Jack - Alphonse Daudet (inspirational books .TXT) 📗

the salon, into which she gayly drew the boy, as she said, "Guess who is here!"
"O, I know very well!" exclaimed Jack in delight; "it is our good friend."
But it was D'Argenton, who sat in full evening dress on the sofa, near the fire. The enemy was in Jack's own seat, and the child was so overwhelmed by his disappointment that he with difficulty restrained his tears. There was a moment of restraint and discomfort felt by all three. Just then the door was thrown open, and dinner announced by Augustin. The dinner was long and tedious to little Jack. Have you ever felt so entirely out of place that you would have gladly disappeared from off the face of the globe, painfully conscious, withal, that had you so vanished, no one would have missed you? When Jack spoke, no one listened; his questions were unheard and his wants unheeded. The conversation between his mother and D'Argenton was incomprehensible to him, although he saw that his mother blushed more than once, and hastily raised her glass to her lips as if to conceal her rising color. Where were those gay little dinners when Jack sat close at his mother's side and reigned an absolute king at the table? This recollection came to the boy's mind just as Madame de Barancy offered a superb pear to D'Argenton.
"That came from our friend at Tours," said Jack, maliciously.
D'Argenton, who was about to peel the fruit, dropped it upon his plate with a shrug of the shoulders. What an angry glance Ida threw upon her child! She had never looked at him in that way before. Jack did not venture to speak again, and the evening to him was but a dreary continuation of the repast.
Ida and the poet talked in low voices, and in that confidential tone that indicates great intimacy. He told her of his sad childhood and of his early home. He described the ruined towers and the long corridors where the wind raged and howled. He then depicted his early struggles in the great city, the constant obstacles thrown in the way of the development of his genius, of his jealous rivals and literary enemies, and of the terrible epigrams which he had hurled upon them.
"Then I uttered these stinging words." This time she did not interrupt him, but listened with a smile, and her absorption was so great that when he ceased speaking she still listened, although nothing was to be heard in the salon save the ticking of the clock and the rustling of the leaves of the album that Jack, half asleep, was turning over. Suddenly she rose with a start.
"Come, Jack, my love; call Constant to take you back to school. It is quite time."
"O, mamma!" said the child, sadly; but he dared not say that he generally remained much later. He did not wish to be troublesome to his mother, nor to meet again such an expression in her ordinarily serene and laughing eyes, as had so startled him at the dinner-table.
She rewarded him for his self-control by a most loving embrace.
"Good night, my child!" said D'Argenton, and he drew the child toward him as if to embrace him, but suddenly, with a movement of repulsion, turned aside as he had done at dinner from the fruit.
"I cannot! I cannot!" he murmured, throwing himself back in his arm-chair and passing his handkerchief over his forehead.
Jack turned to his mother in amazement.
"Go, dear Jack. Take him away, Constant." And while Madame de Barancy sought to conciliate her poet, the child returned with a heavy heart to his school; and in the cold dormitory, as he thought of the professor installed in his mother's chimney-corner, said to himself, "He is very comfortable there. I wonder how long he means to stay!"
In D'Argenton's exclamation and in his repugnance to Jack, there was certainly some acting, but there was also real feeling. He was very jealous of the child, who represented to him Ida's past, not that the poet was profoundly in love with the countess. He, on the contrary, loved himself in her, and, Narcissus-like, worshipped his own image which he saw reflected in her clear eyes. But D'Argenton would have preferred to be the first to disturb those depths.
But these regrets were useless, though Ida shared them. "Why did I not know him earlier?" she said to herself over and over again.
"She ought to understand by this time," said D'Argenton, sulkily, "that I do not wish to see that boy."
But even for her poet's sake Ida could not keep her child away from her entirely. She did not, however, go so often to the academy, nor summon Jack from school, as she had done, and this change was by no means the smallest of the sacrifices she was called upon to make.
As to the hotel she occupied, her carriage, and the luxury in which she lived, she was ready to abandon them all at a word from D'Argenton.
"You will see," she said, "how I can aid you. I can work, and, besides, I shall not be completely penniless."
But D'Argenton hesitated. He was, notwithstanding his apparent enthusiasm and recklessness, extremely methodical and clear-headed.
"No, we will wait a while. I shall be rich some day, and then--"
He alluded to his old aunt, who now made him an allowance and whose heir he would unquestionably be. "The good old lady was very old," he added. And the two, Ida and D'Argenton, made a great many plans for the days that were to come. They would live in the country, but not so far away from Paris that they would be deprived of its advantages. They would have a little cottage, over the door of which should be inscribed this legend: _Parva domus, magna quies_. There he could work, write a book--a novel, and later, a volume of poems. The titles of both were in readiness, but that was all.
Then the publishers would make him offers; he would be famous, perhaps a member of the Academy--though, to be sure, that institution was mildewed, moth-eaten, and ready to fall.
"That is nothing!" said Ida; "you must be a member!" and she saw herself already in a corner on a reception-day, modestly and quietly dressed, as befitted the wife of a man of letters. While they waited, however, they regaled themselves on the pears sent by "the kind friend, who was certainly the best and least suspicious of men."
D'Argenton found these pears, with their satiny skins, very delicious; but he ate them with so many expressions of discontent, and with so many little cutting remarks to Ida, that she spent much of her time in tears.
Weeks and months passed on in this way without any other change in their lives than that which naturally grew out of an increasing estrangement between Moronval and his professor of literature. The principal, daily expecting a decision from Ida on the subject of the Review, suspected D'Argenton of influencing her against the project, and this belief he ended by expressing to the poet.
One morning, Jack, who now went out but rarely, looked out of the windows with longing eyes. The spring sunshine was so bright, the sky so blue, that he longed for liberty and out-door life.
The leaf-buds of the lilacs were swelling, and the flower-beds in the garden were gently upheaved, as if with the movements of invisible life.
From the lane without came the sounds of children at play, and of singing-birds, all revelling in the sunshine. It was one of those days when every window is thrown open to let in the light and air, and to drive away all wintry shadows, all that blackness imparted by the length of the nights and the smoke of the fires.
While Jack was longing for wings, the door-bell rang, and his mother entered in great haste and much agitated, although dressed with great care. She came for him to breakfast with her in the Bois, and would not bring him back until night. He must ask Moronval's permission first; but as Ida brought the quarterly payment, you may imagine that permission was easily granted.
"How jolly!" cried Jack; "how jolly!" and while his mother casually informed Moronval that M. d'Argenton had told her the evening previous that he was summoned to Auvergne, to his aunt who was dying, the boy ran to change his dress. On his way he met Madou, who, sad and lonely, was busy with his pails and brooms, and had not had time to find out that the air was soft and the sunshipe warm. On seeing him, Jack had a bright idea.
"O, mamma, if we could take Madou!"
This permission was a little difficult to procure, so multifarious were the duties of the prince; but Jack was so persistent that kind Madame Moronval agreed for that day to assume the black boy's place.
"Madou! Madou!" cried the child, rushing toward him. "Quick, dress yourself and come out in the carriage with us; we are going to breakfast in the Bois!"
There was a moment of confusion. Madou stood still in amazement, while Madame Moronval borrowed a tunic that would be suitable for him in this emergency. Little Jack danced with joy, while Madame de Barancy, excited like a canary by the noise, chattered on to Moronval, giving him details in regard to the illness of D'Argenton's aunt.
At last they started, Jack and his mother seated side by side in the victoria, and Madou on the box with Augustin. The progress would hardly be regarded as a royal one, but Madou was satisfied. The drive itself was charming, the Avenue de l'Imperatrice was filled with people driving, riding, and walking. Children of all ages enlivened the scene. Babies, in their long white skirts, gazing about with the sweet solemnity of infancy, and older children fancifully dressed, with their tutors or nurses, crowded the pavements. Jack, in an ecstasy of delight, kissed his mother, and pulled Madou by the sleeve.
"Are you happy, Madou?"
"Yes, sir, very happy," was the answer. They reached the Bois, in places quite green and fresh already. There were some spots where the tops of the trees were in leaf, but the foliage was so minute that it looked like smoke. The holly, whose crisp, stiff leaves had been covered with snow half the winter, jostled the timid and distrustful lilacs whose leaf-buds were only beginning to swell The carriage drew up at the restaurant, and while the breakfast ordered by Madame de Barancy was in course of preparation, she and the children took a walk to the lake. At this early hour there were few of those superb equipages to be seen that appeared later in the day. The lake was lovely, with white swans dotting it here and there, and now and then a gentle ripple shook its surface, and miniature waves dashed against the fringe of old willows on one side.
What a walk! And what a breakfast served at the open windows! The children attacked it with the vigor of schoolboys. They laughed incessantly from the beginning to the end of the repast.
When breakfast was over, Ida proposed that they should visit the _Jardin d'Acclimation_.
"That is a splendid idea," said Jack, "for Madou has never been there, and won't he be amused!"
They drove through _La Grande Allee_ in the almost deserted garden, which to the children was full of interest. They were fascinated by the animals, who, as they passed, looked at them with sleepy or inquisitive eyes, or smelled with pink nostrils at the fresh bread they had brought from the restaurant.
Madou, who at first had made a pretence of interest only to gratify Jack, now became absorbed in what he saw. He did not need to examine the blue