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Updated: June 3, 2025
Madame Descoings, always anxious to cheer Madame Bridau, often took the latter to the theatre, or to drive; prepared excellent little dinners for her delectation, and even tried to marry her to her own son by her first husband, Bixiou. Alas! to do this, she was forced to reveal a terrible secret, carefully kept by her, by her late husband, and by her notary.
Agathe, seeing that this business lie would save the honor of her son, at any rate in the eyes of strangers, kissed Madame Descoings, who went out early to make an end of the dreadful affair. Philippe, meanwhile, had slept the sleep of the just. "She is sly, that old woman," he remarked, when his mother explained to him why breakfast was late.
Joseph made ready for a struggle which, from the day when he first exhibited in the Salon, has never ceased. It was a terrible year. Roguin, the notary of Madame Descoings and Madame Bridau, absconded with the moneys held back for seven years from Madame Descoings's annuity, which by that time were producing two thousand francs a year.
She went to her room, took the box which contained the plate, felt its light weight, opened it, and saw a pawnbroker's ticket. The poor mother uttered a dreadful cry. Joseph and the Descoings ran to her, saw the empty box, and her noble falsehood was of no avail.
The Descoings had draped the windows with brocatelle curtains torn from the bed of some monastic prior. To the left of the entrance-door, stood a chest or coffer, worth many thousand francs, which the doctor now used for a sideboard. "Here, Fanchette," cried Rouget to his cook, "bring two glasses; and give us some of the old wine."
Joseph had invited Leon Giraud, d'Arthez, Michel Chrestien, Fulgence Ridal, and Horace Bianchon, his friends of the fraternity. Madame Descoings had promised Bixiou, her so-called step-son, that the young people should play at ecarte. Desroches the younger, who had now taken, under his father's stern rule, his degree at law, was also of the party.
I went out to buy him some cigars." "But," said Joseph, "you left the door locked. Besides, it is so infamous. I can't believe it. Philippe couldn't have watched you, cut open the mattress, done it deliberately, no, no!" "I felt them this morning, when I made my bed after breakfast," repeated Madame Descoings. Agathe, horrified, went down stairs and asked if Philippe had come in during the day.
"Oh!" cried the widow, "Philippe is right, my father cursed me: I have no right to Here, here is your money," she said to Madame Descoings, adding Joseph's three hundred francs to the two hundred found on Philippe. "Go and see if your brother does not need something," she said to Joseph.
Joseph's ideas was, that his brother loved tobacco and liquors, Maman Descoings loved her trey, his mother loved God, Desroches the younger loved lawsuits, Desroches the elder loved angling, in short, all the world, he said, loved something.
All three were silent, and avoided looking at each other; but the next moment, by an almost frantic gesture, Agathe laid her finger on her lips as if to entreat a secrecy no one desired to break. They returned to the salon, and sat beside the fire. "Ah! my children," cried Madame Descoings, "I am stabbed to the heart: my trey will turn up, I am certain of it.
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