Notwithstanding the caution and coolness with which Philippe staked his money every evening, he was occasionally cleaned out, as players say. Then, prompted by an irresistible craving to have his stake for the evening, ten francs, he helped himself in the house to his brother’s money, to any Madame Descoings might leave about, or to his mother’s. Once already the poor widow had seen through her first sleep a terrible vision: Philippe had come into her room and emptied the pocket of her dress of all the money in it. She had pretended to be asleep, but she had spent the rest of that night in tears. She saw the truth. “One fault does not constitute a vice,” Madame Descoings had said; but after constant lapses the vice was plainly visible. Agathe could no longer doubt; her best-beloved son had neither feeling nor honor.
The day after this dreadful vision, before Philippe went out after breakfast, she called him into her room and besought him in suppliant tones to ask her for the money he should need. But his demands became so frequent that now, for above a fortnight, Agathe’s savings had been exhausted. She had not a farthing; she thought of seeking work. For several evenings she had discussed with Madame Descoings the means of making money by her needle; indeed, the poor mother had already asked at a shop—Le Père de Famille—for fancywork to fill in, an employment by which she might earn about a franc a day. In spite of her niece’s absolute secrecy, the old woman had easily guessed the reasons for this eagerness to make money by such feminine arts. Indeed, the change in Agathe’s appearance was sufficiently eloquent; her fresh complexion was faded, the skin was drawn over the temples and cheekbones, her forehead was seamed, her eyes lost their lustre, some inward fire was evidently consuming her, and she spent the night in tears.
But what most deeply ravaged her was the necessity for silence as to her pain, her anxieties, and her apprehensions. She never went to sleep till Philippe had come in; she listened for him in the street; she had studied the differences in his voice, in his step, in the very tone of his cane rattling on the paving-stones. She knew everything, exactly the degree of intoxication that he had reached, quaking as she heard him stumble on the stairs. One night she had picked up some gold pieces on the spot where he had let himself fall. When he had drunk and won, his voice was husky and his stick dragged; but when he had lost, there was something short, crisp, and furious in his footstep; he would sing a tune in a clear voice, and carry his cane shouldered like a musket. At breakfast, if he had been winning, his expression was cheerful and almost affectionate; he jested coarsely, still he jested, with Madame Descoings, with Joseph, and his mother; if he had lost, on the contrary, he was morose, his speech was curt and sharp, his gaze hard, and his gloom quite alarming.
This life of debauchery and the habit of drink left their mark day by day on the countenance that had once been so handsome. The veins in his face were purple, his features grew thick, his eyes lost their lashes, and looked dry. And then Philippe, careless of his person, carried with him the miasma of smoke and spirits, and a smell of muddy boots, which to a stranger would have seemed the last stamp of squalor.
“You ought to have a complete new suit of clothes from head to foot,” said Madame Descoings to Philippe one day early in December.
“And who is to pay for them?” said he bitterly. “My poor mother has not a sou; I have five hundred francs a year. It would cost a year’s pension to buy me an outfit, and I have pledged it for three years to come …”
“What for?” said Joseph.
“A debt of honor. Giroudeau borrowed a thousand francs from Florentine to lend to me.—I am not well got up, it must be confessed; but when you remember that Napoleon is at St. Helena, and sells his plate to buy food, the soldiers that remain faithful to him may very well walk in boot-tops,” said he, showing his boots without heels, and he walked off.
“He is not a bad fellow,” said Agathe; “he has good feelings.”
“He may love the Emperor and still keep himself clean,” said Joseph. “If he took some care of himself and his clothes, he would look less like a tramp.”
“Joseph, you ought to be indulgent to your brother,” said Agathe. “You can do just what you like, while he certainly is out of his place.”
“And why did he leave it?” asked Joseph. “What does it matter whether the flag shows Louis XVIII’s bugs or Napoleon’s cockyoly bird if the bunting flies for France? France is France! I would paint for the devil. A soldier ought to fight, if he is a soldier, for love of the art. If he had stayed quietly in the army, by this time he would be a general.”
“You are unjust,” said Agathe. “Your father, who adored the Emperor, would have approved of what he did.
