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Nevertheless, at the end of a few months, Pierrotin was puzzled to explain the exact relations of Monsieur Moreau and Madame Clapart from what he saw of the household in the rue de la Cerisaie.
"Don't rub your gloves that way, you'll spoil them," she was saying as Pierrotin appeared. "Is this the conductor? Ah! Pierrotin, is it you?" she exclaimed, leaving her son and taking the coachman apart a few steps. "I hope you're well, Madame Clapart," he replied, with an air that expressed both respect and familiarity. "Yes, Pierrotin, very well.
"I have no longer an uncle Cardot," replied Oscar, who related the scene at the rue de Vendome. Madame Clapart, feeling her legs give way under the weight of her body, staggered to a chair in the dining-room, where she fell as if struck by lightning. "All the miseries together!" she said, as she fainted. Moreau took the poor mother in his arms, and carried her to the bed in her chamber.
Though lodgings were not dear at that time in the Arsenal quarter, Madame Clapart lived on a third floor at the end of a court-yard, in a house which was formerly that of a great family, in the days when the higher nobility of the kingdom lived on the ancient site of the Palais des Tournelles and the hotel Saint-Paul.
"Fine occupation that, for a clerk in our office!" cried Godeschal. "Will you never control your vanity, popinjay?" "Ah! monsieur," said Madame Clapart, who entered the room at that moment to bring her son some cravats, and overhead the last words of the head-clerk, "would to God that my Oscar might always follow your advice.
One of the young men, the one who wore top-boots and spurs, nudged the other to make him take notice of Oscar's mother, and the other twirled his moustache with a gesture which signified, "Rather pretty figure!" "How shall I ever get rid of mamma?" thought Oscar. "What's the matter?" asked Madame Clapart. Oscar pretended not to hear, the monster!
"Ah, monsieur!" replied Madame Clapart, proudly, "you were the last to whom I would have told my wretchedness. It is all my own fault; I married a man whose incapacity is almost beyond belief. Yes, I am, indeed, most unhappy." "Listen to me, madame," said the little old man, "and don't weep; it is most painful to me to see a fair lady cry.
Neither the Cardots, nor the Camusots, nor the Protez knew anything of the ways of life of their aunt Clapart. The family intercourse was restricted to the sending of notes of "faire part" on the occasion of deaths and marriages, and cards at the New Year.
"He said mamma!" cried one of the new-comers, laughing. The words reached Oscar's ears and drove him to say, "Good-bye, mother!" in a tone of terrible impatience. Let us admit that Madame Clapart spoke too loudly, and seemed to wish to show to those around them her tenderness for the boy. "What is the matter with you, Oscar?" asked the poor hurt woman.
Therefore don't drink too much, don't play too long, and maintain a proper dignity, that's your rule of conduct. Above all, get home by midnight; for, remember, you must be at the Palais to-morrow morning by seven to get that judgment. A man is not forbidden to amuse himself, but business first, my boy." "Do you hear that, Oscar?" said Madame Clapart.
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