Luxury - Gluttony: Two of the Seven Cardinal Sins

"Refused what?" said Sophie to her husband, more and more disquieted. "What does he mean, Charles?"

"It is not necessary to mention it, my dear Sophie."

"I think, on the contrary," replied Pascal, "that it would be well to tell your wife, my dear Dutertre, and have her opinion."

"Sir!" exclaimed Dutertre, clasping his hands in dismay.

"Come! is it not a marriage of love?" said Pascal, "you do not have any secrets from each other!"

"Charles, I beseech you, explain to me the meaning of all this. Ah, I saw plainly enough that you were suffering. Monsieur, has anything happened between you and Charles?" said she to Pascal, in a tone of entreaty. "I implore you to tell me."

"My God! a very simple thing happened. You can judge of it yourself, madame — "

"Monsieur!" cried Dutertre, "in the name of the gratitude we owe you, in the name of pity, not one word more, I beseech you, for I can never believe that you will persist in your resolution. And then, what good does it do to torture my wife with needless alarm?"

Then, turning to Madame Dutertre, he said:

"Compose yourself, Sophie, I beg you."

The father Dutertre, hearing the sound of voices as he sat in his chamber, suddenly opened his door, made two steps into the parlour, extending his hands before him, and cried, trembling with excitement:

"Charles! Sophie. My God! what is the matter?"

"My father!" whispered Dutertre, wholly overcome.

"The old man!" said Pascal. "Good! that suits me!"

CHAPTER IX

A moment's silence followed the entrance of the old blind man into the parlour.

Dutertre went quickly to meet his father, took hold of his trembling hand, and said, as he pressed it tenderly:

"Calm yourself, father, it is nothing; a simple discussion, a little lively. Let me take you back to your chamber."

"Charles," said the old man, shaking his head sadly, "your hand is cold, you are nervous, your voice is changed; something has happened which you wish to hide from me."

"You are not mistaken, sir," said Pascal to the old man. "Your son is hiding something from you, and in his interest, in yours, and in the interest of your daughter-in-law and her children, you ought not to be ignorant of it."

"But M. Pascal, can nothing touch your heart?" cried Charles Dutertre. "Are you without pity, without compassion?"

"It is because I pity your obstinate folly, and that of your wife, my dear Dutertre, that I wish to appeal from it, to the good sense of your respectable father."

"Charles," cried Sophie, "however cruel the truth may be, tell it. This doubt, this agony, is beyond my endurance!"

"My son," added the old man, "be frank, as you have always been, and we will have courage."

"You see, my dear Dutertre," persisted M. Pascal, "your worthy father himself wishes to know the truth."

"Monsieur," answered Dutertre, in a broken voice, looking at Pascal with tears which he could hardly restrain, "be good, be generous, as you have been until to-day. Your power is immense, I know; with one word you can plunge us in distress, in disaster; but with one word, too, you can restore to us the peace and happiness which we have owed to you. I implore you, do not be pitiless."

At the sight of the tears, which, in spite of his efforts to control, rose to the eyes of Dutertre, a man so resolute and energetic, Sophie detected the greatness of the danger, and, turning to M. Pascal, said, in a heartrending voice:

"My God! I do not know the danger with which you threaten us, but I am afraid, oh, I am afraid, and I implore you also, M. Pascal."

"After having been our saviour," cried Dutertre, drying the tears which escaped in spite of him, "surely you will not be our executioner!"

"Your executioner!" repeated Pascal. "Please God, my poor friends, it is not I, it is you who wish to be your own executioner. This word you expect from me, this word which can assure your happiness, say it, my dear Dutertre, and our little feast will be as joyous as it ought to be; if not, then do not complain of the bad fate which awaits you. Alas, you will have it so!"

"Charles, if it depends on you," cried Sophie, in a voice of agony, "if this word M. Pascal asks depends on you, then say it, oh, my God, since the salvation of your father and your children depend upon it."

"You hear your wife, my dear Dutertre," resumed Pascal. "Will you be insensible to her voice?"

"Ah, well, then," cried Dutertre, pale and desperate, "since this man is pitiless, you, my father, and you, too, Sophie, can know all. I dismissed Marcelange from my employ. M. Pascal has an interest, of which I am ignorant, in having this man enter the business house of Durand, and he asks me to give to this firm a voucher for the integrity of a wretch whom I have thrown out of my establishment as an arrant impostor."

"Ah, monsieur," said the old man, shocked, as he turned to the side where he supposed M. Pascal to be, "that is impossible. You cannot expect such an unworthy action from my son!"

"And if I refuse to do this degrading thing," said Dutertre, "M. Pascal withdraws from me the capital which I have so rashly accepted, he refuses me credit, and in our present crisis that would be our loss, our ruin."

"Great God!" whispered Sophie, terrified.

"That is not all, father," continued Dutertre. "My wife, too, must pay her tribute of shame. M. Pascal is, he says, in love with Mlle. Antonine, and Sophie must serve this love, which she knows to be impossible, and which for honourable reasons she disapproves, or a threat is still suspended over our heads. Now you have the truth, father, — submit to a ruin as terrible as unforeseen, or commit a base action, such is the alternative to which a man whom we have trusted so long as loyal and generous reduces me."

"That again, always that; so goes the world," interposed M. Pascal, sighing and shrugging his shoulders. "So long as they can receive your aid without making any return, oh, then they flatter you and praise you. It is always 'My noble benefactor, my generous saviour;' they call you 'dear, good man,' load you with attentions; they embroider purses for you and make a feast for you. The little children repeat compliments to you, but let the day come when this poor, innocent man presumes in his turn to ask one or two miserable little favours, then they cry, 'Scoundrel!' 'Unworthy!' 'Infamous!'"

"Any sacrifice, compatible with honour, you might have asked of me, M. Pascal," said Dutertre, in a voice which told how deeply he was wounded, "and I would have made it with joy!"

"Then, what is to be expected?" continued Pascal, without replying to Dutertre, "if the 'good, innocent man,' so good-natured as they suppose him to be, the benefactor, at last, grows weary, ingratitude breaks his heart, for he is naturally sensitive, too sensitive?"

"Ingratitude!" cried Sophie, bursting into tears, "we — we — ingrates, oh, my God!"

"And as the 'good, innocent man' sees a little later that he has been mistaken," continued Pascal, without replying to Sophie, "as he recognises the fact, with pain, that he has been dealing with people incapable of putting their grateful friendship beyond a few puerile prejudices, he says to himself that he would be by far too much of an 'innocent man' to continue to open his purse for the use of such lukewarm friends. So he withdraws his money and his credit as I do, being brought to this resolution by certain circumstances consequent upon the refusal of this dear Dutertre, whom I loved so much, and whom I would love still to call my friend. One last word, sir," added Pascal, addressing the old man. "I have just told you frankly my attitude toward your son, and his toward me; but as it would cost my own heart too much to renounce the faith that I had in the affection of this dear Dutertre, as I know the terrible evils which, through his own fault, must come upon him and his family, I am willing still to give him one quarter of an hour for reconsideration. Let him give me the letter in question, let Madame Dutertre make me the promise that I ask of her, and all shall become again as in the past, and I shall ask for breakfast, and enthusiastically drink a toast to friendship. You are the father of Dutertre, monsieur, you have a great influence over him; judge and decide."

"Charles," said the old man to his son, in a voice full of emotion, "you have acted as an honest man. That is well, but there is still another thing to do; to refuse to vouch for the integrity of a scoundrel is not enough."

"Ah, ah!" interrupted Pascal, "what more, then, is there to do?"

"If M. Pascal," continued the old man, "persists in this dangerous design, you ought, my son, to write to the house of Durand, that for reasons of which you are ignorant, but which are perhaps hostile to their interests, M. Pascal desires to place this Marcelange with them, and that they must be on their guard, because to be silent when an unworthy project is proposed is to become an accomplice."

"I will follow your advice, father," replied Dutertre, in a firm voice.

"Better and better," exclaimed Pascal, sighing, "to ingratitude they add the odious abuse of confidence. Ah, well, I will drink the cup to the dregs. Only, my poor former friends," added he, throwing a strange and sinister glance upon the actors in this scene, "only I fear, you see, that after drinking it a great deal of bitterness and rancour will remain in my heart, and then, you know, when a legitimate hatred succeeds a tender friendship, this hatred, unhappily, becomes a terrible thing."

"Oh, Charles! he frightens me," whispered the young wife, drawing nearer her husband.

"As to you, my dear Sophie," added the old man, with imperturbable calmness, without replying to M. Pascal's threat, "you ought not only to favour in nothing — the course which you have taken — a marriage which you must disapprove, but if M. Pascal persists in his intentions, you ought, by all means, to enlighten Mlle. Antonine as to the character of the man who seeks her. To do that, you have only to inform her at what an infamous price he put the continuation of the aid he has rendered your husband."

"That is my duty," replied Sophie, in a calmer voice, "and I will do it, father."