CHAPTER IX

THORNS OF JEALOUSY

Now Amedee had no family. The day after his father's death he had a
violent rupture with M. Isidore Gaufre. Under the pretext that a suicide
horrified him, he allowed his niece's husband to be carried to the
cemetery in a sixth-class hearse, and did not honor with his presence
the funeral, which was even prohibited from using the parish road.
But the saintly man was not deterred from swallowing for his dinner that
same day, while thundering against the progress of materialism, tripe
cooked after the Caen fashion, one of Berenice's weekly works of art.

Amedee had now no family, and his friends were dispersed. As a reward
for passing his examinations in law, Madame Roger took her son with her
on a trip to Italy, and they had just left France together.

As to the poor Gerards, just one month after M. Violette's death, the old
engraver died suddenly, of apoplexy, at his work; and on that day there
were not fifty francs in the house. Around the open grave where they
lowered the obscure and honest artist, there was only a group of three
women, in black, who were weeping, and Amedee in mourning for his father,
with a dozen of Gerard's old comrades, whose romantic heads had become
gray. The family was obliged to sell at once, in order to get a little
money, what remained of proof-sheets in the boxes, some small paintings,
old presents from artist friends who had become celebrated, and the last
of the ruined knickknacks--indeed, all that constituted the charm of the
house. Then, in order that her eldest daughter might not be so far from