Fruitfulness - Fecondite | Page 5

till some
very much later date.
As it happened Mathieu Froment gradually became indispensable at the
works. The young master, Alexandre Beauchene, passed through an
anxious crisis. The dowry which his father had been forced to draw
from his coffers in order to get Seraphine married, and other large
expenses which had been occasioned by the girl's rebellious and
perverse conduct, had left but little working capital in the business.
Then, too, on the morrow of Leon Beauchene's death it was found that,
with the carelessness often evinced in such matters, he had neglected to
leave a will; so that Seraphine eagerly opposed her brother's interests,
demanding her personal share of the inheritance, and even suggesting
the sale of the works. The property had narrowly escaped being cut up,
annihilated. And Alexandre Beauchene still shivered with terror and
anger at the recollection of that time, amidst all his delight at having at
last rid himself of his sister by paying her in money the liberally
estimated value of her share. It was in order to fill up the void thus
created in his finances that he had espoused the half-million
represented by Constance--an ugly creature, as he himself bitterly

acknowledged, coarse male as he was. Truth to tell, she was so thin, so
scraggy, that before consenting to make her his wife he had often called
her "that bag of bones." But, on the other hand, thanks to his marriage
with her, all his losses were made good in five or six years' time; the
business of the works even doubled, and great prosperity set in. And
Mathieu, having become a most active and necessary coadjutor, ended
by taking the post of chief designer, at a salary of four thousand two
hundred francs per annum.
Morange, the chief accountant, whose office was near Mathieu's, thrust
his head through the doorway as soon as he heard the young man
installing himself at his drawing-table. "I say, my dear Froment," he
exclaimed, "don't forget that you are to take dejeuner with us."
"Yes, yes, my good Morange, it's understood. I will look in for you at
twelve o'clock."
Then Mathieu very carefully scrutinized a wash drawing of a very
simple but powerful steam thresher, an invention of his own, on which
he had been working for some time past, and which a big landowner of
Beauce, M. Firon-Badinier, was to examine during the afternoon.
The door of the master's private room was suddenly thrown wide open
and Beauchene appeared--tall, with a ruddy face, a narrow brow, and
big brown, protruding eyes. He had a rather large nose, thick lips, and a
full black beard, on which he bestowed great care, as he likewise did on
his hair, which was carefully combed over his head in order to conceal
the serious baldness that was already coming upon him, although he
was scarcely two-and-thirty. Frock-coated the first thing in the morning,
he was already smoking a big cigar; and his loud voice, his peals of
gayety, his bustling ways, all betokened an egotist and good liver still
in his prime, a man for whom money--capital increased and increased
by the labor of others--was the one only sovereign power.
"Ah! ah! it's ready, is it not?" said he; "Monsieur Firon-Badinier has
again written me that he will be here at three o'clock. And you know
that I'm going to take you to the restaurant with him this evening; for
one can never induce those fellows to give orders unless one plies them
with good wine. It annoys Constance to have it done here; and, besides,
I prefer to entertain those people in town. You warned Marianne, eh?"
"Certainly. She knows that I shall return by the
quarter-to-eleven-o'clock train."

Beauchene had sunk upon a chair: "Ah! my dear fellow, I'm worn out,"
he continued; "I dined in town last night; I got to bed only at one
o'clock. And there was a terrible lot of work waiting for me this
morning. One positively needs to be made of iron."
Until a short time before he had shown himself a prodigious worker,
endowed with really marvellous energy and strength. Moreover, he had
given proof of unfailing business instinct with regard to many
profitable undertakings. Invariably the first to appear at the works, he
looked after everything, foresaw everything, filling the place with his
bustling zeal, and doubling his output year by year. Recently, however,
fatigue had been gaining ground on him. He had always sought plenty
of amusement, even amid the hard-working life he led. But nowadays
certain "sprees," as he called them, left him fairly exhausted.
He gazed at Mathieu: "You seem fit enough, you do!" he said. "How is
it that you manage never to look tired?"
As a matter of fact, the young man who stood