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Updated: June 3, 2025
Joseph left his studio and went down to breakfast with his mother; but Philippe's confession had taken away his appetite. He took Madame Descoings aside and told her the terrible news. The old woman made a frightened exclamation, let fall the saucepan of milk she had in her hand, and flung herself into a chair. Agathe rushed in; from one exclamation to another the mother gathered the fatal truth.
There, no doubt, grocery and poetry embraced for the first time in the flesh; although they have, and ever have had, intimate secret relations. The death of Descoings produced far more sensation than that of Andre Chenier. It has taken thirty years to prove to France that she lost more by the death of Chenier than by that of Descoings.
Joseph took the half-slice, and fully understood that he was not to ask for any more. No member of the family was the least surprised at this extraordinary performance. The conversation went on. Agathe learned that the house in which she was born, her father's house before he inherited that of the old Descoings, had been bought by the Borniches; she expressed a wish to see it once more.
Joseph, anxious about his future, studied all through this period with an ardor which several times made him ill in the midst of these tumultuous events. "It is the smell of the paints," Agathe said to Madame Descoings. "He ought to give up a business so injurious to his health." However, all Agathe's anxieties were at this time for her son the lieutenant-colonel.
The news was a thunder-clap to the two widows; Agathe's religious principles taught her to think that all women on the stage were brands in the burning; moreover, she thought, and so did Madame Descoings, that women of that kind dined off gold, drank pearls, and wasted fortunes. "Now do you suppose," said Joseph to his mother, "that my brother is such a fool as to spend his money on Mariette?
In spite of the coolness and discretion with which Philippe played his trifling game every night, it happened every now and then that he was what gamblers call "cleaned out." Driven by the irresistible necessity of having his evening stake of ten francs, he plundered the household, and laid hands on his brother's money and on all that Madame Descoings or Agathe left about.
The house, which Rouget inherited from the Descoings estate, stands in the middle of the place Saint-Jean, a so-called square, very long and very narrow, planted with a few sickly lindens. The houses in this part of town are better built than elsewhere, and that of the Descoings's was one of the finest.
Consequently, he was wounded by his brother's contempt, which Philippe still further emphasized with a gesture, pulling his ears as if he were still a child. Agathe noticed the coolness which succeeded the first glow of tenderness on the part of Joseph and Madame Descoings; but she hastened to tell them of Philippe's sufferings in exile, and so lessened it.
"Console yourself, Agathe," said Madame Descoings, "Joseph will turn out a great man." After this discussion, which was like all discussions, the widow's friends united in giving her one and the same advice; which advice did not in the least relieve her anxieties. They advised her to let Joseph follow his bent.
When the artist got back to his painting-room, followed by Madame Descoings, who begged him to humor his mother's feelings, and pointed out to him how changed she was, and what inward suffering the change revealed, they found Philippe there, to their great amazement. "Joseph, my boy," he said, in an off-hand way, "I want some money. Confound it!
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