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And the good lady thoroughly satisfied the anxious pater-familias. In the first place, she said, the material of the dresses was not very expensive, after all; it was made to look like moiré, but it was only watered taffety.
Through the blinds of a back-parlor window I watched his movements, as, encouraged by pater-familias, he drew off his coat, moistened his hands, and undertook to "snake up" the big weight. An ignominious failure to start the barrel was the result. The stout gentleman tugged till he was so red in the face that apoplexy seemed imminent, and then he dejectedly gave it up.
Master Boltay did not put back in his pocket the money lying on the table, but swept it up, sent it to the editor of the Pressburger Zeitung, and the next day the following notice was to be read in the columns of that respectable newspaper: "A pater-familias residing in this town presents through us six thousand florins thirty kreutzers to the civic hospital, which amount the honourable Abellino Kárpáthy was pleased to offer as a gift to the daughter of the donor in question, who, however, thought the sum more suitably applied to charitable purposes."
The advent of any stranger with whom she would be called on to associate must be matter of interest to her in that secluded place; and she was not so absolutely unlike other young ladies that the arrival of an unmarried young man would be the same to her as the advent of some patriarchal pater-familias.
It would be surprising to many a stately pater-familias to learn how easily acquaintanceship, and even friendship, is contracted with his male offspring, if they be among the pleasure-seekers of the town. A young man of good address and exterior, with plenty of money in his pocket, does not require introduction. The club door soon flies open to him, but not that of the home.
What! a pater-familias who, when he is half-tipsy, on Sunday afternoons preaches moral sermons to daughters, who are laughing in their sleeves at him all the time, and who brags about the meerschaum pipe which the seducer of his own daughter gives him as a birthday present!
In 1814, the young man obtained his liberty, his family, and his Germany, and it is to be hoped that he afterwards became a respectable pater-familias, a sort of Aulic councillor, and that, during the troublesome times in the land of Sauerkraut, he was before, and not behind, the barricades of his darling patria.
"Very well good-bye till to-morrow, my boy," said Lousteau, shaking hands with every sign of cordiality. "When is your book coming out?" "That depends on Dauriat; it is ready," said Vernou pater-familias. "Are you satisfied?" "Yes and no " "We will get up a success," said Lousteau, and he rose with a bow to his colleague's wife.
From henceforth the whole family did their best to keep him in a good humour. They consulted his wishes, inquired after his tastes, and were always asking if there was anything he fancied or had a particular liking for. "What good girls these girls of mine are!" said this happy pater-familias to himself. On his birthday, too, they had pleasant surprises in store for him in the shape of presents.
Public entertainments, frippery, and splendour made frightful inroads; and when the domestic table was spread, the invisible shapes of tailors, bootmakers, milliners, mercers, and hairdressers sat down and helped to consume poor pater-familias' dinner. As for the mistress of the house, she was the worst manager it is possible to imagine.
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