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“What do I want?” replied Parent. “I want to tell you who these people are.”
George, however, was in a rage, and shook him; and was even going to strike him.
“Let me go,” said Parent. “I am your father. There, see whether they recognize me now, the wretches!”
The young man, thunderstruck, unclenched his fists and turned toward his mother. Parent, as soon as he was released, approached her.
“Well,” he said, “tell him yourself who I am! Tell him that my name is Henri Parent, that I am his father because his name is George Parent, because you are my wife, because you are all three living on my money, on the allowance of ten thousand francs which I have made you since I drove you out of my house. Will you tell him also why I drove you out? Because I surprised you with this beggar, this wretch, your lover! Tell him what I was, an honorable man, whom you married for money, and whom you deceived from the very first day. Tell him who you are, and who I am——”
He stammered and gasped for breath in his rage. The woman exclaimed in a heartrending voice:
“Paul, Paul, stop him; make him be quiet! Do not let him say this before my son!”
Limousin had also risen to his feet. He said in a very low voice: “Hold your tongue! Hold your tongue! Do you understand what you are doing?”
“I quite know what I am doing,” resumed Parent, “and that is not all. There is one thing that I will know, something that has tormented me for twenty years.” Then, turning to George, who was leaning against a tree in consternation, he said:
“Listen to me. When she left my house she thought it was not enough to have deceived me, but she also wanted to drive me to despair. You were my only consolation, and she took you with her, swearing that I was not your father, but, that he was your father. Was she lying? I do not know. I have been asking myself the question for the last twenty years.” He went close up to her, tragic and terrible, and, pulling away her hands, with which she had covered her face, he continued:
“Well, now! I call upon you to tell me which of us two is the father of this young man; he or I, your husband or your lover. Come! Come! tell us.”
Limousin rushed at him. Parent pushed him back, and, sneering in his fury, he said: “Ah! you are brave now! You are braver than you were that day when you ran downstairs because you thought I was going to murder you. Very well! If she will not reply, tell me yourself. You ought to know as well as she. Tell me, are you this young fellow's father? Come! Come! Tell me!”
He turned to his wife again. “If you will not tell me, at any rate tell your son. He is a man, now, and he has the right to know who his father is. I do not know, and I never did know, never, never! I cannot tell you, my boy.”
He seemed to be losing his senses; his voice grew shrill and he worked his arms about as if he had an epileptic 'fit.
“Come! . . . Give me an answer. She does not know . . . I will make a bet that she does not know . . . No . . . she does not know, by Jove! Ha! ha! ha! Nobody knows . . . nobody . . . How can one know such things?
“You will not know either, my boy, you will not know any more than I do . . . never. . . . Look here . . . Ask her you will find that she does not know . . . I do not know either . . . nor does he, nor do you, nobody knows. You can choose . . . You can choose . . . yes, you can choose him or me. . . Choose.
“Good evening . . . It is all over. If she makes up her mind to tell you, you will come and let me know, will you not? I am living at the Hotel des Continents . . . I should be glad to know . . . Good evening . . . I hope you will enjoy yourselves very much . . .”
And he went away gesticulating, talking to himself under the tall trees, in the quiet, the cool air, which was full of the fragrance of growing plants. He did not turn round to look at them, but went straight on, walking under the stimulus of his rage, under a storm of passion, with that one fixed idea in his mind. All at once he found himself outside the station. A train was about to start and he got in. During the journey his anger calmed down, he regained his senses and returned to Paris, astonished at his own boldness, full of aches and pains as if he had broken some bones. Nevertheless, he went to have a “bock” at his brewery.
When she saw him come in, Mademoiselle Zoe asked in surprise: “What! back already? are you tired?”
“Yes—yes, I am tired . . . very tired . . . You know, when one is not used to going out. . . I've had enough of it. I shall not go into the country again. It would have been better to have stayed here. For the future, I shall not stir out.”
She could not persuade him to tell her about his little excursion, much as she wished to.
For the first time in his life he got thoroughly drunk that night, and had to be carried home.
In Argenteuil she was called Queen Hortense. No one knew why. Perhaps it was because she had a commanding tone of voice; perhaps because she was tall, bony, imperious; perhaps because she governed a kingdom of servants, chickens, dogs, cats, canaries, parrots, all so dear to an old maid's heart. But she did not spoil these familiar friends; she had for them none of those endearing names, none of the foolish tenderness which women seem to lavish on the soft fur of a purring cat. She governed these beasts with authority; she reigned.
She was indeed an old maid—one of those old maids with a harsh voice and angular motions, whose very soul seems to be hard. She never would stand contradiction, argument, hesitation, indifference, laziness nor fatigue. She had never been heard to complain, to regret anything, to envy anyone. She would say: “Everyone has his share,” with the conviction of a fatalist. She did not go to church, she had no use for priests, she hardly believed in God, calling all religious things “weeper's wares.”
For thirty years she had lived in her little house, with its tiny garden running along the street; she had never changed her habits, only changing her servants pitilessly, as soon as they reached twenty-one years of age.
When her dogs, cats and birds would die of old age, or from an accident, she would replace them without tears and without regret; with a little spade she would bury the dead animal in a strip of ground, throwing a few shovelfuls of earth over it and stamping it down with her feet in an indifferent manner.
She had a few friends in town, families of clerks who went to Paris every day. Once in a while she would be invited out, in the evening, to tea. She would inevitably fall asleep, and she would have to be awakened, when it was time for her to go home. She never allowed anyone to accompany her, fearing neither light nor darkness. She did not appear to like children.
