Wear mourning, but pretend illness; I will not suffer her
assassin to stand at my side before her coffin.
Joseph B.
The painter, who no longer had the heart to paint, though his bitter
grief sorely needed the mechanical distraction which labor is wont to
give, was surrounded by friends who agreed with one another never to
leave him entirely alone. Thus it happened that Bixiou, who loved
Joseph as much as a satirist can love any one, was sitting in the
atelier with a group of other friends about two weeks after Agathe's
funeral. The servant entered with a letter, brought by an old woman,
she said, who was waiting below for the answer.
Monsieur,--To you, whom I scarcely dare to call my brother, I am
forced to address myself, if only on account of the name I bear.--
Joseph turned the page and read the signature. The name "Comtesse
Flore de Brambourg" made him shudder. He foresaw some new atrocity on
the part of his brother.
"That brigand," he cried, "is the devil's own. And he calls himself a
man of honor! And he wears a lot of crosses on his breast! And he
struts about at court instead of being bastinadoed! And the scoundrel
is called Monsieur le Comte!"
"There are many like him," said Bixiou.
"After all," said Joseph, "the Rabouilleuse deserves her fate,
whatever it is. She is not worth pitying; she'd have had my neck wrung
like a chicken's without so much as saying, 'He's innocent.
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