Jack

Summary

Ida de Borancy, a widowed bourgeoise, consecrates every heartbeat to her illegitimate son Jack—a luminous, fatherless boy whose very existence is an unspoken scandal—yet, under the spell of Amaury D’Argenton, a cadaverous poet with ink-stained fingers and a soul of smoke, she banishes the child to a boarding-school purgatory. Jack flees, traversing a bruised landscape of rusted foundries and salt-scabbed decks: apprenticed to the furnaces of Indret, nearly broken by a false accusation, then shoveling coal in the bowels of an Atlantic liner until a nocturnal collision splits steel and sea. Shipwrecked yet unbroken, he drifts home to find his mother enthralled to the increasingly sadistic D’Argenton, who wields quill and purse like scalpels. A fragile idyll blossoms with Cecil, the doctor’s daughter, but the poet’s venom—letters that threaten to exhume buried bloodlines—shatters the engagement. Consumption, that romantic-era reaper, gnaws Jack’s lungs; he crawls through rain-slick streets, collapses at the peddler Belisaire’s door, and expires the instant Ida’s repentant shadow crosses the threshold—an oxygen-starved Icarus whose final exhale is forgiveness.

Synopsis

The story of "Jack" is well-known. It is a beautiful story of a natural child. His mother, Ida de Borancy, worships the dear little nameless and fatherless being whom she decides, as he is getting on in years, to place in a boarding school. The child's professor of literature is a certain Amaury D'Argenton, a failure of the faculty, and an uninspired poet. During one of her visits to the institution, Mme. de Borancy is attracted by D'Argenton, and falls in love with him. The "Ne'er-do-Well" soon gives up his starving position and makes his abode with her, exercising over her absolute control. He soon learns to hate little Jack and forces her to leave him permanently at school. The poor child, unaccustomed to the separation, runs away, only to find, when he arrives at his former home, that his mother has moved and is now living thirty miles away. He undertakes the journey on foot, and reaches his mother's house completely exhausted. Here he meets Dr. Rivals and his daughter, Cecil. One day Jack, while out for a stroll, meets a peddler on the road, a Mr. Belisaire, worn out with fatigue and privations. Greatly moved, the boy takes him home and is giving him food, when D'Argenton arrives, throws out the peddler and sends Jack away as an apprentice. A new life now opens to Jack, and for two years he labors diligently in the iron works of Indret, living with his foreman, Father Roudick. The latter's nephew, a gambler, steals a small fortune that was to constitute his cousin's dowry, and Jack is charged with the theft, cruelly beaten and dragged before the Magistrate. . Filled with remorse, the real culprit acknowledges his guilt and returns the money. The unpleasantness of that adventure, coupled with the insufficient wages he receives, impels Jack to seek another position. He makes for the seacoast, and ships aboard a trans-Atlantic steamer as a stoker. One night a collision takes place. The boat is struck below the water lines and every man makes a wild, frantic rush to save himself, every man for himself. As by a miracle Jack is saved and returns to his old home, irresistibly attracted by a desire to see his mother. Thanks to the devotion of good old Dr. Rivals, Jack, who has gone through a terrible illness, is restored to health. The two young people fall in love with one another, which is encouraged by the doctor, provided that Jack will study to take his place. Jack goes to Paris to take up his studies, rents a room, where his mother seeks refuge when maltreated by D'Argenton, D'Argenton discovers her retreat and begs her to come back to him. It is in vain that Jack drives him away, for, by means of a touching letter, he succeeds in inducing her to return. The hate he bears Jack is not yet gratified, and he writes to Cecil threatening to reveal her true identity to Jack. She, fearing the outcome of such a revelation, decides to break off the engagement. When Jack learns of this he starts for Paris. In despair he tramps the road all night, and finally drops to the ground, worn out by cold, fatigue and despair. He is carried to the home of Belisaire, and the doctor is hastily summoned, who diagnoses the case as an acute attack of consumption, and orders Jack taken to a hospital. Here a last vision recalls to him his past life, all the hardships and miseries he has endured. He yearns to press in his arms once more his mother, however guilty she may have been, and whom he heartily forgives, but the ravages of disease have sapped his strength and, just as she enters the room, Jack passes to the Great Beyond, his last wish denied him.