“Though you are but vermin, I intend to be publicly revenged on you,” the young nobleman went on. “I shall not ask satisfaction from you, a man of sixty-seven, for the insults heaped on Mademoiselle Mirouët; but from your son. The first time Monsieur Minoret, junior, sets foot in Nemours, we meet. He has got to fight me, and he shall fight! Or he shall be so utterly disgraced that he will not dare to show his face anywhere; if he does not come to Nemours, I will go to Fontainebleau! I will have satisfaction. It shall never be said that you have basely tried to bring shame on a defenceless girl.”
“But the calumnies of such a fellow as Goupil—really—are not—” said Minoret.
“Would you like me to confront you with him?” cried Savinien, interrupting him. “Believe me, you had better not noise the matter; it is between you and Goupil and me; leave it so, and God will decide the issue in the duel to which I shall do your son the honor of challenging him.”
“But things cannot go on like that!” cried Zélie. “What! Do you suppose that I shall allow Désiré to fight with you, a naval officer, whose business it is to use the sword and pistol! If you have a score against Minoret, here is Minoret; take Minoret, fight with Minoret! But why should my boy, who, by your own confession, is innocent of it all, suffer the penalty? I will set a dog of mine to hinder that, my fine gentleman!—Come, Minoret, there you sit gaping like a great idiot! You are in your own house, and you will allow this young fellow to keep his hat on in your wife’s presence! Now, young man, to begin with, take yourself off. Every man’s house is his castle. I do not know what you are at with all your rhodomontade, but just turn on your heel; and if you lay a finger on Désiré, you will have me to settle with—you and your precious slut, Ursule.”
She rang violently, and called the servants.
“Remember what I have said,” repeated Savinien, who, heedless of Zélie’s diatribe, went away, leaving this sword of Damocles suspended over their heads.
“Now, Minoret, will you tell me the meaning of all this?” said Zélie to her husband. “A young man does not come into a decent house and kick up all this tremendous dust for nothing, and insist on the blood of an only son and heir.”
“It is some trick of that nasty ape Goupil’s; I had promised to help him to be made notary if he would get le Rouvre on reasonable terms. I gave him ten percent, twenty thousand francs, in bills of exchange, and I suppose he is not satisfied.”
“Yes; but what previous reason can he have had to get up serenades and rascalities to trouble Ursule?”
“He wanted to marry her.”
“A girl without a sou? He? Fiddlesticks! Look here, Minoret, you are cramming me with nonsense, and you are by nature too stupid to make it take, my son. There is something behind it all, and you have got to tell it me.”
“There is nothing.”
“There is nothing? Well, I tell you that is a lie, and we shall see.”
“Will you leave me in peace?”
“I will turn on the tap of that barrel of poison, Goupil, whom you know, I think; and you will not get the best of the bargain then.”
“As you please.”
“Certainly, it will be as I please! And what I please, first and foremost, is that no one shall lay a finger on Désiré; if anything happens to him—there, I tell you, I should do something that would take me to the block. Désiré!—Why!—And there you sit without stirring!”
A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was not likely to end without long domestic broils. The thieving fool now found his struggle with himself and with Ursule made harder by his blundering, and complicated by a fresh and terrible adversary. Next day, when he went out to go to Goupil, hoping to silence him with money, he read on all the walls: Minoret is a thief! Everyone he met pitied him, and asked him who was at the bottom of this anonymous placarding, and everyone overlooked the evasiveness of his replies by ascribing it to his stupidity. Simpletons gain more advantages from their weakness than clever men get from their strength. We look on at a great man struggling against fate, but we raise a fund for a bankrupt grocer. Do you know why? We feel superior when we protect an idiot, and are aggrieved at being no more than equal to the man of genius. A clever man would have been ruined if, like Minoret, he had stammered out preposterous replies with a scared look. Zélie and the servants effaced the libelous inscription wherever they saw it, but it weighed on Minoret’s conscience.
Though Goupil had, only the day before, given the summonsing officer his word, he most audaciously refused now to sign the agreement.
“My dear Lecoeur, you see I am in a position to buy Dionis’ practice, and I can help you to sell yours to someone else. Put your agreement in your pocket again. It is the loss only of a couple of stamps. Here are seventy centimes.”
Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to make any complaints. All Nemours was forthwith informed that Minoret had offered his guarantee to Dionis to enable Goupil to purchase his place. The budding notary wrote to Savinien retracting all his confession regarding Minoret, and explaining to the young nobleman that his new position, the decisions of the Supreme Court, and his respect for justice forbade his fighting a duel. At the same time, he warned him to take care henceforth how he behaved, as he—Goupil—was practised in kicking, and at the first provocation would have the pleasure of breaking his leg.
The walls of Nemours spoke no more. But the quarrel between Minoret and his wife
