IVBORN IN AN INN
DOCTOR SERON, after the death of his parents, had renewed acquaintance with one of his uncles on the maternal side, a physician in a hamlet in the department of Oise, between Verberie and Seulis. This uncle, then very old, had become a widower and, being without children, he ceded his practice to the son-in-law of his only remaining relative, and gladly welcomed the young couple in his house.
Living with his uncle, following his counsels, Jean Louis Lambert succeeded marvellously well with his new patients for three years. A son was born to them, and the young people were happy, he singing always the praise of love in his letters to his mother and father-in-law, while she “browsed” agreeably without wishing to confess it.
Doctor and Madame Seron congratulated themselves daily for the happy choice they had made in their daughter’s husband.
But misfortunes came, one after another, to the young couple. Their great-uncle died suddenlyof an attack of apoplexy. Their well-beloved son, who, even at the age of eighteen months, gave proof of exceptional intelligence, died after a three days’ illness from the effects of a violent scolding from his mother, which gave him convulsions; finally, the small borough they inhabited was entirely burned down, except their grand-uncle’s house which his nephews had inherited, and which Madame Lambert, with a heroism admired by everyone, saved from the flames with a small watering-pump, in spite of the wounds she received from the burning brands.
The small borough was completely destroyed, deserted, ruined; the young physician’s patients were dispersed and captured by competition in an adjacent town. The uncle’s house was sold at a very bad bargain, the furniture given away, so to say, and, after some debts had been paid, there remained very little for the young couple, who took refuge at Verberie at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs.
Thedot, broken into for Jean Louis Lambert’s studies, and wasted afterwards in expensive chemical experiments—he had had a laboratory built for himself—dripped away as money always dripped through the impracticable hands of Olympe’s husband.
As he was very intimate with the Decamps, Alexandre, and the painter, who lived near Verberie during the summer, Jean Louis hoped to create a position for himself in new surroundings.
A certain Doctor Bernhardt, a great chemist, who lived at Compiègne and often went to visit his friends, the Decamps, struck with the science and original views of the young physician, proposed to make him a partner in certain researches which were to bring about a discovery as extraordinary as that of the philosopher’s stone.
One fine day, influenced by the Decamps, fascinated by a sort of German Mephistopheles, he left his wife, who was expecting the birth of a child, at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs; but he was to receive a large salary and go to see her every Sunday until the time came when he could settle her in a home at Compiègne.
Madame Lambert, after her baby son’s death, had wounded her mother cruelly. The latter had scarcely seen her and her husband more than three times at Chauny in three years. She invited her to make her a visit, saying they could mourn over the child together and adding that only a mother with her affection could console a daughter for a son’s loss.
Olympe wrote to her mother that her sorrow wastoo dumb to be understood by her. Madame Seron, in despair at receiving such a letter, addressed one to her son-in-law; but as it was at the time when the fire took place, her letter received no direct response. Jean Louis merely related to her in full the details of the catastrophe of the small borough and of Olympe’s heroism which had saved the house, and he added unkindly, being ungrateful for the first time in his life: “Your daughter’s heroism was not expressed merely in words.” He thus accentuated the tone of his wife’s letter instead of attenuating it.
He did not wish to have any explanations with his mother-in-law, neither to have her come to his house, nor to go to hers, knowing very well that if circumstances had turned against him he was responsible for them in part from the manner in which he had mismanaged his resources.
The sale of the house, the departure for Verberie, his entering Doctor Bernhardt’s employ, all was done without a word from Jean Louis to his father and mother-in-law.
Doctor Seron heard of these things from his friend, the herbalist of Compiègne, who came to warn him about Doctor Bernhardt and to give him the most alarming information concerning him. He was worse than an impostor, living a luxuriouslife, and pulling wool over people’s eyes; it was said he was a swindler.
Madame Seron, on hearing this, addressed a supreme appeal to her son-in-law, enlightening him on the danger he was running, but, alas! it was too late. Jean Louis, completely hypnotised by Doctor Bernhardt, following his researches with passion, not only received no salary, but he had thrown the money received from the sale of the house and what remained of his wife’sdotinto Doctor Bernhardt’s crucible, which was like that of the philosopher’s stone.
I was born at the Hotel of The Three Monarchs. My father announced the happy event to my grandmother by this simple note: “Your grandchild, born on the 4th of October at five o’clock in the afternoon, is called Juliette.”
What! this granddaughter, so much dreamed of, so much desired, was there, at Verberie, not far off, and she could not run to embrace her, to take and hold her for an instant in her arms?
My grandmother did not cease weeping and my grandfather shed tears with her.
“Think, Pierre, of that little one in an inn, of Olympe, our daughter, in such a place, with, perhaps, only a partition separating her from some drunken brute making a noise. Oh! it will kill me.”
“And her husband far from her, and in his perpetual goings and comings not able to watch over our only child’s health or that of our granddaughter,” added Doctor Seron, “it is dreadful.” And, with hands clasped together, they sobbed. What was to be done?
They wrote again several times, but received only one answer as curt as it was short:
“The mother and child are well.”
A commercial traveller, a patient of my grandfather, had heard at Verberie that my father was a victim of a miserable fellow, who imposed upon him, making him work like a labourer, promising him everything under heaven, and spending every cent he possessed, and that my mother, still at Verberie, owed a large sum at the hotel and might at any moment, together with her daughter, be turned out of doors without resources.
My grandmother at these revelations wished to leave immediately for Verberie; my grandfather prevented her. He sent the commercial traveller to the proprietor of The Three Monarchs to assure him that he would be paid by Madame Lambert’s parents, but that he must say nothing of it to her, and must, on no account, acquaint her husband about it.
On the commercial traveller’s return my grandmotherhad all the details she desired, some of which were lamentable, others consoling.
My mother nursed me herself. I was a very healthy baby, but Madame Lambert, suffering from poverty and cold, for she often deprived herself of fire, the commercial traveller said, was evidently losing her health. But the hotel proprietor, reassured about his debt, would arrange things so that the young mother should suffer no longer.
My grandfather loved his daughter Olympe more than did my grandmother, because she resembled his own mother. She was submissive to her husband to the point of sacrificing her child to her wifely duties, and therefore he suffered about his child as well as his grandchild, while my grandmother suffered especially on my account.
Again, my grandmother wished to leave to come to us, but her husband calmed her with his oft-repeated words:
“You will only upset her, and, as she is nursing her child, she will give her fever and you will kill her. Wait at least for nine months, and then you can wean Juliette, and we will decide what to do according to circumstances.”
Hour by hour, day by day, week by week, the nine months, sadly counted, passed at last. Atthe end of the ninth month the commercial traveller received a letter from the proprietor of The Three Monarchs, saying that my father had gone to Brussels with Doctor Bernhardt, who went there ostensibly to make some final experiments, in reality to escape legal prosecution by flight, and that my mother and I were abandoned.
As soon as this letter was communicated to my grandparents there was no longer any hesitation, and my grandmother left for Verberie.
My mother, clad in a worn-out gown, was shivering over a small fire of shavings, thin, pale, her handsome face grown more sombre than ever. She welcomed her mother with a violent scene, but my grandmother had come with prepared resolutions which nothing could move.
“You have not the right, through fidelity to I know not what wifely duty and which your husband, it seems to me, is far from reciprocating, to live here in this wretchedness, and, above all, to impose it on your child. You shall leave this hotel to-morrow and return to your parents, and your husband, when he desires to do so, can come to find you as well at their home as here in this inn.”
“Where you have tied the goat she must browse,” she replied.
My grandmother, exasperated at these words,exclaimed: “Your husband doesn’t even give you grass to browse on.”
My mother remained obstinate with her habitual sourness, her bad temper, and her motiveless recriminations which she tried, as usual, to combine together, in order to prove that she was made unhappy by everyone.
“But, if you are turned out of doors with your daughter, where will you go?”
“Into the street, and Jean Louis will have the responsibility of having put me there. I do not wish that he should be absolved for his conduct by any one.”
It was therefore in order to prove her husband’s wrong-doing that she suffered abandonment and privations.
My grandmother said nothing more; but she arranged in her mind a plan for carrying me off.
“Whatever you decide,” she said, after the scene was over, “you must pay your debts, if you have any here. Do you wish me to give you some money?”
“Willingly.”
“Well, about how much do you think you owe?”
My mother named a sum.
“I am going to unpack my bag, have my dinnerserved, and send you some wood, and I will return with the money you need to pay your debt.”
My grandmother often told me afterwards that she did not look at me, nor kiss me, so as not to betray her emotion.
She went to find the proprietor and arranged my carrying off with him. A berline would be ready in a moment to take my grandmother and me to the town gates. The driver of the diligence which would leave an hour after us would reserve thecoupéseats for us, and would pick us up at a point agreed upon between the berline-driver and himself, and we would speed, changing horses once or twice, to Chauny. The hotel proprietor was to detain my mother discussing the bill, and to keep her for an hour at least, and he promised not to furnish her with a carriage to pursue us. Besides, it was agreed that my grandmother was to give to him the money necessary for my mother to join us in a few days.
My grandmother learned from him the amount of the bill, and it was arranged that she should give my mother a little less than the amount, so that the latter should not feel justified in taking any of the money in order to follow us.
My grandmother returned to her daughter’s room, now well warmed. All was ready in herown room for departure—a nursing-bottle full of warm milk and a large shawl in which to wrap me.
Her heart, she told me later many times, beat faster than it would have done had she run off with my grandfather in her youth.
The hotel proprietor had the bill taken to Madame Lambert, and sent her word that he was ready to discuss it if she should have any observations to make concerning it. My grandmother looked at the bill and told my mother that she had not quite enough money to pay it all, being obliged to keep some for her return home, and that, on glancing at it, it seemed to her that the proprietor of The Three Monarchs had added to the actual expenses too much interest for the delay of payment.
My mother was of the same opinion, and said the sum would suffice, as she should discuss the point with the proprietor, and no doubt obtain a reduction.
“Go,” said my grandmother in an indifferent tone. “I will take care of the child.”
Everything succeeded marvellously well, and I was carried off at the rather young age of nine months old, and weaned in a diligence.