentive audience for all the vain and foolish stories she saw fit to tell. At first Madame Moronval wished to preserve a certain dignified coolness toward such a person, but her husband soon changed that idea, and she saw herself obliged to lay aside her womanly scruples in favor of her interests.

“Jack! Jack! here comes your mother,” some one would cry as the door opened, and Ida would sail in beautifully dressed, with packages of cakes and bonbons in her hands and her muff. It was a festival for every one; they all shared the delicacies, and Madame de Barancy ungloved her hand, the one on which were the most rings, and condescended to take a portion. The poor creature was so generous, and money slipped so easily through her fingers, that she generally brought with her cakes all sorts of presents, playthings, &c., which she distributed as the fancy struck her. It is easy to imagine the enthusiastic praises lavished upon this inconsiderate, reckless generosity. Moronval alone had a smile of pity and of envy at seeing money so wasted, which should have gone to the assistance of some brave, generous soul like himself, for example. This was his fixed idea. And as he sat looking at Ida and gnawing his finger-nails, he had an absent, anxious air like that of a man who comes to ask a loan, and has his petition on the end of his lips. Moronval’s dream for some time had been to establish a Review consecrated to colonial interests, in this way hoping to satisfy his political aspirations by recalling himself regularly to his compatriots; and, finally, who knows he might be elected deputy. But, as a commencement, the journal seemed indispensable, and he had a vague notion that the mother of his new pupil might be induced to defray the expenses of this Review, but he did not wish to move too rapidly lest he should frighten the lady away; he intended to prepare the way gently. Unfortunately, Madame de Barancy, on account of her very fickleness of nature, was difficult to reach. She would continually change the conversation just at the important point, because she found it very uninteresting.

“If she could be inspired with an idea of writing!” said Moronval to himself, and immediately insinuated to her that between Madame de Sιvignι and George Sand there was a vacant niche to fill; but he might as well have attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was fluttering about his head.

“I am not strong-minded nor literary,” said Ida, with a half yawn, one day when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.

Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be dazzled, not led.

One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful tales of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she added the de as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly,—

“M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not.”

“O, tell me, tell me!” said the silly little woman, with a sincere wish to oblige.

The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the Review, but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to act with great prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de Barancy to be present at one of their literary reunions on the following Saturday. Formerly these little fκtes took place every week, but since Mβdou’s fall they had been very infrequent. It was in vain that Moronval had extinguished a candle with every guest that left, in vain had he dried the tea-leaves from the teapot in the sun on the window-sill, and served it again the following week, the expense still was too great. But now he determined to hazard another attempt in that direction. Madame de Barancy accepted the invitation with eagerness. The idea of making her appearance in the salon as a married woman of position was very attractive to her, for it was one round of the ladder conquered, on which she hoped to ascend from her irregular and unsatisfactory life.

This was a most splendid fκte at which she assisted. In the memory of all beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored lanterns hung on the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was lighted, and at least thirty candles were burning in the salon, the floor of which Mβdou had so waxed and rubbed for the occasion that it was as brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed himself; and here let me say that Moronval was in a great state of perplexity as to the part that the prince should take at the soirιe.

Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one day only to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very tempting; but, then, who would hand the plates and announce the guests? Who could replace him? No one of the other scholars, for each had some one in Paris who might not be pleased with this system of education; and finally it was decided that the soirιe must be deprived of the presence and prestige of his royal Highness. At eight o’clock, “the children of the sun” took their seats on the benches, and among them the blonde head of little De Barancy glittered like a star on the dark background.

Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and literary world—the one at least which he frequented—and the representatives of art, literature, and architecture appeared in large delegations. They arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from the depths of Montparnasse on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and poor, unknown, but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the longing to be seen, to sing or to recite something, to prove to themselves that they were still alive. Then, after this breath of pure air, this glimpse of the heavens above, comforted by a semblance of glory and success, they returned to their squalid apartments, having gained a little strength to vegetate. There were philosophers wiser than Leibnitz; there were painters longing for fame, but whose pictures looked as if an earthquake had shaken everything from its perpendicular; musicians—inventors of new instruments; savans in the style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains contained a little of everything, but where nothing could be found by reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to see them; and if their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy heads, their offensive pride and pompous manners, had not given one an inclination to laugh, their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes that had wept over so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would have awakened profound compassion in the hearts of lookers-on.

Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a taskmistress and too niggardly in her rewards, sought other employment.. For example, a lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an agent for a wine merchant, and a violinist was in a gas-office.

Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives. These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave, worn faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of men of genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they smiled upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there were the habituιs of the house, the three professors; Labassandre in gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous inspirations; and D’Argenton, the handsome D’Argenton, curled and pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of authority, geniality, and condescension.

Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one, shaking hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later and the countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the countess under that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de Moronval went from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, “We will wait a few moments, the countess has not yet arrived!”