What a difference, when I think of those days! Confused! ashamed!—why, I don’t know the meaning of the words. The only thing I’m ashamed of now, is that I ever had the _faiblesse_ to be ashamed of anything. And now that, thanks to my education in the _guinguettes_, I have become quite a _jeune homme accompli_,—now that I might have begun a nice diversion with the _suivante_ of my master’s intended, ... now I’m got rid off with a gruff, “Frans, stay and look after the room!”
He’ll talk in a different tune when he finds he needs me again to get him out of some scrape or other. Then it is, “Frans, dear Frans, save me; I don’t know what I’m to do!” Frans is good enough for that. But besides this, _au fond_, it’s unjust to leave me here indoors. A man is a man, and has reason and freewill. Jonker Van Bergen goes out courting. So we see that beings with reason and freewill do go courting. But I too am a man; I have freewill and reason—therefore I ought to go out courting too. That is clear and undeniable.
Glorious logic! Precious philosophy! Invaluable gift of Heaven, which is scattered with generous hand at Paris. Beloved nurse of all that ... that....
And with all that I’m sitting here indoors, like Job, on his ancient sofa. It is annoying; it’s very annoying! It’s the most annoying thing in the world! It could not possibly be worse; it’s _ennuyant_, _étouffant_, _embêtant_!
[_Jumps up angrily, and walks backwards and forwards, smoking._]
I’m curious to know whether he’ll get through with his business, and succeed better than last year. The devil grant he may! Otherwise it’s all up with him—all up—and he’s ruined! If he hasn’t made his lady-cousin his own, with all that belongs to her [_goes through the gestures of counting money_], within a month, he’s a dead man! Physically dead, financially dead, civilly dead,—dead in every possible way! Dead to _chambertin_, _baronfayol_, and champagne; dead to the _bouillotte_ table; _dead pour tout ce qui porte un jupon ... enfin_—burst up!
This wouldn’t really matter so much if these gentlemen hadn’t the disagreeable habit of dragging down every one about them in their fall. [_Makes a wry face._] The cheques! the cheques!
I am anything but _à monaise_, as we used to say at Paris. We have only a month before us. Before that time we must have money to pay up, or the whole thing will go smash. And then he’s quite capable of saying that it was I who forged the cheques. Then come examinations and cross-examinations, witnesses _à charge_ and _à décharge_; reply, duplicate, triplicate, or whatever they call it; and the end of it is that the President puts on the black cap—grim fashion that!—and has a sentence read out, in which poor Frans is very badly used on the score of ... complicity!