Fromont and Risler, vol 4 | Page 4

to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

FROMONT AND RISLER
By ALPHONSE DAUDET

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER XXI
THE DAY OF RECKONING
The great clock of Saint-Gervais struck one in the morning. It was so
cold that the fine snow, flying through the air, hardened as it fell,
covering the pavements with a slippery, white blanket.
Risler, wrapped in his cloak, was hastening home from the brewery
through the deserted streets of the Marais. He had been celebrating, in
company with his two faithful borrowers, Chebe and Delobelle, his first
moment of leisure, the end of that almost endless period of seclusion
during which he had been superintending the manufacture of his press,
with all the searchings, the joys, and the disappointments of the
inventor. It had been long, very long. At the last moment he had
discovered a defect. The crane did not work well; and he had had to
revise his plans and drawings. At last, on that very day, the new
machine had been tried. Everything had succeeded to his heart's desire.
The worthy man was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had paid a
debt, by giving the house of Fromont the benefit of a new machine,
which would lessen the labor, shorten the hours of the workmen, and at
the same time double the profits and the reputation of the factory. He
indulged in beautiful dreams as he plodded along. His footsteps rang
out proudly, emphasized by the resolute and happy trend of his
thoughts.
Quickening his pace, he reached the corner of Rue des Vieilles-
Haudriettes. A long line of carriages was standing in front of the
factory, and the light of their lanterns in the street, the shadows of the
drivers seeking shelter from the snow in the corners and angles that
those old buildings have retained despite the straightening of the
sidewalks, gave an animated aspect to that deserted, silent quarter.
"Yes, yes! to be sure," thought the honest fellow, "we have a ball at our
house." He remembered that Sidonie was giving a grand musical and
dancing party, which she had excused him from attending, by the way,

knowing that he was very busy.
Shadows passed and repassed behind the fluttering veil of the curtains;
the orchestra seemed to follow the movements of those stealthy
apparitions with the rising and falling of its muffled notes. The guests
were dancing. Risler let his eyes rest for a moment on that
phantasmagoria of the ball, and fancied that he recognized Sidonie's
shadow in a small room adjoining the salon.
She was standing erect in her magnificent costume, in the attitude of a
pretty woman before her mirror. A shorter shadow behind her, Madame
Dobson doubtless, was repairing some accident to the costume, retieing
the knot of a ribbon tied about her neck, its long ends floating down to
the flounces of the train. It was all very indistinct, but the woman's
graceful figure was recognizable in those faintly traced outlines, and
Risler tarried long admiring her.
The contrast on the first floor was most striking. There was no light
visible, with the exception of a little lamp shining through the lilac
hangings of the bedroom. Risler noticed that circumstance, and as the
little girl had been ailing a few days before, he felt anxious about her,
remembering Madame Georges's strange agitation when she passed
him so hurriedly in the afternoon; and he retraced his steps as far as
Pere Achille's lodge to inquire.
The lodge was full. Coachmen were warming themselves around the
stove, chatting and laughing amid the smoke from their pipes. When
Risler appeared there was profound silence, a cunning, inquisitive,
significant silence. They had evidently been speaking of him.
"Is the Fromont child still sick?" he asked.
"No, not the child, Monsieur."
"Monsieur Georges sick?"
"Yes, he was taken when he came home to-night. I went right off to get
the doctor. He said that it wouldn't amount to anything--that all

Monsieur needed was rest."
As Risler closed the door Pere Achille added, under his breath, with the
half-fearful, half-audacious insolence of an inferior, who would like to
be listened to and yet not distinctly heard:
"Ah! 'dame', they're not making such a show on the first floor as they
are on the second."
This is what had happened.
Fromont jeune, on returning home during the evening, had found his
wife with such a changed, heartbroken face, that he at once divined a
catastrophe. But he had become so accustomed in the past two years to
sin with impunity that it did not for one moment occur to him that his
wife could have been informed of his conduct. Claire, for her part, to
avoid humiliating him, was generous enough to speak only of Savigny.