Oscar Husson

“ Between this relapse into lyricism and a much stronger work came the amusing Beginning in Life, suggested by his sister Laure's tale, Un Voyage en Coucou, and giving the adventures of the young Oscar Husson, a sort of Verdant Green, whose pretentious foolishness leads him into scrapes of every kind, until, having made himself the laughing-stock of all around him, and compromised many, he enlists and goes to the wars, whence he returns maimed for life. ”

“ A noteworthy deed made him famous on Algerian territory during the affair of La Macta; Husson lost his left arm in the vain attempt to save Vicomte de Serizy. Put on half-pay, he obtained the post of collector for Beaumont-sur-Oise. He then married—1838—Georgette Pierrotin and met again the accomplices or witnesses of his earlier escapades—one of the Marests, the Moreaus, etc. (A Start in Life)
HUSSON (Madame Oscar) , wife of the preceding; born Georgette Pierrotin; daughter of the proprietor of the stage-service of Oise. ”

“ He was an uncle of Oscar Husson, and had taken some interest in and helped the dolt, until an incident occurred that changed everything: the old man discovered the young fellow asleep one morning, on one of Florentine's divans, after an orgy wherein he had squandered the money entrusted to him by his employer, Desroches the attorney. [A Start in Life. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Bachelor's Establishment.] Cardot had dealings with the Guillaumes, clothiers, rue Saint-Denis. ”

“ But such little arts did Oscar more harm than good when practised on so sly an old fox as uncle Cardot. The latter had never much liked his departed wife, a tall, spare, red-haired woman; he was also aware of the circumstances of the late Husson's marriage with Oscar's mother, and without in the least condemning her, he knew very well that Oscar was a posthumous child. His nephew, therefore, seemed to him to have no claims on the Cardot family. ”

“ The influence of Monsieur Moreau de l’Oise and that of the Comtesse de Serizy and the Baron de Canalis secured, in after years, a receiver-generalship for Monsieur Husson, in whom the Camusot family now recognize a relation.
Oscar is a commonplace man, gentle, without assumption, modest, and always keeping, like his government, to a middle course. He excites neither envy nor contempt. In short, he is the modern bourgeois. ”

“ After he had finished his work in the cabin and had cooked his dinner, trying to imitate Oscar’s skill in tossing flapjacks and not succeeding very well, Hugh took an ax and went out to the edge of the forest to cut wood. Gathering the winter’s fuel was an endless task, one upon which he and Oscar spent all of their extra time. He looked across at Jasper Peak again as he came out, but a curtain of rain was falling between him and the mountain and the cabin opposite was invisible. ”

“ After all, it was he himself who had seen the footprints by the marsh; he ought to be the person to go and look for them again. He went out to feed Hulda, slamming the door smartly behind him and never looking at Oscar, who was still in sight, trudging along the open ridge above the valley. Hugh understood now why Oscar had asked so many questions about the region where the footprints had been seen, about how long the boy had walked before he came in sight of the cabin, about the contour of the land and the direction in which the shadows fell. ”

“ It was growing colder and colder, the wind coming in icy gusts and the roar of the flooded stream becoming louder as darkness fell. Hugh worked actively all afternoon, as much for the sake of keeping warm and occupied, as for what he might accomplish. He had a generous store of wood to reward him for his heavy toil when at last it grew so late that he could see to wield the ax no longer. He walked heavily back to the cabin, wet and weary and wishing that Oscar would come home. ”

“ Crowning the top of the next hill stood a giant pine that towered high above its fellows. As Hugh watched, its branches commenced to tremble, although never a breath of wind was stirring. The whole tree began to rock and sway, to bow forward as though shaken by a furious gale; then with a roar that sounded through the whole valley, it fell crashing and disappeared.
“Oscar,” cried Hugh, “what does it mean?”
There was a little silence, then Oscar spoke in a voice husky with excitement.
“It means the road,” he said; “they are clearing the way to build it at last.” ”

“ It is bad, but not hopeless. If they are alive we will find them.”
“Your sister thinks they are alive,” repeated Hugh, for he had already spoken of Linda’s theory about the dog.
“Yes,” replied Oscar, “I know that Nicholas, if anything had happened to his masters, I am certain he would have come back. I think Linda is right.”
Hugh, half blind with weariness as he was, had already begun to notice how like his sister Oscar was. All things that were attractive in her were present in Oscar, with much more besides. ”

“ Hugh protested.
“He and his comrades will perhaps do the worst they have ever done, between now and that day,” returned Oscar quietly. “They will not come openly to shoot or rob or burn, they will lie in wait and play some trick on you, for the crooked way is always their way. What they will do I cannot guess, I can only tell you to watch and never cease watching and in the end I know we will win.”
“Still,” insisted Hugh, “I do not see how they can ruin your plan so near its end as this.” ”

“ And lately John was too sick to know quite what he did think, and he made me promise over and over, when he knew that we might be somewhere near where Oscar lived, that I would not go to him for help. They are both so obstinately proud. But I can see for myself that the only thing now is to do as you say. I should like to know how you ever got here, Hugh, and about a hundred other things, but we won’t spend time on explanations just yet. I suppose we can make a stretcher of blankets and carry him between us somehow. ”

“ How much did she give me, Robbie?
R.R. An extension of time, Oscar. She hasn’t done with you yet.
O.W. No; she does not dismiss the lover from her embraces while she has any hope of securing the restoration of his balance, or of discovering some deeper stain in his character. What touching devotion! She is the romantic figure of the money-market. But I believe—or at least I tell myself—that fewer Scotsmen go bankrupt than any other nationality. It is not, however, merely monetary success which seduces them; success, in all its aspects, has for them a baleful attraction. ”

“ Oscar isn’t like the rest of us. I don’t quite know what to say about him; he is always dreaming about something big, some way. His father must have been quite a great person back in Sweden; he was poor to the end of his life, just as every one in Rudolm is poor, but you can see that Oscar and Linda are not quite the same kind of people as the rest.”
“He doesn’t live here in Rudolm?” Hugh said.
“Not now, he lives out beyond Jasper Peak. He is proving up on some kind of a claim, homesteading, right in the country that Half-Breed Jake calls his. ”

“ He looked down again at his hand and Hugh noticed that over the back of it ran a long puckered scar that extended upward under his sleeve.
“That was the time when I lost count of Sunday,” Oscar went on. “It was before I had been here very long and Jake and his friends were bound to run me out. You see I am proving up on a claim to this land; I have to live here just so long, build a house and keep up a certain amount of cultivation. They thought that if they could drive me away and burn down the cottage they could jump the claim. They know better now.” ”

“ You’re saving our lives. Ten to-morrow for a grand review of the whole course.”
“And the multiplicity of the ego?” inquired Oscar.
“Oh, I forgot. Well, it’s too late tonight. Is it much? Are there many dates and names and things?”
“It is more of a general inquiry and analysis,” replied Oscar. “But it is forty pages of my notes.” And he smiled.
“Well, look here. It would be nice to have to-morrow clear for review. We’re not tired. You leave us your notes and go to bed.”
Oscar’s hand almost moved to cover and hold his precious property, for this instinct was the deepest in him. ”

“ The South of Europe had to go through a period of revived Paganism before the North could produce men who should unite the enthusiasm of Huss and Jerome with the scholarship and literary culture of Æneas Sylvius and Poggio.
The deficiencies of John Huss as a Reformer were the noblest testimony to the beauty of his character as a man. ”

“ As for his recantation, his judges had promised him kindly treatment if he would throw himself on the mercy of the council. He was but a man, with a human dread of a dreadful death by fire; he had weakly yielded to persuasion, he had abjured, he had written to Bohemia as required, he had condemned the teaching of John Huss. Here he rose to the full height of his manly and self-devoted eloquence. Huss was a just and holy man, to whom he would cleave to the last; no sin that he had ever committed so weighed upon his conscience as his cowardly abjuration, which now he solemnly revoked. ”

“ John Huss, though a man of learning, the Rector of a great and powerful University, though a true friend, though a man of wide sympathies, though an eloquent preacher, and a most formidable enemy to the corruptions of the Romish Church, was yet a colorless character in comparison with some men who have become the objects of hero-worship. ”

“ So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.
And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart. ”

“ He was as a sheep among lions and wolves and, if Huss is to be regarded as a heretic, then scarcely one of all those upon whom the sun has ever looked down can truly be held to have been a Christian. For John Huss committed no greater crime than to assert that a Roman pope of impious life is not the head of the Catholic church. ”

“ The two men were face to face; and with a cry of savage delight John Huish sprang at his semblance’s throat, but to be met by a blinding flash and a tremendous blow, which sent him staggering back, clutching vainly at the railings before he fell upon the pavement and rolled over and over half stunned.
He sprang to his feet, though, and gnashed his teeth with rage as he looked up and down and saw that a couple of the very few people about, alarmed by the shot, were coming to his assistance, but him he sought was gone. ”

“ At Prague he was inscribed in the books of the university in accordance with the name of his native village as John of Husinec. Only after the year 1398 we meet with the signature of “John Hus” or sometimes “John Hus of Husinec.” After the year 1400 the church-reformer always signs himself simply as “John Hus,” though he is in official documents often described as “Magister Johannes, dictus Hus de Husinec.” The parents of Hus were peasants who possessed but scanty means, but endeavoured as far as they were able to give a good education to young John, who was his mother’s favourite son. ”

“ Oscar’s mother endeavored to impress the old gentleman with the idea that his nephew cherished him, and she constantly referred to the cup and the fork and spoon and to the beautiful suit of clothes, though nothing was then left of the latter but the waistcoat. ”

“ The painters of the Renaissance drew Christ as a little boy playing with another boy in a palace or a garden, or lying back in his mother's arms, smiling at her, or at a flower, or at a bright bird; or as a noble, stately figure moving nobly through the world; or as a wonderful figure rising in a sort of ecstasy from death to life. Even when they drew him crucified they drew him as a beautiful God on whom evil men had inflicted suffering. ”

“ Superstition rules all men; semi-ignorant and gross natures, like that of Davis, it rules utterly. For murder he had been prepared; but this horror of the medicine in the bottle went beyond him, and he seemed to himself to be parting the last strands that united him to God. The boat carried him on to reprobation, to damnation; and he suffered himself to be carried passively consenting, silently bidding farewell to his better self and his hopes. Huish sat by his side in towering spirits that were not wholly genuine. ”

“ The finest man in the service, he is at the same time the most jovial companion in the tavern, and will not sit by and empty his glass by himself when a Bohemian or German comrade at his side has spent all his money. There is only one biped under the sun who is in his eyes more contemptible and hateful than any animal of marsh or forest. This is the Banderial Hussar—that half-breed between Croat and Magyar, that caricature of the true Hussar, who serves in the cavalry, as the Croat in the infantry, of the Military Frontier. Never was an Hungarian Hussar known to drink with a Banderial Hussar ”

“ The heroic achievement of John Hus has been well characterized in the words of his countryman and biographer, Count Lützow: “If neglecting for a moment the minutiæ of mediæval theological controversy, we consider as a martyr that man who willingly sacrifices his individual life for what he firmly believes to be the good of humanity at large, who ‘takes the world’s life on him and his own lays down,’ then assuredly there is no truer martyr in the world’s annals than John Hus.” ”