“Supposing you were to go to fetch Poiret,” said the hapless mother, struck to the heart by the diatribe she had brought down on her own head.
“A boy who never took a prize at school!” added Clapart.
In the eyes of the commoner sort, bringing home prizes from school is positive proof of future success in life.
“Did you ever take a prize?” retorted his wife. “And Oscar got the fourth accessit in philosophy?”
This speech reduced Clapart to silence for a moment.
“And besides,” he presently went on, “Madame Moreau must love him as she loves a nail—you know where; she will try to set her husband against him.—Oscar steward at Presles! Why, he must understand land-surveying and agriculture—”
“He can learn.”
“He! Never! I bet you that if he got a place there he would not be in it a week before he had done something clumsy, and was packed off by the Comte de Sérizy—”
“Good heavens! How can you be so vicious about the future prospects of a poor boy, full of good points, as sweet as an angel, and incapable of doing an ill turn to any living soul?”
At this moment the cracking of a post-boy’s whip and the clatter of a chaise at top speed, with the hoofs of horses pulled up sharply at the outer gate, had roused the whole street. Clapart, hearing every window flung open, went out on the landing.
“Oscar, sent back by post!” cried he in a tone in which his satisfaction gave way to genuine alarm.
“Good God! what can have happened?” said the poor mother, trembling as a leaf is shaken by an autumn wind.
Brochon came upstairs, followed by Oscar and Poiret.
“Good heavens, what has happened?” repeated she, appealing to the groom.
“I don’t know, but Monsieur Moreau is no longer steward of Presles, and they say it is your son’s doing, and monseigneur has ordered him home again.—However, here is a letter from poor Monsieur Moreau, who is so altered, madame, it is dreadful to see.”
“Clapart, a glass of wine for the post-boy, and one for monsieur,” said his wife, who dropped into an armchair and read the terrible letter. “Oscar,” she went on, dragging herself to her bed, “you want to kill your mother!—After all I said to you this morning—” But Madame Clapart did not finish her sentence; she fainted with misery.
Oscar remained standing, speechless. Madame Clapart, as she recovered her senses, heard her husband saying to the boy as he shook him by the arm:
“Will you speak?”
“Go to bed at once, sir,” said she to her son. “And leave him in peace, Monsieur Clapart; do not drive him out of his wits, for he is dreadfully altered!”
Oscar did not hear his mother’s remark; he had made for bed the instant he was told.
Those who have any recollection of their own boyhood will not be surprised to hear that, after a day so full of events and agitations, Oscar slept the sleep of the just in spite of the enormity of his sins. Nay, next day he did not find the whole face of nature so much changed as he expected, and was astonished to find that he was hungry, after regarding himself the day before as unworthy to live. He had suffered only in mind, and at that age mental impressions succeed each other so rapidly that each wipes out the last, however deep it may have seemed.
Hence corporal punishment, though philanthropists have made a strong stand against it of late years, is in some cases necessary for children; also, it is perfectly natural, for Nature herself has no other means but the infliction of pain to produce a lasting impression of her lessons. If to give weight to the shame, unhappily too transient, which had overwhelmed Oscar, the steward had given him a sound thrashing, the lesson might have been effectual. The discernment needed for the proper infliction of such corrections is the chief argument against their use; for Nature never makes a mistake, while the teacher must often blunder.
Madame Clapart took care to send her husband out next morning to have her son to herself. She was in a pitiable condition. Her eyes red with weeping, her face worn by a sleepless night, her voice broken; everything in her seemed to sue for mercy by the signs of such grief as she could not have endured a second time. When Oscar entered the room, she beckoned to him to sit down by her, and in a mild but feeling voice reminded him of all the kindness done them by the steward of Presles. She explained to Oscar that for the last six years especially she had lived on Moreau’s ingenious charity. Monsieur Clapart’s appointment, which they owed, no less than Oscar’s scholarship, to the Comte de Sérizy, he would some day cease to hold. Clapart could not claim a pension, not having served long enough either in the Treasury or the city to ask for one. And when Monsieur Clapart should be shelved, what was to become of them?
“I,” she said, “by becoming a sick-nurse or taking a place as housekeeper in some gentleman’s house, could make my living and keep Monsieur Clapart; but what would become of you? You have no fortune, and you must work for your living. There are but four openings for lads like you—trade, the civil service, the liberal professions, and military service. A young man who has no capital must contribute faithful service and brains; but great discretion is needed in business, and your behavior yesterday makes your success very doubtful. For an official career you have to begin, for years perhaps, as a supernumerary, and need interest to back you; and you have alienated the only protector we ever had—a man high in power. And besides, even if you were blest with the exceptional gifts which enable a young man to rise rapidly, either in business or in an official position, where are we to find the money for food
