Free Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Gustave Flaubert Page A

me to be going back. Farewell! Have you got a hundred sous to pay for my dinner?”
    Frédéric gave him ten francs, what was left of those he had gotten that morning from Isidore.
    Meanwhile, some forty yards away from the bridges, a light shone from the garret-window of a low-built house.
    Deslauriers noticed it. Then he said emphatically, as he took off his hat:
    “Your pardon, Venus, Queen of Heaven, but Poverty is the mother of Wisdom. We have been slandered enough for that—so have mercy.”
    This allusion to an adventure in which they had both taken part, put them into a jovial mood. They laughed loudly as they passed through the streets.
    Then, having settled his bill at the inn, Deslauriers walked back with Frédéric as far as the crossroads near the Hôtel-Dieu, and after a long embrace, the two friends parted.

CHAPTER III
    T wo months later, Frédéric, having gotten off a coach one morning on the Rue Coq-Heron, immediately thought of paying his important visit.
    Luck was on his side. Père Roque had brought him a roll of papers and requested him to deliver them himself to M. Dambreuse; and the good gentleman included with the package an open letter of introduction on behalf of his young fellow-countryman.
    Madame Moreau appeared surprised at this proceeding. Frederic concealed the delight that it gave him.
    M. Dambreuse’s real name was the Count d‘Ambreuse; but since 1825, gradually abandoning his title of nobility and his party, he had turned his attention to business; and with his ears open in every office, his hand in every enterprise, on the lookout for every opportunity, as subtle as a Greek and as laborious as a native of Auvergne, he had amassed a fortune which might be called considerable. Furthermore, he was an officer of the Legion d’honneur, a member of the General Council of the Aube, e a representative, and one of these days would be a peer of France. However, affable as he was in other respects, he wearied the Minister with his continual applications for subsidies, for decorations, and licences for tobacconists’ shops; and in his complaints against the establishment he was inclined to join the Left Centre. His wife, the pretty Madame Dambreuse, of whom mention was made in the fashion journals, presided at charitable functions. By flattering the duchesses, she appeased the rancour of the aristocratic faubourg, f and led the residents to believe that M. Dambreuse might yet repent and render them some services.
    The young man was nervous when he called on them.
    “I should have taken my dress-coat with me. No doubt they will give me an invitation to next week’s ball. What will they say to me?”
    His self-confidence returned when he reflected that M. Dambreuse was only a person of the middle class, and he sprang out of the cab briskly on the pavement of the Rue dAnjou.
    When he had pushed open one of the two gates, he crossed the courtyard, mounted the steps in front of the house, and entered a vestibule paved with coloured marble.
    A straight double staircase, with red carpet, fastened with brass rods, rested against the high walls of shining stucco. At the end of the stairs there was a banana-tree, whose wide leaves fell down over the velvet banister. Two bronze candelabra, with porcelain globes, hung from little chains; the large radiator vents exhaled warm, heavy air; and all that could be heard was the ticking of a big clock standing at the other end of the vestibule, under a suit of armour.
    A bell rang; a valet made his appearance, and led Frédéric into a small room, where one could observe two safes, as well as cabinets filled with folders. In the centre of it, M. Dambreuse was writing at a roll-top desk.
    He ran his eye over Père Roque’s letter, tore open the canvas in which the papers had been wrapped, and examined them.
    From a distance, he had an appearance of youth, because of his slim build. But his thin white hair, his feeble limbs, and, above all, the extraordinary