or is he one already? Dear friend, why did you not instruct
him as to his behavior before you sent him to me? How many
misfortunes you would have spared me, had you brought him here
yourself as I begged you to do. If Estelle alarmed you, you might
have stayed at Moisselles. However, the thing is done, and there
is no use talking about it.
Adieu; I shall see you soon.
Your devoted servant and friend,
Moreau
At eight o’clock that evening, Madame Clapart, just returned from a walk she had taken with her husband, was knitting winter socks for Oscar, by the light of a single candle. Monsieur Clapart was expecting a friend named Poiret, who often came in to play dominoes, for never did he allow himself to spend an evening at a cafe. In spite of the prudent economy to which his small means forced him, Clapart would not have answered for his temperance amid a luxury of food and in presence of the usual guests of a cafe whose inquisitive observation would have piqued him.
“I’m afraid Poiret came while we were out,” said Clapart to his wife.
“Why, no, my friend; the portress would have told us so when we came in,” replied Madame Clapart.
“She may have forgotten it.”
“What makes you think so?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time she has forgotten things for us, — for God knows how people without means are treated.”
“Well,” said the poor woman, to change the conversation and escape Clapart’s cavilling, “Oscar must be at Presles by this time. How he will enjoy that fine house and the beautiful park.”
“Oh! yes,” snarled Clapart, “you expect fine things of him; but, mark my words, there’ll be squabbles wherever he goes.”
“Will you never cease to find fault with that poor child?” said the mother. “What has he done to you? If some day we should live at our ease, we may owe it all to him; he has such a good heart — ”
“Our bones will be jelly long before that fellow makes his way in the world,” cried Clapart. “You don’t know your own child; he is conceited, boastful, deceitful, lazy, incapable of — ”
“Why don’t you go to meet Poiret?” said the poor mother, struck to the heart by the diatribe she had brought upon herself.
“A boy who has never won a prize at school!” continued Clapart.
To bourgeois eyes, the obtaining of school prizes means the certainty of a fine future for the fortunate child.
“Did you win any?” asked his wife. “Oscar stood second in philosophy.”
This remark imposed silence for a moment on Clapart; but presently he began again.
“Besides, Madame Moreau hates him like poison, you know why. She’ll try to set her husband against him. Oscar to step into his shoes as steward of Presles! Why he’d have to learn agriculture, and know how to survey.”
“He can learn.”
“He — that pussy cat! I’ll bet that if he does get a place down there, it won’t be a week before he does some doltish thing which will make the count dismiss him.”
“Good God! how can you be so bitter against a poor child who is full of good qualities, sweet-tempered as an angel, incapable of doing harm to any one, no matter who.”
Just then the cracking of a postilion’s whip and the noise of a carriage stopping before the house was heard, this arrival having apparently put the whole street into a commotion. Clapart, who heard the opening of many windows, looked out himself to see what was happening.
“They have sent Oscar back to you in a post-chaise,” he cried, in a tone of satisfaction, though in truth he felt inwardly uneasy.
“Good heavens! what can have happened to him?” cried the poor mother, trembling like a leaf shaken by the autumn wind.
Brochon here came up, followed by Oscar and Poiret.
“What has happened?” repeated the mother, addressing the stable-man.
“I don’t know, but Monsieur Moreau is no longer steward of Presles, and they say your son has caused it. His Excellency ordered that he should be sent home to you. Here’s a letter from poor Monsieur Moreau, madame, which will tell you all. You never saw a man so changed in a single day.”
“Clapart, two glasses of wine for the postilion and for monsieur!” cried the mother, flinging herself into a chair that she might read the fatal letter. “Oscar,” she said, staggering towards her bed, “do you want to kill your mother? After all the cautions I gave you this morning — ”
She did not end her sentence, for she fainted from distress of mind. When she came to herself she heard her husband saying to Oscar, as he shook him by the arm: —
“Will you answer me?”
“Go to bed, monsieur,” she said to her son. “Let him alone, Monsieur Clapart. Don’t drive him out of his senses; he is frightfully changed.”
Oscar did not hear his mother’s last words; he had slipped away to bed the instant that he got the order.
Those who remember their youth will not be surprised to learn that after a day so filled with events and emotions, Oscar, in spite of the enormity of his offences, slept the sleep of the just. The next day he did not find the world so changed as he thought it; he was surprised to be very hungry, — he who the night before had regarded himself as unworthy to live. He had only suffered mentally. At his age mental impressions succeed each other so rapidly that the last weakens its predecessor, however deeply the first may have been cut in. For this reason corporal punishment, though philanthropists are deeply opposed to it in these days, becomes necessary in certain cases for certain children. It is, moreover, the most natural form of retribution, for Nature herself employs it; she uses pain to impress a lasting memory of her precepts. If to the shame of the preceding evening, unhappily too transient, the steward had joined some personal chastisement, perhaps the lesson might have been complete. The discernment with which such punishment needs to be administered is the greatest argument against it. Nature is never mistaken; but the teacher is, and frequently.
Madame Clapart took pains to send her husband out, so that she might be alone with her son the next morning. She was in a state to excite pity. Her eyes, worn with tears; her face, weary with the fatigue of a sleepless night; her feeble voice, — in short, everything about her proved an excess of suffering she could not have borne a second time, and appealed to sympathy.
When Oscar entered the room she signed to him to sit down beside her, and reminded him in a gentle but grieved voice of the benefits they had so constantly received from the steward of Presles. She told him that they had lived, especially for the last six years, on the delicate charity of Monsieur Moreau; and that Monsieur Clapart’s salary, also the “demi-bourse,” or scholarship, by which he (Oscar) had obtained an education, was due to the Comte de Serizy. Most of this would now cease. Monsieur Clapart, she said, had no claim to a pension, — his period of service not being long enough to obtain one. On the day when he was no longer able to keep his place, what would become of them?
“For myself,” she said, “by nursing the sick, or living as a housekeeper in some great family, I could support myself and Monsieur Clapart; but you, Oscar, what could you do? You have no means, and you must earn some, for you must live. There are but four careers for a young man like you, — commerce, government employment, the licensed professions, or military service. All forms of commerce need capital, and we have none to give you. In place of capital, a young man can only give devotion and his capacity. But commerce also demands the utmost discretion, and your conduct yesterday proves that you lack it. To enter a government office, you must go through a long probation