The Two Brothers by Honoré de Balzac
page 33 of 401 (08%)
page 33 of 401 (08%)
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ay, the election of God himself! You will make your child unhappy,
that's all." He flung the clay he no longer needed violently into a tub, and said to his model, "That will do for to-day." Agathe raised her eyes and saw, in a corner of the atelier where her glance had not before penetrated, a nude woman sitting on a stool, the sight of whom drove her away horrified. "You are not to have the little Bridau here any more," said Chaudet to his pupils, "it annoys his mother." "Eugh!" they all cried, as Agathe closed the door. No sooner did the students of sculpture and painting find out that Madame Bridau did not wish her son to be an artist, than their whole happiness centred on getting Joseph among them. In spite of a promise not to go to the Institute which his mother exacted from him, the child often slipped into Regnauld the painter's studio, where he was encouraged to daub canvas. When the widow complained that the bargain was not kept, Chaudet's pupils assured her that Regnauld was not Chaudet, and they hadn't the bringing up of her son, with other impertinences; and the atrocious young scamps composed a song with a hundred and thirty-seven couplets on Madame Bridau. On the evening of that sad day Agathe refused to play at cards, and sat on her sofa plunged in such grief that the tears stood in her handsome eyes. "What is the matter, Madame Bridau?" asked old Claparon. |
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