



Produced by David Widger





JACK

By Alphonse Daudet

Translated by Mary Neal Sherwood

From The Fortieth Thousand, French Edition.

Estes And Lauriat, 1877




JACK




CHAPTER I.~~VAURIGARD.

"With a _k_, sir; with a _k_. The name is written and pronounced as
in English. The child's godfather was English. A major-general in the
Indian army. Lord Pembroke. You know him, perhaps? A man of distinction
and of the highest connections. But--you understand--M. l'Abbe! How
deliciously he danced! He died a frightful death at Singapore some years
since, in a tiger-chase organized in his honor by a rajah, one of his
friends. These rajahs, it seems, are absolute monarchs in their own
country,--and one especially is very celebrated. What is his name? Wait
a moment. Ah! I have it. Rana-Ramah."

"Pardon me, madame," interrupted the abbe, smiling, in spite of himself,
at the rapid flow of words, and at the swift change of ideas. "After
Jack, what name?"

With his elbow on his desk, and his head slightly bent, the priest
examined from out the corners of eyes bright with ecclesiastical
shrewdness, the young woman who sat before him, with her Jack standing
at her side.

The lady was faultlessly dressed in the fashion of the day and the hour.
It was December, 1858. The richness of her furs, the lustrous folds of
her black costume, and the discreet originality of her hat, all told the
story of a woman who owns her carriage, and who steps from her carpets
to her coupe without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was
small, which always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face had all the
bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity was imparted
by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be seen even
when her face was in repose. The mobility of her countenance was
extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about to
speak, or the narrow brow,--something there was, at all events, that
indicated an absence of reflective powers, a lack of culture, and
possibly explained the blanks in the conversation of this pretty woman;
blanks that reminded one of those little Japanese baskets fitting one
into another, the last of which is always empty.

As to the child, picture to yourself an emaciated boy of seven or eight,
who had evidently outgrown his strength. He was dressed as English boys
are dressed, and as befitted his name spelled with a _k_. His legs
were bare, and he wore a Scotch cap and a plaid. The costume was in
accordance with his years, but not with his long neck and slim figure.

He seemed embarrassed by it himself, for, awkward and timid, he
would occasionally glance at his half-frozen legs with a despairing
expression, as if he cursed within his soul Lord Pembroke and the whole
Indian army.

Physically, he resembled his mother, with a look of higher breeding,
and with the transformation of a pretty woman's face to that of an
intelligent man. There were the same eyes, but deeper in color and in
meaning; the same brow, but wider; the same mouth, but the lips were
firmly closed.

Over the woman's face, ideas and impressions glided without leaving a
furrow or a trace; in fact, so hastily, that her eyes always seemed to
retain a certain astonishment at their flight. With the child, on the
contrary, one felt that impressions remained, and his thoughtful air
would have been almost painful, had it not been combined with a certain
caressing indolence of attitude that indicated a petted child.

Now leaning against his mother, with one hand in her muff, he listened
to her words with adoring attention, and occasionally looked at the
priest and at all the surroundings with timid curiosity. He had promised
not to cry, but a stifled sob shook him at times from head to foot.
Then his mother looked at him, and seemed to say, "You know what you
promised." Then the child choked back his tears and sobs; but it
was easy to see that he was a prey to that first agony of exile and
abandonment which the first boarding-school inflicts on those children
who have lived only in their homes.

This examination of mother and child, made by the priest in two or
three minutes, would have satisfied a superficial observer; but
Father O------, who had been the director for twenty-five years of the
aristocratic institution of the Jesuits at Vaurigard, was a man of the
world, and knew too well the best Parisian society, all its