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Title: The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Author: Alphonse Daudet

Commentator: Brander Matthews

Translator: George Burnham Ives

Release date: May 5, 2007 [eBook #21329]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NABOB, VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







[Illustration: _The Duc, the Duchesse, and the Doctor._ ]


THE NABOB


BY

ALPHONSE DAUDET


TRANSLATED BY

GEORGE BURNHAM IVES


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

BRANDER MATTHEWS


IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.


BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1902

_Copyright, 1898,_

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved._


University Press:

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




CONTENTS.

                                                    PAGE

XIII.   A DAY OF SPLEEN                               1

XIV.    THE EXHIBITION                               20

XV.     MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--IN THE RECEPTION-ROOM   42

XVI.    A PUBLIC MAN                                 57

XVII.   THE APPARITION                               86

XVIII.  THE JENKINS PEARLS                          107

XIX.    THE OBSEQUIES                               135

XX.     BARONESS HEMERLINGUE                        163

XXI.    THE SITTING                                 194

XXII.   PARISIAN DRAMAS                             230

XXIII.  MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--LAST SHEETS            255

XXIV.   AT BORDIGHERA                               267

XXV.    THE FIRST NIGHT OF "RÉVOLTE"                287




ILLUSTRATIONS

The Duc, the Duchesse, and the Doctor                 _Frontispiece_

"'Don't be afraid. I have no evil designs on you'"    _Page_    153

The First Night of "Révolte"                            "       287

From drawings by Lucius Rossi.




THE NABOB.

XIII.

A DAY OF SPLEEN.


Five o'clock in the afternoon. Rain ever since the morning, a gray sky,
so low that one can touch it with one's umbrella, dirty weather,
puddles, mud, nothing but mud, in thick pools, in gleaming streaks along
the edge of the sidewalks, driven back in vain by automatic sweepers,
sweepers with handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and carted away on
enormous tumbrils which carry it slowly and in triumph through the
streets toward Montreuil; removed and ever reappearing, oozing between
the pavements, splashing carriage panels, horses' breasts, the clothing
of the passers-by, soiling windows, thresholds, shop-fronts, until one
would think that all Paris was about to plunge in and disappear beneath
that depressing expanse of miry earth in which all things are jumbled
together and lose their identity. And it is a pitiable thing to see how
that filth invades the spotless precincts of new houses, the copings of
the quays, the colonnades of stone balconies. There is some one,
however, whom this spectacle rejoices, a poor, ill, disheartened
creature, who, stretched out at full length on the embroidered silk
covering of a divan, her head resting on her clenched fists, gazes
gleefully out through the streaming window-panes and gloats over all
these ugly details:

"You see, my Fairy, this is just the kind of weather I wanted to-day.
See them splash along. Aren't they hideous, aren't they filthy? What
mud! It's everywhere, in the streets, on the quays, even in the Seine,
even in the sky. Ah! mud is a fine thing when you're downhearted. I
would like to dabble in it, to mould a statue with it, a statue one
hundred feet high, and call it, 'My Ennui.'"

"But why do you suffer from ennui, my darling?" mildly inquires the
ex-ballet-dancer, good-natured and rosy, from her armchair, in which she
sits very erect for fear of damage to her hair, which is even more
carefully arranged than usual. "Haven't you all that any one can need to
be happy?"

And she proceeds, in her placid voice, to enumerate for the hundredth
time her reasons for happiness, her renown, her genius, her beauty, all
men at her feet, the handsomest, the most powerful; oh! yes, the most
powerful, for that very day--But an ominous screech, a heart-rending
wail from the jackal, maddened by the monotony of her desert, suddenly
makes the studio windows rattle and sends the terrified old chrysalis
back into her cocoon.

The completion of her group and its departure for the Salon has left
Felicia for a week past in this state of prostration, of disgust, of
heart-rending, distressing irritation. It requires all of the old
fairy's unwearying patience, the magic of the memories she evokes every
moment in the day, to make life endurable to her beside that
restlessness, that wicked wrath which she can hear grumbling beneath the
girl's silences, and which suddenly bursts forth in a bitter word, in a
_pah_! of disgust _àpropos_ of everything. Her group is hideous. No one
will speak of it. All the critics are donkeys. The public? an immense
_goître_ with three stories of chin. And yet, a few Sundays ago, when
the Duc de Mora came with the superintendent of Fine Arts to see her
work at the studio, she was so happy, so proud of the praise bestowed on
her, so thoroughly delighted with her work, which she admired at a
distance as if it were by another hand, now that the modelling-tool had
ceased to form between her and her work the bond which tends to impair
the impartiality of the artist's judgment.

But it is so every year. When the studio is robbed of the latest work,
when her famous name is once more at the mercy of the public's
unforeseen caprice, Felicia's preoccupations--for she has then no
visible object in life--stray through the empty void of her heart, of
her existence as one who has turned aside from the peaceful furrow,
until she is once more intent upon another task. She shuts herself up,
she refuses to see anybody. One would say that she is distrustful of
herself. The good Jenkins is the only one who can endure her during
those crises. He even seems to take pleasure in them, as if he expected
something from them. And yet God knows she is not amiable to him. Only
yesterday he remained two hours with the beautiful ennui-ridden
creature, who did not so much as speak a single word to him. If that is
the sort of welcome she has in store for the great personage who does
them the honor to dine with them--At that point the gentle Crenmitz, who
has been placidly ruminating all these things and gazing at the slender
toe of her tufted shoes, suddenly remembers that she has promised to
make a dish of Viennese cakes for the dinner of the personage in
question, and quietly leaves the studio on the tips of her little toes.

Still the rain, still the mud, still the beautiful sphinx, crouching in
her seat, her eyes wandering aimlessly over the miry landscape. Of what
is she thinking? What is she watching on those muddy roads, growing dim
in the fading light, with that frown on her brow and that lip curled in
disgust? Is she awaiting her destiny? A melancholy destiny, to have gone
abroad in such weather, without fear of the darkness, of the mud.

Some one has entered the studio, a heavier step than Constance's
mouse-like trot. The little servant, doubtless. And Felicia says
roughly, without turning:

"Go to bed. I am not at home to any one."

"I should be very glad to speak with you if you were," a voice replied
good-naturedly.

She starts, rises, and says in a softer tone, almost laughing at sight
of that unexpected visitor:

"Ah! it's you, young Minerva! How did you get in?"

"Very easily. All the doors are open."

"I am not surprised. Constance has been like a madwoman ever since
morning, with her dinner."

"Yes, I saw. The reception room is full of flowers. You have--?"

"Oh! a stupid dinner, an official dinner. I don't know how I ever made
up my mind to it. Sit down here, beside me. I am glad to see you."

Paul sat down, a little perturbed in mind. She had never seemed so
lovely to him. In the half-light of the studio, amid the confusion of
objects of art, bronzes, tapestries, her pallor cast a soft light, her
eyes shone like jewels, and her long, close-fitting riding habit
outlined the negligent attitude of her goddess-like figure. Then her
tone was so affectionate, she seemed so pleased at his call. Why had he
stayed away so long? It was almost a month since she had seen him. Had
they ceased to be friends, pray? He excused himself as best he could.
Business, a journey. Moreover, although he had not been there, he had
often talked about her, oh! very often, almost every day.

"Really? With whom?"

"With--"

He was on the point of saying: "With Aline Joyeuse," but something
checked him, an indefinable sentiment, a sort of shame at uttering that
name in the studio which had heard so many other names. There are some
things which do not go together, although one cannot tell why. Paul
preferred to answer with a falsehood which led him straight to the
object of his call.

"With an excellent man upon whom you have unnecessarily inflicted great
pain. Tell me, why haven't you finished the poor Nabob's bust? It was a
source of great joy and great pride to him, the thought of that bust at
the Salon. He relied upon it."

At the name of the Nabob she was slightly embarrassed.

"It is true," she said, "I broke my word. What do you expect? I am the
slave of my whims. But it is my purpose to take it up again one of these
days. See, the cloth thrown over it is all damp, so that the clay won't
dry."

"And the accident? Ah! do you know, we hardly believed in that?"

"You were wrong. I never lie. A fall, a terrible crash. But the clay was
fresh, I easily repaired it. Look!"

She removed the cloth with a movement of her arm; the Nabob stood forth,
with his honest face beaming with joy at being reproduced, and so true,
so natural, that Paul uttered a cry of admiration.

"Isn't it good?" she asked ingenuously. "A few touches there and
there--" She had taken the tool and the little sponge and pushed the
stand into what little light there was. "It would be a matter of a few
hours; but it couldn't go to the Exhibition. This is the 22d; everything
had to be sent in long ago."

"Pshaw! With influence--"

She frowned, and the wicked, drooping expression played about her mouth.

"True. The Duc de Mora's _protégée_. Oh! you need not excuse yourself. I
know what people say of him, and I care as little for it as that!" She
threw a pellet of clay which flattened out against the wall. "Perhaps,
indeed, by dint of imagining what is not--But let us drop those vile
things," she said, with a toss of her little aristocratic head. "I am
anxious to give you pleasure, Minerva. Your friend shall go to the Salon
this year."

At that moment the odor of caramel, of hot pastry invaded the studio,
where the twilight was falling in fine, decolorized dust; and the Fairy
appeared, with a plate of fritters in her hand, a true fairy,
rejuvenated in gay attire, arrayed in a white tunic which afforded
glimpses, beneath the yellowed lace, of her lovely old woman's arms, the
charm that is the last to die.

"Look at my _kuchlen_, darling; see if they're not a success this time.
Oh! I beg your pardon; I didn't see that you had company. Ah! It's
Monsieur Paul? Are you pretty well, Monsieur Paul? Pray taste one of my
cakes."

And the amiable old lady, to whom her costume seemed to impart
extraordinary animation, came prancing forward, balancing her plate on
the ends of her doll-like fingers.

"Let him alone," said Felicia calmly. "You can offer him some at
dinner."

"At dinner!"

The dancer was so thunderstruck that she nearly overturned her pretty
cakes, which were as light and dainty and excellent as herself.

"Why, yes, I am keeping him to dinner with us. Oh! I beg you," she added
with peculiar earnestness, seeing that the young man made a gesture of
refusal, "I beg you, do not say no. You can do me a real service by
staying to-night. Come, I did not hesitate a moment ago, you know."

She had taken his hand; really there seemed to be a strange
disproportion between her request and the anxious, imploring tone in
which it was made. Paul still held back. He was not properly dressed.
How could she expect him to stay? A dinner-party at which she was to
have other guests.

"My dinner-party? Why, I will countermand the orders for it. That is the
way I feel. We three will dine alone, you and I and Constance."

"But, Felicia, my child, you can't think of doing such a thing. Upon my
word! What about the--the other who will soon be here?"

"_Parbleu!_ I will write to him to stay at home."

"Wretched girl, it is too late."

"Not at all, It's just striking six. The dinner was to be at half-past
seven. You must send him this at once."

She wrote a note, in haste, on a corner of the table.

"_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_ what a strange girl!" murmured the dancer, lost
in bewilderment, while Felicia, enchanted, transfigured, joyously sealed
her letter.

"There, my excuses are all made. The sick-headache wasn't invented for
Kadour. Oh! how glad I am!" she added, when the letter had gone; "what a
delightful evening we will have! Kiss me, Constance. This won't prevent
our doing honor to your _kuchlen_, and we shall enjoy seeing you in a
pretty gown that makes you look younger than I."

Less than that would have induced the dancer to forgive this latest whim
of her dear demon and the crime of _lèse-majesté_ in which she had made
her an accomplice. The idea of treating such a personage so cavalierly!
No one else in the world would have done it, no one but her. As for Paul
de Géry, he made no further attempt at resistance, being caught once
more in the network from which he believed that he had set himself free
by absence, but which, as soon as he crossed the threshold of the
studio, suppressed his will and delivered him over, fast bound and
conquered, to the sentiment that he was firmly resolved to combat.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was evident that the dinner, a veritable gourmand's dinner,
superintended by the Austrian even in its least important details, had
been prepared for a guest of first-rate consequence. From the high
Berber chandeliers of carved wood, with seven branches, which shed a
flood of light upon the richly embroidered cloth, to the long-necked
wine-jugs of curious and exquisite shape, the sumptuous table
appointments and the delicacy of the dishes, which were highly seasoned
to an unusual degree, everything disclosed the importance of the
expected guest and the pains that had been taken to please him. There
was no mistaking the fact that it was an artist's establishment. Little
silverware, but superb china, perfect harmony without the slightest
attempt at arrangement. Old Rouen, pink Sèvres, Dutch glass mounted in
old finely-wrought pewter met on that table as on a stand of rare
objects collected by a connoisseur simply to gratify his taste. The
result was some slight confusion in the household, dependent as it was
upon the chance of a lucky find. The exquisite oil-cruet had no stopper.
The broken salt-cellar overflowed on the cloth, and every moment it was:
"What has become of the mustard-pot? What has happened to that fork?"
All of which troubled de Géry a little on account of the young mistress
of the house, who, for her part, was not in the least disturbed.

But something that made him even more ill at ease was his anxiety to
know who the privileged guest was whose place he had taken at that
table, whom they could entertain with such magnificence and at the same
time such utter lack of ceremony. In spite of everything he felt as if
that countermanded guest were present, a constant affront to his own
dignity. In vain did he try to forget him; everything reminded him of
him, even to the holiday attire of the kindly Fairy, who sat opposite
him and who still retained some of the grand manners which she had
assumed in anticipation of the solemn occasion. The thought disturbed
him, poisoned his joy in being there.

On the other hand, as is always the case in parties of two, where
harmony of mood is very rare, he had never seen Felicia so affectionate,
in such merry humor. She was in a state of effervescent, almost
childlike gayety, one of those fervent outbursts of emotion which one
experiences when some danger has passed, the reaction of a clear,
blazing fire after the excitement of a shipwreck. She laughed heartily,
teased Paul about his accent and what she called his bourgeois ideas.
"For you are shockingly bourgeois, you know. But that is just what I
like in you. It's on account of the contrast, I have no doubt, because I
was born under a bridge, in a gust of wind, that I have always been fond
of sedate, logical natures."

"Oh! my dear, what do you suppose Monsieur Paul will think, when you say
you were born under a bridge?" exclaimed the excellent Crenmitz, who
could not accustom herself to the exaggeration of metaphors, and always
took everything literally.

"Let him think what he pleases, my Fairy. We haven't our eye on him for
a husband. I am sure he would have none of that monster known as an
artist wife. He would think he had married the devil. You are quite
right, Minerva. Art is a despot. One must give oneself to it
unreservedly. You put into your work all the imagination, energy,
honesty, conscience that you possess, so that you have no more of any of
them as long as you live, and the completion of the work tosses you
adrift, helpless and without a compass, like a dismasted hulk, at the
mercy of every wave. Such a wife would be a melancholy acquisition."

"And yet," the young man ventured timidly to observe, "it seems to me
that art, however exacting it may be, cannot take entire possession of
the woman. What would she do with her affections, with the craving for
love, for self-sacrifice, which is in her, far more than in man, the
motive for every act?"

She mused a moment before replying.

"You may be right, O wise Minerva! It is the truth that there are days
when my life rings terribly hollow. I am conscious of holes in it,
unfathomable depths. Everything disappears that I throw in to fill them
up. My noblest artistic enthusiasms are swallowed up in them and die
every time in a sigh. At such times I think of marriage. A husband,
children, a lot of children, tumbling about the studio, all their nests
to look after, the satisfaction of the physical activity which is
lacking in our artistic lives, regular occupations, constant movement,
innocent fun, which would compel one to play instead of always thinking
in the dark and the great void, to laugh at a blow to one's self-esteem,
to be simply a happy mother on the day when the public casts one aside
as a used-up, played-out artist."

And in presence of that vision of domestic happiness the girl's lovely
features assumed an expression which Paul had never before seen upon
them, and which took entire possession of him, gave him a mad longing to
carry away in his arms that beautiful wild bird dreaming of the dovecot,
to protect her, to shelter her with the sure love of an honest man.

She continued, without looking at him:

"I am not so flighty as I seem to be, you know. Ask my dear godmother if
I didn't keep straight up to the mark when she put me at
boarding-school. But what a hurly-burly my life was after that! If you
knew what a youth I had, if you knew how premature experience withered
my mind, and what confusion there was, in my small girl's brain, between
what was and was not forbidden, between reason and folly. Only art,
which was constantly discussed and eulogized, stood erect in all that
ruin, and I took refuge in that. That, perhaps, is why I shall never be
anything but an artist, a woman apart from other women, a poor Amazon
with her heart held captive under her iron breastplate, rushing into
battle like a man, and condemned to live and die like a man."

Why did he not say to her then:

"Beautiful warrior, lay aside your weapons, don the floating robe and
the charms of the sex to which you belong. I love you, I entreat you to
marry me that you may be happy and may make me happy too."

Ah! this is why. He was afraid that the other, he who was to come to
dinner that night, you know, and who remained between them despite his
absence, would hear him speak in that strain and would have the right to
laugh at him or to pity him for such a fervent outburst.

"At all events, I promise you one thing," she continued, "and that is
that if I ever have a daughter, I will try to make a true woman of her
and not such a poor abandoned creature as I am. Oh! you know, my good
Fairy, I do not mean that for you. You have always been kind to your
demon, full of affection and care. Why just look at her, see how pretty
she is, how young she looks to-night."

Enlivened by the repast, the lights, and one of those white dresses
whose reflection causes wrinkles to disappear, La Crenmitz was leaning
back in her chair, holding on a level with her half-closed eyes a glass
of Château-Yquem from the cellar of their neighbor the Moulin-Rouge; and
her little pink face, her airy pastel-like costume reflected in the
golden wine, which loaned to it its sparkling warmth, recalled the
former heroine of the dainty suppers after the play, the Crenmitz of the
good old days, not an audacious hussy after the style of our modern
operatic stars, but entirely unaffected and nestling contentedly in her
splendor like a fine pearl in its mother-of-pearl shell. Felicia, who
was certainly determined to be agreeable to everybody that evening, led
her thoughts to the chapter of reminiscences, made her describe once
more her triumphs in _Giselle_ and in the _Péri_, and the ovations from
the audience, the visit of the princes to her dressing-room, and Queen
Amélie's gift, accompanied by such charming words. The evocation of
those glorious scenes intoxicated the poor Fairy, her eyes shone, they
could hear her little feet moving restlessly under the table as if
seized by a dancing frenzy. And, indeed, when the dinner was at an end
and they had returned to the studio, Constance began to pace back and
forth, to describe a dance-step or a pirouette, talking all the time,
interrupting herself to hum an air from some ballet to which she kept
time with her head, then suddenly gathered herself together and with one
leap was at the other end of the studio.

"Now she's off," whispered Felicia to de Géry. "Watch. It will be worth
your while, for you are about to see La Crenmitz dance."

It was a fascinating, fairy-like spectacle. Against the background of
the enormous room, drowned in shadow and hardly lighted save through the
round window from without, where the moon was climbing upward in a deep
blue sky, a typical operatic sky, the famous dancer's figure stood out
all white, a light, airy unsubstantial ghost, flying, rather than
springing, through the air; then, standing upon her slender toes, upheld
in the air by naught but her outstretched arms, her face raised in a
fleeting attitude in which nothing was visible but the smile, she came
quickly forward toward the light, or receded with little jerky steps, so
rapid that one constantly expected to hear the crash of glass and see
her glide backward up the slope of the broad moonbeam that shone aslant
into the studio. There was one fact that imparted a strange, poetic
charm to that fantastic ballet, and that was the absence of music, of
every other sound than that of the measured footfalls, whose effect was
heightened by the semi-darkness, of that quick, light patter no louder
than the fall of the petals from a dahlia, one by one. This lasted for
some minutes, then they could tell from the quickening of her breath
that she was becoming exhausted.

"Enough, enough! Sit down," said Felicia.

Thereupon the little white ghost lighted on the edge of an armchair and
sat there poised and ready to start anew, smiling and panting, until
sleep seized upon her, and began to sway and rock her softly to and fro
without disturbing her pretty attitude, like a dragon-fly on a willow
branch that drags in the water and moves with the current.

As they watched her nodding in the chair, Felicia said:

"Poor little Fairy! that is the best and most serious thing in the way
of friendship, protection and guardianship that I have had during my
life. That butterfly acted as my godmother. Do you wonder now at the
zigzags, the erratic flights of my mind? Lucky for me that I have clung
to her."

She added abruptly, with joyful warmth:

"Ah! Minerva, Minerva, I am very glad that you came to-night. You
mustn't leave me alone so long again, you see. I need to have an upright
mind like yours by my side, to see one true face amid all the masks
that surround me. But you're fearfully bourgeois all the same," she
added laughingly, "and a provincial to boot. But never mind! you are the
man that I most enjoy looking at all the same. And I believe that my
liking for you is due mainly to one thing. You remind me of some one who
was the dearest friend of my youth, a serious, sensible little creature
like yourself, bound fast to the commonplace side of existence, but
mingling with it the element of idealism which we artists put aside for
the benefit of our work alone. Some things that you say seem to me to
come from her lips. You have a mouth built on the same antique model. Is
that what makes your words alike? I don't know about that, but you
certainly do resemble each other. I'll show you."

As she sat opposite him at the table laden with sketches and albums, she
began to draw as she talked, her face bending over the paper, her
unmanageable curls shading her shapely little head. She was no longer
the beautiful crouching monster, with the frowning anxious face,
lamenting her own destiny; but a woman, a true woman, who loves and
seeks to charm. Paul forgot all his suspicions then, in presence of such
sincerity and grace. He was on the point of speaking, of pleading with
her. It was the decisive moment. But the door opened and the little
servant appeared. Monsieur le Duc had sent to ask if Mademoiselle were
still suffering from her sick headache.

"Just as much as ever," she said testily.

When the servant had gone, there was a moment's silence between them, a
freezing pause. Paul had risen. She went on with her sketch, her head
still bent.

He walked away a few steps, then returned to the table and asked gently,
astonished to find that he was so calm:

"Was it the Duc de Mora who was to dine here?"

"Yes--I was bored--a day of spleen. Such days are very bad for me."

"Was the duchess to come?"

"The duchess? No. I don't know her."

"Well, if I were in your place, I would never receive in my house, at my
table, a married man whose wife I did not meet in society. You complain
of being abandoned; why do you abandon yourself? When one is without
reproach, one must keep oneself above suspicion. Do I offend you?"

"No, no, scold me, Minerva. I like your morality. It is frank and
straightforward; it doesn't squint like Jenkins'. As I told you, I need
some one to guide me."

She held before him the sketch she had just finished.

"See! there's the friend of whom I spoke to you. A deep, sure affection
which I was foolish enough to throw away, like the wasteful idiot I am.
I always used to invoke her memory in moments of perplexity, when there
was some question to be decided or some sacrifice to be made. I would
say to myself: 'What will she think about it?' as we pause in our work
to think of some great man, of one of our masters. You must fill that
place for me. Will you?"

Paul did not answer. He was looking at Aline's portrait. It was she, it
was she to the life, her regular profile, her kindly, laughing mouth,
and the long curl caressing the slender neck. Ah! all the Ducs de Mora
on earth might come now. Felicia no longer existed for him.

Poor Felicia, a creature endowed with superior powers, was much like
those sorceresses who weave and ravel the destinies of others without
the power to accomplish anything for their own happiness.

"Will you give me this sketch?" he said almost inaudibly, in a voice
that trembled with emotion.

"Very gladly; she is pretty, isn't she? Ah! if you should happen to meet
her, love her, marry her. She is worth more than all the rest. But,
failing her, failing her--"

And the beautiful tamed sphinx looked up at him with her great tearful,
laughing eyes, whose enigma was no longer insoluble.




XIV.

THE EXHIBITION.


"Superb!"

"A tremendous success. Barye never did anything as fine."

"And the bust of the Nabob! What a marvellous likeness! I tell you,
Constance Crenmitz is happy. See her trotting about."

"What! is that La Crenmitz, that little old woman in a fur cape? I
supposed she was dead twenty years ago."

Oh! no; on the contrary, she is very much alive. Enchanted, rejuvenated
by the triumph of her goddaughter, who is decidedly _the_ success of the
Exhibition, she glides through the crowd of artists and people of
fashion grouped around the two points where Felicia's contributions are
exhibited like two huge masses of black backs, variegated costumes,
jostling and squeezing in their struggles to look. Constance, usually so
retiring, makes her way into the front row, listens to the discussions,
catches on the wing snatches of sentences, technical phrases which she
remembers, nods her head approvingly, smiles, shrugs her shoulders when
she hears any slighting remark, longing to crush the first person who
should fail to admire.

Whether it be the excellent Crenmitz or another, you always see, at the
opening of the Salon, that shadow prowling furtively about where people
are conversing, with ears on the alert and an anxious expression;
sometimes it is an old father who thanks you with a glance for a kindly
word said in passing, or assumes a despairing expression at the epigram
which you hurl at a work of art and which strikes a heart behind you. A
face not to be omitted surely, if ever some painter in love with things
modern should conceive the idea of reproducing on canvas that perfectly
typical manifestation of Parisian life, the opening of the Salon in that
vast hothouse of statuary, with the yellow gravelled paths and the great
glass ceiling, beneath which, half-way from the floor, the galleries of
the first tier stand forth, lined with heads bending over to look, and
with extemporized waving draperies.

In a light that seems slightly cold and pale as it falls on the green
decorations of the walls, where the rays become rarefied, one would say,
in order to afford the spectators an opportunity for concentration and
accuracy of vision, the crowd moves slowly back and forth, pauses,
scatters over the benches, divided into groups, and yet mingling castes
more thoroughly than any other gathering, just as the fickle and
changing weather, at that time of year, brings together all sorts of
costumes, so that the black lace and superb train of the great lady who
has come to observe the effect of her own portrait rub against the
Siberian furs of the actress who has just returned from Russia and
proposes that everybody shall know it.

Here there are no boxes, no reserved seats, and that is what gives such
abiding interest and charm to this first view in broad daylight. The
real society women can pass judgment at close quarters on the painted
beauties that excite so much applause by artificial light; the tiny hat,
latest shape, of the Marquise de Bois-l'Héry and her like brushes
against the more than modest costume of some artist's wife or daughter,
while the model who has posed for that lovely Andromeda near the
entrance struts triumphantly by, dressed in a too short skirt, in
wretched clothes tossed upon her beauty with the utmost lack of taste.
They scrutinize one another, admire or disparage one another, exchange
contemptuous, disdainful or inquisitive glances, which suddenly become
fixed as some celebrity passes, the illustrious critic, for instance,
whom we seem to see at this moment, serene and majestic, his powerful
face framed in long hair, making the circuit of the exhibits of
sculpture, followed by half a score of young disciples who hang
breathlessly upon his kindly dicta. Although the sound of voices is lost
in that immense vessel, which is resonant only under the two arched
doorways of entrance and exit, faces assume extraordinary intensity
there, a character of energy and animation especially noticeable in the
vast, dark recess of the restaurant, overflowing with a gesticulating
multitude, the light hats of the women and the waiters' white aprons
standing out in bold relief against the background of dark clothing, and
in the broad aisle in the centre, where the swarm of promenaders _en
vignette_ forms a striking contrast to the immobility of the statues,
the unconscious palpitation with which their chalky whiteness and their
glorified attitudes are encompassed.

There are gigantic wings spread for flight, a sphere upheld by four
allegorical figures, whose attitude, as if they were twirling their
burden, suggests a vague waltz measure, a marvel of equilibrium which
perfectly produces the illusion of the earth's revolution; and there are
arms raised as a signal, bodies of heroic size, containing an allegory,
a symbol that brings death and immortality upon them, gives them to
history, to legend, to the ideal world of the museums which nations
visit from curiosity or admiration.

Although Felicia's bronze group had not the proportions of those
productions, its exceptional merit had procured for it the honor of a
position at one of the points of intersection of the aisles in the
centre, from which the public was standing respectfully aloof at that
moment, staring over the shoulders of the line of attendants and police
officers at the Bey of Tunis and his suite, a group of long burnous,
falling in sculptural folds, which made them seem like living statues
confronting the dead ones. The bey, who had been in Paris for a few
days, the lion of all the first nights, had expressed a desire to see
the opening of the Salon. He was "an enlightened prince, a friend of
the arts," who possessed a gallery of amazing Turkish pictures on the
Bardo, and chromo-lithographic reproductions of all the battles of the
First Empire. The great Arabian hound had caught his eye as soon as he
entered the hall of sculpture. It was the _slougui_ to the life, the
genuine slender, nervous _slougui_ of his country, the companion of all
his hunts. He laughed in his black beard, felt the animal's loins,
patted his muscles, seemed to be trying to rouse him, while, with
dilated nostrils, protruding teeth, every limb outstretched and
indefatigable in its strength and elasticity, the aristocratic beast,
the beast of prey, ardent in love and in the chase, drunk with his
twofold drunkenness, his eyes fixed on his victim, seemed to be already
tasting the delights of his victory, with the end of his tongue hanging
from his mouth, as he sharpened his teeth with a ferocious laugh. If you
looked only at him, you said to yourself: "He has him!" But a glance at
the fox reassured you at once. Under his lustrous, velvety coat,
catlike, with his body almost touching the ground, skimming along
without effort, you felt that he was in truth a wizard, and his fine
head with its pointed ears, which he turned toward the hound as he ran,
had an ironical expression of security which clearly indicated the gift
he had received from the gods.

While an inspector of the Beaux-Arts, who had hurried to the spot, with
his uniform all awry, and bald to the middle of his back, explained to
Mohammed the apologue of "The Dog and the Fox," as told in the
catalogue, with this moral: "Suppose that they meet," and the note: "The
property of the Duc de Mora," the bulky Hemerlingue, puffing and
perspiring beside his Highness, had great difficulty in persuading him
that that masterly production was the work of the lovely equestrian they
had met in the Bois the day before. How could a woman with a woman's
weak hands so soften the hard bronze and give it the appearance of
flesh? Of all the marvels of Paris that one caused the bey the most
profound amazement. So he asked the official if there was nothing else
of the same artist's to see.

"Yes, indeed, Monseigneur, another _chef-d'oeuvre_. If your Highness
will come this way I will take you to it."

The bey moved on with his suite. They were all fine specimens of their
race, beautifully chiselled features and pure profiles, complexions of a
warm pallor of which the snowy whiteness of the haik absorbed even the
reflection. Magnificently draped, they contrasted strangely with the
busts which were ranged on both sides of the aisle they had taken, and
which, perched on their high pedestals, exiled from their familiar
surroundings, from the environment in which they would doubtless have
recalled some engrossing toil, some deep affection, a busy and
courageous life, seemed very forlorn in the empty air about them and
presented the distressing aspect of people who had gone astray and were
very much ashamed to find themselves there. Aside from two or three
female figures, well-rounded shoulders enveloped in petrified lace, hair
reproduced in marble with the soft touch that gives the impression of a
powdered head-dress, and a few profiles of children with simple lines,
in which the polish of the stone seems like the moisture of life, there
were nothing but wrinkles, furrows, contortions and grimaces, our excess
of toil and activity, our nervous paroxysms and our fevers contrasted
with that art of repose and noble serenity.

The Nabob's ugliness, at all events, had in its favor its energy, the
peculiar characteristics of the adventurer and the _prolétaire_, and
that kindly expression so well rendered by the artist, who had taken
pains to mix a supply of ochre with her plaster, thereby giving it
almost the swarthy, sun-burned tone of the model. The Arabs, on seeing
it, uttered a stifled exclamation: "Bon-Saïd!" (the father of
good-luck). It was the Nabob's sobriquet at Tunis, the label of his
fortune, so to speak. The bey, for his part, thinking that someone
intended to make sport of him by bringing him thus face to face with the
detested _mercanti_, glanced suspiciously at the inspector.

"Jansoulet?" he said in his guttural voice.

"Yes, your Highness, Bernard Jansoulet, the new Deputy for Corsica."

At that the bey turned to Hemerlingue, with a frown on his face.

"Deputy?"

"Yes, Monseigneur, the news came this morning; but nothing is settled
yet."

And the banker, ill at ease and lowering his voice, added: "No French
Chamber would ever admit that adventurer."

No matter! the blow had been dealt at the bey's blind confidence in his
baron-financier. Hemerlingue had declared so positively that the other
would never be chosen, that they could act freely and without fear so
far as he was concerned. And lo! instead of the crushed, discredited
man, a representative of the nation towered before him, a deputy whose
figure in stone Parisians thronged to admire; for, from the Oriental
sovereign's standpoint, as that public exhibition necessarily involved
the idea of conferring honor upon the subject, that bust had all the
prestige of a statue overlooking a public square. Hemerlingue, even
yellower than usual, inwardly accused himself of bungling and
imprudence. But how could he have suspected such a thing? He had been
assured that the bust was not finished. And, indeed, it had arrived that
very morning, and seemed overjoyed to be there, quivering with gratified
pride, expressing contempt for its enemies with the good-natured smile
of its curling lip. A veritable silent revenge for the disaster at
Saint-Romans.

For several minutes the bey, as cold and impassive as the carved image,
stared at it without speaking, his forehead divided by a straight fold
wherein his courtiers alone could read his wrath; then, after a few
words spoken rapidly in Arabic, to order his carriages and collect his
scattered suite, he strode gravely toward the exit, without deigning to
look at anything else. Who can say what takes place in those august
brains, surfeited with power? Even our western monarchs have
incomprehensible whims; but they are as nothing beside Oriental
caprices. Monsieur l'Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts, who had confidently
expected to show his Highness all over the Exhibition, and to earn
thereby the pretty little red and green ribbon of the Order of
Nicham-Iftikhar, never knew the secret of that sudden flight.

Just as the white haiks disappeared under the porch, and just in time to
catch a glimpse of the fluttering of their last folds, the Nabob entered
through the centre door. That morning he had received the news: "Elected
by an overwhelming majority;" and, after a sumptuous breakfast, at which
many a toast had been drunk to the new Deputy for Corsica, he had come
with some of his guests, to show himself, to see himself as well, and to
enjoy his new glory to the full.

The first person he saw when he arrived was Felicia Ruys, leaning
against the pedestal of a statue, receiving compliments and homage with
which he hastened to mingle his own. She was dressed simply, in a black
embroidered gown trimmed with jet, tempering the severe simplicity of
her costume by its scintillating reflections and by the brilliancy of a
fascinating little hat adorned with the feathers of the _lophophore_,
whose changing colors her hair, tightly curled over the forehead and
parted at the neck in broad waves, seemed to prolong and to soften.

A crowd of artists, of society folk hastened to pay their respects to so
great genius allied to so great beauty; and Jenkins, bareheaded,
swelling with effusive warmth, went about from one to another, extorting
enthusiasm, but broadening the circle about that youthful renown, posing
as both guardian and fugleman. Meanwhile, his wife was talking with the
young woman. Poor Madame Jenkins! He had said to her in that brutal
voice which she alone knew: "You must go and speak to Felicia." And she
had obeyed, restraining her emotion; for she knew now what lay hidden
beneath that fatherly affection, although she avoided any explanation
with the doctor as if she were apprehensive of the result.

After Madame Jenkins, the Nabob rushed to the artist's side, and taking
her slender, neatly gloved hands in his two great paws expressed his
gratitude with a warmth that brought the tears to his own eyes.

"You have done me a very great honor, Mademoiselle, to associate my name
with yours, my humble self with your triumph, and to prove to all these
vermin who are digging their claws into me that you don't believe in all
the slanderous reports that are current about me. Really, it is
something I can never forget. I might cover this magnificent bust with
gold and diamonds and I should still be in your debt."

Luckily for the good Nabob, who was more susceptible to emotion than
eloquent, he was obliged to make room for all those who were attracted
by the refulgent talent, the artistic personality before their eyes:
frantic enthusiasm which, for lack of words in which to express itself,
disappears as it came; worldly admiration, inspired by kindly feeling,
by an earnest desire to please, but whose every word is like a cold
shower-bath; and then the hearty hand-clasps of rivals, of comrades,
some very frank and cordial, others which communicate to you the
inertness of their pressure; the tall, conceited zany whose absurd
praise ought to delight you beyond measure, and who, in order not to
spoil you utterly, accompanies it with "a few trifling reservations;"
and the man who, while overwhelming you with compliments, proves to you
that you do not know the first word of the trade; and the other good
fellow, full of business, who stops just long enough to whisper in your
ear that "So-and-so, the famous critic, doesn't seem to be satisfied."
Felicia listened to it all with the utmost tranquillity, being raised by
her triumph above the petty slurs of envy, and glowed with pride when a
renowned veteran, some old associate of her father's, tossed her a "Well
done, little one!" which carried her back to the past, to the little
corner that was always reserved for her in the paternal studio in the
days when she was beginning to carve out a little glory for herself in
the renown of the great Ruys. But as a whole the congratulations left
her quite unmoved, because she missed one which was more desirable in
her eyes than all the rest, and which she was surprised that she had not
yet received. Clearly she thought of him more than she had ever thought
of any man before. Was this love at last, the great love that is so rare
in the heart of an artist, who is incapable of abandoning herself
unreservedly to a sentiment, or was it simply a dream of an honest,
bourgeois life, well protected against ennui, that vile ennui, the
precursor of storms, which she had so much reason to dread? In any
event, she suffered herself to be deceived and had been living for
several days in a state of delicious unrest, for love is so strong, so
beautiful, that its semblance, its mirage, takes us captive and may move
us as deeply as love itself.

Has it ever happened to you, as you walked along the street, thinking
intently of some absent person very dear to your heart, to be warned of
his approach by meeting one or more persons who bear a vague resemblance
to him, preparatory images, outline sketches of the face that is soon to
rise before you, which come forth from the crowd like successive appeals
to your overstrained attention? These are magnetic, nervous phenomena at
which we must not smile too broadly, because they constitute a
susceptibility to suffering. Several times Felicia had fancied that she
recognized Paul de Géry's curly head in the ever-moving, ever-changing
flow of visitors, when suddenly she uttered a cry of pleasure. It was
not he, however, but some one who much resembled him, whose regular,
tranquil face was always blended now in her thoughts with that of her
friend Paul, as the result of a resemblance rather moral than physical,
and of the mild influence they both exerted over her mind.

"Aline!"

"Felicia!"

Although nothing is more difficult of comprehension than the friendship
of two of society's queens, dividing salon royalty among themselves and
lavishing flattering epithets, the petty graces of feminine
effusiveness, upon each other, the friendships of childhood retain in
the woman a frankness of demeanor which distinguishes them and makes
them recognizable among all other friendships; bonds woven in innocence
and woven firmly, like the pieces of needlework made by little girls,
whereon an inexperienced hand has lavished thread and great knots;
plants that have grown in virgin soil, past their bloom but
deeply-rooted and full of life and vigor. And what joy to turn back a
few steps, hand in hand,--boarding-school Arguses, where are you?--with
equal knowledge of the road and of its slightest windings, and with the
same wistful laugh. Standing a little apart, the two girls, who needed
only to stand face to face to forget five years of separation, talked
rapidly, recalling bygone days, while little Père Joyeuse, his ruddy
face set off by a new cravat, drew himself up to his full height, proud
beyond words that his daughter should be so warmly greeted by a
celebrity. Proud he certainly had reason to be, for that little
Parisian, even beside her resplendent friend, retained her full value
for charm and youth and luminous innocence, beneath her twenty years,
her rich, golden girlhood, which the joy of meeting caused to put forth
fresh flowers.

"How happy you must be! I haven't seen anything; but I hear everybody
say that it is so beautiful."

"Happy above all things to find you again, little Aline. It is such a
long time--"

"I should say as much, you bad girl. Whose fault is it?"

In the saddest recess of her memory Felicia found the date of the
rupture between them, coincident in her mind with another date when her
youth died in a never-to-be-forgotten scene.

"What have you been doing all this time, my love?"

"Oh! always the same thing--nothing worth talking about."

"Yes, yes, we know what you call doing nothing, little brave heart. It
is giving your life to others, is it not?"

But Aline was no longer listening. She was smiling affectionately at a
point straight before her, and Felicia, turning to see to whom that
smile was addressed, saw Paul de Géry replying to Mademoiselle Joyeuse's
shy and blushing salutation.

"Do you know each other, pray?"

"Do I know Monsieur Paul! I should think so. We talk of you often
enough. Has he never told you?"

"Never. He is terribly sly--"

She stopped abruptly as a light flashed through her mind; and, paying no
heed to de Géry, who came forward to do homage to her triumph, she
leaned hastily toward Aline and whispered to her. The other blushed,
protested with smiles, with inaudible words: "How can you imagine such a
thing? At my age. A grandmamma!" And at last she grasped her father's
arm to escape that friendly raillery.

When Felicia saw the two young people walk away side by side, when she
realized--what they themselves did not yet know--that they loved each
other, she felt as if everything about her were crumbling. And when her
dream lay at her feet, in a thousand fragments, she began to stamp upon
it in a rage. After all, he was quite right to prefer that little Aline
to her. Would a respectable man ever dare to marry Mademoiselle Ruys?
She with a home of her own, a family, nonsense! You are a strumpet's
daughter, my dear; you must be a strumpet yourself, if you wish to be
anything.

The day was drawing near its close. The crowd, moving more rapidly than
before, with gaps here and there, was beginning to stream toward the
exit, after eddying violently around the success of the year, surfeited,
a little weary, but still excited by the artistic electricity with which
the atmosphere was charged. A great ray of sunlight, the sunlight of
four o'clock in the afternoon, illuminated the rosework of the windows,
cast upon the gravelled paths rainbow-like beams that crept gently up
the bronze or marble of the statues, suffusing a lovely nude body with
bright colors and giving to the vast museum something of the aspect of a
garden. Felicia, absorbed in her profound, melancholy reverie, did not
see the man who came toward her, superb, refined, fascinating, through
the throng of visitors, who respectfully opened a passage for him, while
the name of "Mora" was whispered on every side.

"Well, well, Mademoiselle, this is a grand triumph. I regret only one
thing, that is the unpleasant symbolism that you have concealed in your
masterpiece."

When she saw the duke standing before her, she shuddered.

"Ah! yes, the symbolism," she said, looking up at him with a
disheartened smile; and, leaning against the pedestal of the great,
voluptuous statue, near which they happened to be standing, with her
eyes closed, like a woman who gives herself voluntarily or surrenders,
she murmured in a low, very low voice:

"Rabelais lied, as all men lie. The real truth is that the fox can go no
farther, that he is at the end of his breath and his courage, ready to
fall into the ditch, and if the hound persists in his pursuit--"

Mora started, became a little paler, as all the blood in his veins
rushed back to his heart. Two darkly flashing glances met, two words
were swiftly exchanged with the ends of the lips; then the duke bowed
low and walked away with a step as brisk and light as if the gods were
carrying him.

There was only one man in the palace as happy as he at that moment, and
that was the Nabob. Escorted by his friends, he occupied, filled the
main aisle all by himself, talking in a loud tone, gesticulating, so
proud that he seemed almost handsome, as if, by dint of gazing long at
his bust in artless admiration, he had caught a little of the splendid
idealization with which the artist had softened the vulgarity of the
type. The head at an elevation of three-fourths, free from the high
rolling collar, gave rise to contradictory opinions from the spectators
concerning the resemblance; and Jansoulet's name, which had been
repeated so many times by the electoral urns, was echoed by the
prettiest lips in Paris, by its most influential voices. Any other than
the Nabob would have been embarrassed by hearing as he passed the
exclamations of these curious bystanders, who were not always in
sympathy with him. But the platform and the springboard were congenial
to that nature, which was always braver under the fire of staring eyes,
like those women who are beautiful and clever only in society, and whom
the slightest admiration transfigures and perfects.

When he felt that that delirious joy was subsiding, when he thought that
he had drained the cup of his proud intoxication, he had only to say to
himself: "Deputy! I am a deputy!" and the triumphal cup was brimming
full once more. It meant the raising of the embargo from all his
property, the awakening from a nightmare of two months' duration, the
blast of the mistral sweeping away all vexations, all anxieties, even to
the insult at Saint-Romans, heavily as it weighed on his memory.

Deputy!

He laughed all by himself as he thought of the baron's face when he
heard the news, of the bey's stupefaction when he was taken to look at
his bust; and suddenly, at the thought that he was no longer a mere
adventurer gorged with gold, arousing the senseless admiration of the
vulgar like an enormous nugget in a money-changer's window, but that he
was entitled to be looked upon as one of the chosen exponents of the
national will, his good-natured, mobile face assumed an expression of
ponderous gravity suited to the occasion, his mind was filled with plans
for the future, for reform, and the longing to profit by the lessons he
had lately learned from destiny. Already, mindful of the promise he had
made de Géry, he exhibited a certain contemptuous coldness for the
hungry herd that fawned servilely about his heels, and seemed to have
adopted deliberately a system of peremptory contradiction. He called the
Marquis de Bois-l'Héry "my good fellow," sharply imposed silence on the
Governor, whose enthusiasm was becoming scandalous, and was inwardly
making a solemn vow that he would rid himself as speedily as possible of
all that begging, compromising horde of bohemians, when an excellent
opportunity presented itself for him to begin to put his purpose in
execution. Moëssard, the handsome Moëssard, in a sky-blue cravat, pale
and puffed-up like a white abscess, his bust confined in a tight frock
coat, seeing that the Nabob, after making the circuit of the hall of
sculpture a score of times, was walking toward the exit, forced his way
through the crowd, sprang to his side and said, as he passed his arm
through Jansoulet's:

"You are to take me with you, you know--"

Of late, especially during the period of the election, he had assumed an
authority on Place Vendôme almost equal to Monpavon's, but more
impudent; for, in respect of impudence, the queen's lover had not his
equal on the sidewalk that extends from Rue Drouot to the Madeleine. But
on this occasion he had a bad fall. The muscular arm that he grasped
violently shook itself free, and the Nabob answered him very shortly:

"I am very sorry, my dear fellow, but I have no seat to offer you."

No seat, in a carriage as big as a house, which had often held five of
them!

Moëssard gazed at him in utter stupefaction.

"But I had something very urgent to say to you. On the subject of my
little note. You received it, did you not?"

"To be sure, and Monsieur de Géry should have answered it this morning.
What you ask is impossible. Twenty thousand francs!--_tonnerre de Dieu!_
how fast you go."

"It seems to me, however, that my services--" stammered the fop.

"Have been handsomely paid. So it seems to me too. Two hundred thousand
francs in five months! We will stop at that, if you please. You have
long teeth, young man; we must file them a bit."

They exchanged these words as they walked along, pushed by the crowd
which flocked like sheep through the door of exit. Moëssard stopped:

"That is your last word?"

The Nabob hesitated a second, seized by a presentiment of evil at sight
of that pale, wicked mouth; then he remembered the promise he had given
his friend.

"That is my last word."

"Very well, we will see," said Beau Moëssard, while his cane cleft the
air with a noise like a snake's hiss; and, turning on his heel, he
strode rapidly away like a man who has very important business awaiting
him.

Jansoulet continued his triumphal march. On that day it would have
required something much more serious to disturb the equilibrium of his
happiness; on the other hand he felt encouraged by the beginning so
successfully accomplished.

The great vestibule was filled with a compact crowd, whom the approach
of the hour for closing impelled toward the outer world, but whom one of
the sudden downpours which seem an essential part of the opening of the
Salon detained under the porch with its floor of hard-trodden gravel,
like the entrance to the Circus where the lady-killers disport
themselves. It was a curious, thoroughly Parisian spectacle.

Outside, the sunbeams shining through the rain, attaching to its limpid
threads those sharp, brilliant blades of light which justify the proverb
"It rains halberds;" the young verdure of the Champs-Élysées, the clumps
of dripping, rustling rhododendrons, the carriages drawn up in line on
the avenue, the oilcloth capes of the coachmen, all the splendid
accoutrements of the horses to which the water and the sunbeams imparted
vastly greater richness and effect, and everywhere a gleam of blue, the
blue of the sky, smiling in the interval between two showers.

Within, laughter, idle chatter, salutations, impatience, skirts turned
up, satins puffing vaingloriously over the narrow pleats of petticoats
and delicately striped silk stockings, oceans of fringe, of lace, of
flounces, held with one hand in too heavy bundles, and torn beyond
recognition. Then, to connect the two sides of the picture, the
prisoners framed by the arched doorway and standing in its dark shadow,
with the vast background of light behind them, footmen running about
under umbrellas, shouting names of coachmen and names of masters, and
coupés slowly approaching, into which terrified couples hastily jump.

"Monsieur Jansoulet's carriage!"

Everybody turned to look, but we know that that disturbed him but
little. And while the honest Nabob posed for a moment, awaiting his
people, amid those fashionable women, those famous men, that assorted
gathering of all Paris which was present there with a name to fit each
of its figures, a slender, neatly-gloved hand was held out to him, and
the Duc de Mora, who was about to enter his coupé, said to him as he
passed, with the effusiveness that happiness gives to the most reserved
of men:

"My congratulations, my dear deputy."

It was said aloud, and every one could hear,--"My dear deputy."

       *       *       *       *       *

There is in the life of every man a golden hour, a luminous mountain-top
where all that he can hope for of prosperity, of joy, of triumph, awaits
him and is showered upon him. The mountain is more or less high, more or
less precipitous and difficult to climb; but it exists equally for all,
for the most powerful and the humblest. But, like the longest day of the
year, when the sun has reached the end of his upward journey and the
next day seems a first step toward winter, that _summum bonum_ of human
existence is but a moment to be enjoyed, after which we have no choice
but to descend. Poor man! you must remember that late afternoon in May,
that time of alternating rain and sunshine, you must fix its changing
splendor forever in your memory. It was the hour of your midsummer, when
the flowers were blooming, the branches bending beneath their weight of
golden fruit, and the crops whose gleanings you so recklessly threw
aside, were fully ripe. The star will fade now, gradually receding and
descending, and soon will be incapable of piercing the woeful darkness
wherein your destiny is about to be fulfilled.




XV.

MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--IN THE RECEPTION-ROOM.


There was a grand affair last Saturday on Place Vendôme.

Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet, the new Deputy for Corsica, gave a
magnificent evening party in honor of his election, with municipal
guards at the door, the whole house illuminated and two thousand
invitations strewn broadcast through fashionable Paris.

I was indebted to the distinction of my manners, to the resonance of my
voice, which the president of the administrative council has had a
chance to appreciate at the meetings of the _Caisse Territoriale_, for
the privilege of taking part in that sumptuous festivity, where I stood
for three hours in the reception-room, amid flowers and draperies,
dressed in scarlet and gold, with the majestic bearing peculiar to
persons who exert some little authority, and with my calves exposed for
the first time in my life, and sent the name of each guest like the
report of a cannon into the long line of five salons, a resplendent
footman saluting each time with the _bing_ of his halberd on the floor.

How many interesting observations I was able to make that evening, what
jocose sallies, what quips, all in most excellent taste, were tossed
back and forth by the servants, concerning the people of fashion who
passed! I should never have heard anything so amusing with the
vine-dressers of Montbars. I ought to say that the worthy M. Barreau
caused us all to be served with a hearty, well-irrigated lunch in his
office, which was filled to the ceiling with iced drinks and
refreshments, thereby putting every one of us in an excellent humor,
which was maintained throughout the evening by glasses of punch and
champagne whisked from the salvers as they passed.

The masters, however, were not so contented as we were. When I reached
my post, at nine o'clock, I was struck by the anxious, nervous face of
the Nabob, whom I spied walking with M. de Géry through the
brilliantly-lighted, empty salons, talking earnestly and gesticulating
wildly.

"I will kill him," he said, "I will kill him."

The other tried to soothe him, then Madame appeared and they talked
about something else.

A magnificent figure of a woman, that Levantine, twice as powerful as I
am, and dazzling to look at with her diamond diadem, the jewels that
covered her huge white shoulders, her back as round as her breast, her
waist squeezed into a breastplate of greenish gold, which extended in
long stripes the whole length of her skirt. I never saw anything so
rich, so imposing. She was like one of those beautiful white elephants
with towers on their backs that we read about in books of travel. When
she walked, clinging painfully to the furniture, all her flesh shook and
her ornaments jangled like old iron. With it all a very shrill little
voice and a beautiful red face which a little negro boy kept fanning all
the time with a fan of white feathers as big as a peacock's tail.

It was the first time that that indolent savage had made her appearance
in Parisian society, and M. Jansoulet seemed very proud and very happy
that she had consented to preside at his fête: a task that involved no
great labor on the lady's part, however, for, leaving her husband to
receive his guests in the first salon, she went and stretched herself
out on the couch in the little Japanese salon, wedged between two piles
of cushions, and perfectly motionless, so that you could see her in the
distance, at the end of the line of salons, like an idol, under the
great fan which her negro waved with a clocklike motion, as if by
machinery. These foreigners have the brass for you!

The Nabob's irritation had impressed me all the same, and as I saw his
valet going downstairs four steps at a time, I caught him on the wing
and whispered in his ear:

"What the deuce is the matter with your governor, Monsieur Noël?"

"It's the article in the _Messager_," he replied, and I had to abandon
the idea of finding out anything more for the moment, as a loud ring at
the bell announced the arrival of the first carriage, and it was
followed by a multitude of others.

Intent upon my business, giving close attention to the proper
pronunciation of the names given me and to making them ricochet from
salon to salon, I thought of nothing else. It is no easy matter to
announce properly people who always think that their names must be well
known, so that they simply murmur them through their closed lips as they
pass, and then are surprised to hear you murder them in your most
sonorous tone and almost bear you a grudge for the unimpressive
entrances, greeted with faint smiles, that follow a bungling
announcement. The task was made even more difficult at M. Jansoulet's by
the swarm of foreigners, Turks, Egyptians, Persians, Tunisians. I do not
mention the Corsicans, who were also very numerous on that occasion,
because, during my four years of service at the _Caisse Territoriale_, I
have become accustomed to pronouncing those high-sounding, interminable
names, always followed by the name of a place: "Paganetti of
Porto-Vecchio, Bastelica of Bonifacio, Paianatchi of Barbicaglia."

I enjoyed dwelling upon those Italian syllables, giving them their full
resonant value, and I could see by the stupefied expressions of those
worthy islanders how surprised and delighted they were to be introduced
in that fashion into the best continental society. But with the Turks,
the pachas and beys and effendis, I had much more difficulty, and I must
often have pronounced them awry, for M. Jansoulet, on two different
occasions, sent word to me to pay more attention to the names given me,
and especially to announce them more naturally. That command, uttered in
a loud voice at the door of the reception-room with unnecessary
brutality, annoyed me exceedingly, and prevented me--shall I confess
it?--from pitying the vulgar parvenu when I learned, during the evening,
what sharp thorns had found their way into his bed of roses.

From half-past ten till midnight the bell did not cease to ring, the
carriages to rumble under the porch, the guests to follow on one
another's heels, deputies, senators, councillors of state, municipal
councillors, who acted much more as if they were attending a meeting of
shareholders than an evening party in society. What did it all mean? I
could not succeed in puzzling it out, but a word from Nicklauss the
door-keeper opened my eyes.

"Do you notice, Monsieur Passajon," said that worthy retainer, standing
in front of me, halberd in hand, "do you notice how few ladies we have?"

_Pardieu!_ that was it. And we two were not the only ones who noticed
it. At each new arrival, I heard the Nabob, who stood near the door,
exclaim in consternation with the hoarse voice of a Marseillais with a
cold in his head:

"Alone?"

The guest would apologize in an undertone. _M-m-m-m-m-m_--his wife not
very well. Very sorry indeed. Then another would come; and the same
question would bring the same reply.

We heard that word "alone" so much, that at last we began to joke about
it in the reception-room; outriders and footmen tossed it from one to
another when a new guest entered: "Alone!" And we laughed and enjoyed
ourselves. But M. Nicklauss, with his extended knowledge of society,
considered that the almost universal abstention of the fair sex was by
no means natural.

"It must be the article in the _Messager_," he said.

Everybody was talking of that rascally article, and as each guest paused
before entering the salon to look himself over in the mirror with its
garland of flowers, I overheard snatches of whispered dialogue of this
sort:

"Have you read it?"

"It's a frightful thing."

"Do you believe it can possibly be true?"

"I have no idea. At all events I preferred not to bring my wife."

"I felt as you did. A man can go anywhere without compromising himself."

"Of course. While a woman--"

Then they would go in, their crush hats under their arms, with the
conquering air of married men unaccompanied by their wives.

What was this newspaper article, this terrible article which threatened
so seriously the influence of such a wealthy man? Unfortunately my
duties held me fast; I could not go down to the butlers pantry or the
dressing-room, to talk with the coachmen, the footmen and outriders whom
I saw standing at the foot of the stairs, amusing themselves by making
fun of the people who went up. What can you expect? The masters give
themselves too many airs. How could one help laughing to see the Marquis
and Marquise de Bois-l'Héry sail by with a haughty air and empty
stomachs, after all the stories we have heard about Monsieur's business
arrangements and Madame's dresses? And then the Jenkins family, so
affectionate, so united, the attentive doctor throwing a lace shawl over
his wife's shoulders for fear she may take cold in the hall; she,
tricked out and smiling, dressed all in velvet, with a train yards long,
leaning on her husband's arm as if to say: "How happy I am!" when I know
that, ever since the death of the Irishwoman, his lawful wife, the
doctor has been thinking of getting rid of his old incubus so that he
can marry a young woman, and that the old incubus passes her nights in
despair, in wearing away with tears what beauty she still has.

The amusing part of it was that not one of them all suspected the quips
and jokes that were spit out at them as they passed, the vile things
that their trains swept up from the vestibule carpet, and the whole crew
assumed disdainful airs fit to make one die with laughter.

The two ladies I have named, the Governor's wife, a little Corsican
woman whose heavy eyebrows, white teeth and ruddy cheeks, dark in the
lower part, make her look like a clean-shaved Auvergnat--a clever
creature by the way, and always laughing except when her husband looks
at other women--these with a few Levantines with diadems of gold or
pearls, less resplendent than ours but in the same style, wives of
upholsterers, jewellers, dealers who supply the household regularly,
with shoulders as extensive as shop-fronts and dresses in which the
material was not sparingly used; and lastly, several wives of clerks at
the _Caisse Territoriale_, with rustling dresses and devil a sou in
their pockets,--such was the representation of the fair sex at that
function, some thirty ladies lost among myriads of black coats; one
might as well say that there were none at all there. From time to time,
Cassagne, Laporte and Grandvarlet, who were carrying dishes, told us
what was going on in the salons.

"Ah! my children, if you could just see how gloomy, how mournful it is!
The men don't move from the sideboards. The women are all sitting in a
circle, way at the end, fanning themselves, without a word. La Grosse[1]
doesn't speak to any one. I believe she's taking a snooze. Monsieur's
the one who keeps things going. Père Passajon, a glass of
Château-Larose. It will set you up."


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Fat Woman, or "Fatty."


All those young fellows were delightful to me, and took a mischievous
pleasure in doing the honors of the cellar so often and in such bumpers
that my tongue began to grow heavy and uncertain; as they said to me, in
their slightly familiar language: "You're spluttering, uncle." Luckily
the last of the effendis had arrived and there was no one else to
announce; for it was of no use for me to struggle against it, every time
I walked between the hangings to launch a name into the salons, the
chandeliers whirled round and round with hundreds of thousands of
dancing lights, and the floors became inclined planes as slippery and
steep as Russian mountains. I must have spluttered, that is sure.



The fresh night air and repeated ablutions at the pump in the courtyard
soon got the better of that little indisposition, and when I betook
myself to the servants' quarters it had altogether disappeared. I found
a large and merry party gathered around a _marquise_ of champagne, of
which all my nieces, in fine array, with fluffy hair and cravats of pink
ribbon, took their full share, notwithstanding the fascinating little
shrieks and grimaces, which deceived no one. Naturally they were talking
about the famous article, an article by Moëssard, it seems, full of
shocking disclosures concerning all sorts of degrading occupations that
the Nabob was engaged in fifteen or twenty years ago, at the time of his
first stay in Paris.

It was the third attack of that sort that the _Messager_ had published
within a week, and that rascal Moëssard was malicious enough to send a
copy of each number under cover to Place Vendôme.

M. Jansoulet received it in the morning with his chocolate; and at the
same hour his friends and his enemies--for a man like the Nabob cannot
be indifferent to anybody--read it and discussed it, and adopted a line
of conduct toward him calculated not to compromise themselves. That
day's article must have been well loaded; for Jansoulet the coachman
told us that in the Bois his master did not exchange ten salutations in
ten circuits of the lake, whereas ordinarily his hat is not on his head
any more than a sovereign's when out for a drive. And when they returned
home it was much worse. The three boys had just reached the house, all
in tears and frightened to death, brought home from Bourdaloue College
by a good Father in their own interest, poor little fellows; they had
been given temporary leave of absence so that they might not hear any
unkind remarks, any cruel allusions in the parlor or the courtyard.
Thereupon the Nabob flew into a terrible rage, so that he demolished a
whole porcelain service, and it seems that, if it had not been for M. de
Géry, he would have gone off on the instant to break Moëssard's head.

"And he would have done quite right," said M. Noël, entering the room at
that moment; and he, too, was greatly excited. "There's not a single
word of truth in that villain's article. My master never came to Paris
until last year. From Tunis to Marseille, and Marseille to Tunis, that's
all the travelling he did. But that scurvy journalist is taking his
revenge on us for refusing him twenty thousand francs."

"You made a very great mistake in doing that," said M. Francis,
Monpavon's Francis, valet to that old dandy, whose only tooth waggles in
the middle of his mouth whenever he says a word, but whom the young
ladies look favorably upon all the same because of his fine manners.
"Yes, you made a mistake. It is necessary to know how to handle people
carefully, as long as they are able to serve or injure us. Your Nabob
turned his back on his friends too suddenly after his success; and,
between you and me, my dear boy, he isn't strong enough to return such
blows as that."

I thought I might venture to say a word.

"It's quite true, Monsieur Noël, that your master isn't the same since
his election. He has adopted a very different tone and manners. Day
before yesterday at the _Territoriale_, he made such a hullabaloo as you
can't imagine. I heard him shout in the middle of the council meeting:
'You have lied to me, you have robbed me and made me as much of a thief
as yourselves. Show me your books, you pack of rascals!' If he treated
Moëssard in that fashion, I don't wonder that he takes his revenge in
his newspaper."

"But what does the article say, anyway?" inquired M. Barreau; "who has
read it?"

No one answered. Several had tried to buy the paper; but in Paris
anything scandalous sells like hot cakes. At ten o'clock in the morning
there was not a copy of the _Messager_ to be had on the street.
Thereupon one of my nieces, a sly hussy if ever there was one, had the
happy thought of looking in the pocket of one of the numerous top-coats
hanging in long rows against the walls of the dressing-room.

"Here you are!" said the merry creature triumphantly, drawing from the
first pocket she searched a copy of the _Messager_, crumpled at the
folds as if it had been well read.

"And here's another!" cried Tom Bois-l'Héry, who was investigating on
his own account. A third top-coat, a third _Messager_. And so it was
with them all; buried in the depths of the pocket, or with its title
sticking out, the paper was everywhere, even as the article was certain
to be in every mind; and we imagined the Nabob upstairs, exchanging
amiable sentences with his guests, who could have recited to him word
for word the horrible things printed concerning him. We all laughed
heartily at the idea; but we were dying to know the contents of that
interesting page.

"Here, Père Passajon, read it aloud to us."

That was the general desire, and I complied with it.

I do not know if you are like me, but when I read aloud I gargle with my
voice, so to speak, I introduce inflections and flourishes, so that I do
not understand a word of what I read, like those public singers to whom
the meaning of the words they sing is of little consequence provided
that the notes are all there. It was called "The Flower Boat." A
decidedly mixed-up story with Chinese names, relating to a very rich
mandarin, newly elevated to the first class, who had once kept a "flower
boat" moored on the outskirts of a town near a fortified gate frequented
by soldiers. At the last word of the article we knew no more than at the
beginning. To be sure, we tried to wink and to look very knowing; but,
frankly, there was no ground for it. A genuine rebus without a key; and
we should still be staring at it, had not old Francis, who is the very
devil for his knowledge of all sorts of things, explained to us that the
fortified gate with soldiers must mean the École Militaire, and that the
"flower boat" had not so pretty a name as that in good French. And he
said the name aloud, despite the ladies. Such an explosion of
exclamations, of "Ahs!" and "Ohs!" some saying: "I expected as much,"
others: "It isn't possible."

"I beg your pardon," added Francis, who was formerly a trumpeter in the
9th Lancers, Mora's and Monpavon's regiment, "I beg your pardon. Twenty
years ago or more I was in barracks at the École Militaire, and I
remember very well that there was near the barrier a dirty little
dance-house called the Bal Jansoulet, with furnished rooms upstairs at
five sous the hour, to which we used to adjourn between dances."

"You're an infernal liar!" cried M. Noël, fairly beside himself; "a
sharper and liar like your master. Jansoulet never came to Paris until
this time."

Francis was sitting a little outside of the circle we made around the
"marquise," sipping something sweet, because champagne is bad for his
nerves, and besides, it is not a _chic_ enough drink for him. He rose
solemnly, without putting down his glass, and, walking up to M. Noël,
said to him, quietly:

"You lack good form, my dear fellow. The other evening, at your own
house, I considered your manners very vulgar and unbecoming. It serves
no purpose to insult people, especially as I'm a fencing-master, and, if
we should carry the thing any farther, I could put two inches of cold
steel into your body at whatever point I chose; but I am a good sort of
fellow, and instead of a sword-thrust I prefer to give you some advice
which your master will do well to profit by. This is what I would do if
I were in your place; I would hunt up Moëssard and buy him without
haggling over the price. Hemerlingue has given him twenty thousand
francs to speak, I would offer him thirty thousand to hold his tongue."

"Never, never!" roared M. Noël. "Instead of that I will go and wring the
miserable bandit's neck."

"You will wring nothing at all. Whether the story is true or false, you
have seen the effect of it to-night. That's a specimen of the pleasures
in store for you. What do you expect, my dear fellow? You have thrown
away your crutches and tried to walk alone too soon. That's all right if
you're sure of yourself and firm on your legs; but when your footing is
not very good anyway, and in addition you are unlucky enough to have
Hemerlingue at your heels, it's a bad business. And with it all your
master's beginning to be short of money; he has given notes to old
Schwalbach, and don't talk to me of a Nabob who gives notes. I am well
aware that you have heaps of millions over yonder in Tunis; but you will
have to have your election confirmed in order to get possession of them,
and after a few more articles like the one to-day, I'll answer for it
that you won't succeed. You undertake to struggle with Paris, my boy,
but you're not big enough, you know nothing about it. This isn't the
Orient, and, although we don't wring the necks of people who offend us,
or throw them into the water in leather bags, we have other ways of
putting them out of sight. Let your master beware, Noël. One of these
days Paris will swallow him as I swallow this plum, without spitting out
the stone or the skin!"

Really the old man was most imposing, and, notwithstanding the paint on
his face, I began to feel some respect for him. While he was speaking we
heard the music overhead, the singing provided for the entertainment of
the guests, and out on the square the horses of the municipal guards
shaking their curb-chains. Our party must have been a very brilliant
affair from outside, with the myriads of candles and the illuminated
doorway. And when one thinks of the ruin that perhaps was beneath it
all! We stood there in the vestibule like rats taking council together
in the hold, when the vessel is beginning to take in water without the
crew suspecting it, and I saw plainly enough that everybody, footmen and
lady's maids, would soon scamper away at the first alarm. Can it be that
such a catastrophe is possible? But in that case, what would become of
me and the _Territoriale_, and my advances and my back pay?

That Francis left me with cold shivers running down my back.




XVI.

A PUBLIC MAN.


The luminous warmth of a bright May afternoon made the lofty windows of
the hôtel de Mora as hot as the glass roof of a greenhouse; its
transparent hangings of blue silk could be seen from without between the
branches, and its broad terraces, where the exotic flowers, brought into
the air for the first time, ran like a border all the length of the
quay. The great rakes scraping among the shrubs in the garden left on
the gravelled paths the light footprints of summer, while the soft
pattering of the water from the sprinklers on the green lawn seemed like
its revivifying song.

All the magnificence of the princely abode shone resplendent in the
pleasant mildness of the temperature, borrowing a grandiose beauty from
the silence, the repose of that noonday hour, the only hour in the day
when one did not hear carriages rumbling under the arches, the great
doors of the reception-room opening and closing, and the constant
vibration in the ivy on the walls caused by the pulling of bells to
announce somebody's coming in or going out, like the feverish throbbing
of life in the house of a leader of society. It was well known that
until three o'clock the duke received at the department; that the
duchess, a Swede still benumbed by the snow of Stockholm, had hardly
emerged from behind her somnolent bed-curtains; so that no one came,
neither callers nor petitioners, and the footmen, perched like
flamingoes on the steps of the deserted stoop, alone enlivened the scene
with the slim shadows of their long legs and the yawning ennui of their
idleness.

It happened however, on that day, that Jenkins' maroon-lined _coupé_ was
waiting in a corner of the courtyard. The duke, who had been feeling
badly the day before, felt still worse when he left the breakfast table,
and lost no time in sending for the man of the pearls in order to
question him concerning his singular condition. He had no pain anywhere,
slept well and had his usual appetite; but there was a most
extraordinary sensation of weariness and of terrible cold, which nothing
could overcome. So it was that, at that moment, notwithstanding the
lovely spring sunshine which flooded his room and put to shame the flame
blazing on his hearth as in the depth of winter, the duke was shivering
in his blue firs, between his little screens, and as he wrote his name
on divers documents for a clerk from his office, on a low lacquered
table that stood so near the fire that the lacquer came off in scales,
he kept holding his benumbed fingers to the blaze, which might have
scorched them on the surface without restoring circulation and life to
their bloodless rigidity.

Was it anxiety caused by the indisposition of his illustrious patient?
At all events Jenkins seemed nervous, excited, strode up and down the
room, prying and sniffing to right and left, trying to find in the air
something that he believed to be there, something subtle and intangible,
like the faint trace of a perfume or the invisible mark left by a
passing bird. He could hear the wood snapping on the hearth, the sound
of papers hastily turned, the duke's indolent voice, indicating in a
word or two, always concise and clear, the answer to a letter of four
pages, and the clerk's respectful monosyllables: "Yes, Monsieur le
Ministre." "No, Monsieur le Ministre." Outside, the swallows whistled
merrily over the water, and some one was playing a clarinet in the
direction of the bridges.

"It is impossible," said the minister abruptly, rising from his chair.
"Take them away, Lartigues. You can come again, to-morrow. I can't
write, I am too cold. Just feel my hands, doctor, and tell me if you
would not say they were just out of a pail of iced water. My whole body
has been like that for two days. It's absurd enough in such weather!"

"It doesn't surprise me," growled the Irishman in a surly, short tone,
very unusual in that mellifluous voice.

The door had closed behind the young clerk, who carried away his
documents with a majestic stiffness of bearing, but was very happy, I
fancy, to feel that he was at liberty, and to have the opportunity,
before returning to the department, to saunter for an hour or two in
the Tuileries, overflowing at that hour with spring dresses and pretty
girls seated around the still unoccupied chairs of the musicians under
the flowering chestnut trees, which quivered from top to bottom with the
glad thrill of the month of nests. He was not frozen, not he.

Jenkins examined his patient without speaking, ausculted him, percussed
him, then, in the same rough tone, which might possibly be ascribed to
anxious affection, to the irritation of the physician who finds that his
instructions have been disregarded, he said:

"In God's name, my dear Duke, what sort of a life have you been leading
lately?"

He knew from ante-room gossips--the doctor did not despise them in the
households of those of his patients with whom he was on intimate
terms--he knew that the duke had a _new one_, that this caprice of
recent date had taken possession of him, excited him to an unusual
degree, and that information, added to other observations made in other
directions, had sown in Jenkins' mind a suspicion, a mad desire to know
the name of this _new one_. That is what he was trying to read on his
patient's pale brow, seeking the subject of his thoughts rather than the
cause of his illness. But he had to do with one of those faces peculiar
to men who are successful with women, faces as hermetically sealed as
the caskets with secret compartments which contain women's jewels and
letters,--one of those reticent natures locked with a cold, limpid
glance, a glance of steel against which the most perspicacious cunning
is powerless.

"You are mistaken, Doctor," replied His Excellency calmly, "I have not
changed my habits in any respect."

"Very good! you have done wrong, Monsieur le Duc," said the Irishman
bluntly, furious at his inability to discover anything.

But the next moment, realizing that he had gone too far, he tempered his
ill-humor and the brutality of his diagnosis with a bolus of trite,
axiomatic observations.--He must be careful. Medicine was not magic. The
power of the Jenkins Pearls was limited by human strength, the
necessities of advancing age, the resources of nature, which, unhappily,
are not inexhaustible. The duke interrupted him nervously:

"Come, come, Jenkins, you know that I don't like fine phrases. They
don't go with me. What is the matter with me? What is the cause of this
coldness?"

"It's anæmia, exhaustion--a lowering of the oil in the lamp."

"What must I do?"

"Nothing. Absolute rest. Eat and sleep, nothing more. If you could go
and pass a few weeks at Grandbois--"

Mora shrugged his shoulders.

"What about the Chamber, and the Council, and--Nonsense! as if it were
possible!"

"At all events, Monsieur le Duc, you must put on the drag, as someone
said, you must absolutely give up--"

Jenkins was interrupted by the entrance of the usher, who glided softly
into the room on tiptoe, like a dancing-master, and handed a letter and
a card to the minister who was still shivering in front of the fire.
When he saw that envelope, of a satiny shade of gray, and of peculiar
shape, the Irishman involuntarily started, while the duke, having opened
his letter and glanced over it, rose to his feet full of animation, on
his cheeks the faint flush of factitious health which all the heat from
the fire had failed to bring to them.

"My dear Doctor, you must at any cost--"

The usher was standing near, waiting.

"What is it?--Oh! yes, this card. Show him into the gallery, I will be
there in a moment."

The Duc de Mora's gallery, which was open to visitors twice a week, was
to him a sort of neutral territory, a public place where he could see
anybody on earth without binding himself to anything or compromising
himself. Then, when the usher had left the room:

"Jenkins, my good friend, you have already performed miracles for me. I
ask you to perform another. Double my dose of the pearls, think up
something, whatever you choose. But I must be in condition Sunday. You
understand, in perfect condition."

And his hot, feverish fingers closed upon the little note he held with a
shudder of longing.

"Beware, Monsieur le Duc," said Jenkins, very pale, his lips pressed
tightly together, "I have no desire to alarm you beyond measure
concerning your weak state, but it is my duty--"

Mora smiled, a charming, mischievous smile.

"Your duty and my pleasure are two, my good fellow. Let me burn my life
at both ends if it amuses me. I have never had such a fine opportunity
as I have now."

He started.

"The duchess!"

A door under the hangings had opened, giving passage to a dishevelled
little head of fair hair, like a mass of vapor amid the laces and
furbelows of a royal _déshabillé_.

"What is this I hear? You haven't gone out? Pray scold him, Doctor.
Isn't he foolish to listen to his own fears so much? Just look at him.
He looks in superb health."

"There! You see," said the duke, with a laugh, to the Irishman. "Aren't
you coming in, Duchess?"

"No, I am going to take you away, on the contrary. My uncle d'Estaing
has sent me a cage filled with birds from the Indies. I want to show
them to you. Marvels of all colors, with little eyes like black pearls.
And so cold, so cold, almost as sensitive to cold as you are."

"Let us go and see them," said the minister. "Wait for me, Jenkins; I
will come back."

Then, realizing that he still had his letter in his hand, he tossed it
carelessly into the drawer of the little table on which he had been
signing documents, and went out behind the duchess, with the perfect
_sang-froid_ of a husband accustomed to such manoeuvres. What
marvellously skilful workman, what incomparable maker of toys was able
to endow the human countenance with its flexibility, its wonderful
elasticity? Nothing could be prettier than that great nobleman's face,
surprised with his adultery on his lips, the cheeks inflamed by the
vision of promised delights, and suddenly assuming a serene expression
of conjugal affection; nothing could be finer than the hypocritical
humility of Jenkins, his paternal smile in the duchess's presence,
giving place instantly when he was left alone, to a savage expression of
wrath and hatred, a criminal pallor, the pallor of a Castaing or a
Lapommerais devising his sinister schemes.

A swift glance at each of the doors, and in a twinkling he stood before
the drawer filled with valuable papers, in which the little gold key was
allowed to remain with an insolent negligence that seemed to say:

"No one will dare."

But Jenkins dared.

The letter was there, on top of a pile of others. The texture of the
paper, the three words of the address dashed off in a plain, bold hand,
and the perfume, that intoxicating, conjuring perfume, the very breath
from her divine mouth. So it was true, his jealous love had not led him
astray, nor her evident embarrassment in his presence for some time
past, nor Constance's mysterious, youthful airs, nor the superb bouquets
strewn about the studio, as in the mysterious shadow of a sin. So that
indomitable pride had surrendered at last! But in that case why not to
him, Jenkins? He who had loved her so long, always in fact, who was ten
years younger than the other, and who certainly was no shiverer? All
those thoughts rushed through his brain like arrows shot from a tireless
bow. And he stood there, riddled with wounds, torn with emotion, his
eyes blinded with blood, staring at the little cold, soft envelope which
he dared not open for fear of removing one last doubt, when a rustling
of the hangings, which made him hastily toss the letter back and close
the smoothly-running drawer of the lacquer table, warned him that
somebody had entered the room.

"Hallo! is it you, Jansoulet? How came you here?"

"His Excellency told me to come and wait for him in his bedroom,"
replied the Nabob, very proud to be thus admitted to the sanctuary of
the private apartments, especially at an hour when the minister did not
receive. The fact was that the duke was beginning to show a genuine,
sympathetic feeling for that savage. For several reasons: in the first
place he liked audacious, pushing fellows, lucky adventurers. Was he not
one himself? And then the Nabob amused him; his accent, his unvarnished
manners, his flattery, a trifle unblushing and impudent, gave him a
respite from the everlasting conventionality of his surroundings, from
that scourge of administrative and court ceremonial which he held in
horror,--the conventional phrase,--in so great horror that he never
finished the period he had begun. The Nabob, for his part, finished his
in unforeseen ways that were sometimes full of surprises; he was a
first-rate gambler too, losing games of écarté at five thousand francs
the turn, at the club on Rue Royale, without winking. And then he was so
convenient when one wanted to get rid of a picture, always ready to buy,
no matter at what price. These motives of condescending amiability had
been reinforced latterly by a feeling of pity and indignation because of
the persistent ferocity with which the poor fellow was being persecuted,
because of the cowardly, merciless war upon him, which was carried on so
skilfully that public opinion, always credulous, always putting out its
neck to see how the wind is blowing, was beginning to be seriously
influenced. We must do Mora the justice to say that he was no follower
of the crowd. When he saw the Nabob's face, always good-humored, but
wearing a piteous, discomfited look, in a corner of the gallery, it had
occurred to him that it was cowardly to receive him there, and he had
told him to go up to his room.

Jenkins and Jansoulet, being decidedly embarrassed in each other's
presence, exchanged a few commonplace words. Their warm friendship had
grown sensibly cooler of late, Jansoulet having flatly refused any
further subsidy to the Work of Bethlehem, thereby leaving the enterprise
on the Irishman's hands; he was furious at that defection, much more
furious just then because he had been unable to open Felicia's letter
before the intruder's arrival. The Nabob, for his part, was wondering
whether the doctor was to be present at the conversation he wished to
have with the duke on the subject of the infamous allusions with which
the _Messager_ was hounding him; he was anxious also to know whether
those calumnies had cooled the all-powerful goodwill, which would be so
necessary to him in the confirmation of his election. The welcome he had
received in the gallery had partly quieted his fears; they vanished
altogether when the duke returned and came toward him with outstretched
hand.

"Well, well! my poor Jansoulet, I should say that Paris is making you
pay dear for her welcome. What a tempest of scolding and hatred and bad
temper!"

"Ah! Monsieur le Duc, if you knew--"

"I do know--I have read it all," said the minister, drawing near the
fire.

"I trust that your Excellency doesn't believe those infamous stories. At
all events I have here--I have brought proofs."

With his strong hairy hands trembling with emotion, he fumbled among the
papers in an enormous portfolio that he had under his arm.

"Never mind--never mind. I know all about it. I know that, purposely or
not, they have confused you with another person whom family reasons--"

The duke could not restrain a smile in face of the utter bewilderment of
the Nabob, who was astounded to find him so well informed.

"A minister of State should know everything. But never fear. Your
election shall be confirmed, all the same. And when it is once
confirmed--"

Jansoulet drew a long breath of relief.

"Ah! Monsieur le Duc, how much good you do me by talking to me thus. I
was beginning to lose all my confidence. My enemies are so powerful! And
on top of all the rest there's another piece of ill-luck. Le Merquier,
of all people, is assigned to make the report concerning my election."

"Le Merquier?--the devil!"

"Yes, Le Merquier, Hemerlingue's confidential man, the vile hypocrite
who converted the baroness, doubtless because his religion forbids him
to have a Mohammedan for his mistress."

"Fie, fie, Jansoulet!"

"What can you expect, Monsieur le Duc? You lose your temper sometimes,
too. Just think of the position those villains are putting me in. A week
ago my election should have been confirmed, and they have postponed the
meeting of the committee purposely, because they know the terrible
plight I am in, with all my fortune paralyzed, and the bey waiting for
the decision of the Chamber to know whether he can strip me clean or
not. I have eighty millions over there, Monsieur le Duc, and here I am
beginning to be in need of money. If this lasts a little longer--"

He wiped away the great drops of perspiration that were rolling down his
cheeks.

"Very well! I will make this matter of your confirmation my business,"
said the minister with much animation. "I will write to What's-his-name
to hurry up his report; and even if I have to be carried to the
Chamber--"

"Is your Excellency ill?" queried Jansoulet in a tone of deep interest,
in which there was no lack of sincerity, I promise you.

"No--a little weakness. We are a little short of blood; but Jenkins is
going to give us a new supply. Eh, Jenkins?"

The Irishman, who was not listening, made a vague gesture.

"Thunder! And to think that I have too much blood!" And the Nabob
loosened his cravat around his swollen neck, on the verge of apoplexy
with excitement and the heat of the room. "If I could only let you have
a little, Monsieur le Duc!"

"It would be fortunate for both of us," rejoined the minister with a
touch of irony. "For you especially; you are such a violent fellow and
at this moment need to be so calm. Look out for that, Jansoulet. Be on
your guard against the traps, the fits of passion they would like to
drive you into. Say to yourself now that you are a public man, standing
on an elevation, and that all your gestures can be seen from a distance.
The newspapers insult you; don't read them if you cannot conceal the
emotion they cause you. Don't do what I did with my blind man on Pont de
la Concorde, that horrible clarinet player, who has made my life a
burden for ten years, whistling at me every day: _De tes fils, Norma_. I
tried everything to make him go away, money, threats. Nothing would
induce him to go. The police? Oh! yes. With our modern ideas, to turn a
poor blind man off his bridge would become a momentous affair. The
opposition newspapers would speak of it, the Parisians would make a
fable of it. _The Cobbler and the Financier_; _The Duke and the
Clarinet._ I must resign myself to it. Indeed, it's my own fault. I
should not have shown the fellow that he annoyed me. I am confident that
my torture is half of his life now. Every morning he leaves his hovel
with his dog, his folding-stool and his horrible instrument, and says to
himself: 'Now I'll go and make life a burden to the Duc de Mora.' Not a
day does he miss, the villain. Look you! if I should open the window a
crack, you would hear that deluge of shrill little notes above the noise
of the water and the carriages. Very well! this _Messager_ man is your
clarinet; if you let him see that his music wearies you, he will never
stop. By the way, my dear deputy, let me remind you that you have a
committee meeting at three o'clock, and I shall see you very soon in the
Chamber."

Then, turning to Jenkins, he added: "You know what I asked you for,
Doctor,--pearls for day after to-morrow. And well loaded!"

Jenkins started and shook himself, as if suddenly aroused from a dream.

"I understand, my dear Duke; I'll supply you with breath--oh! breath
enough to win the Derby."

He bowed, and went away, laughing, a genuine wolf's laugh, showing his
white, parted teeth. The Nabob also took his leave, his heart
overflowing with gratitude, but not daring to allow that sceptic to see
anything of it, for any sort of demonstration aroused his distrust. And
the Minister of State, left alone, crouching in front of the crackling,
blazing fire, sheltered by the velvety warmth of his luxurious garments,
lined on that day by the feverish caress of a lovely May sun, began to
shiver anew, to shiver so violently that Felicia's letter, which he held
open in his blue fingers and read with amorous zest, trembled with a
rustling noise as of silk.

       *       *       *       *       *

A very peculiar situation is that of a deputy in the period which
follows his election and precedes--as they say in Parliamentary
parlance--the verification of his credentials. It bears some resemblance
to the plight of a husband during the twenty-four hours between the
marriage at the mayor's office and its consecration by the Church.
Rights one cannot use, a semi-happiness, semi-privileges, the annoyance
of having to hold oneself in check in one direction or another, the lack
of a definite standing. You are married without being married, a deputy
without being sure of it; but, in the case of the deputy, that
uncertainty is prolonged for days and weeks, and the longer it lasts the
more problematical the result becomes; and it is downright torture for
the unfortunate representative on trial to be obliged to go to the
Chamber, to occupy a seat which he may not keep, to listen to debates
whose conclusion he is likely not to hear, to implant in his eyes and
ears the delightful memory of parliamentary sessions, with their ocean
of bald or apoplectic heads, the endless noise of crumpled paper, the
shouts of the pages, the drumming of paper knives on the tables, and the
hum of private conversations, above which the orator's voice soars in a
timid or vociferous solo with a continuous accompaniment.

That situation, disheartening enough at best, was made worse for the
Nabob by the calumnious stones, whispered at first, now printed and put
in circulation by thousands of copies, which resulted in his being
tacitly quarantined by his colleagues. At first he went about in the
corridors, to the library, to the restaurant, to the Salle des
Conférences, like the others, overjoyed to leave his footprints in every
corner of that majestic labyrinth; but, being a stranger to the
majority, cut by some members of the club on Rue Royale, who avoided
him, detested by the whole clerical coterie, of which Le Merquier was
the leader, and by the financial clique, naturally hostile to that
billionaire, with his power to cause a rise or fall in stocks, like the
vessels of large tonnage which divert the channel in a harbor, his
isolation was simply emphasized by change of locality, and the same
hostility accompanied him everywhere.

His movements, his bearing were marked by a sort of constraint, of
hesitating distrust. He felt that he was watched. If he entered the
restaurant for a moment, that great light room looking on the gardens
of the presidency, which he liked because there, at the broad white
marble counter laden with food and drink, the deputies laid aside their
imposing, high and mighty airs, the legislative haughtiness became more
affable, recalled to naturalness by nature, he knew that a sneering,
insulting item would appear in the _Messager_ the next morning, holding
him up to his constituents as "a wine-bibber _emeritus_."

They were another source of vexation to him,--those terrible
constituents.

They came in flocks, invaded the Salle des Pas-Perdus, galloped about in
all directions like excited little black kids, calling from one end to
the other of the echoing hall: "O Pé! O Tché!" inhaling with delight the
odor of government, of administration that filled the air, making eyes
at the ministers who passed, sniffing at their heels, as if some prebend
were about to fall from their venerable pockets, from their swollen
portfolios; but crowding around "Moussiou" Jansoulet especially, with so
many urgent petitions, demands, demonstrations, that, in order to rid
himself of that gesticulating mob at which everybody turned to look, and
which made him seem like the delegate of a tribe of Touaregs in the
midst of a civilized people, he was obliged to glance imploringly at
some usher who was skilled in the art of rescue under such circumstances
and would come to him in a great hurry and say, "that he was wanted
immediately in the eighth committee." So that the poor Nabob,
persecuted everywhere, driven from the corridors, the Pas-Perdus, the
restaurant, had adopted the course of never leaving his bench, where he
sat motionless and mute throughout the sitting.

He had, however, one friend in the Chamber,--a deputy newly elected for
Deux-Sèvres, named M. Sarigue, a poor fellow not unlike the inoffensive,
ignoble animal whose name he bore,[2] with his sparse, red hair, his
frightened eyes, his hopping gait in his white gaiters. He was so shy
that he could not say two words without stammering, almost tongue-tied,
incessantly rolling balls of chewing-gum around in his mouth, which put
the finishing touch to the viscosity of his speech; and every one
wondered why such an impotent creature had cared to become a member of
the Assembly, what delirious female ambition had spurred on to public
office a man so unfitted for the least important private function.


FOOTNOTES:

[2] A _sarigue_ is an opossum.


By an amusing manifestation of the irony of fate, Jansoulet, who was
intensely agitated by the uncertainty concerning his own confirmation,
was chosen by the eighth committee to make the report on the Deux-Sèvres
election, and M. Sarigue, realizing his incapacity, full of a ghastly
dread of being sent back in disgrace to his own fireside, prowled humbly
and beseechingly around that tall, curly-haired worthy, whose broad
shoulder-blades moved back and forth like the bellows of a forge under
his fine tightly fitting frock-coat, little suspecting that a poor,
worried creature like himself was hidden beneath that solid envelope.

As he worked at the report of the election at Deux-Sèvres, going over
the numerous protests, the charges of electoral trickery, banquets
given, money squandered, casks of wine broached in front of the mayor's
office, the usual manoeuvres of an election in those days, Jansoulet
shuddered on his own account. "Why, I did all that!" he said to himself
in dismay. Ah! M. Sarigue need have no fear, he could never have put his
hand upon a more kindly-disposed judge or a more indulgent one, for the
Nabob, moved to pity for his patient, knowing by experience how painful
the agony of suspense is, did his work with all possible haste, and the
huge portfolio that he had under his arm when he left the hôtel de Mora,
contained his report, all ready to be read to the Committee.

Whether it was the thought of that first essay as a public officer, or
the duke's kind words, or the magnificent weather, which was keenly
enjoyed by that Southerner whose impressions were wholly physical, and
who was accustomed to transact business in the warm sunlight and beneath
the blue sky,--certain it is that the ushers of the Corps Législatif
beheld that day a superb and haughty Jansoulet whom they had not known
before. Old Hemerlingue's carriage, recognizable by the unusual width of
its doors, of which he caught a glimpse through the iron railing, was
all that was needed to put him in full possession of his natural
assurance and audacity.

"The enemy is at hand. Attention!" As he walked through the Salle des
Pas-Perdus, he saw the financier talking in a corner with Le Merquier,
the judge of his election, passed close by them and stared at them with
a triumphant air which made them wonder: "What in God's name has
happened to him?"

Then, enchanted by his own _sang-froid_, he walked toward the
committee-rooms, vast, high apartments, opening from both sides of a
long corridor, furnished with huge tables covered with green cloths and
heavy chairs of uniform pattern which bore the stamp of wearisome
solemnity. He reached his destination. Men were standing about in
groups, discussing, gesticulating, exchanging salutations and grasps of
the hand, throwing back their heads, like Chinese shadows, against the
bright background of the windows. There were some who walked alone, with
backs bent, as if crushed by the weight of thoughts that furrowed their
brows. Others whispered in one another's ears, imparting excessively
mysterious information of the utmost importance, putting a finger to
their lips, screwing up their eyes to enjoin secrecy. A provincial
flavor distinguished them all, with differences of inflection, Southern
excitability, the drawling accent of the Centre, Breton sing-song, all
blended in the same idiotic, strutting self-sufficiency; frock-coats
after the style of Landerneau, mountain shoes, and home-spun linen; the
monumental assurance of village clubs, local expressions, provincialisms
abruptly imported into political and administrative language, the limp,
colorless phraseology which invented "the burning questions returning to
the surface," and "individualities without a commission."

To see those worthies, excited or pensive as the case might be, you
would have said that they were the greatest breeders of ideas on earth;
unluckily, on the days when the Chamber was in session they were
transformed, they clung coyly to their benches, as frightened as
school-boys under the master's ferule, laughing obsequiously at the
jests of the man of wit who presided over them, or taking the floor to
put forward the most amazing propositions, or for interruptions of the
sort that make one think that it was not a type simply, but a whole race
that Henri Monnier stigmatized in his immortal sketch. Two or three
orators in the whole Chamber, the rest well skilled in the art of
planting themselves before the fire in a provincial salon, after an
excellent repast at the prefect's table, and saying in a nasal tone:
"The administration, Messieurs," or "The Emperor's government,"--but
incapable of going farther.

On ordinary occasions the good-natured Nabob allowed himself to be
dazzled by those attitudes, that clattering noise as of an empty
spinning-wheel; but to-day he found himself on a level with the others.
As he sat at the centre of the green table, his portfolio before him,
his two elbows firmly planted upon it, reading the report drawn by de
Géry, the members of the committee stared at him in mute amazement.

It was a clear, concise, rapid summary of their labors of the past
fortnight, in which they found their ideas so well expressed that they
had great difficulty in recognizing them. Then, when two or three among
them suggested that the report was too favorable, that he glided too
lightly over certain protests that had reached the committee, the maker
of the report spoke with surprising assurance, with the prolixity and
exuberance of men of his province, proved that a deputy should not be
held responsible beyond a certain point for the imprudence of his
electoral agents, that otherwise no election would stand against an
investigation that was at all minute; and as, in reality, he was
pleading his own cause, he displayed an irresistible warmth and
conviction, taking care to let fly from time to time one of the long
meaningless substantives with a thousand claws, of the sort that the
committee liked.

The others listened, deep in thought, exchanging their impressions by
nods of the head, drawing flourishes and faces on their blotting-pads
the better to fix their attention; a detail that harmonized with the
schoolboy-like noise in the corridors, a muttering as of lessons being
recited, and the flocks of sparrows chirping under the windows in a
flagged courtyard surrounded by arches, a veritable school-yard. The
report adopted, they sent for M. Sarigue to make some supplementary
explanations. He appeared, pale-faced, abashed, stammering like a
criminal before conviction, and you would have laughed to see the
patronizing, authoritative air with which Jansoulet encouraged and
reassured him: "Be calm, my dear colleague." But the members of the
eighth committee did not laugh. They were all, or almost all, of the
Sarigue species, two or three being absolutely nerveless, afflicted with
partial loss of the power of speech. Such self-assurance, such eloquence
had aroused their enthusiasm.

When Jansoulet left the Corps Législatif, escorted to his carriage by
his grateful colleague, it was about six o'clock. The superb weather, a
gorgeous sunset over by the Trocadéro, across the Seine, which shone
like burnished gold, tempted that robust plebeian, whom the conventional
proprieties of his position compelled to ride in a carriage and to wear
gloves, but who dispensed with them as often as possible, to return on
foot. He sent away his servants, and started across Pont de la Concorde,
his leather satchel under his arm. He had known no such feeling of
contentment since the first of May. Throwing back his shoulders, with
his hat tipped slightly back in the attitude he had noticed in men who
were worried, overdone with business, allowing all the toil-born fever
of their brain to evaporate in the fresh air, as a factory discharges
its vapor into the gutter at the close of a day of labor, he walked on
among other figures like his own, evidently just from the pillared
temple that faces the Madeleine beyond the monumental fountains of the
square. As they passed, people turned and said: "They are deputies." And
Jansoulet felt a childlike joy, a vulgar joy compounded of ignorance
and ingenuous vanity.

"Buy the _Messager_ evening edition."

The words came from the newspaper booth at the end of the bridge, filled
at that hour with piles of freshly printed sheets which two women were
hastily folding and which smelt of the damp press, of the latest news,
the triumph of the day or its scandal. Almost all the deputies purchased
a copy as they passed, and ran through it rapidly, hoping to find their
names. Jansoulet, for his part, dreaded to see his and did not stop. But
suddenly he thought: "Ought not a public man to be above such weaknesses
as this? I am strong enough to read anything now." He retraced his steps
and took a paper like his colleagues. He opened it very calmly at the
place usually occupied by Moëssard's articles. There was one there.
Still the same title: _Chinoiseries_, and an M. for signature.

"Aha!" said the public man, as unmoved and cold as marble, with a fine,
scornful smile. Mora's lesson was still ringing in his ears, and even if
he had forgotten it, the air from _Norma_ in jerky, ironical little
notes not far away would have sufficed to remind him of it. But, however
carefully we may make our calculations in the rush of events in our
lives, we must still reckon with the unforeseen; and that is why the
Nabob suddenly found himself blinded by a rush of blood to his eyes,
while a cry of rage was stifled by the sudden contraction of his throat.
His mother, his old Françoise, was dragged into the infamous jest of
the "flower boat" at last. How well that Moëssard aimed, how well he
knew the really sensitive spots in that heart, so innocently laid bare!

"Be calm, Jansoulet, be calm."

In vain did he repeat the injunction in every tone,--anger, furious
anger, the drunkenness of blood demanding blood enveloped him. His first
impulse was to stop a cab and hurl himself into it, in order to escape
the irritating street, to rid his body of the necessity of walking and
choosing a path--to stop a cab as for a wounded man. But at that hour of
general home-coming the square was crowded with hundreds of victorias,
calèches, coupés, descending from the resplendent glory of the
Arc-de-Triomphe toward the purple freshness of the Tuileries, crowding
closely upon one another down the inclined surface of the avenue to the
great cross-roads where the motionless statues, standing firmly on their
pedestals with their wreath-encircled brows, watched them diverge toward
Faubourg Saint-Germain, Rue Royale and Rue de Rivoli.

Jansoulet, newspaper in hand, made his way through the uproar, without
thinking of it, bending his steps instinctively toward the club, where
he went every day to play cards from six to seven. He was a public man
still; but intensely excited, talking aloud, stammering oaths and
threats in a voice that suddenly became soft once more as he thought of
the dear old woman.--To think of rolling her in the mire too! Oh! if she
should read it, if she could understand! What punishment could he
invent for such an infamous outrage? He reached Rue Royale, where
equipages of all sorts returning from the Bois bowled swiftly homeward,
with whirling axles, visions of veiled women and children's curly heads,
bringing a little vegetable mould to the pavements of Paris and whiffs
of spring mingled with the perfume of rice-powder. In front of the
Ministry of Marine, a phaeton perched very high upon slender wheels,
bearing a strong resemblance to a huge field-spider, the little groom
clinging behind and the two persons on the box-seat forming its body,
came very near colliding with the sidewalk as it turned.

The Nabob raised his head, and restrained an exclamation.

Beside a painted hussy with red hair, wearing a tiny little hat with
broad ribbons, who, from her perch on her leather cushion, was driving
the horse with her hands, her eyes, her whole made-up person, stiffly
erect, yet leaning forward, sat Moëssard, Moëssard the dandy,
pink-cheeked and painted like his companion, raised on the same
dung-heap, fattened on the same vices. The strumpet and the journalist,
and she was not the one of the two who sold herself most shamelessly!
Towering above the women lolling in their calèches, the men who sat
opposite them buried under flounces, all the attitudes of fatigue and
ennui which they whose appetites are sated display in public as if in
scorn of pleasure and wealth, they insolently exhibited themselves, she
very proud to drive the queen's lover, and he without the slightest
shame beside that creature who flicked her whip at men in passage-ways,
safe on her lofty perch from the salutary drag-nets of the police.
Perhaps he found it necessary to quicken his royal mistress's pulses by
thus parading under her windows with Suzanne Bloch, _alias_ Suze la
Rousse.

"Hi! hi there!"

The horse, a tall trotter with slender legs, a genuine cocotte's horse,
was returning from his digression, toward the middle of the street, with
dancing steps, prancing gracefully up and down without going forward.
Jansoulet dropped his satchel, and as if he had cast aside at the same
time all his gravity, his prestige as a public man, he gave a mighty
leap and grasped the animal's bit, holding him fast with his strong
hairy hands.

An arrest on Rue Royale and in broad daylight; no one but that Tartar
would have dared do such a thing!

"Get down," he said to Moëssard, whose face turned green and yellow in
spots when he recognized him. "Get down at once."

"Will you let go my horse, you fat beast!--Lash him, Suzanne, it's the
Nabob."

She tried to gather up the reins, but the animal, held in a powerful
grasp, reared so suddenly that in another second the fragile vehicle
would have shot out all that it contained, like a sling. Thereupon,
carried away by one of the furious fits of rage peculiar to the
faubourg, which in such girls as she scale off the varnish of their
luxury and their false skin, she struck the Nabob two blows with her
whip, which glided off the hard, tanned face, but gave it a ferocious
expression, accentuated by the short nose, slit at the end like a
hunting terrier's, which had turned white.

"Get down, or, by God, I will overturn the whole thing!"

In a confused mass of carriages, standing still because movement was
impossible or slowly skirting the obstacle, with thousands of curious
eyes, amid the shouts of drivers and clashing of bits, two iron wrists
shook the whole phaeton.

"Jump down--jump, I say--don't you see he's going to tip us over? What a
grip!"

And the girl gazed at the Hercules with interest.

Moëssard had hardly put his foot to the ground, when, before he could
take refuge on the sidewalk, where black _képis_ were hastening to the
scene, Jansoulet threw himself upon him, lifted him by the nape of the
neck like a rabbit, and exclaimed, heedless of his protestations, his
terrified, stammering entreaties:

"Yes, yes, I'll give you satisfaction, you miserable scoundrel. But
first I propose to do to you what we do to dirty beasts so that they
sha'n't come back again."

And he began to rub him, to scrub his face mercilessly with his
newspaper, which he held like a _tampon_ and with which he choked and
blinded him and made great raw spots where the paint bled. They dragged
him from his hands, purple and breathless. If he had worked himself up a
little more, he would have killed him.

The scuffle at an end, the Nabob pulled down his sleeves, which had
risen to his elbows, smoothed his rumpled linen, picked up his satchel
from which the papers relating to the Sarigue election had scattered as
far as the gutter, and replied to the police officers, who asked him his
name in order to prepare their report: "Bernard Jansoulet, Deputy for
Corsica."

A public man!

Not until then did he remember that he was one. Who would have suspected
it, to see him thus, out of breath and bareheaded, like a porter after a
street fight, under the inquisitive, coldly contemptuous glances of the
slowly dispersing crowd?




XVII.

THE APPARITION.


If you wish for sincere, straightforward passion, if you wish for
effusive demonstrations of affection, laughter, the laughter of great
happiness, which differs from tears only in a very slight movement of
the mouth, if you wish for the fascinating folly of youth illumined by
bright eyes, so transparent that you can look to the very bottom of the
soul, there are all of those to be seen this Sunday morning in a house
that you know, a new house on the outskirts of the old faubourg. The
show-case on the ground-floor is more brilliant than usual. The signs
over the door dance about more airily than ever, and through the open
windows issue joyous cries, a soaring heavenward of happiness.

"Accepted, it's accepted! Oh! what luck! Henriette, Élise, come, come!
M. Maranne's play is accepted."

André has known the news since yesterday. Cardailhac, the manager of the
Nouveautés, sent for him to inform him that his play would be put in
rehearsal at once and produced next month. They passed the evening
discussing the stage setting, the distribution of parts; and, as it was
too late to knock at his neighbors' door when he returned from the
theatre, he waited for morning with feverish impatience, and as soon as
he heard signs of life below, the blinds thrown back against the
house-front, he hurried down to tell his friends the good news. And now
they are all together, the young ladies in modest _déshabillé_, their
hair hastily braided, and M. Joyeuse, whom the announcement had
surprised in the act of shaving, presenting an astonishing bipartite
face beneath his embroidered night-cap, with one side shaved, the other
not. But the most excited of all is André Maranne, for you know what the
acceptance of _Révolte_ meant to him, what agreement Grandmamma had made
with him. The poor fellow looks at her as if seeking encouragement in
her eyes; and those eyes, kindly as always, and with a slight suggestion
of raillery, seem to say to him: "Try, at all events. What do you risk?"
He also glances, in order to give himself courage, at Mademoiselle
Élise, pretty as a flower, her long lashes lowered. At last, making a
bold effort, he says, in a choking voice:

"Monsieur Joyeuse, I have a very serious communication to make to you."

M. Joyeuse is surprised.

"A communication? _Mon Dieu!_ you terrify me."

And he too lowers his voice as he adds:

"Are these young ladies in the way?"

No. Grandmamma knows what is going on. Mademoiselle Élise, too, must
have a suspicion. That leaves only the children. Mademoiselle Henriette
and her sister are requested to retire, which they do at once, the
former with a majestic, annoyed air, like a worthy descendant of the
Saint-Amands, the other, the little monkey Yaia, with a wild desire to
laugh, dissembled with difficulty.

Profound silence ensues. Then the lover begins his little story.

I should say that Mademoiselle Élise does in very truth suspect
something, for as soon as their young neighbor spoke of a
"communication," she had taken her _Ansart et Rendu_ from her pocket and
plunged madly into the adventures of a certain Le Hutin, an exciting
passage which made the book tremble in her fingers. Surely there is
cause for trembling in the dismay, the indignant amazement with which M.
Joyeuse welcomes this request for his daughter's hand.

"Is it possible? How did this come about? What an extraordinary thing!
Whoever would have suspected anything of the sort!"

And suddenly the good man bursts into a roar of laughter. Well, no, that
is not true. He has known what was going on for a long while; some one
told him the whole story.

Father knows the whole story! Then Grandmamma must have betrayed them.
And the culprit comes forward smiling to meet the reproachful glances
that are turned in her direction.

"Yes, my dears, I did. The secret was too heavy. I could not keep it all
by myself. And then father is so dear, one cannot conceal anything from
him."

As she says this, she leaps on the little man's neck, but it is large
enough for two, and when Mademoiselle Élise takes refuge there in her
turn, there is an affectionate, fatherly hand extended to him whom M.
Joyeuse looks upon thenceforth as his son.

Silent embraces, long searching glances, melting or passionate, blissful
moments which one would like to detain forever by the tips of their
fragile wings! They talk, they laugh softly as they recall certain
incidents. M. Joyeuse tells how the secret was revealed to him at first
by rapping spirits, one day when he was alone in André's room. "How is
business, Monsieur Maranne?" the spirits inquired, and he answered in
Maranne's absence: "Not so bad for the season, Messieurs Spirits." You
should see the mischievous air with which the little man repeats: "Not
so bad for the season," while Mademoiselle Élise, sadly confused at the
thought that it was her father with whom she was corresponding that day,
disappears beneath her flaxen curls.

After the first excitement has passed and their voices are steady once
more, they talk more seriously. It is certain that Madame Joyeuse, _née_
de Saint-Amand, would never have consented to the marriage. André
Maranne is not rich, far less of noble blood; but luckily the old
book-keeper has not the same ideas of grandeur that his wife had. They
love each other, they are young, healthy and virtuous, qualities which
constitute a handsome dowry and one which the notary will not make a
heavy charge for recording. The new household will take up its abode on
the floor above. They will continue the photographing business unless
the receipts from _Révolte_ are enormous. (The _Imaginaire_ can be
trusted to attend to that.) In any event, the father will be always at
hand, he has a good place with his broker and some expert work at the
Palais de Justice; if the small vessel sails always in the wake of the
larger one, all will go well, with the help of the waves, the wind and
the stars.

A single question disturbs M. Joyeuse: "Will André's parents consent to
this marriage? How can Dr. Jenkins, rich and famous as he is--"

"Let us not speak of that man," exclaims André, turning pale; "he's a
miserable villain to whom I owe nothing, who is nothing to me."

He pauses, a little embarrassed by this explosion of wrath, which he
could not hold back and cannot explain, and continues in a milder tone:

"My mother, who comes to see me sometimes, although she has been
forbidden to do so, was the first to be informed of our plans. She
already loves Mademoiselle Élise like her own daughter. You will see,
Mademoiselle, how good she is, and how lovely and charming. What a
misfortune that she belongs to such a vile man, who tyrannizes over her
and tortures her so far as to forbid her mentioning her son's name!"

Poor Maranne heaves a sigh which tells the whole story of the great
sorrow he conceals in the depths of his heart. But what melancholy can
endure before the dear face illumined by fair curls and the radiant
outlook for the future? The serious questions decided, they can open the
door and recall the banished children. In order not to fill those little
heads with thoughts beyond their years, they have agreed to say nothing
of the prodigious event, to tell them nothing except that they must
dress in haste and eat their breakfast even more hurriedly, so that they
can pass the afternoon at the Bois, where Maranne will read his play to
them, awaiting the hour to go to Suresnes for a fish-dinner at
Kontzen's; a long programme of delights in honor of the acceptance of
_Révolte_ and of another piece of good news which they shall know later.

"Ah! indeed. What can it be?" query the two children with an innocent
air.

But if you fancy that they do not know what is in the wind, if you think
that, when Mademoiselle Élise struck three blows on the ceiling, they
believed that she did it for the special purpose of inquiring about the
photographing business, you are even more ingenuous than Père Joyeuse.

"Never mind, never mind, mesdemoiselles. Go and dress."

Thereupon another refrain begins:

"What dress must I wear, Grandmamma? The gray?"

"Grandmamma, there's a ribbon gone from my hat."

"Grandmamma, my child, I haven't any starched cravat."

For ten minutes there is a constant going and coming around the charming
Grandmamma, constant appeals to her. Every one needs her, she keeps the
keys to everything, distributes the pretty, finely fluted white linen,
the embroidered handkerchiefs, the best gloves, all the treasures which,
when produced from bandboxes and cupboards and laid out upon the beds,
spread throughout a house the sunshiny cheerfulness of Sunday.

The laboring men, the people who work with their hands, alone know the
joy that comes with the end of each week, consecrated by the custom of a
nation. For those people, prisoners throughout the week, the crowded
lines of the almanac open at equal intervals in luminous spaces, in
refreshing whiffs of air. Sunday, the day that seems so long to worldly
people, to the Parisians of the boulevard, whose fixed habits it
deranges, and so melancholy to exiles without a family, is the day which
constitutes to a multitude of people the only recompense, the only goal
of six days of toil. Neither rain nor hail makes any difference to them;
nothing will prevent them from going out, from closing the door of the
deserted workshop or the stuffy little lodging behind them. But when the
springtime takes a hand, when a May sun is shining as it is shining this
morning and Sunday can array itself in joyous colors, then indeed it is
the holiday of holidays.

If you would appreciate it to the full, you must see it in the laboring
quarters, in those dismal streets which it illumines, which it makes
broader by closing the shops, housing the great vans, leaving the space
free for the romping of children with clean faces and in their best
clothes, and games of battledore mingled with circling flocks of
swallows under some porch in old Paris. You must see it in the swarming,
fever-stricken faubourgs where from early morning you feel it hovering,
soothing and grateful, over the silent factories, passing with the clang
of bells and the shrill whistle of the locomotives, which give the
impression of a mighty hymn of departure and deliverance arising from
all the suburbs. Then you appreciate it and love it.

O thou Parisian Sunday, Sunday of the working man and the humble, I have
often cursed thee without reason, I have poured out floods of abusive
ink upon thy noisy, effervescent joy, the dusty railway stations filled
with thy uproar, and the lumbering omnibuses which thou takest by
assault, upon thy wine-shop ballads roared forth in spring-carts
bedecked with green and pink dresses, thy barrel-organs wheezing under
balconies in deserted court-yards; but to-day, renouncing my errors, I
exalt thee and bless thee for all the joy and relief thou bringest to
courageous, honorable toil, for the laughter of the children who acclaim
thee, for the pride of happy mothers dressing their little ones in thy
honor, for the dignity which thou dost keep alive in the dwellings of
the lowliest, for the gorgeous apparel put aside for thee in the depths
of the old crippled wardrobe; above all I bless thee for all the
happiness which thou didst bring in full measure that morning to the
great new house on the outskirts of the old faubourg.

The toilets completed, the breakfast hastily swallowed,[3] they are
putting on their hats in front of the mirror in the salon. Grandmamma is
casting her eye around for the last time, sticking in a pin here,
retying a ribbon there, adjusting the paternal cravat; but, while all
the little party are pawing the floor impatiently, beckoned out of doors
by the beauty of the day, suddenly their gayety is clouded by a ring at
the door-bell.


FOOTNOTES:

[3] There is in the text at this point a play upon words which it is
impossible to render in English. "Les toilettes terminées, le déjeuner
fini, pris sur le pouce--et sur le pouce de ces demoiselles vous pensez
ce qu'il peut tenir," etc., that is to say: "the breakfast at an end,
taken upon the thumb--and you can imagine how much the thumbs of those
young ladies would hold." To eat _sur le pouce_ (eat upon the thumb)
means to eat hastily, without taking time to sit down.


"Suppose we don't go to the door?" the children suggest.

And what relief, what a shout of joy when friend Paul appears!

"Come quick, quick; let us tell you the good news!"

He knew before anybody else that the play was accepted. He had had
difficulty enough in making Cardailhac read it, for at the first sight
of the "little lines," as he called the verses, he wanted to send the
manuscript to the Levantine and her _masseur_, as he did with all the
rubbish that was sent to him. But Paul was careful not to speak of his
intervention. As for the other great event, which was not mentioned
because of the children, he guessed it without difficulty from the
tremulous happiness of Maranne, whose fair hair stood straight on end
over his forehead,--because the poet constantly thrust both hands
through it, as he always did in his moments of joy,--from the slightly
embarrassed demeanor of Élise, and from the triumphant airs of M.
Joyeuse, who stood proudly erect in his spotless linen, with all the
happiness of his dear ones written on his face.

Grandmamma alone preserved her usual tranquil bearing; but one detected
in her, in the zeal with which she waited upon her sister, a more
affectionate warmth than usual, a wish to make her attractive. And it
was delightful to see that girl of twenty intent upon beautifying
another, without envy or regret, with something of the sweet
renunciation of a mother celebrating her daughter's young love in memory
of her own bygone happiness. Paul saw it, indeed he was the only one who
saw it; but, while he gazed in admiration at Aline, he asked himself
sadly if there would ever be room in that motherly heart for other than
family attachments, for interests outside of the tranquil circle of
light in which Grandmamma presided so prettily over the work-table in
the evening.

Love, as we know, is a poor blind boy, bereft of speech and hearing as
well, and with no other guide than prescience, divination, the nervous
faculties of the invalid. Really, it is pitiful to see him wander about,
feeling his way, faltering at every step, tapping with his fingers the
projections upon which he depends for guidance, with the distrustful
awkwardness of an infirm old man. At the very moment when he was
mentally casting a doubt upon Aline's susceptibility, Paul, having
informed his friends that he was about to leave Paris for a journey of
several days, of several weeks perhaps, did not notice the girl's sudden
pallor, did not hear the sorrowful exclamation from her discreet lips:

"You are going away?"

He was going away, he was going to Tunis, very uneasy at the idea of
leaving his poor Nabob in the midst of his bloodthirsty pack of
pursuers; however, Mora's friendship reassured him somewhat, and,
moreover, the journey was absolutely necessary.

"And what about the _Territoriale_?" asked the old book-keeper, always
recurring to his fixed idea. "How does that stand? I see that
Jansoulet's name is still at the head of the administrative council.
Can't you get him out of that Ali Baba's cave? Beware, beware!"

"Ah! I know it, Monsieur Joyeuse. But in order to get out of it with
honor, we must have money, much money, must sacrifice two or three
millions more; and we haven't them. That is why I am going to Tunis, to
try and extort from the bey's rapacity a small portion of the great
fortune which he so unjustly withholds. At this moment I have some
chance of success, whereas a little later perhaps--"

"Go at once then, my dear boy, and if you return with a bag full of
money as I trust you will, attend first of all to the Paganetti gang.
Remember that one shareholder less patient than the rest will be enough
to blow the whole thing into the air, to demand an inquiry; and you know
as well as I what an inquiry would disclose. On reflection," added M.
Joyeuse, wrinkling his brow, "I am surprised that Hemerlingue in his
hatred of you has not secretly procured a few shares--"

He was interrupted by the concert of maledictions, of imprecations which
the name of Hemerlingue always called forth from all those young people,
who hated the corpulent banker for the injury he had done their father
and for the injury he wished to do the worthy Nabob, who was adored in
that household for Paul de Géry's sake.

"Hemerlingue, the heartless creature! Villain! Wicked man!"

But, amid that chorus of outcries, the _Imaginaire_ worked out his
theory of the stout baron becoming a shareholder in the _Territoriale_
in order to drag his enemy before the courts. And we can imagine André
Maranne's stupefaction, knowing absolutely nothing of the affair, when
he saw M. Joyeuse turn toward him, his face purple and swollen with
rage, and point his finger at him with these terrible words:

"The greatest rascal here is yourself, monsieur!"

"O papa, papa! what are you saying?"

"Eh? What's that?--Oh! I beg your pardon, my dear André. I imagined
that I was in the examining magistrate's office, confronting that
villain. It's my infernal brain that is forever rushing off to the
devil."

A roar of laughter rang out through all the open windows, mingling with
the rumbling of innumerable carriages and the chatter of gayly-dressed
crowds on Avenue des Ternes; and the author of _Révolte_ took advantage
of the diversion to inquire if they did not propose to start soon. It
was late--the good places in the Bois would all be taken.

"The Bois de Boulogne, on Sunday!" exclaimed Paul de Géry.

"Oh! our Bois is not the same as yours," replied Aline with a smile.
"Come with us, and you will see."

       *       *       *       *       *

Has it ever happened to you, when you were walking alone and in
contemplative mood, to lie flat on your face in the grassy underbrush of
a forest, amid the peculiar vegetation, of many and varying species,
that grows between the fallen autumn leaves, and to let your eyes stray
along the level of the earth before you? Gradually the idea of height
vanishes, the interlaced branches of the oaks above your head form an
inaccessible sky, and you see a new forest stretching out beneath the
other, opening its long avenues pierced by a mysterious green light and
lined by slender or tufted shrubs ending in round tops of exotic or wild
aspect, stalks of sugar-cane, the graceful rigidity of palms, slender
cups holding a drop of water, girandoles bearing little yellow lights
which flicker in the passing breeze. And the miraculous feature of it
all is that beneath those slender stalks live miniature plants and
myriads of insects whose existence, seen at such close quarters, reveals
all its mysteries to you. An ant, staggering like a woodcutter under his
burden, drags a piece of bark larger than himself; a beetle crawls along
a blade of grass stretched like a bridge from trunk to trunk; while,
beneath a tall fern standing by itself in a clearing carpeted with
velvety moss, some little blue or red creature waits, its antennæ on the
alert, until some other beast, on its way thither by some deserted path,
arrives at the rendezvous under the gigantic tree. It is a small forest
beneath the large one, too near the ground for the latter to perceive
it, too humble, too securely hidden to be reached by its grand orchestra
of songs and tempests.

A similar phenomenon takes place in the Bois de Boulogne. Behind those
neat, well-watered gravelled paths, where long lines of wheels moving
slowly around the lake draw a furrow by constant wear throughout the
day, with the precision of a machine, behind that wonderful
stage-setting of verdure-covered walls, of captive streams, of
flower-girt rocks, the real forest, the wild forest, with its luxuriant
underbrush, advances and recedes, forming impenetrable shadows traversed
by narrow paths and rippling brooks. That is the forest of the lowly,
the forest of the humble, the little forest under the great. And Paul,
who knew nothing of the aristocratic resort save the long avenues, the
gleaming lake as seen from the back seat of a carriage or from the top
of a break in the dust of a return from Longchamps, was amazed to see
the deliciously secluded nook to which his friends escorted him.

It was on the edge of a pond that lay mirrorlike beneath the willows,
covered with lilies and lentils, with great patches of white here and
there, where the sun's rays fell upon the gleaming surface, and streaked
with great tendrils of _argyronètes_ as with lines drawn by diamond
points.

They had seated themselves, to listen to the reading of the play, on the
sloping bank, covered with verdure already dense, although made up of
slender plants, and the pretty attentive faces, the skirts spread out
upon the grass made one think of a more innocent and chaste Decameron in
a reposeful atmosphere. To complete the picture of nature at its
loveliest, the distant rustic landscape, two windmills could be seen
through an opening between the branches, turning in the direction of
Suresnes, while, of the dazzling gorgeous vision to be seen at every
cross-road in the Bois, naught reached them save a confused endless
rumbling, to which they finally became so accustomed that they did not
hear it at all. The poet's voice alone, fresh and eloquent, rose in the
silence, the lines came quivering forth, repeated in undertones by other
deeply-moved lips, and there were murmured words of approval, and
thrills of emotion at the tragic passages. Grandmamma, indeed, was seen
to wipe away a great tear. But that was because she had no embroidery in
her hand.

The first work! That is what _Révolte_ was to André--the first work,
always too copious and diffuse, into which the author tosses first of
all a whole lifetime of ideas and opinions, pressing for utterance like
water against the edge of a dam, and which is often the richest, if not
the best, of an author's productions. As for the fate that awaited it,
no one could say what it might be; and the uncertainty that hovered
about the reading of the drama added to his emotion the emotion of each
of his auditors, the white-robed hopes of Mademoiselle Élise, M.
Joyeuse's fanciful hallucinations and the more positive desires of
Aline, who was already in anticipation installing her sister in the
nest, rocked by the winds but envied by the multitude, of an artist's
household!

Ah! if one of those pleasure-seekers circling the lake for the hundredth
time, overwhelmed by the monotony of his habit, had chanced to put aside
the branches, how surprised he would have been at that picture! But
would he have suspected all the passion and dreams and poetry and hope
that were contained in that little nook of verdure hardly larger than
the denticulated shadow of a fern on the moss?

"You were right, I did not know the Bois," said Paul in an undertone to
Aline, as she leaned on his arm.

They were following a narrow sheltered path, and as they talked they
walked very rapidly, far in advance of the others. But it was not Père
Kontzen's terrace nor his crisp fritters that attracted them. No, the
noble verses they had heard had carried them to a great height, and they
had not yet descended. They walked straight on toward the ever-receding
end of the path, which broadened at its extremity into a luminous glory,
a dust of sunbeams, as if all the sunshine of that lovely day awaited
them at the edge of the woods. Paul had never felt so happy. The light
arm resting on his, the childlike step by which his own was guided,
would have made life as sweet and pleasant to him as that walk upon the
mossy carpet of a green path. He would have told the young girl as much,
in words as simple as his feelings, had he not feared to alarm Aline's
confidence, caused doubtless by the feeling which she knew that he
entertained for another, and which seemed to forbid any thought of love
between them.

Suddenly, directly in front of them, a group of equestrians stood out
against the bright background, at first vague and indistinct, then
taking shape as a man and woman beautifully mounted and turning into the
mysterious path among the shafts of gold, the leafy shadows, the myriad
specks of light with which the ground was dotted, which they displaced
as they cantered forward, and which ran in fanciful designs from the
horses' breasts to the Amazon's veil. They rode slowly, capriciously,
and the two young people, who had stepped into the bushes, could see
perfectly as they passed quite near to them, with a creaking of new
leather, a jangling of bits tossed proudly and white with foam as after
a wild gallop, two superb horses bearing a human couple compelled to
ride close together by the narrowing of the path; he supporting with one
arm the flexible form moulded into a waist of dark cloth, she, with her
hand on her companion's shoulder and her little head, in profile--hidden
beneath the tulle of her half-fallen veil--resting tenderly thereon.
That amorous entwining, cradled by the impatience of the steeds, restive
under the restraint imposed upon their fiery spirits, that kiss, causing
the reins to become entangled, that passion riding through the woods in
hunting costume, in broad daylight, with such contempt of public
opinion, would have sufficed to betray the duke and Felicia, even though
the haughty and fascinating appearance of the Amazon, and the high-bred
ease of her companion, his pallid cheeks slightly flushed by the
exercise and Jenkins' miraculous pearls, had not already led to their
recognition.

It was not an extraordinary thing to meet Mora in the Bois on Sunday.
He, like his master, loved to show himself to the Parisians, to keep his
popularity alive in all public places; and then the duchess never
accompanied him on that day, and he could draw rein without restraint at
the little châlet of Saint-James, known to all Paris, whose pink turrets
peering out among the trees school-boys pointed out to one another with
whispered comments. But only a madwoman, a shameless creature like that
Felicia, would advertise herself thus, destroy her reputation forever.
The sound of hoofs and of rustling bushes dying away in the distance,
bent weeds standing erect, branches thrust aside resuming their
places--that was all that remained of the apparition.

"Did you see?" Paul was the first to ask.

She had seen and she had understood, despite her virtuous innocence, for
a blush overspread her features, caused by the shame we feel for the
sins of those we love.

"Poor Felicia!" she whispered, pitying not only the poor abandoned
creature who had passed before them, but him as well whom that fall from
grace was certain to strike full in the heart. The truth is that Paul de
Géry was in no wise surprised by that meeting, which confirmed some
previous suspicions and the instinctive repulsion he had felt for the
seductive creature at their dinner-party some days before. But it seemed
sweet to him to be pitied by Aline, to feel her sympathy in the
increased tenderness of her voice, in the arm that leaned more heavily
upon his. Like children who play at being ill for the joy of being
petted by their mothers, he allowed the comforter to do her utmost to
soothe his disappointment, to talk to him of his brothers, of the Nabob,
and of the impending journey to Tunis, a beautiful country, so it was
said. "You must write to us often, and write long letters about the
interesting things you see and about the place you live in. For we can
see those who are far away from us better when we can form an idea of
their surroundings."--Chatting thus, they reached the end of the shady
path, at a vast clearing where the tumult of the Bois was in full blast,
carriages and equestrians alternating, and the crowd tramping in a
fleecy dust which gave it, at that distance, the appearance of a
disorderly flock of sheep. Paul slackened his pace, emboldened by that
last moment of solitude.

"Do you know what I am thinking?" he said, taking Aline's hand; "that
any one would enjoy being unhappy for the sake of being comforted by
you. But, precious as your sympathy is to me, I cannot allow you to
expend your emotion upon an imaginary grief. No, my heart is not broken,
but, on the contrary, more alive, more vigorous than before. And if I
should tell you what miracle has preserved it, what talisman--"

He placed before her eyes a little oval frame surrounding a profile
without shading, a simple pencil sketch in which she recognized herself,
surprised to find that she was so pretty, as if reflected in the magic
mirror of Love. Tears came to her eyes, although she knew not why,--an
open spring whose pulsing flood caused her chaste heart to beat fast.

"This portrait belongs to me. It was made for me. But now, as I am on
the point of going away, I am assailed by a scruple. I prefer not to
keep it except from your own hands. So take it, and if you find a
worthier friend, one who loves you with a deeper, truer love than mine,
I authorize you to give it to him."

She had recovered from her confusion, and replied, looking de Géry in
the face with affectionate gravity:

"If I listened to nothing but my heart, I should not hesitate to answer
you; for, if you love me as you say you do, I am sure that I love you no
less. But I am not free, I am not alone in life,--look!"

She pointed to her father and sisters who were motioning to them in the
distance and hurrying to overtake them.

"Even so! And I?" said Paul eagerly. "Have I not the same duties, the
same burdens? We are like two widowed heads of families. Will you not
love mine as dearly as I love yours?"

"Do you mean it? Is it true? You will let me stay with them? I shall be
Aline to you and still be Grandmamma to all our children? Oh! then,"
said the dear creature, beaming with joy and radiance, "then here is my
picture, I give it to you. And, with it, all my heart, and forever."




XVIII.

THE JENKINS PEARLS.


About a week after his adventure with Moëssard,--a new complication in
his sadly muddled affairs,--Jansoulet, on leaving the Chamber one
Thursday, ordered his coachman to drive him to the hôtel de Mora. He had
not been there since the fracas on Rue Royale, and the idea of appearing
before the duke caused something of the same panicky sensation beneath
his tough epidermis that a schoolboy feels on being summoned before the
master after a scuffle in the class-room. However, it was necessary to
submit to the embarrassment of that first interview. It was currently
reported in the committee rooms that Le Merquier had completed his
report, a masterpiece of logic and ferocity, recommending that Jansoulet
be unseated, and that he was certain to carry his point off-hand unless
Mora, whose power in the Assembly was so great, should himself issue
contrary orders. A serious crisis, as will be seen, and one that caused
his cheeks to burn with fever as he studied the expression of his
features and his courtier-like smiles in the bevelled mirrors of his
coupé, striving to prepare an adroit entry into the presence,--one of
his masterstrokes of amiable impudence which had served him so well with
Ahmed and thus far with the French statesman,--the whole accompanied by
a rapid beating of the heart and the shivering sensation between the
shoulders which precedes decisive steps, even when taken in a carriage
with gilded panels.

When he reached the mansion on the river bank, he was greatly surprised
to see that the footman on the quay, as on the days of great receptions,
ordered the carriages to turn into Rue de Lille in order to leave one
gateway free for exit. He said to himself, a little disturbed in mind:
"What is going on?" Perhaps a concert given by the duchess, a charity
bazaar, or some festivity from which Mora had left him out because of
the scandal caused by his last adventure. And his anxiety augmented
when, after crossing the court of honor amid the tumult of slamming
carriage-doors and a constant, dull rumbling on the gravel, he had
ascended the steps and found himself in the vast reception-room filled
to overflowing with a great throng who were allowed to pass none of the
inner doors, but whose anxious steps centred about the table of the
servant in attendance, where all the famous names of aristocratic Paris
were being inscribed. It seemed as if a sudden blast of disaster had
passed through the house, swept away something of its superb
tranquillity and allowed unrest and danger to creep into its
well-being.

"What a misfortune!"

"Ah! yes, it is terrible."

"And so sudden!"

The people around him exchanged such phrases as they met. A thought
passed swiftly through Jansoulet's mind.

"Is the duke ill?" he asked a servant.

"Ah! monsieur. He is dying. He cannot live through the night."

If the roof of the palace had fallen in upon his head, it would not have
crushed him more completely. He saw red butterflies whirling around
before his eyes, then staggered and fell upon the velvet-covered bench
beside the great cage of monkeys, who, over-excited by all the turmoil,
clung in a bunch to the bars, hanging by their tails or by their little
long-thumbed hands, and in their frightened inquisitiveness assailed
with the most extravagant grimaces of their race the stout bewildered
man, who sat staring at the floor and repeating to himself aloud: "I am
lost! I am lost!"

The duke was dying. He had been taken suddenly ill on Sunday while
returning from the Bois. He had felt an intolerable burning sensation
which seemed to outline, as with a red-hot iron, the whole internal
structure of his body, alternating with chills and numbness and long
periods of drowsiness. Jenkins, being summoned at once, prescribed some
sedative remedies. The next day the pains returned, more intense than
before, and followed by the same icy torpor, also intensified, as if
life were leaving him by fierce leaps and bounds, uprooted. No one in
the household was at all disturbed. "The day after Saint-James," callers
whispered to one another in the reception-room, and Jenkins' handsome
face retained its serenity. He mentioned the duke's indisposition to but
two or three persons in his morning round of visits, and so lightly that
no one thought anything of it.

Mora himself, despite his extreme weakness, and although he felt as if
his head were absolutely empty, "not an idea behind his forehead," as he
expressed it, was very far from suspecting the gravity of his condition.
Not until the third day, when, upon waking in the morning, he saw a
slender thread of blood that had flowed from his mouth over his beard
and reddened his pillow, did that refined dandy shudder, that fastidious
creature who held in horror all forms of human misery, especially
disease, and who saw it creeping upon him stealthily with its
defilement, its weaknesses and with the self-abandonment which is the
first concession to death. Monpavon, entering the room in Jenkins' wake,
caught the suddenly perturbed expression of the great nobleman brought
face to face with the terrible truth, and was at the same time horrified
by the ravages made in a few hours on Mora's emaciated face, where all
the wrinkles belonging to his age, appearing suddenly, mingled with the
wrinkles caused by suffering, with the depression of muscles which
indicates serious internal lesions. He took Jenkins aside while the fine
gentleman's servants were supplying him with what he required to make
his toilet in bed, a whole outfit of silver and crystal in striking
contrast with the yellow pallor of the invalid.

"Look you, Jenkins--the duke is very ill."

"I am afraid so," said the Irishman, in an undertone.

"What's the matter with him?"

"What he apparently wanted, _parbleu_!" exclaimed the other, in a sort
of frenzy. "A man can't be young with impunity at his age. This passion
of his will cost him dear."

Some evil thought triumphed in him for the moment, but he instantly
imposed silence upon it, and, completely transformed, puffing out his
cheeks as if his head were filled with water, he sighed profoundly as he
pressed the old nobleman's hands:

"Poor duke! Poor duke! Ah! my friend, I am in despair."

"Have a care, Jenkins," said Monpavon coldly, withdrawing his hands.
"You are assuming a terrible responsibility. What! the duke is as ill as
you say, ps--ps--ps. See no one? No consultation?"

The Irishman threw up his arms as if to say: "What's the use?"

The other insisted. It was absolutely essential that Brisset, Jousselin,
Bouchereau, all the great men should be called in.

"But you will frighten him to death."

Monpavon inflated his breast, the old foundered charger's only pride.

"My dear fellow, if you had seen Mora and myself in the trenches at
Constantine--ps--ps--Never lowered our eyes--Don't know what fear means.
Send word to your confrères, I will undertake to prepare him."

The consultation took place that evening behind closed doors, the duke
having demanded that it be kept secret through a curious feeling of
shame because of his illness, because of the suffering that dethroned
him and reduced him to the level of other men. Like those African kings
who conceal themselves in the depths of their palaces to die, he would
have liked the world to believe that he had been taken away,
transfigured, had become a god. Then, too, above all, he dreaded the
compassion, the condolence, the emotion with which he knew that his
pillow would be surrounded, the tears that would be shed, because he
would suspect that they were insincere, and because, if sincere, they
would offend him even more by their grimacing ugliness.

He had always detested scenes, exaggerated sentiments, whatever was
likely to move him, to disturb the harmonious equilibrium of his life.
Everybody about him was aware of it and the orders were to keep at a
distance all the cases of distress, all the despairing appeals that were
made to Mora from one end of France to the other, as to one of those
houses of refuge in the forest in which a light shines at night and at
which all those who have lost their way apply for shelter. Not that he
was hard to the unfortunate, perhaps indeed he felt that he was too
readily susceptible to pity, which he regarded as an inferior sentiment,
a weakness unworthy of the strong, and for the same reason that he
denied it to others, dreaded it for himself, lest it impair his courage.
So that no one in the palace, save Monpavon and Louis the valet, knew
the purpose of the visit of those three persons who were mysteriously
ushered into the presence of the Minister of State. Even the duchess
herself was in ignorance. Separated from her husband by all the barriers
that life in the most exalted political and social circles places
between the husband and wife in such exceptional establishments, she
supposed that he was slightly indisposed, ill mainly in his imagination,
and had so little suspicion of an impending catastrophe that, at the
very hour when the physicians were ascending the half-darkened grand
staircase, her private apartments at the other end of the palace were
brilliantly illuminated for an informal dancing-party, one of those
_white balls_ which the ingenuity of idle Paris was just beginning to
introduce.

That consultation was, like all consultations, grim and solemn. Doctors
no longer wear the huge wigs of Molière's day, but they still assume the
same portentous gravity of priests of Isis or astrologers, bristling
with cabalistic formulæ accompanied by movements of the head which lack
only the pointed cap of an earlier age to produce a laughable effect. On
this occasion the scene borrowed an imposing aspect from the
surroundings. In the vast room, transformed, magnified as it were, by
the master's immobility, those solemn faces approached the bed upon
which the light was concentrated, revealing amid the white linen and the
purple curtains a shrivelled face, pale from the lips to the eyes, but
enveloped with serenity as with a veil, as with a winding-sheet. The
consulting physicians talked in low tones, exchanged a furtive glance,
an outlandish word or two, remained perfectly impassive without moving
an eyebrow. But that mute, unmeaning expression characteristic of the
doctor and the magistrate, that solemnity with which science and justice
encompass themselves in order to conceal their weakness or their
ignorance, had no power to move the duke.

Sitting on his bed, he continued to talk tranquilly, with that slightly
exalted expression in which the thought seems to soar upward as if to
escape, and Monpavon coolly replied to him, hardening himself against
his emotion, taking a last lesson in breeding from his friend, while
Louis, in the background, leaned against the door leading to the
duchess's apartments, the type of the silent servitor, in whom heedless
indifference is a duty.

The agitated, the feverish member of the party was Jenkins.

Overflowing with obsequious respect for "his illustrious confrères," as
he unctuously called them, he prowled about their conference and tried
to take part in it; but his confrères kept him at a distance, hardly
answered him, or answered him haughtily, as Fagon--Louis the
Fourteenth's Fagon--might have answered some charlatan who had been
summoned to the royal bedside. Old Bouchereau especially looked askance
at the inventor of the Jenkins Pearls. At last, when they had thoroughly
examined and questioned their patient, they withdrew for deliberation to
a small salon, all in lacquer-work, with gleaming highly-colored walls
and ceiling, filled with an assortment of pretty trifles, whose
uselessness contrasted strangely with the importance of the discussion.

A solemn moment, the agony of the accused man awaiting the decision of
his judges, life, death, reprieve or pardon!

With his long white hand Mora continued to caress his moustache, his
favorite gesture, to talk with Monpavon about the club and the
green-room at the Variétés, asking for news of the proceedings in the
Chamber and what progress had been made in the matter of the Nabob's
election--all with perfect coolness and without the slightest
affectation. Then, fatigued doubtless, or fearing that his glance, which
constantly returned to the portière opposite through which the decree of
fate was presently to come forth, should betray the emotion that lurked
at the bottom of his heart, he leaned his head back, closed his eyes,
and did not open them again until the doctors returned. Still the same
cold, ominous faces, veritable faces of judges with the terrible word of
human destiny on their lips, the Final word, which the courts pronounce
without emotion, but which the doctors, all of whose skill and learning
it baffles, evade and seek to convey by circumlocution.

"Well, messieurs, what says the Faculty?" inquired the sick man.

There were a few hypocritical, stammered words of encouragement, vague
recommendations; then the three learned men hastily took their leave,
eager to be gone, to avoid any responsibility for the impending
disaster. Monpavon rushed after them. Jenkins remained by the bedside,
overwhelmed by the brutal truths he had heard during the consultation.
In vain had he put his hand upon his heart, quoted his famous motto.
Bouchereau had not spared him. This was not the first of the Irishman's
patients whom he had seen fall suddenly to pieces thus; but he trusted
that Mora's death would be a salutary warning to people in society, and
that the prefect of police, as the result of this great calamity, would
send the "dealer in cantharides," to advertise his aphrodisiacs on the
other side of the Channel.

The duke realized that neither Jenkins nor Louis would tell him the real
result of the consultation. He did not press them, therefore, but
submitted to their assumed confidence, even pretended to share it and to
believe all that they told him. But when Monpavon returned, he called
him to his bedside, and, undaunted by the falsehood that was visible
even under the paint of that wreck, he said:

"Oh! no wry faces, I beg. Between you and me, let us have the truth.
What do they say?--I am in a bad way, am I not?"

Monpavon prefaced his reply by a significant pause; then roughly,
cynically, for fear of showing emotion at the words:

"Damnation, my poor Auguste!"

The duke received it between the eyes without winking.

"Ah!" he said, simply.

He twisted his moustache mechanically; but his features did not change.
And in an instant his resolution was formed.

That the poor wretch who dies in the hospital, without home or kindred,
with no other name than the number of his bed, should accept death as a
deliverance or submit to it as a last trial, that the old peasant who
falls asleep, bent double, worn out and stiff-jointed, in his dark,
smoke-begrimed mole-hole, should go thence without regret, that he
should relish in anticipation the taste of the cool earth he has turned
and returned so many times, one can understand. And yet how many of them
are attached to existence by their very misery, how many exclaim as they
cling to their wretched furniture, to their rags: "I do not want to
die," and go with their nails broken and bleeding from that last wrench!
But there was nothing of the sort here.

To have everything and to lose everything. What an upheaval!

In the first silence of that awful moment, while he listened to the
muffled music of the duchess's ball at the other end of the palace, the
things that still bound that man to life--power, honors, wealth, all the
magnificence that surrounded him--must have seemed to him to be already
far away in an irrevocable past. It required courage of a very
exceptional temper to resist such a blow without the slightest outburst
of self-love. No one was present save the friend, the physician, the
servant, three intimate acquaintances, who were familiar with all his
secrets; the lights being turned low left the bed in shadow, and the
dying man could have turned his face to the wall and given vent to his
emotion unseen. But no. Not a second of weakness, of fruitless
demonstrations. Without breaking a branch of the chestnut trees in the
garden, without withering a flower in the great hall of the palace,
Death, muffling his footsteps in the heavy carpets, had opened that
great man's door and motioned to him: "Come!" And he replied, simply, "I
am ready." A fit exit for a man of the world, unforeseen, swift and
noiseless.

A man of the world! Mora was nothing else. Passing smoothly through
life, arrayed in mask and gloves and breastplate, the breastplate of
white satin worn by fencing-masters on days of great exhibitions,
keeping his fighting costume ever clean and spotless, sacrificing
everything to that irreproachable exterior which served him instead of a
coat of mail, he had metamorphosed himself into a statesman, passing
from the salon to a vaster stage, and made in truth a statesman of the
first order simply by virtue of his qualities as a leader of society,
the art of listening and smiling, knowledge of men, scepticism and
_sang-froid_. That _sang-froid_ did not leave him at the supreme moment.

With his eyes upon the brief, limited time which still remained to him,
for his dark-browed visitor was in haste and he could feel on his face
the wind from the door which he had not closed, he thought of nothing
but making good use of that time and fulfilling all the obligations of
an end like his own, which should leave no devotion unrewarded, should
compromise no friend. He made a list of the few persons whom he wished
to see and to whom messengers were sent at once; then he asked for his
chief clerk, and when Jenkins suggested that he was overtiring himself,
"Will you promise me that I shall wake to-morrow morning? I have a spasm
of strength at this moment. Let me make the most of it."

Louis asked if he should warn the duchess. The duke, before replying,
listened to the strains from the ball that came floating in through the
opened windows, prolonged in the darkness by an invisible bow; then he
said:

"Let us wait a little. I have something to do first."

He bade them move to his bedside the little lacquer table, intending
himself to sort out the letters to be destroyed; but, finding that his
strength was failing, he called Monpavon: "Burn everything," he said to
him in a feeble voice, and added, when he saw him going toward the
fireplace, where a bright fire was burning, notwithstanding the fine
weather:

"No--not here. There are too many of them. Some one might come."

Monpavon lifted the light desk and motioned to the valet to carry a
light for him. But Jenkins darted forward:

"Stay, Louis, the duke may need you."

He took possession of the lamp; and they stole cautiously along the long
corridor, exploring the reception-rooms, the galleries, where the
fireplaces were filled with artificial plants with no trace of ashes,
wandering like ghosts in the silence and darkness of the vast dwelling,
alive only over yonder at the right where pleasure sang like a bird on a
roof that is about to fall.

"There's no fire anywhere. What are we to do with all this stuff?" they
asked each other, sorely perplexed. One would have said they were two
thieves dragging away a safe which they were unable to open. At last
Monpavon, out of patience, walked with an air of resolution to a certain
door, the only one they had not yet opened.

"Faith, we'll do the best we can! As we can't burn them, we'll drown
them. Show me a light, Jenkins."

And they entered.

Where were they? Saint-Simon, describing the downfall of one of these
sovereign existences, the utter confusion of ceremonials, of dignities,
of grandeurs caused by death, especially by sudden death, Saint-Simon
alone could have told you. With his delicate, carefully-kept hands the
Marquis de Monpavon pumped. The other passed him torn letters, bundles
of letters, soft as satin, many-hued, perfumed, adorned with ciphers,
crests, banderoles with mottoes, covered with fine, close, scrawling,
enlaced, persuasive chirography; and all those delicate pages whirled
round and round in the eddying stream of water which crumpled and soiled
them and washed away the pale ink before allowing them to disappear with
a gurgling hiccough at the bottom of the filthy sink.

There were love-letters and love-letters of all sorts, from the note of
the adventuress--"I saw you pass at the Bois yesterday, Monsieur le
Duc,"--to the aristocratic reproaches of the mistress before the last,
the wailing of the abandoned, and the page still fresh with recent
confidences. Monpavon was familiar with all these mysteries, gave a name
to each of them: "That's from Madame Moor"--"Ah! Madame d'Athis." A
confused mass of coronets and initials, passing whims and old habits,
sullied at that moment by being thrown together promiscuously, all
swallowed up in that ghastly place, by lamplight, with a noise as of an
intermittent deluge, going to oblivion by a shameful road. Suddenly
Jenkins paused in his work of destruction. Two letters on pearl-gray
satin paper trembled in his fingers.

"Who's that?" queried Monpavon, at sight of the unfamiliar hand and the
Irishman's nervous excitement. "Ah! doctor, if you mean to read
everything we shall never finish."

Jenkins, with burning cheeks, his two letters in his hand, was consumed
by a fierce longing to carry them away in order to gloat over them at
his leisure, to torture himself with delicious pain by reading them,
perhaps also to use that correspondence as a weapon against the
imprudent creature who had signed it. But the marquis's rigid demeanor
frightened him. How could he divert his attention, get rid of him? An
opportunity presented itself unsought. A tiny sheet, written in a
senile, tremulous hand, had found its way between those same letters,
and attracted the attention of the charlatan, who said with an artless
expression:

"Oho! here's something that doesn't look like a billet-doux. 'My dear
duke, help, I am drowning! The Cour des Comptes has stuck its nose into
my affairs again'--"

"What the devil's that you're reading?" exclaimed Monpavon abruptly,
snatching the letter from his hands. And in an instant, thanks to Mora's
negligence in allowing such private letters to lie around, the terrible
plight in which he would be left by his protector's death came to his
mind. In his grief he had not as yet thought of it. He said to himself
that, amid his preparations for leaving the world, the duke might very
well forget him; and, leaving Jenkins to finish alone the drowning of
Don Juan's casket, he returned hurriedly to the bedroom. As he was about
to enter, the sound of voices detained him behind the lowered portière.
It was Louis's voice, as whining as that of a pauper under a porch,
trying to move the duke to pity for his distress and asking his
permission to take a few rolls of gold that were lying in a drawer. Oh!
what a hoarse, wearied, hardly audible reply, in which one could feel
the effort of the sick man compelled to turn in his bed, to remove his
eyes from a distant point already clearly distinguished:

"Yes, yes--take them. But for God's sake let me sleep! let me sleep!"

Drawers opened and closed, a hurried, panting breath. Monpavon heard no
more, but retraced his steps without entering the room. The servant's
ferocious greed had given his pride the alarm. Anything rather than
degrade himself to that point.

The slumber for which Mora begged so persistently, the lethargy, to
speak more accurately, lasted a whole night and morning, with partial
awakenings caused by excruciating pain which yielded each time to
soporifics. They did nothing for him except to try to make his last
moments comfortable, to help him over that last step which it requires
such a painful effort to pass. His eyes had opened during that time, but
they were already dim, staring into emptiness at wavering shadows,
indistinct forms, like those which a diver sees quivering in the vague
depths of the water. On Thursday afternoon, about three o'clock, he
recovered consciousness completely, and, recognizing Monpavon,
Cardailhac and two or three other close friends, smiled at them and
betrayed in a word his sole preoccupation:

"What do people say of this in Paris?"

People said many things, diverse and contradictory; but one thing was
certain, that they talked of nothing else, and the report which had been
circulated through the city that morning, that Mora was at death's
door, had put the streets, the salons, the cafés, the studios in a
ferment, revived political questions in the newspaper offices, in the
clubs, and even in porters' lodges and on the omnibuses, wherever open
newspapers furnished a pretext for comment on that startling item of
news.

This Mora was the most brilliant incarnation of the Empire. The part of
a building that we see from afar is not its foundation, be it solid or
tottering, not its architectural features, but the slender, gilded
arrow, fancifully carved and perforated, added for the gratification of
the eye. What people saw of the Empire in France and throughout Europe
was Mora. When he fell, the structure was stripped of all its elegance,
marred by a long irreparable crack. And how many existences were
involved in that sudden fall, how many fortunes shattered by the after
effects of the catastrophe! Not one so completely as that of the stout
man sitting motionless on the monkeys' bench in the reception-room
below.

To the Nabob that man's death meant his own death, his ruin, the end of
everything. He was so thoroughly conscious of it that when he was
informed, on entering the house, of the Duke's desperate condition, he
indulged in no whining or wry faces of any sort, simply the savage
ejaculation of human selfishness: "I am lost!" And the words came
constantly to his lips, he repeated them instinctively each time that
all the horror of his position came over him in sudden flashes,--as in
those dangerous mountain storms, when a sharp flash of lightning
illumines the abyss to the very bottom, with the jagged projections of
the walls and the clumps of bushes scattered here and there to supply
the rents and bruises of the fall.

The rapid keenness of vision that accompanies cataclysms spared him no
detail. He saw that he was almost certain to be unseated now that Mora
would not be at hand to plead his cause; and the consequences of defeat,
bankruptcy, poverty and something worse, for these incalculable
fortunes, when they crumble away, always keep a little of a man's honor
under the ruins. But what thorns, what brambles, what bruises, what
cruel wounds before reaching the end! In a week the Schwalbach notes to
be paid, that is to say eight hundred thousand francs, Moëssard's claim
for damages--he demanded a hundred thousand francs or would apply to the
Chamber for authority to institute criminal process against him--another
more dangerous suit begun by the families of two little martyrs of
Bethlehem against the founders of the establishment; and, in addition to
all the rest, the complications of the _Caisse Territoriale_. A single
ray of hope, Paul de Géry's negotiations with the bey, but so vague, so
problematical, so far away!

"Ah! I am lost! I am lost!"

In the vast apartment no one noticed his trouble. That crowd of
senators, deputies, councillors of state, all the leading men in the
government, went and came around him without seeing him, held mysterious
conferences and rested their elbows in anxious importance on the two
white marble mantels that faced each other. So many disappointed,
betrayed, over-hasty ambitions met in that visit _in extremis_, that
selfish anxiety predominated over every other form of preoccupation.

The faces, strangely enough, expressed neither pity nor grief, rather a
sort of wrath. All those people seemed to bear the duke a grudge for
dying, as if for turning his back upon them. Such remarks as this were
heard: "It's not at all strange after such a life!" And, standing at the
long windows, the gentlemen called one another's attention to some
dainty coupé drawing up amid the constant stream of carriages going and
coming outside, while a gloved hand, its lace sleeve brushing against
the door, handed a folded card to the footman who brought her
information of the invalid's condition.

From time to time one of the intimates of the palace, one of those whom
the dying man had sent for, appeared for a moment in the throng, gave an
order, then vanished, leaving the terrified expression of his face
reflected upon a score of others. Jenkins showed himself in that way for
a moment, cravat untied, waistcoat open, cuffs soiled and rumpled, in
all the disarray of the battle he was waging upstairs against a terrible
opponent. He was at once surrounded, pressed with questions. Certainly
the monkeys flattening their short noses against the bars of the cage,
awed by the unusual uproar and very attentive to what was taking place,
as if they were making a careful study of human expression, had a
magnificent model in the Irish doctor. His grief was superb, the noble
grief of a strong man, which compressed his lips and made his breast
heave.

"The death-agony has begun," he said dolefully. "It is only a matter of
hours now."

And, as Jansoulet drew near, he said to him in an emphatic tone:

"Ah! my friend, what a man! What courage! He has forgotten nobody. Only
a little while ago he spoke to me about you."

"Really?"

"'Poor Nabob!'" he said, "'how is his election coming on?'"

And that was all. He had said nothing more.

Jansoulet hung his head. What had he expected, in heaven's name? Was it
not enough that a man like Mora should have thought of him at such a
moment? He returned to his seat on the bench, relapsed into his former
state of prostration, galvanized by a moment of wild hope, sat there
heedless of the fact that the vast apartment was becoming almost
entirely deserted, and did not notice that he was the last and only
visitor remaining until he heard the servants talking aloud in the
fading light.

"I have had enough--my service here is done."

"For my part I shall stay with the duchess."

And those plans, those decisions anticipating the master's death by some
hours, doomed the noble duke even more surely than the Faculty had done.

The Nabob realized then that it was time for him to withdraw, but he
determined first to write his name on the register. He went to the
table and leaned far over in order to see clearly. The page was full. A
blank space was pointed out to him, below a name written in small,
threadlike characters, as if by fingers too stout for the pen, and, when
he had signed, Hemerlingue's name overshadowed his, crushed it,
entangled it in an insidious flourish. Superstitious like the true Latin
that he was, he was impressed by the omen and carried the terror of it
away with him.

Where should he dine? At the club? On Place Vendôme? And hear nothing
talked of but this death which engrossed his thoughts! He preferred to
trust to chance, to go straight ahead like all those who are beset by a
persistent idea which they try to escape by walking. It was a warm,
balmy evening. He walked on and on along the quays till he reached the
tree-lined paths of the Cours-la-Reine, then returned to the combination
of freshly-watered streets and odor of fine dust which characterizes
fine evenings in Paris. At that uncertain hour everything was deserted.
Here and there girandoles were lighted for concerts, gas-jets flared
among the foliage. The rattle of plates and glasses from a restaurant
suggested to him the idea of entering.

The robust creature was hungry notwithstanding his anxiety. His dinner
was served under a verandah with walls of glass, lined with foliage and
facing the great porch of the Palais de l'Industrie, where the duke, in
presence of a thousand persons, had saluted him as deputy. The refined
and aristocratic face appeared to his mind's eye in the dark archway,
while at the same time he saw him lying yonder on his white pillow; and,
suddenly, as he stared at the bill of fare the waiter handed him, he
noticed with a sort of stupefaction that it was dated May 20th. So not a
month had passed since the opening of the Salon. It seemed to him as if
it were ten years since that day. Gradually, however, the excellent
repast warmed and comforted his heart. In the passage he heard some of
the waiters talking:

"Is there any news of Mora? It seems he's very sick."

"Nonsense! He'll pull through. Such fellows as he are the only ones who
have any luck."

Hope is anchored so firmly to the human entrails that, despite what
Jansoulet had seen and heard, those few words, assisted by two bottles
of burgundy and divers _petits verres_ sufficed to restore his courage.
After all, people had been known to recover when they were as far gone.
Doctors often exaggerate the danger in order to gain more credit for
averting it. "Suppose I go and see?" He returned to the hôtel de Mora,
full of illusions, appealing to the luck that had stood him in good
stead so many times in his life. And in truth there was something in the
appearance of the princely abode to justify his hope. It wore the
tranquil, reassuring aspect of ordinary evenings, from the avenue with
lights burning at equal intervals, to the main doorway, at which an
enormous carriage of antique shape was waiting.

In the reception-room, where there were no signs of excitement, two
great lamps were burning. A footman was asleep in a corner, the usher
was reading in front of the fire. He glanced at the new arrival over his
spectacles, but said nothing to him, and Jansoulet dared ask no
questions. Piles of newspapers lay on the table in wrappers addressed to
the duke, apparently tossed there as useless. The Nabob opened one and
tried to read; but a rapid, gliding step, a sing-song murmuring made him
raise his eyes, and he saw a white-haired, stooping old man, decked out
with finery like an altar, who was praying as he walked with long
priest-like strides, his red cassock spread out like a train over the
carpet. It was the Archbishop of Paris, accompanied by two assistants.
The vision with its murmur as of an icy wind passed swiftly before
Jansoulet, was engulfed by the great chariot and disappeared, carrying
away his last hope.

"A question of propriety, my dear fellow," said Monpavon, suddenly
appearing at his side. "Mora is an epicurean, brought up in the ideas of
What's-his-name--Thingamy--you know whom I mean! Eighteenth century. But
it's very bad for the masses, if a man in his position--ps--ps--ps--Ah!
he was head and shoulders above all of us--ps--ps--irreproachable
breeding."

"So, it's all over, is it?" said Jansoulet desperately. "There's no more
hope?"

Monpavon motioned to him to listen. A carriage rumbled heavily along the
avenue on the quay. The bell rang several times in quick succession.
The marquis counted aloud: "One, two, three, four--" At the fifth he
rose.

"There's no hope now. There comes the other," he said, alluding to the
Parisian superstition to the effect that a visit from the sovereign was
always fatal to the dying. The servants hurried from all directions,
threw the folding-doors wide open and formed a lane, while the usher,
his hat _en bataille_ announced with a resounding blow of his pike upon
the floor the passage of two august personages, of whom Jansoulet caught
only a confused glimpse behind the servants, but whom he saw through a
long vista of open doors ascending the grand staircase, preceded by a
valet carrying a candelabrum. The woman was erect and haughty, enveloped
in her black Spanish mantilla; the man clung to the stair-rail, walked
more slowly and as if fatigued, the collar of his light top-coat
standing up from a back slightly bent, which was shaken by convulsive
sobs.

"Let us be off, Nabob. Nothing more to be done here," said the old beau,
taking Jansoulet by the arm and leading him out. He stopped on the
threshold, raised his hand, and waved a little salute with the tips of
his gloves toward him who lay dying above. "_Bojou_, dea' boy." The tone
and gesture were worldly, irreproachable; but the voice trembled a
little.

The club on Rue Royale, renowned for its card-playing, had rarely seen
so terrible a game as it saw that night. It began at eleven o'clock and
was still in progress at five in the morning. Enormous sums lay on the
green cloth, changed hands and direction, heaped up, scattered,
reunited; fortunes were swallowed up in that colossal game, and at its
close the Nabob, who had started it to forget his fears in the caprices
of luck, after extraordinary alternations, somersaults of fortune
calculated to make a neophyte's hair turn white, withdrew with winnings
of five hundred thousand francs. They said five millions on the
boulevard the next day, and every one cried shame, especially the
_Messager_, which gave up three-quarters of its space to an article
against certain adventurers who are tolerated in clubs, and who cause
the ruin of the most respectable families.

Alas! Jansoulet's winnings hardly represented the amount of the first
Schwalbach notes.

During that insane game, although Mora was its involuntary cause, and,
as it were, its soul, his name was not once mentioned. Neither
Cardailhac nor Jenkins appeared. Monpavon had taken to his bed, more
affected than he chose to have people think. They were without news from
the sick-room.

"Is he dead?" Jansoulet wondered as he left the club, and he was
conscious of an impulse to go and see before returning home. It was no
longer hope that impelled him, but that unhealthy, nervous sort of
curiosity which attracts the poor, ruined, shelterless victims of a
conflagration to the débris of their home.

Although it was still very early, the pink flush of dawn still lingering
in the air, the whole mansion was open as if for a solemn departure. The
lamps were still smoking on the mantels, the air was filled with dust.
The Nabob walked on through inexplicable solitude as far as the first
floor, where he at last heard a familiar voice, Cardailhac's, dictating
names, and the scratching of pens on paper. The skilful organizer of the
fêtes for the bey was arranging with the same zeal the funeral
ceremonial of the Duc de Mora. Such activity! His Excellency had died
during the evening; in the morning ten thousand letters were already
printed, and everybody in the house who knew how to hold a pen was busy
with the addresses. Without passing through those extemporized offices,
Jansoulet made his way to the reception-room, usually so thronged,
to-day all the chairs empty. In the centre of the room, on a table, lay
Monsieur le Duc's hat and gloves and cane, always ready in the event of
his going out unexpectedly, to save him the trouble of an order. The
articles that we wear retain something of ourselves. The curve of the
hat-rim recalled the curl of the moustaches, the light gloves were ready
to grasp the flexible, strong Chinese bamboo, everything seemed to
quiver and live, as if the duke were about to appear, to put out his
hand as he talked, take them up and go out.

Oh! no, Monsieur le Duc was not going out. Jansoulet had only to walk to
the bedroom door, which stood ajar, to see lying on the bed, three steps
above the floor--the same platform even after death--a rigid, haughty
form, a motionless, aged profile, transformed by the gray beard that had
grown in a night; kneeling against the sloping pillow, her face buried
in the white sheets, was a woman whose fair hair fell neglected about
her shoulders, ready to fall under the shears of eternal widowhood; a
priest, too, and a nun stood absorbed in meditation in that atmosphere
of the death vigil, wherein the weariness of sleepless nights is blended
with the mumbling of prayers and whispering in the shadow.

That room, in which so many ambitions had felt their wings expand, in
which so many hopes and disappointments had had their day, was given
over to the tranquillity of death. Not a sound, not a sigh. But, early
as it was, over in the direction of Pont de la Concorde, a shrill,
piercing little clarinet soared above the rumbling of the first
carriages; but its vigorous mockery was wasted thenceforth upon the man
who lay sleeping there, revealing to the terrified Nabob the image of
his own destiny, cold, discolored, ready for the grave.

Others than Jansoulet saw that death-chamber under even more dismal
circumstances. The windows thrown wide open. The night air from the
garden entering freely in a brisk current. A form upon trestles; that
form, the body just embalmed. The head hollowed out, filled with a
sponge, the brain in a bucket. The weight of that statesman's brain was
really extraordinary. It weighed--it weighed--The newspapers of the day
gave the figures. But who remembers them to-day?




XIX.

THE OBSEQUIES.


"Don't weep, my fairy; you take away all my courage. Come, you will be
much happier when you no longer have your horrible demon. You are going
back to Fontainebleau to tend your hens. Brahim's ten thousand francs
will be enough to give you a start. And after that have no fear; when I
am once there, I'll send you money. As this bey wants some of my
sculpture, I shall make him pay well for it, be sure of that. I shall
return rich, rich. Who knows? Perhaps a sultana?"

"Yes, you will be a sultana,--but I shall be dead, and I shall never see
you again."

And honest Crenmitz in her despair huddled in a corner of the cab, so
that her companion might not see her weep.

Felicia was leaving Paris. She was trying to escape the horrible
melancholy, the ominous heart-sickness in which Mora's death had plunged
her. What a terrible blow for the haughty girl! Ennui, spite had driven
her into that man's arms; pride, modesty, she had given all to him, and
now he had carried it all away, leaving her withered for life, a widow
without tears, without mourning, without dignity. Two or three visits to
Saint-James, a few evenings in the back of a box at some small theatre,
behind the grating where forbidden, shamefaced pleasure conceals
itself,--those were the only memories bequeathed to her by that liaison
of two weeks, that loveless sin, wherein not even her pride had
succeeded in satisfying itself by the notoriety of a scandal in high
life. The fruitless, ineffaceable stain, the senseless fall into the
gutter of a woman who cannot walk, and upon whom the ironical pity of
the passers-by weighs heavily when she tries to rise.

For a moment she contemplated suicide, but was deterred by the thought
that it might be attributed to despairing love. She saw in anticipation
the sentimental emotion of the salons, the absurd figure that her
supposed passion would cut amid the duke's innumerable conquests, and
upon her grave, dug so near the other, the Parma violets, stripped of
their petals by the dandified Moëssards of journalism. There remained
the resource of travel, one of those journeys to countries so distant
that they expatriate even the thoughts. Unluckily, she lacked money.
Thereupon she remembered that, on the day following her success at the
Salon, old Brahim Bey had come to see her, to make magnificent proposals
to her in his master's name for divers great works to be executed at
Tunis. She had said no at the moment, refusing to be tempted by Oriental
prices, by a munificent hospitality, by the promise of the finest
courtyard on the Bardo for a studio, surrounded by arches carved like
exquisite lace. But now she was willing to accept. She had but to make a
sign, the bargain was concluded at once, and after an exchange of
despatches, a hasty packing-up, and closing the house, she started for
the railway-station as if she were going away for a week, surprised
herself by her prompt decision, pleased in all the adventurous and
artistic portions of her nature by the prospect of a new life in a
strange land.

The bey's pleasure yacht was to await her at Genoa; and, closing her
eyes in the cab, she saw in anticipation the white stones of an Italian
harbor enclosing an iridescent sea, where the sunlight had a gleam of
the Orient, where everything sang joyously, even to the swelling sails
upon the deep. It so happened that on that day Paris was muddy and
murky, drowned by one of those continuous downpours of rain which seem
to have been made for it alone, to have ascended in clouds from its
river, its steam, its monster breath, only to descend again in streams
from its roofs, its gutters, the innumerable windows of its attics.
Felicia was in haste to escape from that depressing Paris, and her
feverish impatience vented itself upon the driver for not driving
faster, upon the horses,--two genuine broken-down cab-horses,--and upon
an inexplicable multitude of carriages and omnibuses jammed together at
the approaches to Pont de la Concorde.

"Go on, driver, go on."

"I can't, Madame,--it's the funeral."

She put her head out of the window and instantly withdrew it, in dismay.
A double line of soldiers marching with guns reversed, a wilderness of
helmets, of heads uncovered while an interminable procession passed. It
was Mora's funeral procession.

"Don't stay here. Drive around some other way," she cried to the driver.

The vehicle turned painfully, tearing itself away with regret from that
superb spectacle for which Paris had been waiting four days, rolled back
up the avenue, into Rue Montaigne, and down Boulevard Malesherbes, at an
unwilling, crawling trot, to the Madeleine. There the crowd was greater,
more compact. In the heavy mist, the brightly lighted windows of the
church, the muffled strains of the funeral chants behind the black
hangings, which were in such profusion that they concealed even the
shape of the Greek temple, filled the whole square with reminders of the
service then in progress, while the greater part of the huge procession
still crowded Rue Royale as far as the bridges,--a long black line
connecting the defunct statesman with the iron fence of the Corps
Législatif through which he had so often passed. Beyond the Madeleine
the roadway of the boulevard was entirely empty, kept clear by two lines
of soldiers, who forced the spectators back to the sidewalks, black with
people; all the stores closed, and the balconies, despite the rain,
overflowing with bodies leaning far forward in the direction of the
church, as if to watch the passage of a herd of fat cattle, or the
return of victorious troops. Paris, greedy of spectacles, makes a
spectacle of everything indifferently, of civil war or of the burial of
a statesman.

Once more the cab must retrace its steps, make another détour, and we
can fancy the ill-humor of the driver and his beasts, Parisians all
three at heart, and furious at being deprived of such a fine show.
Thereupon, through the silent deserted streets, all the life of Paris
having betaken itself to the great artery of the boulevard, began a
capricious, aimless journey, the senseless loitering of a cab hired by
the hour, reaching the extreme limits of Faubourg Saint-Martin, Faubourg
Saint-Denis, returning toward the centre, and always finding at the end
of every circuit, every stratagem, the same obstacle lying in wait, the
same crowd, some off-shoot of the black procession seen vaguely at the
end of a street, defiling slowly in the rain to the sound of muffled
drums, a dull heavy sound like that made by earth falling bit by bit
into a hole.

What torture for Felicia! It was her sin, her remorse passing through
the streets of Paris in all that solemn pomp, that funereal
magnificence, that public mourning reflected even in the clouds; and the
proud girl rebelled against the affront that circumstances put upon her,
fled from it to the depths of the carriage, where she remained with
closed eyes, overwhelmed, while old Crenmitz, believing that it was her
grief which so affected her nerves, strove to comfort her, wept herself
over their separation, and withdrawing into the other corner, left the
cab-window in full possession of the great Algerian _slougui_, his
delicate nostrils sniffing the air and his forepaws resting despotically
on the sill with heraldic rigidity.

At last, after a thousand interminable détours, the cab suddenly
stopped, moved slowly forward again amid shouts and insults, was then
pushed this way and that, lifted from the ground, its equilibrium
threatened by the trunks on its roof, and finally halted for good and
all, as if anchored.

"_Bon Dieu!_ What a crowd!" murmured La Crenmitz in terror.

Felicia emerged from her torpor.

"Where in heaven's name are we?"

Beneath a colorless, smoky sky, with a fine network of rain drawn like
gauze over the reality of things, lay a great square, filled with a
human ocean flowing in from all the adjoining streets, immobilized
around a lofty column which towered above that sea of heads like the
gigantic mast of a sinking ship. Cavalry in troops, with drawn sabres,
artillery in batteries lined the sides of an open pathway, a complete
warlike host awaiting him who was soon to pass,--perhaps to try to
rescue him, to carry him off by force from the redoubtable foe in whose
power he was. Alas! cavalry charges, cannonades were of no avail. The
prisoner was firmly bound, protected by a threefold wall of solid wood,
of metal and of velvet, inaccessible to shot and shell, and not at the
hands of those soldiers could he hope for deliverance.

"Drive on. I do not wish to remain here," said Felicia frantically,
pulling the driver's dripping cape, seized with a mad fear at the
thought of the nightmare that pursued her, of what she could hear
approaching with a ghastly rolling of drums, still distant but drawing
nearer momentarily. But, at the first movement of the wheels, the shouts
and hooting began anew. Thinking that they would allow him to cross the
square, the driver had with great difficulty forced his way to the front
rank of the crowd, which had closed in behind him and refused to allow
him to turn back. It was impossible to advance or retreat She must
remain there, endure those alcoholic breaths, those inquisitive glances,
kindled in anticipation of an exceptionally fine spectacle, and eyeing
with interest the fair traveller who was decamping "with such a pile o'
trunks as that!" and a cur of that size to protect her. La Crenmitz was
horribly frightened; Felicia, for her part, had but one thought, that he
was about to pass, that she would be in the front rank to see him.

Suddenly there was a loud shout: "Here he comes!" then a great silence
fell upon the square, which had shaken off the burden of three weary
hours of waiting.

He was coming!

Felicia's first impulse was to lower the curtain on her side, the side
on which the procession was to pass. But, when she heard the drums
close at hand, seized with a nervous frenzy at her inability to escape
that obsession, or, it may be, infected by the unhealthy curiosity that
encompassed her, she raised the curtain with a jerk, and her pale,
ardent little face appeared, resting on both hands, at the window.

"Very good! you will have it so; I am looking at you."

It was the most magnificent funeral one can imagine, the last honors
paid in all their vain pomp, as sonorous and as hollow as the rhythmic
accompaniment upon asses' skins draped in crape. First, the white
surplices of the clergy indistinctly seen amid the black trappings of
the first five carriages; then, drawn by six black horses, veritable
horses of Erebus, as black, as slow, as sluggish as its flood, came the
funeral car, all bedecked with plumes and fringe, embroidered with
silver, with heavy tears, with heraldic coronets surmounting gigantic
M's, a prophetic initial which seemed to be that of Death (_Mort_)
itself, of the Duchess Death decorated with eight _fleurons_. Such a
mass of canopies and heavy draperies concealed the ignoble framework of
the hearse that it shivered and swayed from top to bottom at every step,
as if oppressed by the majesty of its dead. On the casket lay the sword,
the coat, the embroidered hat, garments of state which had never been
used, resplendent with gold and pearl in the dark chapel formed by the
hangings, amid the beautiful display of fresh flowers which told that
the season was spring despite the sulkiness of the sky. Ten paces
behind came the people of the duke's household; and then, in solitary
majesty, an official in a cloak carrying the decorations, a veritable
show-case of all the orders in the known world, crosses, ribbons of all
hues, which more than covered the black velvet cushion fringed with
silver.

The master of ceremonies came next, at the head of the committee of the
Corps Législatif, a dozen or more deputies chosen by lot, in their midst
the tall figure of the Nabob, dressed for the first time in his official
costume, as if satirical fortune had chosen to give the representative
on trial a foretaste of all the joys of parliamentary life. The friends
of the deceased, who came next in line, formed a very limited
contingent, exceedingly well chosen to lay bare the superficiality and
emptiness of the existence of that great personage, reduced to the
companionship of a theatrical manager thrice insolvent, a picture-dealer
enriched by usury, a nobleman of unsavory reputation and a few
high-livers and boulevard idlers unknown to fame. Thus far everybody was
on foot and bareheaded; in the parliamentary committee a few black silk
skull caps had been timidly donned as they approached the populous
quarters. After the friends came the carriages.

At the obsequies of a great warrior, it is customary to include in the
funeral procession the hero's favorite horse, his battle-horse,
compelled to adapt to the snail-like pace of the cortège the prancing
gait which survives the smell of gunpowder and the waving of standards.
On this occasion Mora's great coupé, the "eight-spring" affair which
carried him to social or political gatherings, occupied the place of
that companion in victory, its panels draped in black, its lanterns
enveloped in long, light streamers of crêpe, which floated to the ground
with an indescribable undulatory feminine grace. That was a new idea for
funerals, those veiled lanterns, the supreme manifestation of _chic_ in
mourning; and it was most fitting for that dandy to give one last lesson
in style to the Parisians who flocked to his funeral as to a Longchamps
of death.

Three more masters of ceremonies, then came the impassive official
display, always the same for marriages, deaths, baptisms, openings of
Parliament, receptions by the sovereign,--the interminable procession of
state carriages, with gleaming panels, great mirrors, gaudy,
gold-bespangled liveries, which passed amid the dazzled throngs,
reminding them of fairy tales, the equipages of Cinderella, and arousing
the same _Ohs_! of admiration that ascend and burst with the bombs at
displays of fireworks. And in the crowd there was always an obliging
police officer, of an erudite petty bourgeois with nothing to do, on the
watch for public ceremonials, to name aloud all the people in the
carriages as they passed with their proper escorts of dragoons,
cuirassiers or _gardes de Paris_.

First the representatives of the Emperor, the Empress, all the imperial
family; then, in hierarchical order, scientifically worked out, the
slightest departure from which might have caused a serious conflict
between the various bodies of the government, the members of the Privy
Council, the marshals, the admirals, the grand chancellor of the Legion
of Honor, the Senate, the Corps Législatif, the Council of State, the
whole of the judicial and educational departments, whose costumes,
furred robes and wigs carried you back to the days of old Paris; they
seemed pompous, superannuated, out of place in the sceptical era of the
blouse and the black coat.

       *       *       *       *       *

Felicia, to avoid thought, fixed her eyes persistently on that
monotonous procession, of exasperating length, and gradually a sort of
torpor stole over her, as if on a rainy day she were turning the leaves
of an album with colored plates lying on the table of a dreary salon, a
history of state costumes from the earliest times to our own day. All
those people, seen in profile, sitting erect and motionless behind the
wide glass panels, bore a close resemblance to the faces of people in
the colored fashion-plates displayed as near as possible to the
sidewalk, so that we may lose nothing of their gold embroidery, their
palm-leaves, their gold lace and braid; manikins intended to gratify the
curiosity of the vulgar and exposing themselves with an air of heedless
indifference.

Indifference! That was the most marked characteristic of that funeral.
You felt it everywhere, on the faces and in the hearts of the mourners,
not only among all those functionaries, most of whom had known the duke
by sight only, but in the ranks of those on foot between his hearse and
his coupé, his closest friends and those who were in daily attendance
upon him. Indifferent, yes, cheerful, was the corpulent minister,
vice-president of the Council, who grasped the cords of the pall firmly
in his powerful hand, accustomed to pound the desk of the tribune, and
seemed to be drawing it forward, in greater haste than the horses and
the hearse to consign to his six feet of earth his enemy of twenty
years' standing, his constant rival, the obstacle to all his ambitions.
The other three dignitaries did not press forward with so much of the
vigor of a led horse, but the long streamers were held listlessly in
their wearied or distraught hands, significantly nerveless. Indifferent
the priests by profession. Indifferent the servants, whom he never
called anything else than "What's-your-name,"[4] and whom he treated
like things. Indifferent, too, was M. Louis, whose last day of servitude
it was--an enfranchised slave rich enough to pay his ransom. Even among
his intimates that freezing coldness had made its way. And yet some of
them were much attached to him. But Cardailhac was too much occupied in
superintending the order and progress of the ceremonial to give way to
the slightest emotion, which was quite foreign to his nature moreover.
Old Monpavon, although he was struck to the heart, would have considered
the slightest crease in his linen breastplate, the slightest bending of
his tall figure, as lamentably bad form, altogether unworthy his
illustrious friend. His eyes remained dry, as sparkling as ever, for the
Funeral Pageant furnishes the tears for state mourning, embroidered in
silver on black cloth. Some one was weeping, however, among the members
of the committee, but that some one was shedding ingenuous tears on his
own account. Poor Nabob, melted by the music and the display, it seemed
to him that he was burying all his fortune, all his ambition for dignity
and renown. And even that was one variety of indifference.


FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Chose_--literally _thing._


In the public the gratification of a gorgeous spectacle, the joy of
making a Sunday of a weekday, dominated every other feeling. As the
procession passed along the boulevards, the spectators on the balconies
almost applauded; here, in the populous quarters, irreverence manifested
itself even more frankly. Coarse chaff, vulgar comments on the dead man
and his doings, with which all Paris was familiar, laughter called forth
by the broad-brimmed hats of the rabbis and the solemn "mugs" of the
council of wise men, filled the air between two drum-beats. With feet in
the water, dressed in blouses and cotton caps, the head uncovered from
habit, poverty, forced labor, idleness and strikes watched with a sneer
the passing of that dweller in another sphere, that brilliant duke now
shorn of all his honors, who never in his life perhaps had visited that
extremity of the city. But here he is! To reach the spot to which
everybody goes, one must follow the road that everybody follows:
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Rue de la Roquette, to that mammoth toll-gate
open so wide into the infinite. And _dame_! it is pleasant to see that
noblemen like Mora, dukes and ministers, all take the same road to the
same destination. That equality in death consoles one for many unjust
things in life. To-morrow the bread will seem not so dear, the wine
better, the tools less heavy, when one can say to oneself on rising:
"Well, that old Mora had to come to it like everybody else."

The procession dragged along, even more tiresome than lugubrious. Now it
was the choral societies, deputations from the Army and Navy, officers
of all arms of the service, herded together in front of a long line of
empty carriages, mourning carriages, gentlemen's carriages, parading in
compliance with etiquette; then came the troops in their turn, and Rue
de la Roquette, that long street running through the filthy faubourg,
already swarming with people as far as the eye could see, swallowed up a
whole army, infantry, dragoons, lancers, carabineers, heavy guns with
muzzles in the air, all ready to bark, shaking pavements and
window-panes, but unable to drown the rolling of the drums, a sinister,
barbarous sound, which transported Felicia's imagination to the
obsequies of African monarchs, where thousands of immolated victims
attend the soul of a prince so that it may not enter the kingdom of
spirits alone, and made her think that perhaps that ostentatious,
interminable procession was about to descend and disappear in a
supernatural grave vast enough to hold it all.

"Now, and in the hour of our death. Amen!" murmured La Crenmitz, while
the cab rattled across the empty square, where Liberty, in solid gold,
seemed to be taking a magic flight in space; and the old dancer's prayer
was perhaps the only sincere note of true emotion uttered throughout the
vast space covered by the funeral.

       *       *       *       *       *

All the discourses are at an end, three long discourses as cold as the
cavern into which the dead man has descended, three official harangues
which have afforded the orators an opportunity to proclaim in very loud
tones their devotion to the interests of the dynasty. Fifteen times the
cannon have awakened the numerous echoes of the cemetery, shaken the
wreaths of jet and immortelles, the light _ex-votos_ hanging at the
corners of burial lots, and while a reddish cloud floats upward and
revolves amid the odor of powder across the city of the dead, mingling
gradually with the smoke from the factories of the plebeian quarter, the
countless multitude also disperses, scattering through the sloping
streets, the long stairways gleaming white among the verdure, with a
confused murmur as of waves beating against the rocks. Purple robes,
black robes, blue and green coats, gold ornaments, slender swords which
their wearers adjust while marching, return hastily to the carriages.
Dignified salutations, meaning smiles are exchanged, while the mourning
equipages rumble along the paths at a gallop, displaying lines of
black-coated drivers, with rounded backs, hats _en bataille_, capes
floating in the wind caused by their swift pace.

The general feeling is one of relief at the close of a long and
fatiguing exhibition, a legitimate eagerness to lay aside the
administrative harness, the ceremonious costumes, to loosen the belts,
the high collars and the stocks, to relax the features which, no less
than the bodies, have been wearing fetters.

Short and stout, dragging his bloated legs with difficulty, Hemerlingue
hurried toward the exit, declining the offers that were made him of a
seat in various carriages, knowing well that only his own was adapted to
the weight of his dropsical body.

"Baron, baron, this way. There's a seat for you."

"No, thanks. I am walking the numbness out of my legs."

And, in order to avoid these proposals, which at length annoyed him, he
took a cross-path that was almost deserted, too deserted in fact, for he
had hardly entered it when he regretted having done so. Ever since he
had entered the cemetery, he had had but one absorbing thought, the fear
of coming face to face with Jansoulet, whose violent temper he knew
well, and who might forget the majesty of the spot and repeat the
scandalous scene of Rue Royale in Père-Lachaise. Two or three times
during the ceremony he had seen his former partner's great head emerge
from the mass of colorless types of which the attendant throng was
largely composed, and move toward him, evidently seeking him, actuated
by a desire for a meeting. In the main avenue yonder there would be
people at hand in case of accident, while here--_Brr!_ It was that
anxiety which caused him to force his short steps, his panting breath;
but in vain. As he turned in his fear of being followed, the Nabob's
tall form and broad shoulders appeared at the entrance of the path. It
was impossible for the bulky creature to walk in the narrow space
between the tombs, which were packed so closely that there was hardly
room to kneel. The rich, rain-soaked earth slipped and gave way under
his feet. He adopted the plan of walking on with an indifferent air,
hoping that the other would not recognize him. But a hoarse, powerful
voice behind him called:

"Lazare!"

The capitalist's name was Lazare. He made no reply but tried to overtake
a group of officers who were walking a long way in front of him.

"Lazare! O Lazare!"

Just as in the old days on the quay at Marseille. He was tempted to
halt, under the influence of an old habit, but the thought of his
infamous conduct, of all the injury he had inflicted on the Nabob and
was still attempting to inflict on him, suddenly came to his mind with a
horrible fear, amounting to frenzy, when a hand of iron brought him
abruptly to a standstill. The sweat of cowardice drenched his limp and
nerveless limbs, his face turned still yellower, his eyes winked in
anticipation of the terrible blow he expected to receive, while his
great arms were raised instinctively to ward it off.

"Oh! don't be afraid. I have no evil designs on you," said Jansoulet
sadly. "I come simply to ask you to cease your designs on me."

[Illustration: "'_Don't be afraid. I have no evil designs on you._'"]

He paused to take breath. The banker, stupefied and dismayed, opened his
round owl's eyes to their fullest extent in face of that suffocating
emotion.

"Listen, Lazare, you are the stronger in this war we have been carrying
on so long. I am on the ground at your feet. My shoulders have touched.
Now be generous, spare your old chum. Have mercy on me, I say, have
mercy on me."

That Southerner, subdued and softened by the pomp of the funeral
ceremony, trembled in every limb. Hemerlingue, facing him, was hardly
more courageous. The dismal music, the open tomb, the orations, the
cannonading, and the lofty philosophy of inevitable death, all had
combined to move the stout baron to the depths of his being. His former
comrade's voice completed the awakening of such human qualities as still
remained in that bundle of gelatine.

His old chum! It was the first time in ten years, since their falling
out, that he had seen him at such close quarters. How many things those
swarthy features, those powerful shoulders ill-suited to an
embroidered coat, recalled to his mind! The thin woollen blanket, full
of holes, in which they both rolled themselves up to sleep on the deck
of the _Sinai_, the rations fraternally shared, the long walks through
the scorched country about Marseille, where they stole great onions and
ate them on the bank of a ditch, the dreams, the projects, the sous put
into the common purse, and, when fortune began to smile on them, the
antics they played together, the dainty little suppers at which they
told each other everything, with their elbows on the table.

How can two people ever fall out when they know each other so well, when
they have lived like twins clinging to a thin, strong nurse, poverty,
sharing her soured milk and her rough caresses! Such thoughts, long to
analyze, passed through Hemerlingue's mind like a flash of lightning.
Almost instinctively he let his heavy hand fall into the hand the Nabob
held out to him. Something of the animal nature stirred in them both,
stronger than their antipathy, and those two men, who had been trying
for ten years to ruin and dishonor each other, began to talk together
heart to heart.

Generally, when friends meet after a long separation, the first effusive
greetings at an end, they remain silent as if they had nothing to tell
each other, whereas it is the very abundance of things, their
precipitate struggle for utterance that prevents their coming forth. The
two former partners had reached that stage; but Jansoulet held the
banker's arm very tight, fearing that he might escape him, might resist
the kindly impulses that he had aroused in him.

"You are in no hurry, are you? We might walk a moment or two if you
choose. It has stopped raining, it will do us good--we shall be twenty
years younger."

"Yes, it's a pleasant thing," said Hemerlingue; "but I can't walk long,
my legs are heavy."

"True, your poor legs. See, there's a bench yonder. Let's go and sit
down. Lean on me, old fellow."

And the Nabob, with brotherly solicitude, led him to one of the benches
placed at intervals against the tombs, for the convenience of those
inconsolable mourners who make the cemetery their usual resort. He
arranged him comfortably, encompassed him with a protecting glance,
sympathized with him in his infirmity, and, the conversation following a
course very natural in such a place, they talked of their health, of the
approach of old age. One was dropsical, the other subject to rushes of
blood to the head. Both were taking the Jenkins Pearls,--a dangerous
remedy, witness Mora's sudden taking off.

"Poor duke!" said Jansoulet.

"A great loss to the country," rejoined the banker, in a grief-stricken
tone.

Whereupon the Nabob ingenuously exclaimed:

"To me, above all others to me, for if he had lived--Ah! you have all
the luck, you have all the luck! And then, you know, you are so strong,
so very strong," he added, fearing that he had wounded him.

The baron looked at him and winked, so drolly that his little black
lashes disappeared in his yellow flesh.

"No," he said, "I'm not the strong one. It's Marie!"

"Marie?"

"Yes, the baroness. At the time of her baptism she dropped her old name,
Yumina, for Marie. She's a real woman. She knows more about the bank
than I do, and about Paris and business generally. She manages
everything in the concern."

"You are very fortunate," sighed Jansoulet.

His melancholy was most eloquent touching Mademoiselle Afchin's
deficiencies. After a pause the baron continued:

"Marie has a bitter grudge against you, you know. She won't like it when
she knows that we have been talking together."

He contracted his heavy eyebrows as if he regretted the reconciliation
at the thought of the conjugal scene it would bring upon him.

"But I have never done anything to her," stammered Jansoulet.

"Ah! but you haven't been very polite to her, you know. Think of the
insult put upon her at the time of our wedding-call. Your wife sending
word to us that she didn't receive former slaves! As if our friendship
should not have been stronger than any prejudice. Women don't forget
such things."

"But I had nothing to do with it, old fellow. You know how proud those
Afchins are."

He was not proud, poor man. His expression was so piteous, so imploring
at sight of his friend's frowning brow, that the baron took pity on him.
The cemetery had a decidedly softening effect on the baron!

"Listen, Bernard, there's only one thing that will do any good. If you
wish that we should be friends as we used to be, that these handshakes
that we have exchanged should not be wasted, you must induce my wife to
be reconciled to you. Without that it's of no use. When Mademoiselle
Afchin shut her door in our faces, you let her do it, didn't you? It's
the same with me; if Marie should say to me when I go home: 'I don't
want you to be friends,' all my protestations wouldn't prevent me from
throwing you overboard. For there's no friendship that amounts to
anything. The best thing in the world is to have peace in your own
house."

"But what am I to do, then?" queried the Nabob, in dismay.

"That's what I'm going to tell you. The baroness is at home every
Saturday. Come with your wife and call on her day after to-morrow. You
will find the best people in Paris at the house. Nothing will be said
about the past. The ladies will talk dresses and bonnets, say what women
say to each other. And then it will be all settled. We shall be friends
again as in the old days; and if you're in the hole, why, we'll pull you
out."

"Do you think so? It's a fact that I am in very deep," said the other,
shaking his head.

Once more Hemerlingue's cunning eyes disappeared between his cheeks,
like two flies in butter.

"_Dame!_ yes, I've played pretty close. You don't lack skill. That
stroke of loaning fifteen millions to the bey was very shrewd. Ah!
you're a cool one; but you don't hold your cards right. Others can see
your hand."

Thus far they had spoken in undertones, as if awed by the silence of the
great necropolis; but gradually selfish interests raised their tones,
even amid the proofs of their nothingness displayed upon all those flat
stones covered with dates and figures, as if death were simply a matter
of time and reckoning, the desired solution of a problem.

Hemerlingue enjoyed seeing his friend so humble, he gave him advice
concerning his business affairs, with which he seemed to be thoroughly
acquainted. According to his view, the Nabob could still get out of his
difficulties in very good shape. Everything depended on the confirmation
of his election, on having another card to play. Then it must be played
judiciously. But Jansoulet had no confidence. In losing Mora he had lost
everything.

"You have lost Mora, but you have found me. One's worth as much as the
other," said the baron, calmly.

"But no, you see yourself it's impossible. It's too late. Le Merquier
has finished his report. It's a terrible report, so it seems."

"Very well! if he's finished his report, he must draw another, not so
unfavorable."

"How can that be?"

The baron stared at him in amazement.

"Come, come, you're losing your hold! Why, by giving him one, two, three
hundred thousand francs, if necessary."

"What do you mean? Le Merquier, that upright man--'My conscience,' as he
is called."

At that, Hemerlingue fairly roared with laughter, which echoed among the
recesses of the neighboring mausoleums, little wonted to such lack of
respect.

"'My conscience,' 'an upright man,' Ah! you amuse me. Can it be that you
don't know that that conscience belongs to me, and that--"

He checked himself and looked behind, a little disturbed by a noise he
heard.

"Listen."

It was the echo of his laughter, tossed back from the depths of a tomb,
as if that idea of Le Merquier's conscience amused even the dead.

"Suppose we walk a little," he said, "it begins to feel cold on this
bench."

Thereupon, as they walked among the tombs, he explained to him with a
certain pedantic conceit that in France bribes played as important a
part as in the Orient. Only more ceremony was used here. "Take Le
Merquier for instance. Instead of giving him your money outright in a
big purse as you would do with a _seraskier_, you beat around the bush.
The fellow likes pictures. He is always trading with Schwalbach, who
uses him as a bait to catch Catholic customers. Very good! you offer him
a picture, a souvenir to hang on a panel in his cabinet. It all depends
on getting your money's worth. However, you shall see. I'll take you to
him myself. I'll show you how the thing is done."

And, delighted to observe the wonderment of the Nabob, who exaggerated
his surprise in order to flatter him, and opened his eyes admiringly,
the banker elaborated his lesson, delivering a veritable lecture upon
Parisian and worldly philosophy.

"You see, old fellow, the thing that you must be more careful about than
anything else in Paris, is keeping up appearances! You have never given
enough attention to that. You go about with your waistcoat unbuttoned,
hail fellow well met, telling your business to everybody, showing
yourself just as you are. You act as if you were in Tunis, among the
bazaars or the _souks_. That's how you got yourself into trouble, my
good Bernard."

He stopped to take breath, unable to go any farther. He had expended
more steps and more words in an hour than he usually did in a year. They
noticed then that chance had led them back, while they talked, towards
the place of sepulture of the Moras, on the summit of an open plateau
from which they could see, above myriads of crowded roofs, Montmartre
and Les Buttes Chaumont in the distance like vague white billows. These,
with the hill of Père-Lachaise, accurately represented the three
undulations, following one another at equal intervals, of which each
forward impulse of the sea consists at flood tide. In the hollows
between, lights were already twinkling, like ship's lanterns, through
the ascending purple haze; chimneys towered aloft like masts or funnels
of steamers belching forth smoke; and whirling it all about in its
undulating motion, the Parisian ocean seemed to be bringing it nearer to
the dark shore in successive series of three bounds, each time less
energetic than the last. The sky had become much brighter, as it often
does toward the close of rainy days, a boundless sky, tinged with the
hues of dawn, against which, upon the family tomb of the Moras, four
allegorical figures stood forth, imploring, contemplative, pensive, the
dying day exaggerating the sublimity of their attitudes. Naught remained
of the orations, the perfunctory official condolences. The trampled
grass all around, masons occupied in washing the spots of plaster from
the threshold, were all that recalled the recent interment.

Suddenly the door of the ducal cavern closed in all its metallic
ponderosity. Thenceforth the former minister of State was alone, quite
alone, in the darkness of his night, more dense than that just creeping
up from the garden below, invading the winding avenues, the stairways
surrounding the bases of columns, pyramids, crypts of every kind, whose
summits died more slowly. Gravediggers, all white with the chalky
whiteness of dried bones, passed with their tools and their baskets.
Stealthy mourners, tearing themselves away regretfully from tears and
prayer, crept along the hedges, brushing them in their silent flight,
like the flight of night-birds, while on the outskirts of Père-Lachaise
voices arose, melancholy voices announcing the hour for closing. The
cemetery day was done. The city of the dead, given back to nature,
became an immense forest with cross-roads marked by crosses. In the
heart of a valley lights shone in the windows of a keeper's house. A
shiver ran through the air and lost itself in whisperings at the end of
interlaced paths.

"Let us go," said the two old comrades, yielding gradually to the
influence of the twilight, which seemed colder there than elsewhere;
but, before they turned away, Hemerlingue, following out his thought,
pointed to the monument, with the draperies and outstretched hands of
the carved figures like wings at the four corners:

"There was a man who understood all about keeping up appearances."

Jansoulet took his arm to assist him in the descent.

"Oh! yes, he was strong. But you are stronger than anybody else," he
said in his fervid Gascon accent.

Hemerlingue did not protest.

"I owe it all to my wife. So I urge you to make your peace with her,
because if you don't--"

"Oh! never fear--we will come Saturday; but you will go with me to Le
Merquier."

And as the two silhouettes, one tall and square-shouldered, the other
short and stout, disappeared in the windings of the great labyrinth, as
Jansoulet's voice, guiding his friend, with a "This way, old
fellow--lean on me," gradually died away, a stray beam of the setting
sun fell upon the plateau behind them, and lighted the colossal bust of
Balzac looking after them with its expressive face, its noble brow from
which the long hair was brushed back, its powerful and sarcastic lip.




XX.

BARONESS HEMERLINGUE.


At the farther end of the long archway beneath which were the offices of
Hemerlingue and Son, a dark tunnel which Père Joyeuse had for ten years
bedecked and illumined with his dreams, a monumental staircase with
wrought-iron rail, a staircase of old Paris, ascended to the left,
leading to the baroness's salons, whose windows looked on the courtyard
just above the counting-room, so that, during the warm season, when
everything was open, the chink of the gold pieces, the noise made by
piles of crowns toppling over on the counters, slightly deadened by the
rich hangings at the long windows, formed a sort of commercial
accompaniment to the subdued conversations carried on by worldly
Catholicism.

That detail was responsible for the peculiar physiognomy of that salon,
no less peculiar than the woman who presided over it, mingling a vague
odor of the sacristy with the excitement of the Bourse and the most
consummate worldliness, heterogeneous elements which constantly met and
came in contact there, but remained separate, just as the Seine
separates the noble Catholic faubourg under whose auspices the notorious
conversion of the Moslem woman took place, from the financial quarters
in which Hemerlingue's life and his associations were located. Levantine
society, which is quite numerous in Paris, consisting principally of
German Jews, bankers or commission merchants, who, after making enormous
fortunes in the Orient, continue in business here in order not to lose
the habit of it, was very regular in its attendance on the baroness's
days. Tunisians sojourning in Paris never failed to call upon the wife
of the great banker, who was in favor at home, and old Colonel Brahim,
the bey's chargé d'affaires, with his drooping lips and his lustreless
eyes, took his nap every Saturday in the corner of the same divan.

"Your salon smells of burning flesh, my goddaughter," the old Princesse
de Dions said laughingly to the newly-christened Marie, whom she and
Maître Le Merquier had held at the baptismal font; but the presence of
that crowd of heretics, Jews, Mussulmans and even renegades, those fat
women with pimply faces, gaudily dressed, loaded down with gold and
earrings, "veritable bales" of finery, did not prevent Faubourg
Saint-Germain from calling upon, surrounding and watching over the young
neophyte, the plaything of those noble dames, a very pliant, very docile
doll, whom they took about and exhibited, quoting her _naïve_
evangelical remarks, especially interesting by way of contrast to her
past. Perhaps there found its way into the hearts of those amiable
patronesses the hope of encountering in that company fresh from the
Orient an opportunity to make a new conversion, to fill the aristocratic
mission chapel once more with the touching spectacle of one of those
baptisms of adults, which carry you back to the early days of the faith,
to the banks of the Jordan, and are soon followed by the first
communion, the rebaptizing, the confirmation, all affording pretexts for
the godmother to accompany her goddaughter, to guide that young soul, to
look on at the ingenuous transports of a new-born faith, and at the same
time to display costumes deftly varied and shaded to suit the brilliancy
or the solemnity of the ceremony. But it does not often happen that a
baron prominent in financial circles brings to Paris an Armenian slave
whom he has made his lawful wife.

A slave! That was the stain in the past of that woman of the Orient,
purchased long ago in the slave-mart at Adrianople for the Emperor of
Morocco, then, upon the Emperor's death and the dispersion of his harem,
sold to the young Bey Ahmed. Hemerlingue had married her on her exit
from that second seraglio, but was unable to induce society to receive
her in Tunis, where no woman, be she Moor, Turk, or European, will ever
consent to treat a former slave as an equal, by virtue of a prejudice
not unlike that which separates the Creole from the most perfectly
disguised quadroon. There is an invincible repugnance there on that
subject, which the Hemerlingue family found even in Paris, where the
foreign colonies form little clubs overflowing with local
susceptibilities and traditions. Thus Yumina passed two or three years
in utter solitude, of which she was able to turn to good account all the
bitterness of heart and all the leisure hours; for she was an ambitious
woman of extraordinary strength of will and obstinacy. She learned the
French language thoroughly, said adieu forever to her embroidered
jackets and pink silk trousers, succeeded in adapting her figure and her
gait to European garb, to the embarrassment of long skirts; and one
evening, at the opera, displayed to the marvelling Parisians the figure,
still a little uncivilized, but elegant, refined and so original, of a
female Mussulman in a décolleté costume by Léonard.

The sacrifice of her religion followed close upon that of her costume.
Madame Hemerlingue had long since abandoned all Mohammedan practices,
when Maître Le Merquier, the intimate friend of the family and her
cicerone in Paris, pointed out that a formal conversion of the baroness
would open to her the doors of that portion of Parisian society which
seems to have become more and more difficult of access, in proportion as
the society all around it has become more democratic. Faubourg
Saint-Germain once conquered, all the rest would follow. And so it
proved that when, after the sensation occasioned by the baptism, it
became known that the greatest names of France did not disdain to
assemble at Baroness Hemerlingue's Saturdays, Mesdames Guggenheim,
Fuernberg, Caraïscaki, Maurice Trott, all wives of Fez millionaires and
illustrious in the market-places of Tunis, renounced their prejudices
and prayed to be admitted to the ex-slave's receptions. Madame Jansoulet
alone, newly landed in France with a stock of Oriental ideas impeding
circulation in her mind, as her nargileh, her ostrich eggs and all the
rest of her Tunisian trash impeded it in her apartments, protested
against what she called impropriety, cowardice, and declared that she
would never step foot inside "that creature's" doors. Immediately a
slight retrograde movement took place among Mesdames Guggenheim,
Caraïscaki, and other bales of finery, as always happens in Paris
whenever obstinate resistance from some quarter to the regularizing of
an irregular state of affairs leads to regrets and defections. They had
advanced too far to withdraw, but they determined that the value of
their complaisance, of the sacrifice of their prejudices should be more
fully understood; and Baroness Marie realized the difference simply from
the patronizing tone of the Levantines, who called her "my dear
child--my good girl," with haughty condescension not unmingled with
contempt. Thereafter her hatred of the Jansoulets knew no bounds, a
complicated, savage, seraglio hatred, with strangling and secret
drowning at the end, an operation rather more difficult of performance
in Paris than on the shores of the Lake of El-Baheira, but she was
already preparing the bow-string and stout bag.

That implacable hatred being well known and understood, we can imagine
the surprise and excitement in that exotic corner of society, when it
was reported that not only did the stout Afchin--as those ladies called
her--consent to meet the baroness, but was to call first upon her on her
next Saturday. You may be sure that neither the Fuernbergs nor the
Trotts proposed to miss that occasion. The baroness for her part did all
that she could to give the utmost possible publicity to that solemn act
of reparation, wrote notes and made calls and played her cards so well
that, notwithstanding the fact that the season was very far advanced,
Madame Jansoulet, if she had arrived at the mansion in Faubourg
Saint-Honoré about four o'clock, might have seen before the lofty arched
gateway, beside the Princesse de Dions' quiet livery of the color of
dead leaves, and many genuine coats of arms, the showy, pretentious
crests, the multi-colored wheels of a multitude of financiers' equipages
and the tall powdered lackeys of the Caraïscakis.

Above, in the reception-rooms, there was the same strange and gorgeous
medley. There was a constant going and coming over the carpets of the
first two rooms, which were quite deserted, a rustling of silk dresses
to and from the boudoir, where the baroness received, dividing her
attentions and her cajoleries between the two very distinct camps; on
one side dark dresses, modest in appearance, whose richness was
discernible to none but practised eyes, on the other a tumultuous
springtime of bright colors, expansive waists, diamonds in profusion,
floating sashes, styles for exportation, wherein one could detect a sort
of regretful longing for a warmer climate and a luxurious, ostentatious
life. Fans waving majestically here, discreet whispering there. Very few
men, two or three youths, very thoughtful, silent and inactive, sucking
the heads of their canes, several stooping figures, standing behind
their wives' broad backs, talking with their heads lowered as if they
were discussing smuggling expeditions; in a corner the beautiful,
patriarchal beard and violet hood of an orthodox Armenian bishop.

The baroness, in her efforts to bring these discordant social elements
together and to keep her salons full until the famous interview,
constantly moved about, carried on ten different conversations at once,
raising her soft, melodious voice to the purring pitch that
distinguishes Oriental women,--a wheedling, seductive voice, and a mind
as supple as her waist, opening all sorts of subjects, and, as
convention requires, mingling fashions and sermons on charity, theatres
and auction sales,--the scandalmonger and the confessor. She possessed a
great personal charm in addition to this acquired science of
entertaining, a science visible even in her very simple black dress,
which brought out in relief her cloistral pallor, her houri-like eyes,
her smooth, glossy hair, parted above a narrow, unwrinkled brow,--a brow
whose mystery was accentuated by the too thin lips, closing to the
curious the whole varied, adventurous past of that ex-odalisque, who was
of no age, had no knowledge of the date of her birth, did not remember
that she had ever been a child.

Clearly, if the absolute power of evil, very rarely found in women, whom
their impressionable physical nature subjects to so many varying
currents, could exist in a human soul, it would be found in the soul of
that slave trained to concessions and fawning, rebellious but patient,
and thoroughly self-controlled, like all those whom the habit of wearing
a veil lowered over their eyes has accustomed to lying without danger
and without scruple.

At that moment no one could have suspected the agony of suspense from
which she was suffering, to see her kneeling in front of the princess, a
good-humored old woman, of unceremonious manners, of whom La Fuernberg
constantly said: "Well, if she's a princess!"

"Oh! godmother, don't go yet, I beg you!"

She overwhelmed her with all sorts of fascinating little tricks of
action and expression, without acknowledging, of course, that she was
determined to detain her until Jansoulet's arrival, in order to make her
contribute to her triumph.

"You see," said the good woman, pointing to the Armenian, sitting,
majestic and solemn, his tasselled hat on his knees, "I have to take
poor monseigneur to the _Grand-Saint-Christophe_ to buy medals. He could
never do it without me."

"But I want you to stay. You must. Just a few minutes more."

And the baroness glanced furtively toward the gorgeous, old-fashioned
clock hanging in a corner of the salon.

Five o'clock already, and the stout Afchin did not come. The Levantines
began to laugh behind their fans. Luckily, tea had just been served, and
Spanish wines, and a quantity of delicious Turkish cakes, which were
found nowhere else, and the receipts for which, brought to Paris by the
ex-slave, are preserved in harems, as certain secrets connected with the
finest confectionery are preserved in our convents. That made a
diversion. Hemerlingue, who came from his office from time to time on
Saturdays to pay his respects to the ladies, was drinking a glass of
madeira at the small table on which the refreshments were served,
talking with Maurice Trott, formerly Said-Pacha's bath-master, when his
wife, always mild and tranquil externally, approached him. He knew what
fierce wrath must be hidden beneath that impenetrable calm, and he asked
her timidly, in an undertone:

"No one?"

"No one. You see to what an outrage you have exposed me!"

She smiled, her eyes half-closed, as she removed with the ends of her
fingers a crumb that had lodged in his long black whiskers; but her
transparent little nostrils quivered with awe-inspiring eloquence.

"Oh! she will come," said the banker, with his mouth full. "I am sure
she will come."

A rustling of silk, of a train being adjusted in the adjoining room,
caused the baroness to turn her head quickly. To the great delight of
the cluster of "bales" in one corner, who were watching everything, it
was not she who was expected.

She bore but little resemblance to Mademoiselle Afchin, the tall,
graceful blonde, with the tired features and irreproachable toilet,
worthy in every respect to bear a name as illustrious as that of Dr.
Jenkins. In the last two or three months the beautiful Madame Jenkins
had changed greatly, had grown much older. There comes a time in the
life of a woman who has long retained her youth, when the years which
have passed over her head without leaving a wrinkle write themselves
down pitilessly all at once in ineffaceable marks. We no longer say when
we see her: "How lovely she is!" but, "She must have been very lovely."
And that cruel fashion of speaking of the past, of referring to a
distant period what was a visible fact but yesterday, constitutes a
beginning of old age and of retirement,--a substitution of reminiscences
for all past triumphs. Was it the disappointment of seeing the doctor's
wife instead of Madame Jansoulet, or was the discredit which the Duc de
Mora's death had brought upon the fashionable doctor destined to
overflow upon her who bore his name? There was something of both those
causes, and perhaps of another as well, in the cold welcome which the
baroness accorded Madame Jenkins. A murmured greeting, a few hurried
words, and she returned to the battalion of noble dames who were
nibbling away with great zest. The salon became animated under the
influence of the Spanish wines. People no longer whispered; they
talked. Lamps were brought in and imparted additional brilliancy to the
occasion, but announced that it was very near its end, as several
persons who had no interest in the great event were already moving
toward the door. And the Jansoulets did not come.

Suddenly there was a heavy, hurried step. The Nabob appeared, alone,
buttoned into his black frock-coat, correctly gloved and cravatted, but
with distorted features and haggard eye, still trembling from the
terrible scene in which he had just taken part.

She had refused to come.

In the morning he had told Madame's women to have her dressed at three
o'clock, as he was accustomed to do whenever he took the Levantine
abroad with him, for he found it necessary to impart motion to that
indolent creature, who, being incapable of assuming any responsibility
whatsoever, allowed others to think, to decide and to act for her,
although she was quite willing to go wherever he chose, when she was
once started. And he relied upon that willingness to enable him to take
her to Hemerlingue's house. But when, after breakfast, Jansoulet, fully
dressed, magnificent, perspiring in his struggles to put on his gloves,
sent to ask if Madame would soon be ready, he was told that Madame was
not going out. It was a serious crisis, so serious that, discarding the
mediation of valets and maids, through whom their conjugal interviews
were usually conducted, he ran upstairs four stairs at a time, and
entered the Levantine's luxurious apartments like a gust of the mistral.

She was still in bed, clad in the ample open-work tunic in silk of two
colors, which the Moors call a _djebba_, and in one of their
gold-embroidered caps from which her beautiful heavy black mane escaped
in tangled masses around her moon-like face, flushed by the hearty meal
she had just finished. The sleeves of the _djebba_ were turned back,
disclosing two enormous, shapeless arms, laden with bracelets, with long
slender chains wandering amid a wilderness of little mirrors, red
chaplets, boxes of perfume, microscopic pipes, cigarette cases, the
trivial toy-shop display of a Moorish beauty at her hour for rising.

The bedroom, heavy with the opium-laden, suffocating odor of Turkish
tobacco, presented the same disorderly aspect. Negresses went in and
out, slowly removing their mistress's coffee service, her favorite
gazelle was lapping a cup which he had overturned on the carpet with his
slender nose, while the dark-browed Cabassu, seated at the foot of the
bed with touching familiarity, was reading aloud to Madame a drama in
verse soon to be produced at Cardaillac's theatre. The Levantine was
amazed, absolutely stupefied by the work.

"My dear," she said to Jansoulet, in her thick Flemish accent, "I don't
know what our manager is thinking about. I am just reading that play,
_Révolte_, that he is so crazy over. Why, it's a frightful thing! It's
never been on the stage."

"What do I care for your stage?" cried Jansoulet fiercely, despite all
his respect for the daughter of the Afchins. "What! you're not dressed,
yet? Weren't you told that we were going out?"

She had been told, but she had begun to read this idiotic play.

"We will go out to-morrow," she said in her sleepy tone.

"To-morrow! Impossible! We are expected to-day without fail. A very
important visit."

"Where are we to go, pray?"

He hesitated a second, then answered:

"To Hemerlingue's."

She looked up at him with her great eyes, convinced that he was laughing
at her. Thereupon he told her of his meeting with the baron at Mora's
funeral and the agreement they had made.

"Go there if you choose," she said coldly; "but you know me very little
if you think that I, an Afchin, will ever set foot inside that slave's
door."

Cabassu, seeing the turn that the discussion was taking, had prudently
disappeared in an adjoining room, the five books of _Révolte_ in a pile
under his arm.

"Stay," said the Nabob to his wife, "it is clear that you don't
understand the terrible plight I am in. Listen."

Heedless of the maids and negresses, with the Oriental's sovereign
indifference for the servant class, he began to draw the picture of his
great embarrassment, his property in Tunis seized, his credit in Paris
lost, his whole life hanging in suspense on the decision of the Chamber,
Hemerlingue's influence with the man who was to make the report, and the
absolute necessity of sacrificing all self-love to such momentous
interests. He talked with great warmth, eager to persuade her, to take
her with him. But she replied, simply: "I will not go," as if it were a
matter of an expedition of no possible consequence, so long that it was
likely to tire her.

"Come, come, it isn't possible that you would say such a thing," he
continued, quivering with excitement. "Remember that my fortune is at
stake, the future of your children, the very name you bear. Everything
is staked on this one concession, which you cannot refuse to make."

He might have talked thus for hours, he would still have been met by the
same determined, invincible obstinacy. A Mademoiselle Afchin could not
call upon a slave.

"I tell you, madame," he exclaimed, savagely, "that slave is worth more
than you. By her shrewdness she has doubled her husband's wealth, while
you on the contrary--"

For the first time in the twelve years of their married life Jansoulet
dared to oppose his wife's will. Was he ashamed of that crime of
_lèse-majesté_ or did he realize that such a declaration might dig an
impassable abyss between them? At all events he changed his tone at once
and knelt beside the low bed, with the affectionate, smiling tone one
employs to make children listen to reason.

"My dear little Marthe, I implore you--get up and dress yourself. It's
for your own interest that I ask you to do it, for your luxury, for your
comfort. What will become of you if, by a mere whim, by naughty
wilfulness, we are to be reduced to poverty?"

The word "poverty" conveyed absolutely no meaning to the Levantine. You
could speak of it before her as you speak of death before small
children. It failed to move her, as she had no idea what it was. At all
events she was obstinately determined to remain in bed in her _djebba_,
for, to emphasize her decision, she lighted a fresh cigarette from the
one she had just finished, and while the Nabob enveloped his "darling
little wife" in apologies and prayers and supplications, promising her a
diadem of pearls a hundred times more beautiful than hers if she would
come, she watched the heady smoke float up to the painted ceiling and
wrapped herself in it as in imperturbable tranquillity. Finally, in face
of that persistent refusal, that silence, that forehead upon which he
detected the barrier of unconquerable obstinacy, Jansoulet gave rein to
his wrath and drew himself up to his full height.

"Very good," said he, "I say you shall."

He turned to the negresses:

"Dress your mistress, at once."

And the boor that he really was, the son of the Southern junk-dealer
coming to the surface in that crisis, which moved him to the depths of
his being, he threw back the bedclothes with a brutal, contemptuous
gesture, tossing the innumerable gewgaws they held to the floor, and
forcing the half-naked Levantine to jump to her feet with a promptitude
most remarkable in that bulky personage. She roared under the outrage,
gathered the folds of her tunic about her misshapen bust, fixed her
little cap crosswise over her falling hair, and began to blackguard her
husband.

"Never, you hear me, never--you shall never drag me to that--"

Filth poured from her heavy lips as from the mouth of a drain. Jansoulet
might well have believed that he was in one of the frightful dens along
the water front in Marseille, listening to a quarrel between a
prostitute and a _nervi_, or looking on at some open-air fracas between
Genoese, Maltese and Provençal women gleaning on the quay around bags of
grain in process of unloading, and reviling each other at full speed in
eddies of golden dust. She was the typical seaport Levantine, the
spoiled, neglected child, who from her terrace, or from her gondola, in
the evening, has heard sailors cursing one another in all the languages
of the Latin seas, and has remembered everything. The wretched man
stared at her, horrified and dismayed at what she compelled him to hear,
at her grotesque figure, foaming at the mouth and sputtering:

"No, I won't go--no, I won't go!"

And she was the mother of his children, an Afchin!

Suddenly, at the thought that his fate was in that woman's hands, that
she had only to put on a dress to save him, and that time was flying,
that it would soon be too late, a gust of crime rushed to his brain,
distorted all his features. He rushed at her, opening and closing his
hands with such a terrible expression that the daughter of the Afchins,
in deadly terror, darted toward the door through which the _masseur_ had
just left the room, calling:

"Aristide!"

That cry, that voice, his wife's evident intimacy with his
lieutenant--Jansoulet stopped, his frantic anger passed away, and he
rushed from the room, throwing the doors open, more eager to escape the
disaster and the horror whose presence he felt in his own house, than to
go elsewhere to seek the help that had been promised him.

A quarter of an hour later he made his appearance at Hemerlingue's,
making a despairing gesture in the banker's direction as he entered, and
approached the baroness, stammering the ready-made phrase that he had
heard repeated so often on the evening of his own ball: "His wife was
very ill--in despair that she could not--" She did not give him time to
finish, but rose slowly, like a long, slender snake in the crosswise
folds of her clinging skirt, and said, in her schoolgirl accent, without
looking at him: "Oh! _I_ knew--_I_ knew;" then moved away and paid no
further heed to him. He tried to accost Hemerlingue, but that gentleman
seemed deeply absorbed in his conversation with Maurice Trott. Thereupon
he went and sat down beside Madame Jenkins, whose isolation was no less
marked than his. But, while he talked with the poor woman, who was as
languid as he himself was preoccupied, he watched the baroness do the
honors of that salon, so much more comfortable than his own great gilded
halls.

The guests were taking their leave. Madame Hemerlingue escorted some of
the ladies to the door, bent her head beneath the benediction of the
Armenian bishop, bowed smilingly to the young dandies with canes,
bestowed upon every one the proper variety of salutation, with perfect
self-possession; and the poor devil could not avoid a mental comparison
between that Oriental slave become such a thorough Parisian, of such
marked distinction in the most refined society on earth, and that other
woman, the European enervated by the Orient, brutalized by Turkish
tobacco and bloated by a life of sloth. His ambition, his pride as a
husband were disappointed, humiliated in that union of which he now saw
the peril and the emptiness, the last cruel blow of destiny which
deprived him even of the refuge of domestic happiness against all his
public misfortunes.

Gradually the salons became empty. The Levantines disappeared one after
another, each leaving an immense void in her place. Madame Jenkins had
gone, and only two or three women, strangers to Jansoulet, remained,
among whom the mistress of the house seemed to be seeking refuge from
him. But Hemerlingue was at liberty, and the Nabob joined him just as he
was sidling furtively away in the direction of his offices, which were
on the same floor opposite the state apartments. Jansoulet went out with
him, forgetting in his confusion to salute the baroness; and when they
were safely out on the landing, arranged as a reception-room, the
corpulent Hemerlingue, who had been very cold and reserved so long as he
felt his wife's eye upon him, assumed a somewhat more open expression.

"It's a great pity," he said in a low tone, as if he were afraid of
being overheard, "that Madame Jansoulet would not come."

Jansoulet replied with a gesture of despair and savage helplessness.

"Too bad--too bad!" said the other, blowing his nose and feeling in his
pocket for his key.

"Look here, old fellow," said the Nabob, taking his arm, "because our
wives don't hit it off together, is no reason--That doesn't prevent our
remaining friends. What a nice little chat we had the other day, eh?"

"To be sure," said the baron, withdrawing his hand to unlock the door,
which opened noiselessly, disclosing the lofty private office with its
one lamp burning in front of the capacious, empty armchair.

"Ya didon, Mouci,"[5] said the poor Nabob, trying to jest, and resorting
to the _sabir_ patois to remind his old chum of all the pleasant
reminiscences they had overhauled the day before. "Our visit to Le
Merquier still holds. The picture we were going to offer him, you know.
What day shall we go?"


FOOTNOTES:

[5] Ah! I say, Monsieur.


"Ah! yes, Le Merquier. To be sure. Well, very soon. I will write you."

"Sure? You know it's very urgent."

"Yes, yes, I'll write you. Adieu."

And the fat man closed his door hastily as if he feared that his wife
might appear.

Two days later the Nabob received a note from Hemerlingue, almost
undecipherable with its little fly-tracks, complicated by abbreviations
more or less commercial, behind which the ex-sutler concealed his
absolute lack of orthography:

"MON CH/ANC/CAM/--Je ne puis décid/t'accom/ chez Le Merq/. Trop d'aff/en
ce mom/. D'aill/v/ ser/mieux seuls pour caus/. Vas-y carrém/. On t'att/.
R/Cassette, tous les mat/de 8 à 10.

"A toi cor/

"HEM/."[6]


FOOTNOTES:

[6] "MY DEAR OLD COMRADE,--I cannot see my way to accompanying you to
see Le Merquier. Too busy just now. Indeed, you will do better to talk
with him alone. Go there openly. You are expected. Rue Cassette, every
morning, 8 to 10.

"Yours cordially,

"HEMERLINGUE."


Below, by way of postscript, in a hand equally fine, but much clearer,
was written very legibly:

"A religious picture, if possible."

What was he to think of that letter? Was it dictated by real
friendliness or polite dissimulation? At all events, further hesitation
was out of the question. The time was very short. So Jansoulet made a
brave effort, for Le Merquier frightened him sadly, and went to his
office one morning.

This strange Paris of ours, in its population and its varied aspects,
seems like a map of the whole world. We find in the Marais narrow
streets with old, carved, vermiculated doors, with overhanging gables,
with balconies _en moucharabies_, which make one think of old
Heidelberg. Faubourg Saint-Honoré where it is broadest, near the Russian
church with its white minarets and golden balls, recalls a bit of
Moscow. On Montmartre there is a picturesque, crowded spot that is pure
Algiers. Low, clean little houses, with their copper-plates on the
doors, and their private gardens, stand in line along typical English
streets between Neuilly and the Champs-Élysées; while the whole circuit
of the apse of Saint-Sulpice, Rue Férou, Rue Cassette, lying placidly in
the shadow of the great towers, roughly paved, with knockers on the
front doors, seems to have been transplanted from some pious provincial
city,--Tours or Orléans for instance, in the neighborhood of the
cathedral and the bishop's palace, where tall trees tower above the
walls and sway to the music of the bells and the responses.

There, in the vicinity of the Catholic club, of which he had been chosen
honorary president, lived Maître Le Merquier, advocate, Deputy for Lyon,
man of business of all the great religious communities of France, and
the man whom Hemerlingue, in pursuance of an idea of great profundity
for that bulky individual, had intrusted with the legal affairs of his
firm.

Arriving about nine o'clock at an ancient mansion, whose ground-floor
was occupied by a religious publishing house sleeping peacefully in its
odor of the sacristy and of coarse paper for printing miracles, and
ascending the broad staircase, the walls of which were whitewashed like
those of a convent, Jansoulet felt permeated with that provincial and
Catholic atmosphere wherein the memories of his Southern past revived,
childish impressions still fresh and intact, thanks to his long exile,
impressions which the son of Françoise had had neither time nor occasion
to disown since his arrival in Paris. Worldly hypocrisy had assumed all
its different shapes before him, tried all its masks, except that of
religious integrity. So that he refused in his own mind to believe in
the venality of a man who lived in such surroundings. Ushered into the
advocate's waiting-room, a large parlor with curtains of starched muslin
as fine as that of which surplices are made, its only ornament a large
and beautiful copy of Tintoret's _Dead Christ_ over the door, his
uncertainty and anxiety changed to indignant conviction. It was not
possible. He had been misled touching Le Merquier. Surely it was an
impudent slander, such as Paris is so ready to spread; or perhaps they
were laying another one of those wicked traps for him, against which he
had done nothing but stumble for six months past. No, that timid
conscience renowned at the Palais de Justice and the Chamber, that
cold, austere man could not be dealt with like those coarse, pot-bellied
pashas, with their loose belts and floating sleeves so convenient as
receptacles for purses of sequins. He would expose himself to a shameful
refusal, to the natural revolt of outraged honor, if he should attempt
such methods of bribery.

The Nabob said this to himself as he sat on the oak bench that ran
around the room, polished by serge gowns and the rough broadcloth of
cassocks. Notwithstanding the early hour, several persons beside himself
were waiting. A Dominican striding back and forth, ascetic and serene of
face, two nuns buried in their hoods, telling their beads on long
rosaries which measured their time of waiting, priests from the diocese
of Lyon, recognizable from the shape of their hats, and other persons of
stern and meditative mien seated by the great table of black wood which
stood in the centre of the room, and turning the leaves of some of those
edifying periodicals which are printed on the hill of Fourvières, the
_Echoes from Purgatory_, or _Marie's Rose-bush_, and which give as
premiums to yearly subscribers papal indulgences, absolution for future
sins. A few words in a low voice, a stifled cough, the faint murmuring
of the two sisters' prayer reminded Jansoulet of the confused, faraway
sensation of hours of waiting around the confessional, in a corner of
his village church, when the great religious festivals were drawing
near.

At last it came his turn to enter the sanctum, and if any shadow of
doubt concerning Maître Le Merquier remained in his mind, that doubt
vanished when he saw that high-studded office, simple and severe in
appearance,--although somewhat more decorated than the waiting-room--of
which the advocate made a framework for his rigid principles and his
long, thin, stooping, narrow-shouldered person, eternally squeezed into
a black coat too short in the sleeves, from which protruded two flat,
square, black hands, two clubs of India ink covered with swollen veins
like hieroglyphics. In the clerical deputy's sallow complexion, the
complexion of the Lyonnais turned mouldy between his two rivers, there
was a certain animation, due to his varying expression, sometimes
sparkling but impenetrable behind his spectacles, more frequently keen,
suspicious and threatening over those same spectacles, and surrounded by
the retreating shadow which follows the arch of the eyebrow when the eye
is raised and the head low.

After a greeting that was almost cordial in comparison with the cold
salutation which the two colleagues exchanged at the Chamber, an "I was
expecting you," uttered with a purpose perhaps, the advocate waved the
Nabob to the chair near his desk, bade the smug domestic, dressed in
black from head to foot, not to "tighten the sack-cloth with the
scourge," but to stay away until the bell should ring for him, arranged
a few scattered papers, and then, crossing his legs, burying himself in
his armchair in the crouching attitude of the man who is making ready to
listen, who becomes all ears, he took his chin in his hand and sat with
his eyes fixed on a long curtain of green ribbed velvet that fell from
the ceiling to the floor opposite him.

It was a decisive moment, an embarrassing situation. But Jansoulet did
not hesitate. It was one of the poor Nabob's boasts that he understood
men as well as Mora. And the keen scent, which, he said, had never
deceived him, warned him that he was at that moment in presence of a
rigid, immovable honesty, a conscience of solid rock unassailable by
pick-axe or powder. "My conscience!" So he suddenly changed his
programme, cast aside the stratagems, the equivocal hints, in which his
open, courageous nature was wallowing about, and with head erect and
heart laid bare, talked to that upright man in a language which he was
built to understand.

"Do not be surprised, my dear colleague,"--his voice trembled at first,
but soon became firm in his conviction of the justice of his cause--"do
not be surprised that I have come to see you here instead of simply
asking to be heard by the third committee. The explanations that I have
to put before you are of such a delicate and confidential nature that it
would have been impossible for me to give them in a public place, before
my assembled colleagues."

Maître Le Merquier looked at the curtain over his spectacles with an air
of dismay. Evidently the conversation was taking an unexpected turn.

"I do not touch upon the substance of the question," continued the
Nabob. "I am sure that your report is impartial and just, such a report
as your conscience must have dictated. But certain disgusting slanders
have been set on foot concerning myself, to which I have not replied,
and which may have influenced the opinion of the committee. That is the
subject on which I wish to speak to you. I know the confidence which
your colleagues repose in you, Monsieur Le Merquier, and that, when I
have convinced you, your word will be sufficient and I shall not be
obliged to parade my distress before the full committee. You know the
charge. I refer to the most horrible, the most shameful one. There are
so many that one might make a mistake among them. My enemies have given
names, dates, addresses. Be it so! I bring you the proofs of my
innocence. I lay them before you, before you only; for I have the
gravest reasons for keeping this whole affair secret."

Thereupon he showed the advocate a certificate from the consulate at
Tunis that in twenty years he had left the principality but twice, the
first time to see his father who lay dying at Bourg-Saint-Andéol, the
second time to pay a visit of three days at his Château of Saint-Romans
with the bey.

"How does it happen that with such a decisive document in my hands I
have not cited my defamers before the courts to contradict them and put
them to shame? Alas! Monsieur, there are family bonds that cut into the
flesh. I had a brother, a poor weak spoiled creature, who rolled for a
long while in the filth of Paris, left his intelligence and his honor
here. Did he really descend to that stage of degradation at which I have
been placed in his name? I have not dared to ascertain. What I can say
is that my poor father, who knew more about it than any one else in the
family, whispered to me when he was dying: 'Bernard, your brother is
killing me. I am dying of shame, my child.'"

He paused for a moment, compelled by his suffocating emotion, then
continued:

"My father died, Monsieur Le Merquier, but my mother is still alive, and
it is for her sake, for her repose, that I have recoiled, that I still
recoil from making public my justification. Thus far the filth that has
been thrown at me has not splashed upon her. It does not extend outside
a certain social circle, a special class of newspapers, from which the
dear woman is a thousand leagues away. But the courts, a law-suit, means
the parading of our misfortune from one end of France to the other, the
_Messager_ articles printed by every newspaper, even those in the
retired little place where my mother lives. The slander itself, my
defence, both her children covered with shame at one blow, the family
name--the old peasant woman's only pride--tarnished forever. That would
be too much for her. And really it seems to me that one is enough. That
is why I have had the courage to hold my peace, to tire out my enemies,
if possible, by my silence. But I need some one to answer for me in the
Chamber, I wish to deprive it of the right to eject me for reasons
dishonoring to me, and as it selected you to report upon my election, I
have come to tell everything to you, as to a confessor, a priest, begging
you not to divulge a word of this conversation, even in the interest of
my cause. I ask nothing but that, my dear colleague,--absolute reticence
on this subject; for the rest I rely upon your justice and your loyalty."

He rose, prepared to go, and Le Merquier did not stir, still questioning
the green hanging in front of him, as if seeking there an inspiration
for his reply. At last,--

"It shall be as you wish, my dear colleague," he said. "This confidence
shall remain between ourselves. You have told me nothing, I have heard
nothing."

The Nabob, still all aflame with his eloquent outburst, which, as it
seemed to him, called for a cordial response, a warm grasp of the hand,
had a strangely uneasy feeling. That cold manner, that absent expression
weighed so heavily upon him, that he was already walking to the door
with the awkward salutation of unwelcome visitors. But the other
detained him.

"Stay a moment, my dear colleague. How eager you are to leave me! A few
moments more, I beg. I am too happy to converse with such a man as you.
Especially as we have more than one common bond. Our friend Hemerlingue
tells me that you, like myself, are much interested in pictures."

Jansoulet started. The two words "Hemerlingue" and "pictures," meeting
so unexpectedly in the same sentence, brought back all his doubts, all
his perplexity. He did not surrender even then, however, but left Le
Merquier to put his words forward, one in front of another, feeling the
ground for his stumbling advance. He had heard much of his honorable
colleague's gallery. Would it be presumptuous for him to ask the favor
of being admitted to--?

"Nonsense! why, I should be too highly honored," said the Nabob, tickled
in the most sensitive--because it had been the most expensive--part of
his vanity; and, glancing about at the walls of the study, he added in
the tone of a connoisseur:

"You have some fine examples yourself."

"Oh!" said the other modestly, "a few poor canvases. Pictures are so
dear in these days--it's a taste so hard to gratify, a genuinely
luxurious passion. A Nabob's passion," he added with a smile and a
stealthy glance over his spectacles.

They were two prudent gamblers face to face; Jansoulet, however, was
somewhat at fault in that novel situation, in which he was obliged to
walk warily, he who knew of no other mode of action than by bold,
audacious strokes.

"When I think," murmured the advocate, "that I have spent ten years
covering these walls, and that I still have this whole panel to fill!"

In truth, in the most conspicuous part of the high partition there was
an empty space, a vacated space rather, for a great gilt-headed nail
near the ceiling showed the visible, almost clumsy trace of the trap
set for the poor innocent, who foolishly allowed himself to be taken in
it.

"My dear Monsieur Le Merquier," he said, in an engaging, affable tone,
"I have a _Virgin_ by Tintoret just the size of your panel."

It was impossible to read anything in the advocate's eyes, which had now
taken refuge behind their gleaming shelter.

"Permit me to hang it there, opposite your desk. It will give you an
excuse for thinking of me sometimes--"

"And for mitigating the strictures of my report, eh, Monsieur?" cried Le
Merquier, springing to his feet, a threatening figure, with his hand on
the bell. "I have seen many shameless performances in my life, but never
anything equal to this. Such offers to me, in my own house!"

"But, my dear colleague, I swear--"

"Show him out," said the advocate to the surly servant who entered the
room at that moment; and from the centre of his office, the door
remaining open, before the whole parlor, where the prayers had ceased,
he pursued Jansoulet,--who turned his back and hastened, mumbling
incoherently, toward the outer door--with these crushing words:

"You have insulted the honor of the whole Chamber in my person,
Monsieur. Our colleagues shall be informed of it this very day; and,
this additional offence being added to the others, you will learn to
your sorrow that Paris is not the Orient, and the human conscience is
not shamefully traded in and bartered here as it is there."

Thereupon, having driven the money-changer from the temple, the just man
closed his door, and approaching the green curtain, said in a tone which
sounded sweet as honey after his pretended anger:

"Was that about right, Baronne Marie?"




XXI.

THE SITTING.


That morning there was not, as usual, a grand breakfast-party at number
32 Place Vendôme. So that about one o'clock you might have seen M.
Barreau's majestic paunch arrayed in white linen displaying itself at
the entrance to the porch, surrounded by four or five scullions in their
paper caps and as many grooms in Scotch caps,--an imposing group, which
gave the sumptuous mansion the appearance of a hostelry, where the whole
staff was taking a breath of fresh air between two arrivals. The
resemblance was made complete by the cab stopping in front of the door
and the driver lifting down an old-fashioned leather trunk, while a tall
old woman in a yellow cap, an erect figure with a little green shawl
over her shoulders, leaped lightly to the sidewalk, a basket on her arm,
and looked carefully at the number, then approached the group of
servants and asked if that was where M. Bernard Jansoulet lived.

"This is the place," was the reply. "But he isn't in."

"That's no matter," said the old woman, very naturally.

She returned to the driver, bade him put her trunk under the porch, and
paid him, at once replacing her purse in her pocket with a gesture that
said much for provincial distrust.

Since Jansoulet had been Deputy for Corsica, his servants had seen so
many strange, foreign-looking creatures alight at his door that they
were not greatly surprised at sight of that sun-burned woman, with eyes
like glowing coals, bearing much resemblance in her simple head-dress to
a genuine Corsican, some old psalm-singer straight from the underbrush,
but distinguished from newly-arrived islanders by the ease and
tranquillity of her manners.

"What do you say, the master isn't in?" she said with an intonation
which is much more frequently heard by the hands on a farm, on a _mas_
in her province, than by the impertinent lackeys of a great Parisian
household.

"No, the master isn't in."

"And the children?"

"They're taking their lesson. You can't see them."

"And Madame?"

"She's asleep. No one enters her room before three o'clock."

That seemed to surprise the good woman a little, that any one could stay
in bed so late; but the sure instinct which, in default of education,
acts as a guide to intelligent natures, prevented her from saying so to
the servants, and she at once asked to speak to Paul de Géry.

"He is travelling."

"Bompain Jean-Baptiste then?"

"He's at the Chamber with Monsieur."

Her great gray eyebrows contracted.

"No matter; take my trunk upstairs all the same."

And, with a malicious little twitching of the eye, a touch of pride, of
vengeance for the insolent glances turned upon her, she added:

"I am his mother."

Scullions and grooms stood aside respectfully. M. Barreau raised his
cap:

"I was saying to myself that I had seen Madame somewhere."

"That's just what I was saying to myself too, my boy," said Mère
Jansoulet, shuddering at the memory of the ill-fated festivities in
honor of the bey.

"My boy!"--to M. Barreau, to a man of his importance! That instantly
placed her very high in the esteem of that little circle.

Ah! grandeurs and splendors did not dazzle her, the brave-hearted old
woman. She was no opéra-comique Mère Boby going into ecstasies over the
gildings and fine trinkets; the vases of flowers on every landing of the
staircase she ascended behind her trunk, the hall-lamps supported by
bronze statues, did not prevent her noticing that there was a finger's
depth of dust on the stair-rail and that the carpet was torn. They
escorted her to the apartments on the second floor, reserved for the
Levantine and the children, and there, in a room used as a linen closet,
which was evidently near the school-room, for she could hear a murmur of
childish voices, she waited, all alone, her basket on her knees, for her
Bernard to return, for her daughter-in-law to awake, or for the great
joy of embracing her grandchildren. Nothing could be better adapted than
what she saw around her to give her an idea of the confusion of a
household given over to servants, where the oversight of the housewife
and her far-seeing activity are lacking. In huge wardrobes, all wide
open, linen was heaped up pell-mell in shapeless, bulging, tottering
piles,--fine sheets, Saxony table linen crumbled and torn, and the locks
prevented from working by some stray piece of embroidery which nobody
took the trouble to remove. And yet many servants passed through that
linen closet,--negresses in yellow madras, who hastily seized a napkin
or a table-cloth, heedlessly trampled on those domestic treasures
scattered all about, dragged to the end of the room on their great flat
feet lace flounces cut from a long skirt which a maid had cast aside,
thimble here, scissors there, as a piece of work to be taken up again.

The semi-rustic artisan, which Mère Jansoulet had not ceased to be, was
sadly grieved at the sight, wounded in the respect, the affection, the
inoffensive mania which is inspired in the provincial housewife by the
wardrobe filled with linen, piece by piece, to the very top, full of
relics of the poor past, its contents increasing gradually in quantity
and in quality, the first visible symptom of comfortable circumstances,
of wealth in a house. Again, that woman always had the distaff in her
hand from morning till night, and if the house-keeper was indignant, the
spinster could have wept as at a profanation. Finally, unable to endure
it longer, she rose, abandoned her patient, watchful attitude, and
stooping over, her little green shawl displaced by every movement, began
actively to pick up, smooth and fold with care that beautiful linen, as
she did on the lawns at Saint-Romans, when she indulged in the amusement
of a grand washing, employing twenty women, the baskets overflowing with
snow-white folds, the sheets flapping in the morning breeze on the long
drying lines. She was deeply engrossed in that occupation, which made
her forget her journey, Paris, even the place where she was, when a
stout, thickset man, heavily bearded, in varnished boots, and a velvet
jacket covering the chest and shoulders of a bull, entered the linen
closet.

"Ah! Cabassu."

"You here, Madame Françoise! This is a surprise," said the _masseur_,
opening wide his great Japanese idol's eyes.

"Why, yes, good Cabassu, it's me. I've just come. And I'm at work
already, as you see. It made my heart bleed to see all this mess."

"So you've come for the sitting, have you?"

"What sitting?"

"Why, the great sitting of the Corps Législatif. This is the day."

"Faith, no. What difference do you suppose that can make to me? I don't
understand anything about such things. No, I came because I wanted to
know my little Jansoulets, and then, I was beginning to be uneasy. I've
written two or three times now without getting any answer. I was afraid
there might be a child sick, or that Bernard's business was in a bad
way--all sorts of uncomfortable ideas. I had an attack of great black
anxiety, and I started. Everybody's well here, so they tell me?"

"Why, yes, Madame Françoise. Everybody 's exceedingly well, thank God!"

"And Bernard? His business? Is it going along to suit him?"

"Oh! you know a man always has his little crosses in this life; however,
I don't think he has any reason to complain. But now I think of it, you
must be hungry. I'll go and send you something to eat."

He was about to ring, much more self-assured and at home than the old
mother. But she checked him.

"No, no, I don't need anything. I still have some of my luncheon left."

She placed two figs and a crust of bread, taken from her basket, on the
table, and continued to talk as she ate:

"And what about your affairs, little one? It seems to me you've spruced
up mightily since the last time you came to the Bourg. What linen, what
clothes! What department are you in?"

"I am professor of massage," said Aristide gravely.

"You a professor!" she exclaimed, with respectful amazement; but she
dared not ask him what he taught, and Cabassu, somewhat embarrassed by
her questions, hastened to change the subject.

"Suppose I go and fetch the children? Hasn't any one told them their
grandmother was here?"

"I didn't want to take them away from their work. But I believe the
lesson is over now. Listen."

On the other side of the door they heard the impatient stamping of
school children longing to be dismissed, eager for room and air; and the
old woman listened with delight to the fascinating sounds that increased
her maternal longing ten-fold, but prevented her from doing anything to
satisfy it. At last the door opened. First the tutor appeared, an abbé
with a pointed nose and prominent cheek-bones, whom we have seen at the
state breakfasts of an earlier day. Having fallen out with his bishop,
the ambitious ecclesiastic had left the diocese where he formerly
exercised the priestly functions, and, in his precarious position as an
irregular member of the clergy--for the clergy has its own Bohemia--was
glad of the opportunity to teach the little Jansoulets, recently
expelled from Bourdaloue. With the same solemn, arrogant mien, as of one
overburdened with responsibility, which the great prelates intrusted
with the education of the Dauphins of France might assume, he stalked
in front of three little fellows, curled and gloved, with oblong hats
and short jackets, leather bags slung over their shoulders, and long red
stockings reaching to the middle of the leg, the costume of the complete
velocipedist about to mount his machine.

"Children," said Cabassu, the intimate friend of the family, "this is
Madame Jansoulet, your grandmother, who has come to Paris on purpose to
see you."

They halted, very much astonished, arranged according to height, and
examined that withered old face between the yellow barbs of the cap,
that strange costume, unfamiliar in its simplicity; and their
grandmother's astonishment answered theirs, increased by heart-rending
disappointment and by the embarrassment she felt in presence of those
little gentlemen, who were as stiff and disdainful as the marquises, the
counts and the prefects on circuit whom her son used to bring to her at
Saint-Romans. In obedience to their tutor's injunction, "to salute their
venerable grandmother," they came up one by one and gave her one of the
same little handshakes with arms close to their sides of which they had
distributed so many among the garrets; indeed, that good woman with the
earth-colored face, and neat but very simple clothes, reminded them of
their charitable visits from Collège Bourdaloue. They felt between
herself and them the same strangeness, the same distance, which no
memory, no word from their parents had ever lessened. The abbé realized
her embarrassment, and, to banish it, launched forth upon a speech
delivered with the throaty voice, the violent gestures common to those
men who always think that they have below them the ten steps leading to
a pulpit:

"Lo, the day has come, Madame, the great day when Monsieur Jansoulet is
to confound his enemies. _Confundantur hostes mei, quia injuste
iniquitatem fecerunt in me_,--because they have persecuted me unjustly."

The old woman bowed devoutly to the Church Latin; but her face assumed a
vague expression of uneasiness at the idea of enemies and persecutions.

"Those enemies are numerous and powerful, noble lady, but let us not be
alarmed beyond measure. Let us have confidence in the decrees of heaven
and the justice of our cause. God is in the midst of it and it shall not
be shaken. _In medio ejus non commovebitur._"

A gigantic negro, resplendent in new gold lace, interrupted them to
announce that the velocipedes were ready for the daily lesson on the
terrace of the Tuileries. Before leaving the room, the children solemnly
shook once more the wrinkled, calloused hand of their grandmother, who
was watching them walk away, utterly bewildered and with a sore heart,
when, yielding to an adorable, spontaneous impulse, the youngest of the
three, having reached the door, suddenly turned, pushed the great negro
aside, and plunged head foremost, like a little buffalo, into Mère
Jansoulet's skirts, throwing his arms around her and holding up to her
his smooth brow splashed with brown curls, with the sweet grace of the
child who offers his caress like a flower. Perhaps the little fellow,
being nearer the nest and its warmth, the nurse's cradling lap and
_patois_ ballads, had felt the waves of maternal love of which the
Levantine deprived him flowing toward his little heart. The old
"Grandma" shuddered from head to foot in her surprise at that
instinctive embrace.

"Oh my darling--my darling!" seizing the curly, silky little head which
reminded her of another, and kissing it frantically. Then the child
released himself and ran away without a word, his hair wet with hot
tears.

Left alone with Cabassu, the mother, whom that kiss had consoled, asked
for an explanation of the priest's words.--Had her son many enemies,
pray?

"Oh!" said Cabassu, "it is not at all surprising in his position."

"But what's all this about this being a great day, and this 'sitting'
you all talk about?"

"Why, yes! This is the day when we're to know whether Bernard is to be a
deputy or not."

"What? Isn't he one yet? Why, I have told it everywhere in the
neighborhood, and I illuminated Saint-Romans a month ago. So I was made
to tell a lie!"

The _masseur_ had much difficulty in explaining to her the parliamentary
formality of testing the validity of elections. She listened with only
one ear, feverishly pulling over the linen.

"And that's where my Bernard is at this moment?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Are women allowed to go into this Chamber?--Then why isn't his wife
there? For I can understand that it's a great affair for him. On such a
day as to-day he will need to feel that all those he loves are beside
him. Look you, my boy, you must take me to this sitting. Is it very
far?"

"No, very near. Only it must have begun before this. And then," added
the Giaour, a little embarrassed, "this is the hour when Madame needs
me."

"Ah! Do you teach her this thing that you're professor of? What do you
call it?"

"Massage. It comes down to us from the ancients. There, she's ringing
her bell now. Some one will come to call me. Do you want me to tell her
that you are here?"

"No, no, I prefer to go to the Chamber at once."

"But you have no card of admission, have you?"

"Bah! I'll say that I am Jansoulet's mother and that I have come to hear
my son tried."

Poor mother! she did not know how truly she described his position.

"Wait a moment, Madame Françoise. Let me, at least, send some one to
show you the way."

"Oh! do you know, I've never been able to get used to these servant
people. I've a tongue in my head. There are people in the streets; I
shall find my way well enough."

He made one last attempt, without disclosing the whole of his thought:

"Be careful. His enemies will speak against him in the Chamber. You will
hear things that will hurt you."

Oh! the lovely smile of maternal faith and pride with which she
answered:

"Don't I know better than all those people what my son is worth? Is
there anything that could make me unjust to him? If so, I must be a
mighty ungrateful woman. Nonsense!"

And, with a threatening shake of her cap, she departed.

Straight as a statue, with head erect, the old woman strode along under
the arches she had been told to follow, somewhat disturbed by the
incessant rumbling of carriages and by her slow progress, unaccompanied
by the movement of her faithful distaff, which had not quitted her for
fifty years. All these suggestions of enmity, of persecution, the
priest's mysterious words, Cabassu's dark hints, excited and terrified
her. She found therein an explanation of the presentiments which had
taken possession of her so firmly as to tear her away from her habits
and her duties, the superintendence of the Château and the care of her
invalid. Strangely enough, by the way, since fortune had cast upon her
son and her that cloak of gold with its heavy folds, Mère Jansoulet had
never become accustomed to it, and was always expecting the sudden
disappearance of their splendor. Who could say that the final crash was
not really beginning now? And suddenly, amid these gloomy thoughts, the
remembrance of the childish scene of a moment before, of the little one
rubbing against her drugget skirt, caused her wrinkled lips to swell in
a loving smile, and, in her joy, she murmured in her _patois_:

"Oh! that little fellow!"

A vast, magnificent, dazzling square, two sheaves of water flying upward
in silver dust, then a great stone bridge, and at the further end a
square building with statues in front of it, and an iron gateway where
carriages were standing, people passing through and a knot of police
officers. That was the place. She made her way bravely through the crowd
as far as a high glass door.

"Your card, my good woman?"

The good woman had no card, but she said simply to one of the ushers
with red lapels who were acting as doorkeepers:

"I am Bernard Jansoulet's mother; I have come to attend my boy's
sitting."

It was in very truth her boy's sitting; for in that crowd besieging the
doors, in the crowd that filled the corridors, the hall, the galleries,
the whole palace, the same name was whispered everywhere, accompanied by
smiles and muttered comments. A great scandal was expected, shocking
revelations by the spokesman of the committee which would doubtless lead
to some violent outburst on the part of the savage thus brought to bay;
and people crowded thither as to a first performance or the argument of
a famous cause. The old mother certainly could not have made herself
heard in the midst of that throng, if the train of gold left by the
Nabob wherever he passed, and marking his royal progress, had not made
everything smooth for her. She followed an usher through that labyrinth
of corridors, folding doors, empty, echoing rooms, filled with a buzzing
noise which circulated through the air in the building and passed out
through its walls, as if the very stones were impregnated with that
verbosity and added the echoes of bygone days to those of all the voices
of to-day. Passing through a corridor, she spied a little dark man
shouting and gesticulating to the attendants:

"Tell Moussiou Jansoulet zat I am ze deputy-mayor of Sarlazaccio, zat I
have been sentenced to five month in prison for him. Zat deserves a card
for ze sitting, _Corps de Dieu_!"

Five months in prison on her son's account. How could that be? Anxious
beyond words, she arrived at last, with a ringing in her ears, at a
landing where there were divers little doors like those of furnished
lodgings or theatre boxes, surmounted by different inscriptions:
"Senators' Gallery," "Gallery of the Diplomatic Corps," "Members'
Gallery." She entered, seeing nothing at first but four or five rows of
benches crowded with people; then, on the opposite side of the hall, far
away, other galleries equally crowded, separated from her by a vast open
space; she leaned, still standing, against the wall, amazed to be there,
bewildered, confused. A puff of hot air striking her in the face, the
hum of voices ascending from below drew her down the sloping floor of
the gallery, toward the edge of a yawning pit, so to speak, in the
centre of the great vessel, where her son must be. Oh, how she would
have liked to see him! Thereupon, making herself as small as possible,
playing about her with her elbows, sharp and hard as her distaff, she
glided, wormed herself along between the wall and the benches, heedless
of the outbursts of wrath she aroused, of the contemptuous glances of
the women in gorgeous array, whose laces and spring dresses she crushed.
For it was a distinctly fashionable society gathering.

Indeed, Mère Jansoulet recognized by his inflexible shirtfront and
aristocratic nose the dandified marquis who had visited at Saint-Romans,
and who bore so felicitously the name of a gorgeous bird; but he did not
look at her. Having thus advanced a few rows, she was checked by the
back of a man sitting, an enormous back which completely blocked her
path, prevented her from going farther. Luckily, however, by leaning
forward a little, she could see almost the whole hall; and those
semi-circular rows of desks where the deputies stood in groups, the
green hangings on the walls, that pulpit at the rear occupied by a man
with a bald head and stern features, all in the quiet gray light falling
from above, made her think of a recitation about to commence, preceded
by the moving about and chattering of restless pupils.

One thing attracted her attention, the persistence with which all eyes
seemed to be turned in the same direction, to be fixed upon the same
point of attraction; and as she followed that current of curiosity
which magnetized the whole assemblage, the floor as well as the
galleries, she saw what everybody was staring at so earnestly; it was
her son.

In the Jansoulets' province there still exists in some old churches, at
the back of the choir, half-way up from the crypt, a little stone box,
to which lepers were admitted to listen to the services, exhibiting to
the curious and fearful throng their pitiable brute-like figures
cowering against the holes cut in the wall. Françoise well remembered
having seen, in the village in which she was brought up, the leper, the
terror of her childhood, listening to the mass in his stone cage, lost
in the shadow and in reprobation. When she saw her son sitting alone,
far back, with his face in his hands, that picture came to her mind.
"One would say he was a leper," muttered the peasant woman. And in very
truth the poor Nabob was a moral leper, upon whom his millions brought
from the Orient were at that moment imposing the torments of a terrible
and mysterious exotic disease. As it happened, the bench upon which he
had chosen his seat showed several gaps due to leaves of absence or
recent deaths; and while the other deputies talked and laughed together,
making signs to one another, he sat silent, apart, the object of the
earnest scrutiny of the whole Chamber,--a scrutiny which Mère Jansoulet
felt to be ironical, ill-disposed, and which burned her as it passed.
How could she let him know that she was there, close at hand, that one
faithful heart was beating not far from his? for he avoided turning
toward that gallery. One would have said that he felt that it was
hostile, that he was afraid of seeing discouraging things there.
Suddenly, at the ringing of a bell on the president's desk, a thrill ran
through the assemblage, every head was bent forward in the attentive
attitude that immobilizes the features, and a thin man with spectacles,
suddenly rising to his feet amid that multitude of seated men--a
position which gave him at once the authority of attitude--said, as he
opened the pile of papers which he held in his hand:

"Messieurs, I rise in the name of your third committee, to recommend to
you that the election in the second district of the department of
Corsica be declared void."

In the profound silence following that sentence, which Mère Jansoulet
did not understand, the stout creature sitting in front of her began to
wheeze violently, and suddenly a lovely woman's face, in the front row
of the gallery, turned to make him a rapid sign of intelligence and
satisfaction. Her pale brow, thin lips and eyebrows that seemed too
black in the white frame of the hat, produced in the good old woman's
eyes, although she could not tell why, the painful impression of the
first lightning flash when the storm is beginning and the apprehension
of the thunderbolt follows the rapid meeting of the fluids.

Le Merquier read his report. The slow, lifeless, monotonous voice, the
Lyonnais accent, soft and drawling, with which the advocate kept time
by a movement of the head and shoulders almost like an animal, presented
a striking contrast to the savage conciseness of the conclusions. First,
a rapid sketch of the electoral irregularities. Never had universal
suffrage been treated with such primitive, uncivilized disrespect. At
Sarlazaccio, where Jansoulet's opponent seemed likely to carry the day,
the ballot-box was destroyed during the night preceding the counting.
The same thing, or almost the same, happened at Lévie, at Saint-André,
at Avabessa. And these offences were committed by the mayors themselves,
who carried the boxes to their houses, broke the seals and tore up the
ballots, under cover of their municipal authority. On all sides fraud,
intrigue, even violence. At Calcatoggio an armed man, blunderbuss in
hand, stood at the window of an inn just opposite the mayor's office
throughout the election; and whenever a supporter of Sébastiani,
Jansoulet's opponent, appeared on the square, the man pointed his weapon
at him: "If you go in, I'll blow out your brains!" Moreover, when we see
police commissioners, justices of the peace, sealers of weights and
measures daring to transform themselves into electoral agents,
intimidating and seducing a people notorious for their subjection to all
these tyrannical little local influences, have we not proof positive of
unbridled license? Why, even the priests, consecrated pastors, led
astray by their zealous interest in the poor-box and the maintenance of
their impoverished churches, preached a veritable crusade in favor of
Jansoulet's election. But an even more powerful, although less
respectable, influence was set at work for the good cause,--the
influence of bandits. "Yes, bandits, Messieurs, I am not jesting."--And
thereupon followed a sketch in bold colors of Corsican banditti in
general and the Piedigriggio family in particular.

The Chamber listened with close attention and with considerable
uneasiness. The fact was that it was an official candidate whose actions
were being thus described, and those strange electoral morals were
indigenous in that privileged island, the cradle of the imperial family,
and so intimately connected with the destiny of the dynasty that an
attack on Corsica seemed to react upon the sovereign. But when it was
observed that the new minister of State, Mora's successor and bitter
enemy, sitting on the government benches, seemed overjoyed at the rebuke
administered to a creature of the defunct statesman, and smiled
complacently at Le Merquier's stinging persiflage, all embarrassment
instantly disappeared and the ministerial smile, repeated on three
hundred mouths, soon increased to scarce-restrained laughter, the
laughter of crowds dominated by any rod, by whomsoever held, which the
slightest sign of approbation from the master causes to burst forth. In
the galleries, which were as a general rule but little indulged with
picturesque incidents, and were entertained by these stories of bandits
as by a genuine novel, there was general gayety, a radiant animation
enlivened the faces of all the women, overjoyed to be able to appear
pretty without jarring upon the solemnity of the place. Little light
hats quivered in all their bright-hued plumes, round arms encircled with
gold leaned on the rail in order to listen more at their ease. The
solemn Le Merquier had imparted to the sitting the entertainment of a
play, had introduced the little comical note permitted at charitable
concerts as a lure to the profane.

Impassive and cold as ice, despite his triumph, he continued to read in
a voice as dismal and penetrating as a Lyonnais shower.

"Now, Messieurs, we ask ourselves how it was that a stranger, a
Provençal recently returned from the Orient, entirely ignorant of the
interests and needs of that island where he had never been seen before
the elections, the true type of what the Corsicans contemptuously call
'a continental'--how did this man succeed in arousing such enthusiasm,
devotion so great as to lead to crime, to profanation? His wealth will
answer the question, his vile gold thrown into the faces of the
electors, stuffed by force into their pockets with a shameless cynicism
of which we have innumerable proofs."--Then came the endless series of
affidavits: "I, the undersigned, Croce (Antoine), do testify, in the
interest of truth, that Nardi, commissioner of police, came to our house
one evening and said to me, 'Hark ye, Croce (Antoine), I swear to you by
the flame of yonder lamp that, if you vote for Jansoulet, you shall have
fifty francs to-morrow morning,'"--And this: "I, the undersigned,
Lavezzi (Jacques-Alphonse), declare that I refused with scorn seventeen
francs offered me by the mayor of Pozzo-Negro to vote against my cousin
Sébastiani."--It is probable that for three francs more Lavezzi
(Jacques-Alphonse) would have devoured his scorn in silence. But the
Chamber did not go so deep as that.

It was moved to indignation, was that incorruptible Chamber. It
muttered, it moved about restlessly on its soft benches of red velvet,
it uttered noisy exclamations. There were "Ohs!" of stupefaction, eyes
like circumflex accents, sudden backward movements, or appalled,
discouraged gestures, such as the spectacle of human degradation
sometimes calls forth. And observe that the majority of those deputies
had used the identical electoral methods, that there were on those
benches heroes of the famous "rastels," of those open-air banquets at
which begarlanded and beribboned calves were borne aloft in triumph as
at Gargantua's kermesses. They naturally cried out louder than the
others, turned in righteous wrath toward the high, solitary bench where
the poor leper sat motionless, listening, his head in his hands. But
amid the general hue and cry, a single voice arose in his favor, a low,
unpractised voice, rather a sympathetic buzzing than speech, in which
could be vaguely distinguished the words: "Great services rendered to
Corsica. Extensive enterprises. _Caisse Territoriale._"

The man who spoke thus falteringly was a little fellow in white
gaiters, with an albino's face and scanty hair that stood erect in
bunches. But that tactless friend's interruption simply furnished Le
Merquier with a pretext for an immediate and natural transition. A
hideous smile parted his flabby lips. "The honorable Monsieur Sarigue
refers to the _Caisse Territoriale_; we proceed to answer him." The
Paganetti den of thieves seemed to be, in truth, very familiar to him.
In a few concise, keen words he threw light into the inmost depths of
that dark lair, pointed out all the snares, all the pitfalls, the
windings, the trap-doors, like a guide waving his torch above the
underground dungeons of some hideous _in pace_. He spoke of the
pretended quarries, the railroads on paper, the imaginary steamboats,
vanished in their own smoke. The ghastly desert of Taverna was not
forgotten, nor the old Genoese tower that served as an office for the
Maritime Agency. But the detail that rejoiced the heart of the Chamber
above all else was the description of a burlesque ceremonial organized
by the Governor for driving a tunnel through Monte-Rotondo,--a gigantic
undertaking still in the air, postponed from year to year, requiring
millions of money and thousands of arms, which had been inaugurated with
great pomp a week before the election. The report described the affair
comically, the blow of the pick delivered by the candidate on the flank
of the great mountain covered with primeval forests, the prefect's
speech, the blessing of the standards amid shouts of "Vive Bernard
Jansoulet!" and two hundred workmen going to work at once, working day
and night for a week, and then--as soon as the election was
over--abandoning the piles of broken rock heaped around an absurd
excavation, an additional place of refuge for the redoubtable prowlers
in the thickets. The trick was played. After extorting money so long
from the shareholders, the _Caisse Territoriale_ had been made to serve
as a means of capturing the votes of the electors,--"And now, Messieurs,
here is one last detail with which I might well have begun, in order to
spare you the distressing story of this electoral burlesque. I learn
that a judicial inquiry into the Corsican concern has been opened this
very day, and that a searching expert examination of its books will very
probably lead to one of those financial scandals, too frequent, alas! in
our day, in which you will not, for the honor of this Chamber, permit
one of your members to be involved."

Upon that unexpected disclosure the reporter paused a moment to draw
breath, like an actor emphasizing the effect of his words; and in the
dramatic silence which suddenly settled down upon the whole assemblage,
the sound of a closing door was heard. It was Paganetti, the governor,
who had hastily left his seat in one of the galleries, with pale face,
round eyes, and mouth puckered for a whistle, like Mr. Punch when he has
detected in the air the near approach of a violent blow. Monpavon,
unmoved, puffed out his breastplate. The stout man wheezed violently
into the flowers on his wife's little white hat.

Mère Jansoulet gazed at her son.

"I spoke of the honor of the Chamber, Messieurs,--I have something more
to say on that subject."

Le Merquier was no longer reading. After the reporter, the orator came
upon the stage, the judge rather. His face was devoid of expression, his
glance averted, and nothing lived, nothing stirred in his long body, but
the right arm, that long, bony arm in its short sleeve, which moved
mechanically up and down like a sword of justice, and punctuated the end
of each sentence with the cruel and inexorable gesture of beheading. And
it was in truth a veritable execution at which that audience was looking
on. The orator would have been glad to omit from consideration the
scandalous legends, the mystery that hovered over the amassing of that
colossal fortune in distant lands, far from all supervision. But there
were in the candidate's life certain points difficult to explain,
certain details--He hesitated, seemed to be selecting his words with
great care, then, as if recognizing the impossibility of formulating the
direct charge, he continued: "Let us not degrade the discussion,
Messieurs. You have understood me, you know to what infamous
reports,--to what calumnies I would that I might say,--I allude; but
truth compels me to declare that when Monsieur Jansoulet, being summoned
before our third committee, was called upon to controvert the charges
made against him, his explanations were so vague that, while we were
persuaded of his innocence, our scrupulous regard for your honor led us
to reject a candidate tainted with ordure of that sort. No, that man
should not be allowed to sit among you. Indeed, what would he do here?
Having resided so long in the Orient, he has forgotten the laws, the
morals, the customs of his own country. He believes in the hasty
administration of justice, bastinadoes in the public streets; he relies
upon abuses of power, and, what is still worse, upon the venality, the
cowering degradation of all mankind. He is the merchant who thinks that
everything can be bought if he offers enough for it,--even the votes of
electors, even the consciences of his colleagues."

You should have seen the artless admiration with which those estimable
portly deputies, torpid with good living, listened to that ascetic, that
man of another epoch, as if some Saint-Jérôme had come forth from the
depths of his thebaid to overwhelm with his burning eloquence, in the
Senate of the Empire of the East, the unblushing profligacy of
prevaricators and extortioners. How fully they understood the noble
sobriquet of "My Conscience," which the Palais de Justice bestowed upon
him, and which suited him so well with his great height and his wooden
gestures! In the galleries the enthusiasm was even greater. Pretty faces
leaned forward to see him, to drink in his words. Murmurs of approval
ran along the benches, waving bouquets of all shades of color, like the
wind blowing through a field of grain in flower. A woman's voice
exclaimed in a slight foreign accent: "Bravo! bravo!"

And the mother?

Standing motionless, absorbed by her eager desire to understand
something of that courtroom phraseology, of those mysterious allusions,
she was like the deaf-mutes who detect what is said in their presence
only by the movement of the lips, by the expression of the face. Now,
one had only to look at her son and Le Merquier to understand what
injury one was inflicting upon the other, what treacherous poisoned
meaning fell from that long harangue upon the poor devil who might have
been thought to be asleep, save for the quivering of his broad shoulders
and the clenching of his hands in his hair, in which they rioted madly,
while concealing his face. Oh! if she could have called to him from
where she stood: "Don't be afraid, my son! If they all despise you, your
mother loves you. Let us go away together. What do we care for them?"
And for a moment she could almost believe that what she said to him thus
in the depths of her heart reached him by virtue of some mysterious
intuition. He had risen, shaken his curly head, with its flushed cheeks,
and its thick lips quivering nervously with a childish longing to burst
into tears. But, instead of leaving his bench, he clung to it, his great
hands crushing the wooden rail. The other had finished; now it was his
turn to reply.

"Messieurs--" he said.

He stopped instantly, dismayed by the hoarse, horribly dull and vulgar
sound of his voice, which he heard for the first time in public. And in
that pause, tormented by twitchings of the face, by fruitless efforts to
find the intonation he sought, he must needs summon strength to make his
defence. And if the poor man's agony was touching to behold, the old
mother up yonder, leaning forward, breathing hard, moving her lips
nervously as if to assist him to find his words, sent back to him a
faithful imitation of his torture. Although he could not see her, having
his face turned away from that gallery which he intentionally avoided,
that maternal breath, the ardent magnetism of those black eyes gave him
life at last, and the fetters suddenly dropped from his speech and his
gestures.

"First of all, Messieurs, let me say that I do not come here to defend
my election. If you believe that electoral morals have not always been
the same in Corsica, that all the irregularities committed must be
attributed to the corrupting influence of my money and not to the
uncivilized and passionate nature of a people, reject me; it will be
justice and I shall not murmur. But there is something else than my
election involved in this matter; accusations have been made which
attack my honor, which bring it directly in question, and to those alone
I propose to reply." His voice gradually became stronger, still
trembling and indistinct, but with now and then a thrilling note such as
we sometimes hear in voices whose original harshness has undergone some
changes. He sketched his life very rapidly, his early days, his
departure for the Orient. You would have said that it was one of the
eighteenth century tales of barbarian pirates scouring the Latin seas,
of beys and fearless Provençaux, dark as crickets, who always end by
marrying some sultana and "taking the turban," according to the old
Marseillais expression. "For my part," said the Nabob, with his
ingenuous smile, "I had no need to take the turban to enrich myself, I
contented myself with importing into that land of indolence and utter
heedlessness the activity, the pliability of a Frenchman from the South,
and I succeeded in a few years in making one of the fortunes that are
made nowhere else except in those infernally hot countries where
everything is huge, hurried, out of proportion, where flowers grow in a
night, where a single tree produces a whole forest. The excuse for such
fortunes lies in the use that is made of them, and I undertake to say
that no favorite of destiny ever tried harder than I did to earn
forgiveness for his wealth. I did not succeed."--No, indeed, he had not
succeeded. From all the gold he had sown with such insane lavishness he
had reaped naught but hatred and contempt. Hatred! Who else could boast
of having stirred up so much of that as he, as a vessel stirs up the mud
when its keel touches bottom? He was too rich; that took the place in
him of all sorts of vices, of all sorts of crimes, and singled him out
for anonymous acts of vengeance, for cruel and persistent animosities.

"Ah! Messieurs," cried the poor Nabob, raising his clenched fists, "I
have known poverty, I have struggled with it hand to hand, and it is a
terrible struggle, I give you my word. But to struggle against wealth,
to defend one's happiness, one's honor, one's peace of mind, feebly
protected by piles of gold pieces which topple over and crush one, is a
far more ghastly, more heart-sickening task. Never, in the gloomiest of
my days of destitution, did I suffer the torture, the agony, the
sleeplessness with which fortune has overwhelmed me, this horrible
fortune which I abhor and which suffocates me! I am known as the Nabob
in Paris. Nabob is not the proper name for me, but Pariah, a social
pariah stretching out his arms, wide open, to a society that will have
none of him."

Printed upon paper these words may seem cold; but there, before the
whole Chamber, that man's defence seemed to be instinct with an eloquent
and imposing serenity, which aroused astonishment at first, coming from
that clown, that upstart, unread, uneducated, with his Rhone boatman's
voice and his street porter's bearing, and afterward moved his auditors
strangely by its unrefined, uncivilized character, utterly at variance
with all parliamentary traditions. Already tokens of approval had
manifested themselves among the benches, accustomed to submit to the
colorless, monotonous downpour of administrative language. But at that
cry of frenzy and despair hurled at wealth by the unfortunate man whom
it held in its toils, whom it drenched and drowned in its floods of
gold, and who struggled against it, calling for help from the depths of
his Pactolus, the whole Chamber rose with fervent applause, with hands
outstretched as if to give the unhappy Nabob those tokens of esteem
which he seemed to covet so earnestly, and at the same time to save him
from shipwreck. Jansoulet was conscious of it, and, warmed by that
manifestation of sympathy, he continued, with head erect and assured
glance:

"You have just been told, Messieurs, that I am not worthy to sit among
you. And the man who told you that was the very last man from whom I
should have expected it, for he alone knows the painful secret of my
life; he alone was able to speak for me, to justify me and convince you.
He did not choose to do it. Very good! I will make the attempt, whatever
it may cost me. Outrageously calumniated as I have been before the whole
country, I owe to myself, I owe to my children this public
justification, and I have decided to make it."

With that he turned abruptly toward the gallery where he knew that the
enemy was watching him, and stopped suddenly, horror-stricken. Directly
in front of him, behind the baroness's pale, malicious little face, his
mother, his mother whom he believed to be two hundred leagues away from
the terrible storm, stood leaning against the wall, gazing at him,
holding toward him her divine face streaming with tears, but proud and
radiant none the less in her Bernard's great success. For it was a
genuine success of sincere, eminently human emotion, which a few words
more would change into a triumph.--"Go on! Go on!" men shouted from all
sides of the Chamber, to reassure him, to encourage him. But Jansoulet
did not speak. And yet he had very little to say to justify himself:
"Calumny wilfully confused two names. My name is Bernard Jansoulet. The
other's name was Jansoulet Louis." Not another word.

But that was too much in his mother's presence, as she was still
ignorant of her oldest son's dishonor. It was too much for the family
respect and unity.

He fancied he could hear his old father's voice: "I am dying of shame,
my son."--Would not she die of shame too, if he were to speak? He met
his mother's smile with a sublime glance of renunciation; then he
continued in a dull voice and with a gesture of discouragement:

"Excuse me, Messieurs, this explanation is decidedly beyond my strength.
Order an investigation into my life, open to all and in the broad light
of day, for any one can understand my every act. I swear to you that you
will find nothing therein which should debar me from sitting among the
representatives of my country."

The amazement, the disappointment at that surrender, which seemed to all
the sudden downfall of great effrontery when brought to bay, were beyond
all bounds. There was a moment of excitement on the benches, the
confusion of a standing vote, which the Nabob watched listlessly in the
uncertain light from the stained glass windows, as the condemned man
watches the surging crowd from the platform of the scaffold; then, after
the suspense of a century which precedes a supreme moment, the president
announced amid profound silence, in the simplest manner imaginable:

"Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet's election is declared void."

Never was a man's life cut short with less solemnity or pother.

Mère Jansoulet, up yonder in her gallery, understood nothing except that
she could see gaps on the benches all around,--that people were getting
up and going away. Soon no one remained with her save the fat man and
the lady in the white hat, who were leaning over the rail and gazing
curiously at Bernard, who seemed to be preparing to go, for he was very
calmly packing thick bundles of papers into a great portfolio. His
papers arranged, he rose and left his seat.--Ah! the lives of those who
sit in high places sometimes have very cruel moments. Gravely, heavily,
under the eyes of the whole Chamber, he must redescend the steps he had
climbed at the price of so much toil and money, only to be hurled back
to their foot by an inexorable fatality.

It was that for which the Hemerlingues were waiting, following with
their eyes to its last stage that heart-rending, humiliating exit which
piles upon the back of the rejected one something of the shame and
horror of an expulsion; then, as soon as the Nabob had disappeared, they
looked at each other with a silent laugh and left the gallery, the old
woman not daring to ask them to enlighten her, being warned by her
instinct of the bitter hostility of those two. Left alone, she gave all
her attention to something else that was being read, convinced that her
son's interests were still under discussion. There was talk of
elections, of counting ballots, and the poor mother, leaning forward
over the rail in her shabby cap, knitting her thick eyebrows, would have
listened religiously to the report on the Sarigue election to the very
end, had not the usher who had admitted her come to tell her that it was
all over and that she had better go.

"Really? It's all over?" she said, rising as if with regret.

And she added, timidly, in a low tone:

"Did he--did he win?"

It was so ingenuous, so touching, that the usher had not the slightest
inclination to laugh.

"Unfortunately no, Madame. Monsieur Jansoulet did not win. But why did
he stop after he made such a good start? If it's true that he was never
in Paris before and that another Jansoulet did all they accuse him of,
why didn't he say so?"

The old mother turned very pale and clung to the stair-rail.

She had understood.

Bernard's sudden pause when he caught sight of her, the sacrifice he had
offered her so simply with the eloquent glance of a murdered beast came
to her mind; by the same blow the shame of the Elder, of the favorite
child, was confounded with the other's downfall, a two-edged maternal
sorrow, which tore her heart whichever way she turned. Yes, yes, it was
for her sake that he had forborne to speak. But she would not accept
such a sacrifice. He must return at once and explain himself to the
deputies.

"My son? where is my son?"

"Below, Madame, in his carriage. It was he who sent me to look for you."

She darted in front of the usher, walking rapidly, talking aloud,
jostling against little black-faced, bearded men who were gesticulating
in the corridors. After the Salle des Pas-Perdus, she passed through a
great ante-chamber, circular in shape, where servants, drawn up
respectfully in line, formed a living, bedizened dado on the high bare
wall. From there she could see, through the glass doors, the iron
gateway outside, the crowd, and among other waiting carriages the
Nabob's. The peasant woman as she passed recognized her enormous
neighbor of the gallery talking with the sallow man in spectacles who
had declaimed against her son and was receiving all sorts of
congratulations and warm grasps of the hand for his speech. Hearing the
name of Jansoulet pronounced with an accompaniment of mocking,
well-satisfied laughter, she slackened her long stride.

"At all events," said a young dandy with the face of a dissolute woman,
"he didn't prove wherein our charges are false."

At that the old woman made a jagged hole through the group and
exclaimed, taking her stand in front of Moëssard:

"What he didn't tell you I will tell you. I am his mother, and it's my
duty to speak."

She interrupted herself to seize Le Merquier's sleeve as he was slinking
away.

"You, above all, you bad man, you are going to listen to me. What have
you against my child? Don't you know who he is? Wait a moment and let me
tell you."

She turned to the journalist:

"I had two sons, Monsieur--"

Moëssard was no longer there. She returned to Le Merquier:

"Two sons, Monsieur--"

Le Merquier had disappeared.

"Oh! listen to me, some one, I entreat you," said the poor mother,
throwing her hands and her words about, to recall, to detain her
auditors; but they all fled, melted away, disappeared, deputies,
reporters, strange and mocking faces to whom she insisted upon telling
her story by main force, heedless of the indifference which greeted her
sorrows and her joys, her maternal pride and affection expressed in a
jargon of her own. And while she rushed about and labored thus,
intensely excited, her cap awry, at once grotesque and sublime like all
children of nature in the drama of civilization, calling to witness to
her son's uprightness and the injustice of men even the footmen whose
contemptuous impassiveness was more cruel than all the rest, Jansoulet,
who had come to look for her, being anxious at her non-appearance,
suddenly stood beside her.

"Take my arm, mother. You must not stay here."

He spoke very loud, with a manner so composed and calm that all laughter
ceased, and the old woman, suddenly quieted, supported by the firm
pressure of that arm, clinging to which the last trembling of her
indignation vanished, left the palace between two respectful lines of
people. A sublime though rustic couple, the son's millions illumining
the mother's peasantry like the relics of a saint enclosed in a golden
shrine, they disappeared in the bright sunlight, in the splendor of the
gorgeous carriage, brutal irony in presence of that sore distress, a
striking example of the ghastly poverty of wealth.

They sat side by side on the back seat, for they dreaded to be seen, and
at first they did not speak. But as soon as the carriage had started, as
soon as they had left behind the sorrowful Calvary where his honor
remained on the gibbet, Jansoulet, at the end of his strength, laid his
head against his mother's shoulder, hid his face in a fold of the old
green shawl, and there, shedding hot tears, his whole body shaken by
sobs, the cry of his infancy came once more to his lips, his _patois_
wail when he was a little child: "Mamma! mamma!"




XXII.

PARISIAN DRAMAS.


"Que l'heure est donc brève
Qu'on passe en aimant!
C'est moins qu'un moment,
Un peu plus qu'un rêve."[7]

In the half-light of the great salon clad in its summer garb, filled
with flowers, the plush furniture swathed in white covers, the
chandeliers draped in gauze, the shades lowered and the windows open,
Madame Jenkins sits at the piano, picking out the last production of the
fashionable musician of the day; a few sonorous chords accompany the
exquisite lines, a melancholy _Lied_ in unequal measures, which seems to
have been written for the serious sweetness of her voice and the anxious
state of her mind.

"Le temps nous enlève,
Notre enchantement,"[8]

sighs the poor woman, moved by the sound of her own lament; and while
the notes fly away through the courtyard of the mansion, tranquil as
usual, where the fountain is playing in the midst of a clump of
rhododendrons, the singer interrupts herself, her hands prolonging the
chord, her eyes fixed on the music, but her glance far, far away. The
doctor is absent. The interests of his business and his health have
banished him from Paris for a few days, and, as frequently happens in
solitude, the fair Madame Jenkins' thoughts have assumed that serious
cast, that analytical tendency which sometimes makes a brief separation
fatal to the most united households. United they had not been for a long
time. They met only at table, before the servants, hardly spoke to each
other, unless he, the man of oleaginous manners, chose to indulge in
some brutal, uncivil remark concerning her son, her years which were
beginning to tell upon her at last, or a dress which was not becoming to
her. Always gentle and serene, she forced back her tears, submitted to
everything, pretended not to understand; not that she loved him still,
after so much cruel and contemptuous treatment, but it was the old
story, as Joe the coachman said, of "an old incubus who wants to be
married." Heretofore a terrible obstacle, the life of the legitimate
spouse, had prolonged a shameful situation. Now that the obstacle no
longer existed, she wanted to put an end to the comedy, because of
André, who might any day be forced to despise his mother, because of the
world which they had been deceiving for ten years, so that she never
went into society without a sinking at the heart, dreading the welcome
that would be accorded her on the morrow of a disclosure. To her hints,
her entreaties, Jenkins had replied at first with vague phrases, with
grandiloquent gestures: "Do you doubt me? Isn't our engagement sacred?"


FOOTNOTES:


[7] "How swift flies the hour
     We pass in love's pleasures!
    'Tis less than a moment,
     Scarce more than a dream."

[8] "Time tears from our grasp
     Our blissful enchantment."


He also dwelt upon the difficulty of keeping secret a ceremony of such
importance. Then he had taken refuge in malevolent silence, big with
chilling anger and violent resolutions. The duke's death, the check
thereby administered to his insane vanity, had dealt the last blow; for
disaster, which often brings together hearts that are ripe for a mutual
understanding, consummates and completes disunion. And that was a
genuine disaster. The popularity of the Jenkins Pearls suddenly
arrested, the very thorough exposure of the position of the foreign
physician, the charlatan, by old Bouchereau in the journal of the
Academy, caused the leaders of society to gaze at one another in alarm,
even paler from terror than from the absorption of arsenic into their
systems, and the Irishman had already felt the effect of those
bewilderingly sudden changes of the wind which make Parisian
infatuations so dangerous.

It was for that reason, doubtless, that Jenkins had deemed it advisable
to disappear for some time, leaving Madame to continue to frequent the
salons that were still open, in order to feel the pulse of public
opinion and hold it in awe. It was a cruel task for the poor woman, who
found everywhere something of the same cold, distant reception she had
met with at Hemerlingue's. But she did not complain, hoping in this way
to earn her marriage, to knit between him and herself, as a last resort,
the painful bond of pity, of trials undergone in common. And as she knew
that she was always in demand in society because of her talent, because
of the artistic entertainment she furnished at select parties, being
always ready to lay her long gloves and her fan on the piano, as a
prelude to some portion of her rich repertory, she labored constantly,
passed her afternoons turning over new music, selecting by preference
melancholy and complicated pieces, the modern music which is no longer
content to be an art but is becoming a science, and is much better
adapted to the demands of our nervous fancies, our anxieties, than to
the demands of sentiment.

  "C'est moins qu'un moment,
  Un pen plus qu'un rêve.
  Le temps nous enlève
  Notre enchantement."

A flood of bright light suddenly burst into the salon with the maid, who
brought her mistress a card: "Heurteux, _homme d'affaires_."

The gentleman was waiting. He insisted on seeing Madame.

"Did you tell him that the doctor was away from home?"

She had told him; but it was Madame with whom he wished to speak.

"With me?"

With a feeling of uneasiness she scrutinized that coarse, rough card,
that unfamiliar, harsh name: "Heurteux." Who could he be?

"Very well; show him in."

Heurteux, _homme d'affaires_, coming from the bright sunlight into the
semi-darkness of the salon, blinked uncertainly, tried to distinguish
his surroundings. She, on the contrary, distinguished very clearly a
stiff, wooden figure, grizzly whiskers, a protruding under-jaw, one of
those brigands of the Law whom we meet in the outskirts of the Palais de
Justice, and who seem to have been born fifty years old, with a bitter
expression about the mouth, an envious manner, and morocco satchels
under their arms. He sat down on the edge of the chair to which she
waved him, turned his head to make sure that the servant had left the
room, then opened his satchel with great deliberation, as if to look for
a paper. Finding that he did not speak, she began in an impatient tone:

"I must inform you, Monsieur, that my husband is away and that I am not
familiar with any of his business matters."

Unmoved, with his hand still fumbling among his documents, the man
replied:

"I am quite well aware that Monsieur Jenkins is away, Madame--" he laid
particular stress on the words "Monsieur Jenkins,"--"especially as I
come from him."

She stared at him in terror.

"From him?"

"Alas! yes, Madame. The doctor--as you are doubtless aware--is in a very
embarrassed position for the moment. Unfortunate operations on the
Bourse, the downfall of a great financial institution in which he had
funds invested, the heavy burden of the Work of Bethlehem now resting on
him alone, all these disasters combined have compelled him to form an
heroic resolution. He is selling his house, his horses, everything that
he owns, and has given me a power of attorney to that end."

He had found at last what he was looking for, one of those stamped
papers, riddled with memoranda and words erased and interlined, into
which the unfeeling law sometimes crowds so much cowardice and
falsehood. Madame Jenkins was on the point of saying: "But I was here. I
would have done whatever he wished, carried out all his orders," when
she suddenly realized, from the visitor's lack of constraint, his
self-assured, almost insolent manner, that she too was involved in that
general overturn, in that throwing overboard of the expensive house and
useless chattels, and that her departure would be the signal for the
sale.

She rose abruptly. The man, still seated, continued:

"What I still have to say, Madame,"--Oh! she knew, she could have
dictated what he still had to say--"is so painful, so delicate--Monsieur
Jenkins is leaving Paris for a long time, and, fearing to expose you to
the perils and hazards of the new life upon which he is entering, to
take you away from a son of whom you are very fond, and in whose
interest it will be better perhaps--"

She no longer heard or saw him, but, given over to despair, to madness
perhaps, while he lost himself in involved sentences, she listened to a
voice within persistently singing the air which haunted her in that
terrible crash, as the drowning man's eyes retain the image of the last
object upon which they rested.

  "Le temps nous enlève
  Notre enchantement."

Suddenly her pride returned to her.

"Let us put an end to this, Monsieur. All your circumlocution and your
fine words are simply an additional insult. The truth is that I am to be
driven out, turned into the street like a servant."

"O Madame! Madame! The situation is painful enough, let us not embitter
it by words. In working out his _modus vivendi_, Monsieur Jenkins parts
from you, but he does it with death in his heart, and the propositions I
am instructed to make to you are a sufficient proof of his feeling for
you. In the first place, as to furniture and clothes, I am authorized to
allow you to take--"

"Enough," said she.

She rushed to the bell:

"I am going out. My hat, my cloak at once,--something, no matter what. I
am in a hurry."

And while her servant went to bring what she required, she added:

"Everything here belongs to Monsieur Jenkins. Let him dispose of it as
he will. I will take nothing from him--do not insist--it is useless."

The man did not insist. His errand being performed, the rest was of
little consequence to him.

Coolly, without excitement, she carefully adjusted her hat in front of
the mirror, the servant attaching the veil and arranging the folds of
the cape over her shoulders; then she looked around for a moment to see
if she had forgotten anything that was of value to her. No, nothing; her
son's letters were in her pocket; she never parted from them.

"Does Madame wish the carriage?"

"No."

And she left the house.

It was about five o'clock. At that moment Bernard Jansoulet was passing
through the iron gateway of the Corps Législatif, his mother on his arm;
but, painful as was the drama that was being enacted there, this one far
surpassed it in that respect, being more sudden, more unforeseen, devoid
of the slightest solemnity, one of the private domestic dramas which
Paris improvises every hour in the day; and it may be that that gives to
the air we breathe in Paris that vibrating, quivering quality which
excites the nerves. The weather was superb. The streets in those wealthy
quarters, as broad and straight as avenues, shone resplendent in the
light, which was already beginning to fade, enlivened by open windows,
by flower-laden balconies, by glimpses of verdure toward the boulevards,
light and tremulous between the harsh, rigid lines of stone. Madame
Jenkins' hurried steps were bent in that direction, as she hastened
along at random in a pitiable state of bewilderment. What a horrible
downfall! Five minutes ago, rich, encompassed by all the respect and
comforts of a luxurious existence. Now, nothing! Not even a roof to
shelter her, not even a name! The street.

Where was she to go? What would become of her?

At first she had thought of her son. But to confess her sin, to blush
before the child who respected her, to weep before him while depriving
herself of the right to be consoled, was beyond her strength. No, there
was nothing left for her but death. To die as soon as possible, to avoid
shame by disappearing utterly, the inevitable end of situations from
which there is no escape. But where to die? And how? There were so many
ways of turning one's back on life! And as she walked along she reviewed
them all in her mind. All around her was overflowing life, the charm
that Paris lacks in winter, the open-air display of its splendor, its
refined elegance, visible at that hour of the day and that season of the
year around the Madeleine and its flower-market, in a space marked off
by the fragrance of the roses and carnations. On the broad sidewalk,
where gorgeous toilets were displayed, blending their rustling with the
cool quivering of the leaves, there was something of the pleasure of a
meeting in a salon, an air of acquaintance among the promenaders, smiles
and quiet greetings as they passed. And suddenly Madame Jenkins, anxious
concerning the distress depicted on her features, and concerning what
people might think to see her hurrying along with that heedless,
preoccupied manner, slackened her pace to the saunter of a simple
promenader, and stopped to look at the shop windows. The bright-colored,
gauzy window displays all spoke of travelling, of the country: light
trains for the fine gravel of the park, hats wrapped about with gauze as
a protection against the sun at the seashore, fans, umbrellas, purses.
Her eyes gazed at all those gewgaws without seeing them; but an
indistinct, pale reflection in the clear glass showed her her own body
lying motionless on a bed in a furnished lodging, the leaden sleep of a
narcotic in her head, or outside the walls yonder, displacing the mud
beneath some boat. Which was the better?

She hesitated, comparing the two; then, having formed her decision,
walked rapidly away with the resolute stride of the woman who tears
herself regretfully from the artful temptations of the shop-window. As
she hurried along, the Marquis de Monpavon, vivacious and superb, with a
flower in his buttonhole, saluted her at a distance with the grand
flourish of the hat so dear to the vanity of woman, the acme of elegance
in the way of street salutations, the hat raised high in air above a
rigid head. She answered with the polite greeting of the true Parisian,
hardly expressed by an imperceptible movement of the figure and a smile
in the eyes; and, seeing that exchange of worldly courtesies amid the
springtime merrymaking, no one would have suspected that the same
sinister thought guided the footsteps of those two, who met by chance on
the road they were both following, in opposite directions, but aiming
for the same goal.

The prediction of Mora's valet with regard to the marquis was fulfilled:
"We may die or lose our power, then you will be called to account and it
will be a terrible time." It was a terrible time. With the utmost
difficulty the ex-receiver-general had obtained an extension of a
fortnight in which to reimburse the Treasury, clinging to one last
chance, that Jansoulet's election would be confirmed, and that, having
recovered his millions, he would come once more to his assistance. The
decision of the Chamber had deprived him of that supreme hope. As soon
as he heard of it, he returned very calmly to the club and went up to
his room where Francis was impatiently waiting to hand him an important
paper that had arrived during the day. It was a notice to Sieur
Louis-Marie-Agénor de Monpavon to appear the next day at the office of
the examining magistrate. Was that addressed to the director of the
_Caisse Territoriale_ or to the defaulting ex-receiver-general? In any
event, the employment at the outset of the brutal method of formal
summons, instead of a quiet notification, was sufficiently indicative of
the seriousness of the affair and the firm determination of the
authorities.

In the face of such an extremity, which he had long foreseen and
expected, the old beau's course was determined in advance. A Monpavon in
the police-court, a Monpavon librarian at Mazas! Never! He put all his
affairs in order, destroyed papers, carefully emptied his pockets, in
which he placed only a few ingredients taken from his toilet-table, and
all in such a perfectly calm and natural way that when he said to
Francis as he left the room: "Going to take a bath. Beastly Chamber.
Poisonous dirt," the servant believed what he said. Indeed, the marquis
did not lie. After standing through that long and exciting sitting of
the Chamber in the dust of the gallery, his legs ached as if he had spent
two nights in a railway carriage; and as his resolve to die blended with
his longing for a good bath, it occurred to the old sybarite to go to
sleep in a bath-tub like What's-his-name--Thingamy--ps--ps--ps--and
other famous characters of antiquity. It is doing him no more than
justice to say that not one of those Stoics went forth to meet death
more tranquilly than he.

Adorned with a white camellia with which, as he passed, the pretty
flower-girl at the club decorated the buttonhole above his rosette as an
officer of the Legion of Honor, he was walking lightly up Boulevard des
Capucines, when the sight of Madame Jenkins disturbed his serenity for a
moment. He noticed a youthful air about her, a flame in her eyes, a
something so alluring that he stopped to look at her. Tall and lovely,
her long black gauze dress trailing behind, her shoulders covered by a
lace mantle over which a garland of autumn leaves fell from her hat, she
passed on, disappeared amid the throng of other women no less stylish
than she, in a perfumed atmosphere; and the thought that his eyes were
about to close forever on that attractive spectacle, which he enjoyed as
a connoisseur, saddened the old beau a little and diminished the
elasticity of his walk. But a few steps farther on a meeting of another
sort restored all his courage.

A shabby, shamefaced man, dazzled by the bright light, was crossing the
boulevard; it was old Marestang, ex-senator, ex-minister, who was so
deeply compromised in the affair of the _Tourteaux de Malte_, that,
notwithstanding his age, his services, and the great scandal of such a
prosecution, he had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment and
stricken from the rolls of the Legion of Honor, where he was numbered
among the great dignitaries. The affair was already ancient history, and
the poor devil, a portion of his sentence having been remitted, had just
come from prison, dejected, ruined, lacking even the wherewithal to gild
his mental distress, for he had been compelled to disgorge. Standing on
the edge of the sidewalk, he waited, hanging his head, until there
should be an opportunity to cross the crowded street, sorely embarrassed
by that enforced halt on the most frequented corner of the boulevards,
caught between the foot-passengers and the stream of open carriages
filled with familiar faces. Monpavon, passing near him, surprised his
restless, timid glance, imploring recognition and at the same time
seeking to avoid it. The idea that he might some day be reduced to that
degree of humiliation caused him to shudder with disgust. "Nonsense! As
if it were possible!" And, drawing himself up, inflating his
breastplate, he walked on, with a firmer and more determined stride than
before.

Monsieur de Monpavon is walking to his death. He goes thither by the
long line of the boulevards, all aflame in the direction of the
Madeleine, treading once more the springy asphalt like any loiterer, his
nose in the air, his hands behind his back. He has plenty of time, there
is nothing to hurry him,--the hour for the rendezvous is within his
control. At every step he smiles, wafts a patronizing little greeting
with the ends of his fingers, or performs the great flourish of the hat
of a moment ago. Everything charms him, fascinates him, from the
rumbling of the watering-carts to the rattle of the blinds at the doors
of cafés which overflow to the middle of the sidewalk. The approach of
death gives him the acute faculties of a convalescent, sensitive to all
the beauties, all the hidden poesy of a lovely hour in summer in the
heart of Parisian life,--of a lovely hour which will be his last, and
which he would like to prolong until night. That is the reason,
doubtless, why he passes the sumptuous establishment where he usually
takes his bath; nor does he pause at the Chinese Baths. He is too well
known hereabout. All Paris would know what had happened the same
evening. There would be a lot of ill-bred gossip in clubs and salons,
much spiteful comment on his death; and the old fop, the man of
breeding, wishes to spare himself that shame, to plunge and be swallowed
up in the uncertainty and anonymity of suicide, like the soldiers who,
on the day after a great battle, are reported neither as living, wounded
or dead, but simply as missing. That is why he had been careful to keep
nothing upon him that might lead to his identification or furnish any
precise information for the police reports, and why he seeks the
distant, out-of-the-way quarters of the vast city, where the ghastly but
comforting confusion of the common grave will protect him. Already the
aspect of the boulevards has changed greatly. The crowd has become
compact, more active and engrossed, the houses smaller and covered with
business signs. When he has passed Portes Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis,
through which the swarming overflow of the faubourgs streams at all
hours of the day, the provincial character of the city becomes
accentuated. The old beau no longer sees any one whom he knows and can
boast of being a stranger to all.

The shopkeepers, who stare curiously at him, with his display of linen,
his fine frock-coat, his erect figure, take him for some famous actor
out for a little healthful exercise before the play, on the old
boulevard, the scene of his earliest triumphs. The wind is cooler, the
twilight darkens distant objects, and while the long street is still
flooded with light in those portions through which he has passed, the
light fades at every step. So it is with the past when its rays fall
upon him who looks back and regrets. It seems to Monpavon that he is
entering the darkness. He shivers a little, but does not lose courage,
and walks on with head erect and unfaltering gait.

Monsieur de Monpavon is walking to his death. Now he enters the
complicated labyrinth of noisy streets where the rumble of the
omnibuses blends with the thousand and one industries of the working
quarters, where the hot smoke from the factories is mingled with the
fever of a whole population struggling against hunger. The air quivers,
the gutters smoke, the buildings tremble as the heavy drays pass and
collide at the corners of the narrow streets. Suddenly the marquis
stops; he has found what he wanted. Between a charcoal dealer's dark
shop and an undertaker's establishment, where the spruce boards leaning
against the wall cause him to shudder, is a porte-cochère surmounted by
a sign, the word "BATHS" on a dull lantern. He enters and crosses a damp
little garden where a fountain weeps in a basin of artificial rockwork.
That is just the dismal retreat he has been seeking. Who will ever dream
of thinking that the Marquis de Monpavon came to that place to cut his
throat? The house is at the end of the garden, a low house with green
shutters, a glass door, and the false villa-like air that they all have.
He orders a bath, plenty of towels, walks along the narrow corridor, and
while the bath is being prepared, listening to the running water behind
him, he smokes his cigar at the window, gazes at the flower-garden with
its spindling lilacs, and the high wall that incloses it.

Adjoining it is a great yard, the yard of a fire-engine house with a
gymnasium, whose poles and swings and horizontal bars, seen indistinctly
over the wall, have the look of gibbets. A bugle rings out in the yard,
and that blast carries the marquis back thirty years, reminds him of his
campaigns in Algeria, the lofty ramparts of Constantine, Mora's arrival
in the regiment, and duels, and select card-parties. Ah! how well life
began! What a pity that those infernal cards--Ps--ps--ps--However, it's
worth something to have saved one's breeding.

"Monsieur," said the attendant, "your bath is ready."

       *       *       *       *       *

At that moment Madame Jenkins, pale and gasping for breath, entered
André's studio, drawn thither by an instinct stronger than her will, by
the feeling that she must embrace her child before she died. And yet,
when she opened the door--he had given her a duplicate key--it was a
relief to her to see that he had not returned, that her excitement,
increased by a long walk, an unusual experience in her luxurious life as
a woman of wealth, would have time to subside. No one in the room. But
on the table the little note that he always left when he went out, so
that his mother, whose visits, because of Jenkins' tyranny, had become
more and more infrequent and brief, might know where he was, and either
wait for him or join him. Those two had not ceased to love each other
dearly, profoundly, despite the cruel circumstances which compelled them
to introduce into their relations as mother and son the precautions, the
clandestine mystery of a different kind of love.

"I am at my rehearsal," said the little note to-day, "I shall return
about seven."

That attention from her son, whom she had not been to see for three
weeks, and who persisted in expecting her none the less, brought to the
mother's eyes a flood of tears which blinded her. One would have said
that she had entered a new world. It was so light, so peaceful, so high,
that little room which caught the last gleam of daylight on its windows,
which was all aflame with the last rays of the sun already sinking below
the horizon, and which seemed, like all attic rooms, carved out of a
piece of sky, with its bare walls, decorated only by a large portrait,
her own; nothing but her own portrait smiling in the place of honor and
another in a gilt frame on the table. Yes, in very truth, the humble
little lodging, which was still so light when all Paris was becoming
dark, produced a supernatural impression upon her, despite the poverty
of its scanty furniture, scattered through two rooms, its common chintz
coverings, and its mantel adorned with two great bunches of hyacinths,
the flowers that are drawn through the streets by cartloads in the
morning. What a lovely, brave, dignified life she might have led there
with her André! And in a moment, with the rapidity of a dream, she
placed her bed in one corner, her piano in another, saw herself giving
lessons, taking charge of the house, to which she brought her share of
enthusiasm and courageous cheerfulness. How could she have failed to
understand that that should be the duty, the pride of her widowhood?
What blindness, what shameful weakness!

A sad mistake, doubtless, but one for which much extenuation might have
been found in her easily influenced, affectionate nature, in the
adroitness and knavery of her accomplice, who talked constantly of
marriage, concealing from her the fact that he was not free himself, and
when at last he was obliged to confess, drawing such a picture of the
unrelieved gloom of his life, of his despair, of his love, that the poor
creature, already so seriously involved in the eyes of the world,
incapable of one of those heroic efforts which place one above false
situations, had yielded at last, had accepted that twofold existence, at
once so brilliant and so wretched, resting everything upon a lie that
had lasted ten years. Ten years of intoxicating triumphs and
indescribable anxiety, ten years during which she had never sung without
the fear of being betrayed between two measures, during which the
slightest remark concerning irregular establishments wounded her like an
allusion to her own case, during which the expression of her face had
gradually assumed that air of gentle humility, of a culprit demanding
pardon. Then the certainty of being abandoned at some time had ruined
even those borrowed joys, had caused her luxurious surroundings to
wither and fade; and what agony, what suffering she had silently
undergone, what never-ending humiliations, down to the last and most
horrible of all!

While she reviews her life thus sorrowfully in the cool evening air and
the peaceful calm of the deserted house, ringing laughter, an outburst
of joyous youthful spirits ascends from the floor below; and
remembering André's confidences, his last letter, in which he told her
the great news, she tries to distinguish among those unfamiliar,
youthful voices that of her daughter Élise, her son's fiancée, whom she
does not know, whom she will never know. That thought, which completes
the voluntary disherison of the mother, adds to the misery of her last
moments and fills them with such a flood of remorse and regret that,
notwithstanding her determination to be brave, she weeps and weeps.

The night falls gradually. Great streaks of shadow strike the sloping
windows, while the sky, immeasurable in its depth, becomes colorless,
seems to recede into the darkness. The roofs mass for the night as
soldiers do for an attack. The clocks gravely tell each other the hour,
while the swallows circle about in the neighborhood of a hidden nest and
the wind makes its usual incursion among the ruins in the old
lumber-yard. Tonight it blows with a wailing noise like the sea, with a
shudder of fog; it blows from the river as if to remind the wretched
woman that that is where she must go. Oh! how she shivers in her lace
mantle at the thought! Why did she come here to revive her taste for
life, which would be impossible after the confession she would be forced
to make? Swift footsteps shake the staircase, the door is thrown open;
it is André. He is singing, he is happy, and in a great hurry, for he is
expected to dine with the Joyeuses. A glimmer of light, quick, so that
the lover may beautify himself. But, as he scratches the match, he
divines the presence of some one in the studio, a shadow moving among
the motionless shadows.

"Who's there?"

Something answers, something like a stifled laugh or a sob. He thinks it
is his young neighbors, a scheme of the "children" to amuse themselves.
He draws near. Two hands, two arms seize him, are wound about him.

"It is I."

And in a feverish voice, which talks hurriedly in self-defence, she
tells him that she is about to start on a long journey, and that before
starting--

"A journey. Where are you going, pray?"

"Oh! I don't know. We are going ever so far away,--to his own country on
some business of his."

"What! you won't be here for my play? It's to be given in three days.
And then, right after it, my wedding. Nonsense! he can't prevent your
being present at my wedding."

She excuses herself, invents reasons, but her burning hands, which her
son holds in his, her unnatural voice, convince André that she is not
telling the truth. He attempts to light the candles, but she prevents
him.

"No, no, we don't need a light. It is better this way. Besides, I have
so many preparations still to make; I must go."

They are both standing, ready for the parting; but André will not let
her go until he has made her confess what the matter is, what tragic
anxiety causes the wrinkles on that lovely face, in which the eyes--is
it an effect of the twilight?--gleam with fierce brilliancy.

"Nothing--no, nothing, I promise you. Only the thought that I cannot
share in your joys, your triumphs. But you know that I love you, you do
not doubt your mother, do you? I have never passed a day without
thinking of you. Do you do as much; keep a place in your heart for me.
And now kiss me, and let me go at once. I have delayed too long."

A moment more and she will not have strength to do what she still has to
do. She rushes toward the door.

"I say no, you shall not go. I have a feeling that some extraordinary
thing is taking place in your life that you don't wish to tell me. You
are in great sorrow, I am sure of it. That man has done some shameful
thing to you."

"No, no; let me go, let me go."

But on the contrary, he holds her, holds her fast.

"Come, what is the matter? Tell me, tell me--"

Then, under his breath, in a low, loving voice, like a kiss:

"He has left you, has he not?"

The unhappy creature shudders, struggles.

"Don't ask me any questions. I will not tell you anything. Adieu!"

And he rejoins, straining her to his heart:

"What can you tell me that I do not know already, my poor mother? Didn't
you understand why I left his house six months ago?"

"You know?"

"Everything. And this that has happened to you to-day I have long
foreseen and hoped for."

"Oh! wretched, wretched woman that I am, why did I come?"

"Because this is your proper place, because you owe me ten years of my
mother. You see that I must keep you."

He says this kneeling in front of the couch upon which she has thrown
herself in a flood of tears and with the last plaintive outcries of her
wounded pride. For a long while she weeps thus, her son at her feet. And
lo! the Joyeuses, anxious at André's non-appearance, come up in a body
in search of him. There is a veritable invasion of innocent faces,
waving curls, modest costumes, rippling gayety, and over the whole group
shines the great lamp, the good old lamp with the huge shade, which M.
Joyeuse solemnly holds aloft as high and as straight as he can, in the
attitude of a _canephora_. They halt abruptly, dumbfounded, at sight of
that pale, sad woman who gazes, deeply moved, at all those smiling,
charming creatures, especially at Élise, who stands a little behind the
others, and whose embarrassment in making that indiscreet visit stamps
her as the _fiancée_.

"Élise, kiss our mother and thank her. She has come to live with her
children."

Behold her entwined in all those caressing arms, pressed to four little
womanly hearts which have long lacked a mother's support, behold her
made welcome with sweet cordiality in the circle of light cast by the
family lamp, broadened a little so that she can find room there, can dry
her eyes, obtain warmth and light for her heart at that sturdy flame
which rises without a flicker, even in that little artist's studio under
the roof, where the storm howled so fiercely just now, the terrible
storm that must be at once forgotten.

The man who is breathing his last yonder, lying in a heap in the bloody
bath-tub, has never known that sacred flame. Selfish and hard-hearted,
he lived to the last for show, puffing out his superficial breastplate
with a blast of vanity. And that vanity was the best that there was in
him. It was that which kept him on his feet and jaunty and swaggering so
long, that which clenched his teeth on the hiccoughs of his death agony.
In the damp garden the fountain drips sadly. The firemen's bugle sounds
the curfew. "Just go up to number 7," says the mistress of the
establishment, "he's a long while over his bath." The attendant goes up
and utters a shriek of horror: "O Madame, he 's dead--but it isn't the
same man." They run to the spot, and no one, in truth, can recognize the
fine gentleman who entered just now in this lifeless doll, with its head
hanging over the side of the bath-tub, the rouge mingling with the blood
that moistens it, and every limb relaxed in utter weariness of the part
played to the very end, until it killed the actor. Two slashes of the
razor across the magnificent, unwrinkled breastplate, and all his
factitious majesty has burst like a bubble, has resolved itself into
this nameless horror, this mass of mud and blood and ghastly, streaked
flesh, wherein lies unrecognizable the model of good-breeding, Marquis
Louis-Marie-Agénor de Monpavon.




XXIII.

MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--LAST SHEETS.


I here set down, in haste and with an intensely agitated pen, the
shocking events of which I have been the plaything for some days past.
This time it is all up with the _Territoriale_ and all my ambitious
dreams. Protests, levies, police-raids, all our books in the custody of
the examining magistrate, the Governor a fugitive, our director
Bois-l'Héry at Mazas, our director Monpavon disappeared. My head is in a
whirl with all these disasters. And to think that, if I had followed the
warnings of sound common-sense, I should have been tranquilly settled at
Montbars six months ago, cultivating my little vineyard, with no other
preoccupation than watching the grapes grow round and turn to the color
of gold in the pleasant Burgundian sunshine, and picking from the vines,
after a shower, the little gray snails that make such an excellent
fricassee. With the results of my economy I would have built, on the
high land at the end of the vineyard, on a spot that I can see at this
moment, a stone summer-house like M. Chalmette's, so convenient for an
afternoon nap, while the quail are singing all around among the vines.
But no, constantly led astray by treacherous illusions, I longed to make
a fortune, to speculate, to try banking operations on a grand scale, to
tie my fortune to the chariot of the successful financiers of the day;
and now here I am at the most melancholy stage of my history, clerk in a
ruined counting-house, intrusted with the duty of answering a horde of
creditors, of shareholders drunk with rage, who pour out the vilest
insults upon my white hairs and would fain hold me responsible for the
Nabob's ruin and the governor's flight. As if I were not as cruelly hit
myself, with my four years' back pay which I lose once more, and my
seven thousand francs of money advanced, all of which I intrusted to
that villain, Paganetti of Porto-Vecchio.

But it was written that I should drink the cup of humiliation and
mortification to the dregs. Was I not forced to appear before the
examining magistrate, I, Passajon, formerly apparitor to the Faculty,
with my record of thirty years of faithful service and the ribbon of an
officer of the Academy! Oh! when I saw myself ascending that stairway at
the Palais de Justice, so long and broad, with no rail to cling to, I
felt my head going round and my legs giving way under me. That was when
I had a chance to reflect, as I passed through those halls, black with
lawyers and judges, with here and there a high green door, behind which
I could hear the impressive sounds of courts in session; and up above,
in the corridor where the offices of the examining magistrates are,
during the hour that I had to wait on a bench where I had prison vermin
crawling up my legs, while I listened to a lot of thieves, pickpockets
and girls in Saint-Lazare caps, talking and laughing with Gardes de
Paris, and the ringing of the muskets on the floor of the corridors, and
the dull rumbling of prison vans. I realized then the danger of
_combinazioni_, and that it was not always well to laugh at M. Gogo.

One thing comforted me somewhat, however, and that was that, as I had
never taken part in the deliberations of the _Territoriale_, I was in no
way responsible for its transactions and swindles. But explain this.
When I was in the magistrate's office, facing that man in a velvet cap
who stared at me from the other side of the table with his little
crooked eyes, I had such a feeling that I was being explored and
searched and turned absolutely inside out that, in spite of my
innocence, I longed to confess. To confess what? I have no idea. But
that is the effect that justice produces. That devil of a man sat for
five long minutes staring at me without speaking, turning over a package
of papers covered with a coarse handwriting that seemed familiar to me,
then said to me abruptly, in a tone that was at once cunning and stern:

"Well, Monsieur Passajon! How long is it since we played the drayman's
trick?"

The memory of a certain little peccadillo, in which I had taken part in
days of distress, was so distant that at first I did not understand; but
a few words from the magistrate proved to me that he was thoroughly
posted as to the history of our bank. That terrible man knew everything,
to the most trivial, the most secret details.

Who could have given him such accurate information?

And with it all he was very sharp, very abrupt, and when I attempted to
guide the course of justice by some judicious observations, he had a
certain insolent way of saying: "None of your fine phrases," which was
the more wounding to me, at my age, with my reputation as a fine
speaker, because we were not alone in his office. A clerk sat near me,
writing down my deposition, and I could hear some one behind turning
over the leaves of some great book. The magistrate asked me all sorts of
questions about the Nabob, the time when he had made his contributions,
where we kept our books, and all at once, addressing the person whom I
did not see, he said:

"Show us the cash-book, Monsieur l'Expert."

A little man in a white cravat brought the great volume and placed it on
the table. It was M. Joyeuse, formerly cashier for Hemerlingue and Son.
But I had no time to present my respects to him.

"Who did that?" the magistrate asked me, opening the book at a place
where a leaf had been torn out. "Come, do not lie about it."

I did not lie, for I had no idea, as I never concerned myself about the
books. However, I thought it my duty to mention M. de Géry, the Nabob's
secretary, who used often to come to our offices at night and shut
himself up alone in the counting-room for hours at a time. Thereupon
little Père Joyeuse turned red with anger.

"What he says is absurd, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Monsieur de
Géry is the young man I mentioned to you. He went to the _Territoriale_
solely for the purpose of keeping an eye on affairs there, and felt too
deep an interest in poor Monsieur Jansoulet to destroy the receipts for
his contributions, the proofs of his blind but absolute honesty.
However, Monsieur de Géry, who has been detained a long while in Tunis,
is now on his way home, and will soon be able to afford all necessary
explanations."

I felt that my zeal was likely to compromise me.

"Be careful, Passajon," said the judge very sternly. "You are here only
as a witness; but if you try to give the investigation a wrong turn you
may return as a suspect."--Upon my word the monster seemed to desire
it.--"Come, think, who tore out this page?"

Thereupon I very opportunely remembered that, a few days before leaving
Paris, our Governor had told me to bring the books to his house, where
they had remained until the following day. The clerk made a note of my
declaration, whereupon the magistrate dismissed me with a wave of the
hand, warning me that I must hold myself at his disposal. When I was at
the door he recalled me:

"Here, Monsieur Passajon, take this; I have no further use for it."

He handed me the papers he had been consulting while he questioned me;
and my confusion can be imagined when I saw on the cover the word
"_Memoirs_" written in my roundest hand. I had myself furnished justice
with weapons, with valuable information which the suddenness of our
catastrophe had prevented me from rescuing from the general cleaning out
executed by the police in our offices.

My first impulse, on returning, was to tear these tale-bearing sheets in
pieces; then, after reflection, having satisfied myself that there was
nothing in these _Memoirs_ to compromise me, I decided, instead of
destroying them, to continue them, with the certainty of making
something out of them some day or other. There is no lack in Paris of
novelists without imagination, who have not the art of introducing
anything but true stories in their books, and who will not be sorry to
buy a little volume of facts. That will be my way of revenging myself on
this crew of high-toned pirates with whom I have become involved, to my
shame and to my undoing.

It was necessary, however, for me to find some way of occupying my
leisure time. Nothing to do at the office, which has been utterly
deserted since the legal investigation began, except to pile up
summonses of all colors. I have renewed my former practice of writing
for the cook on the second floor, Mademoiselle Séraphine, from whom I
accept some trifling supplies which I keep in the safe, once more a
pantry. The Governor's wife also is very kind to me and stuffs my
pockets whenever I go to see her in her fine apartments in the Chaussée
d'Antin. Nothing is changed there. The same magnificence, the same
comfort; furthermore, a little baby three months old, the seventh, and a
superb nurse, whose Normandy cap creates a sensation when they drive in
the Bois de Boulogne. I suppose that when people are once fairly started
on the railway of fortune they require a certain time to slacken their
speed or come to a full stop. And then, too, that thief of a Paganetti,
to guard against accidents, had put everything in his wife's name.
Perhaps that is why that jabbering Italian has taken a vow of affection
for him which nothing can weaken. He is a fugitive, he is in hiding; but
she is fully convinced that her husband is a little St. John in
guilelessness, a victim of his kindness of heart and credulity. You
should hear her talk: "You know him, Moussiou Passajon. You know whether
he is _e_scrupulous. Why, as true as there's a God, if my husband had
done the dishonest things they accuse him of, I myself--do you hear
me--I myself would have put a gun in his hands, and I would have said:
'Here, Tchecco, blow your head off!'" And the way she opens the nostrils
in her little turned-up nose, and her round black eyes, like two balls
of jet, makes you feel that that little Corsican from Île Rousse would
have done as she says. I tell you that damned Governor must be a shrewd
fellow to deceive even his wife, to act a part in his own house, where
the cleverest let themselves be seen as they are.

Meanwhile all these people are living well; Bois-l'Héry at Mazas has his
meals sent from the Café Anglais, and Uncle Passajon is reduced to
living on odds and ends picked up in kitchens. However, we must not
complain too much. There are those who are more unfortunate than we, M.
Francis, for instance, whom I saw at the _Territoriale_ this morning,
pale and thin, with disgraceful linen and ragged cuffs, which he
continues to pull down as a matter of habit.

I was just in the act of broiling a bit of bacon in front of the fire in
the directors' room, my cover being laid on the corner of a marquetry
table with a newspaper underneath in order not to soil it. I invited
Monpavon's valet to share my frugal repast; but, because he has waited
on a marquis, that fellow fancies that he's one of the nobility, and he
thanked me with a dignified air, which made me want to laugh when I
looked at his hollow cheeks. He began by telling me that he was still
without news of his master, that they had sent him away from the club on
Rue Royale where all the papers were under seal and crowds of creditors
swooping down like flocks of swallows on the marquis's trifling effects.
"So that I find myself a little short," added M. Francis. That meant
that he had not a sou in his pocket, that he had slept two nights on the
benches along the boulevards, waked every minute by policemen,
compelled to get up, to feign drunkenness in order to obtain another
shelter. As for eating, I believe that he had not done that for a long
while, for he stared at the food with hungry eyes that made one's heart
ache, and when I had forcibly placed a slice of bacon and a glass of
wine in front of him, he fell on them like a wolf. The blood instantly
came to his cheeks, and as he ate he began to chatter and chatter.

"Do you know, Père Passajon," he said between two mouthfuls, "I know
where he is--I've seen him."

He winked slyly. For my part, I stared at him in amazement.

"In God's name, what have you seen, Monsieur Francis?"

"The marquis, my master--yonder in the little white house behind Notre
Dame." He did not say the morgue, because that is a too vulgar word. "I
was very sure I should find him there. I went straight there the next
day. And there he was. Oh! very well hidden, I promise you. No one but
his valet de chambre could have recognized him. His hair all gray, his
teeth gone, and his real wrinkles, his sixty-five years that he used to
fix up so well. As he lay there on that marble slab with the faucet
dripping on him, I fancied I saw him at his dressing table."

"And you said nothing?"

"No, I had known his intentions on that subject for a long while. I let
him go out of the world quietly, in the English fashion, as he wanted
to do. All the same, he might have given me a bit of bread before he
went, when I had been in his service twenty years."

Suddenly he brought his fist down upon the table in a rage:

"When I think that, if I had chosen, I might have entered Mora's service
instead of Monpavon's, that I might have had Louis's place! There was a
lucky dog! Think of the rolls of a thousand he nabbed at his duke's
death!--And the clothes the duke left, shirts by the hundred, a
dressing-gown in blue fox-skin worth more than twenty thousand francs!
And there's that Noël, he must have lined his pockets! Simply by making
haste, _parbleu!_ for he knew it couldn't last long. And there's nothing
to be picked up on Place Vendôme now. An old gendarme of a mother who
manages everything. They're selling Saint-Romans, they're selling the
pictures. Half of the house is to let. It's the end of everything."

I confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction; for, after all,
that wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who
boasted of being so rich and talked about it everywhere. The public was
taken in by it, like the fish that sees scales shining in a net. He has
lost millions, I grant you; but why did he let people think he had
plenty more? They have arrested Bois-l'Héry, but he's the one they
should have arrested.--Ah! if we had had another expert, I am sure it
would have been done long ago.--Indeed, as I said to Francis, one has
only to look at that parvenu of a Jansoulet to see what he amounts to.
Such a face, like a high and mighty brigand!

"And so common," added the former valet.

"Not the slightest moral character."

"Utter lack of breeding.--However, he's under water, and Jenkins too,
and many others with them."

"What! the doctor too? That's too bad. Such a polite, pleasant man!"

"Yes, there's another man that's being sold out. Horses, carriages,
furniture. The courtyard at his house is full of placards and sounds
empty as if death had passed that way. The château at Nanterre's for
sale. There were half a dozen 'little Bethlehems' left, and they packed
them off in a cab. It's the crash, I tell you, Père Passajon, a crash
that we may not see the end of, perhaps, because we're both old, but it
will be complete. Everything's rotten; everything must burst!"

It was horrible to see that old flunkey of the Empire, gaunt and
stooping, covered with filth and crying like Jeremiah: "This is the
end," with his toothless mouth wide open like a great black hole. I was
afraid and ashamed before him, I longed to see his back; and I thought
to myself: "O Monsieur Chalmette! O my little vineyard at Montbars!"


Same date.

Great news! Madame Paganetti came this afternoon mysteriously and
brought me a letter from the Governor. He is in London, just about to
start a magnificent enterprise. Splendid offices in the finest part of
the city; a stock company with superb prospects. He requests me to join
him there, "happy," he says, "to repair in that way the wrong that has
been done me." I shall have twice the salary I had at the
_Territoriale_, with lodgings and fuel thrown in, five shares in the new
company, and all my back pay in full. Only a trifling advance to be made
for travelling expenses and some few importunate debts in the quarter.
_Vive la joie!_ my fortune is assured. I must write to the notary at
Montbars to raise some money on my vineyard.




CHAPTER XXIV.

AT BORDIGHERA.


As M. Joyeuse had informed the examining magistrate, Paul de Géry was on
his way home from Tunis after an absence of three weeks. Three
interminable weeks, passed in struggling amid a network of intrigues, of
plots cunningly devised by the powerful enmity of the Hemerlingues,
wandering from office to office, from department to department, through
that vast _résidence_ on the Bardo, where all the different departments
of the State are collected in the same frowning enclosure, bristling
with culverins, under the immediate supervision of the master, like his
stables and his harem. Immediately on his arrival Paul had learned that
the Chamber of Justice was beginning to hear the Jansoulet case in
secret,--a mockery of a trial, lost beforehand; and the Nabob's closed
counting-rooms on the Marine Quay, the seals placed upon his cash boxes,
his vessels lying at anchor in the harbor of Goletta, the guard of
_chaouchs_ around his palaces, already denoted a species of civil death,
an intestacy as to which there would soon be nothing left to do but
divide the spoils.

Not a champion, not a friend in that greedy pack; even the Frankish
colony seemed not displeased at the downfall of a courtier who had so
long obstructed all the roads to favor by occupying them himself. It was
absolutely hopeless to think of rescuing that victim from the bey's
clutches in the absence of a signal triumph in the Chamber of Deputies.
All that de Géry could hope to do was to save a few spars from the
wreck, and even that required haste, for he expected from day to day to
be advised of his friend's complete discomfiture.

He took the field, therefore, and went about his operations with an
activity which nothing could abate, neither Oriental cajolery, that
refined honey-sweet courtesy beneath which lurk savage ferocity and
dissolute morals, nor the hypocritically indifferent smiles, nor the
demure airs, the folded arms which invoke divine fatalism when human
falsehood fails of its object. The _sang-froid_ of that cool-headed
little Southerner, in whom all the exuberant qualities of his countrymen
were condensed, stood him in at least as good stead as his perfect
familiarity with the French law, of which the Code of Tunis is simply a
disfigured copy.

By adroit manoeuvring and circumspection, and in spite of the
intrigues of Hemerlingue _fils_, who had great influence at the Bardo,
he succeeded in exempting from confiscation the money loaned by the
Nabob a few months before, and in extorting ten millions out of fifteen
from the rapacious Mohammed. On the morning of the very day when that
sum was to be paid over to him he received a despatch from Paris
announcing that the election was annulled. He hurried at once to the
palace, desirous to reach there in advance of the news; and on his
return, with his ten millions in drafts on Marseille safely bestowed in
his pocket-book, he passed Hemerlingue's carriage on the road, its three
mules tearing along at full speed. The gaunt, owl-like face was radiant.
As de Géry realized that if he remained only a few hours longer at Tunis
his drafts would be in great danger of being confiscated, he engaged his
passage on an Italian packet that was to sail for Genoa the next day and
passed the night on board, and his mind was not at rest until he saw the
white terraces of Tunis at the upper end of its bay, and the cliffs of
Cape Carthage fading from sight behind him. When they entered the harbor
of Genoa, the packet, as it ran alongside the wharf, passed close to a
large yacht flying the Tunisian flag among a number of small flags with
which she was decorated. De Géry was greatly excited, thinking for a
moment that he was pursued and that on going ashore he might have a
scuffle with the Italian police like a common pickpocket. But no, the
yacht was lying quietly at anchor, her crew were scrubbing the deck and
repainting the red mermaid that formed her figurehead as if some
personage of importance were expected on board. Paul had no curiosity to
ascertain who that personage might be; he simply rode across the marble
city and returned by the railway which runs from Genoa to Marseille,
following the coast; a marvellous road, where you pass from the inky
darkness of tunnels into the dazzling splendor of the blue sea, but so
narrow that accidents are very frequent.

At Savona the train stopped and the passengers were told that they could
go no farther, as one of the small bridges across the streams that rush
down from the mountain into the sea had broken down during the night.
They must wait for the engineer and workmen who had been summoned by
telegraph, stay there half a day perhaps. It was early morning. The
Italian town was just awaking in one of those hazy dawns which promise
extreme heat during the day. While the passengers scattered, seeking
refuge in hotels or restaurants, or wandering about the town, de Géry,
distressed by the delay, tried to find some way of avoiding the loss of
ten hours or more. He thought of poor Jansoulet, whose honor and whose
life might perhaps be saved by the money he was bringing, of his dear
Aline, the thought of whom had not left him once during his journey, any
more than the portrait she had given him. Suddenly it occurred to him to
hire one of the _calesinos_, four-horse vehicles which make the journey
from Genoa to Nice along the Italian Corniche, a fascinating drive often
taken by foreigners, lovers, and gamblers who have been lucky at Monaco.
The driver agreed to be at Nice early; but even though he should reach
there no sooner than by waiting for the train, the impatient traveller
felt an immense longing to be relieved of the necessity of pacing the
streets, to know that the space between him and his desire decreased
with every revolution of the wheels.

Ah! on a lovely June morning, at our friend Paul's age and with one's
heart overflowing with love as his was, to fly along the white Corniche
road behind four horses, is to feel an intoxication of travel that words
cannot describe. On the left, at a depth of a hundred feet, lies the sea
flecked with foam, from the little round bays along the shore to the
hazy horizon where the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky melt
together; red or white sails, like birds with a single wing spread to
the breeze, the slender silhouettes of steamers with a little smoke
trailing behind like a farewell, and along the beaches, of which you
catch glimpses as the road winds, fishermen no larger than sea-mews in
their boats, lying at anchor, which look like nests. Then the road
descends, follows a rapid downward slope along the base of cliffs and
headlands almost perpendicular. The cool breeze from the water reaches
you there, blends with the thousand little bells on the harnesses, while
at the right, on the mountain-side, the pines and green oaks rise tier
above tier, with gnarled roots protruding from the sterile soil, and
cultivated olive-trees in terraces, as far as a broad ravine, white and
rocky, bordered with green plants which tell of the passage of the
waters, the dry bed of a torrent up which toil laden mules, sure of
their footing among the loose shingle, where a washerwoman stoops beside
a microscopic pool, a few drops remaining from the great winter
freshets. From time to time you rumble through the one street of a
village, or rather of a small town of historic antiquity, grown rusty
with too much sunshine, the houses crowded closely together and
connected by dark archways, a network of covered lanes which climb the
sheer cliff with snatches of light from above, openings like the mouths
of mines affording glimpses of broods of children with curly hair like a
halo about their heads, baskets of luscious fruit, a woman descending
the rough pavements with a pitcher on her head or a distaff in her hand.
Then, at a corner of the street, the blue twinkling of the waves,
immensity once more.

But as the day wore on, the sun, mounting higher in the heavens,
scattered its beams over the sea just emerging from its mists, heavy
with sleep, dazed, motionless, with a quartz-like transparence, and
myriads of rays fell upon the water as if arrow-points had pricked it,
making a dazzling reflection, doubled in intensity by the whiteness of
the cliffs and the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the
dust in a spiral column as the carriage passed. They reached the
hottest, the most sheltered portions of the Corniche,--a genuinely
tropical temperature, where dates, cactus, the aloe, with its tall,
candelabra-like branches, grow in the fields. When he saw those slender
trunks, that fantastic vegetation shooting up in the white, hot air,
when he felt the blinding dust crunching under the wheels like snow, de
Géry, his eyes partly closed, half-dreaming in that leaden noonday
heat, fancied that he was making once more the tiresome journey from
Tunis to the Bardo, which he had made so often in a strange medley of
Levantine chariots, brilliant liveries, _meahris_ with long neck and
hanging lip, gayly-caparisoned mules, young asses, Arabs in rags,
half-naked negroes, great functionaries in full dress, with their
escorts of honor. Should he find yonder, where the road skirts gardens
of palm-trees, the curious, colossal architecture of the bey's palace,
its close-meshed window gratings, its marble doors, its _moucharabies_
cut out of wood and painted in vivid colors? It was not the Bardo, but
the pretty village of Bordighera, divided like all those on the coast
into two parts, the _Marine_ lying along the shore, and the upper town,
connected by a forest of statuesque palms with slender stalks and
drooping tops,--veritable rockets of verdure, showing stripes of blue
through their innumerable regular clefts.

The unendurable heat and the exhaustion of the horses compelled the
traveller to halt for two or three hours at one of the great hotels that
line the road and, from early in November, bring to that wonderfully
sheltered little village all the luxurious life and animation of an
aristocratic winter resort. But at that time of year the _Marine_ of
Bordighera was deserted, save for a few fishermen, who were invisible at
that hour. The villas and hotels seemed dead, all their blinds and
shades being closely drawn. The new arrival was led through long, cool,
silent passages, to a large salon facing north, evidently a part of one
of the full suites which are generally let for the season, as it was
connected with other rooms on either side by light doors. White
curtains, a carpet, the semi-comfort demanded by the English even when
travelling, and in front of the windows, which the innkeeper threw wide
open as a lure to the visitor, to induce him to make a more extended
halt, the magnificent view of the mountain. An astonishing calm reigned
in that huge, deserted inn, with no steward, no cook, no
attendants,--none of the staff arrived until the first cool days,--and
given over to the care of a native spoil-sauce, an expert in _stoffatos_
and _risottos_, and to two stable-boys, who donned the regulation black
coat, white cravat and pumps at meal hours. Luckily, de Géry proposed to
remain there only an hour or two,--long enough to breathe, to rest his
eyes from the glare of burnished silver and to free his heavy head from
the helmet with the painful chin-strap that the sun had placed upon it.

From the couch on which he lay, the beautiful landscape, terraces of
light, quivering olive-trees, orange-groves of darker hue, their leaves
gleaming as if wet in the moving rays, seemed to come down to his window
in tiers of verdure of different shades, amid which the scattered villas
stood forth in dazzling whiteness, among them Maurice Trott, the
banker's, recognizable by the capricious richness of its architecture
and the height of its palm-trees. The Levantine's palace, whose gardens
extended to the very windows of the hotel, had sheltered for several
months past an artistic celebrity, the sculptor Bréhat, who was dying of
consumption and owed the prolongation of his life to that princely
hospitality. This proximity of a famous moribund, of which the landlord
was very proud and which he would have been glad to charge in his
bill,--the name of Bréhat, which de Géry had so often heard mentioned
with admiration in Felicia Ruys' studio, led his thoughts back to the
lovely face with the pure outlines, which he had seen for the last time
in the Bois de Boulogne, leaning upon Mora's shoulder. What had become
of the unfortunate girl when that support had failed her? Would the
lesson profit her in the future? And, by a strange coincidence, while he
was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white grey-hound went frisking
along a tree-lined avenue in the sloping garden before him. One would
have said that it was Kadour himself,--the same short hair, the same
fierce, slender red jaws. Paul, at his open window, was assailed in an
instant by all sorts of visions, sweet and depressing. Perhaps the
superb scenery before him, the lofty mountain up which a blue shadow was
running, tarrying in all the inequalities of the ground, assisted the
vagabondage of his thought. Under the orange and lemon trees, set out in
straight lines for cultivation, stretched vast fields of violets in
close, regular clusters, traversed by little irrigating canals, whose
walls of white stone made sharp breaks in the luxuriant verdure.

An exquisite odor arose, of violets fermented in the sun, a hot boudoir
perfume, enervating, weakening, which called up before de Géry's eyes
feminine visions, Aline, Felicia, gliding across the enchanted
landscape, in that blue-tinted atmosphere, that elysian light which
seemed to be the visible perfume of such a multitude of flowers in full
bloom. A sound of doors closing made him open his eyes. Some one had
entered the adjoining room. He heard a dress brushing against the thin
partition, the turning of leaves in a book in which the reader seemed to
feel no absorbing interest; for he was startled by a long sigh ending in
a yawn. Was he still asleep, still dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of
the "jackal in the desert," so thoroughly in harmony with the heavy,
scorching temperature without? No. Nothing more. He dozed again; and
this time all the confused images that haunted him took definite shape
in a dream, a very lovely dream.

He was taking his wedding journey with Aline. A fascinating bride she
was. Bright eyes, overflowing with love and faith, which knew only him,
looked at none but him. In that same hotel parlor, on the other side of
the centre table, the sweet girl was sitting in a white _négligé_
morning costume which smelt of violets and of the dainty lace of the
trousseau. One of those wedding-journey breakfasts, served immediately
after rising, in sight of the blue sea and the clear sky which tinge
with azure the glass from which you drink, the eyes into which you gaze,
the future, life and the vast expanse of space. Oh! what superb
weather, what a divine, youth-renewing light, and how happy they were!

And suddenly, amid their kisses, their intoxicating bliss, Aline became
sad. Her lovely eyes were dimmed with tears. "Felicia is there," she
said, "you will not love me any more." And he laughed at her:
"Felicia,--here? What an idea!" "Yes, yes, she is there." Trembling, she
pointed to the adjoining room, where he heard Felicia's voice, mingled
with fierce barking. "Here, Kadour! Here, Kadour!" the low,
concentrated, indignant voice of one who seeks to remain concealed and
suddenly finds that she is discovered.

Awakened with a start, the lover, disenchanted, found himself in the
empty room, beside a table at which no one else was sitting, his lovely
dream flown away through the window to the great hillside which filled
the whole field of vision and seemed to stoop toward the house. But he
really heard the barking of a dog in the adjoining room and repeated
blows on the door.

"Open the door. It is I--Jenkins."

Paul sat up on his couch in speechless amazement. Jenkins in that house?
How could that be? To whom was he talking? What voice was about to reply
to him? There was no reply. A light step walked to the door and the bolt
was nervously drawn back.

"At last I have found you," said the Irishman, entering the room.

And in truth, if he had not taken pains to announce himself, Paul,
hearing it through the partition, would never have attributed that
brutal, hoarse, savage tone to the oily-mannered doctor.

"At last I have found you, after eight days of searching, of rushing
frantically from Genoa to Nice, from Nice to Genoa. I knew that you
hadn't gone, as the yacht was still in the roads. And I was on the point
of investigating all the hotels along the shore when I remembered
Bréhat. I thought that you would want to stop and see him as you passed.
So I came here. It was he who told me that you were at this house."

To whom was he speaking? What extraordinary obstinacy the person showed
in not replying! At last a rich, melancholy voice, which Paul knew well,
made the heavy resonant air of the hot afternoon vibrate in its turn.

"Well! yes, Jenkins, here I am. What of it, pray?"

Paul could see through the wall the disdainful, drooping mouth, curled
in disgust.

"I have come to prevent you from going, from perpetrating this folly."

"What folly? I have work to do in Tunis. I must go there."

"Why, you can't think of such a thing, my dear child."

"Oh! enough of your paternal airs, Jenkins. I know what is hidden
underneath. Pray talk to me as you did just now. I prefer you as the
bulldog, rather than as the fawning cur. I'm less afraid of you."

"Very good! I tell you that you must be mad to go to that country all
alone, young and lovely as you are."

"Why, am I not always alone? Would you have me take Constance, at her
age?"

"What about me?"

"You?" She emphasized the word with a most satirical laugh. "And Paris?
and your patients? Deprive Paris of its Cagliostro! No, indeed, never!"

"I am thoroughly resolved, however, to follow you wherever you go," said
Jenkins, with decision.

There was a moment's pause. Paul wondered if it were very dignified in
him to listen to this discussion, which seemed pregnant with terrible
disclosures. But, in addition to his fatigue, an unconquerable curiosity
glued him to his place. It seemed to him that the engrossing enigma by
which he had been so long puzzled and disturbed, to which his mind still
held by the end of its veil of mystery, was about to speak at last, to
reveal itself, to disclose the woman, sorrowful or perverse, hidden
beneath the shell of the worldly artist. So he remained perfectly still,
holding his breath, but with no need to listen closely; for the others,
believing themselves alone in the hotel, allowed their passions and
their voices to rise without restraint.

"After all, what do you want of me?"

"I want you."

"Jenkins!"

"Yes, yes, I know; you have forbidden me ever to utter such words before
you; but others than I have said them to you and more too--"

Two nervous steps brought her nearer to the apostle, placed the
breathless contempt of her retort close to his broad sensual face.

"And if that were true, villain! If I were unable to defend myself
against disgust and ennui, if I did lose my pride, is it for you to
mention it? As if you were not the cause of it, as if you had not
withered and saddened my life forever."

And three swift, burning words revealed to the horrified Paul de Géry
the shocking scene of that assault disguised by loving guardianship,
against which the girl's spirit and mind and dreams had had to struggle
so long, and which had left her the incurable depression of premature
sorrow, a loathing for life almost before it had begun, and that curl at
the corner of the lip like the visible wreck of a smile.

"I loved you,--I love you. Passion carries everything before it,"
Jenkins replied in a hollow voice.

"Very well, love me, if it amuses you. For my part, I hate you, not only
because of the injury you have done me and all the beliefs and laudable
enthusiasms that you killed in me, but because you represent what are
the most execrable and hideous things under the sun to me, hypocrisy and
falsehood. Yes, in that worldly masquerade, that mass of false
pretences, of grimaces, of cowardly, indecent conventions which have
sickened me so thoroughly that I am running away, exiling myself in
order to avoid seeing them, that I prefer to them the galleys, the
gutter, or to walk the street as a prostitute, your mask, O sublime
Jenkins, is the one that inspires the greatest horror in me. You have
complicated our French hypocrisy, which consists mainly in smiles and
courtesies, with your effusive English handshakes, your cordial and
demonstrative loyalty. Everybody is taken in by it. People speak of
'honest Jenkins,' 'excellent, worthy Jenkins.' But I know you, my man,
and for all your fine motto, so insolently displayed on your envelopes,
on your seal, your cuff-buttons, your hat-buckles and the panels of your
carriages, I always see the knave that you are, showing everywhere
around the edges of your disguise."

Her voice hissed between her clenched teeth with an indescribably savage
intonation; and Paul expected some frantic outburst on the part of
Jenkins, rebelling against such a storm of insults. But no. That
exhibition of hatred and contempt on the part of the woman he loved
evidently caused him more sorrow than anger; for he answered low, in a
tone of heart-broken gentleness:--

"Ah! you are cruel. If you knew how you hurt me! Hypocrite, yes, it is
true; but a man isn't born that way, he becomes so perforce, in face of
the harsh vicissitudes of life. When you have the wind against you and
want to go ahead, you tack. I tacked. Charge it to my miserable
beginnings, to an unsuccessful entrance on the stage, and agree at least
that one thing in me has never lied: my passion! Nothing has succeeded
in repelling it, neither your contempt, nor your insults, nor all that
I read in your eyes, which have never once smiled on me in all these
years. And it is my passion which gives me strength, even after what I
have just heard, to tell you why I am here. Listen. You informed me one
day that you needed a husband, some one to watch over you while you were
at work, to relieve poor, worn-out Crenmitz from sentry duty. Those were
your own words, which tore my heart then because I was not free. Now
everything is changed. Will you marry me, Felicia?"

"What about your wife?" cried the girl, while Paul asked himself the
same question.

"My wife is dead."

"Dead? Madame Jenkins? Is that true?"

"You never knew the one to whom I refer. The other was not my wife. When
I met her, I was already married, in Ireland. Years ago. A horrible
marriage, entered into with a rope around my neck. My dear, at
twenty-five this alternative was presented to me: imprisonment for debt
or Miss Strang, a pimply-faced, gouty old maid, the sister of a
money-lender who had advanced me five hundred francs to pay for my
medical studies. I preferred the jail; but weeks and months of it
exhausted my courage and I married Miss Strang, who brought me as her
dowry--my note of hand. You can imagine what my life was between those
two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, sterile wife. The brother
spying upon me, following me everywhere. I might have fled. But one
thing detained me. The money-lender was said to be enormously rich. I
proposed at all events to secure the profits of my cowardice. You see, I
tell you everything. However, I was well punished. Old Strang died
insolvent; he was a gambler, and had ruined himself without saying a
word. Thereupon I placed my wife's rheumatism in an asylum and came to
France. I had to begin life anew, to struggle with poverty once more.
But I had on my side experience, hatred and contempt for mankind, and
freedom, for I did not suspect that the horrible ball and chain of that
infernal union would continue to impede my steps at a distance. Luckily
it's all over, and I am free at last."

"Yes, Jenkins, free. But why doesn't it occur to you to marry the poor
creature who has shared your life so long, humble and devoted to you as
we have all seen her?"

"Oh!" he said with a burst of sincere feeling, "between my two galleys I
believe I preferred the other, where I could show my indifference or my
hatred without restraint. But the ghastly comedy of conjugal love, of
unwearying happiness, when for so many years I have loved no one but
you, thought of no one but you! There's no such torture on earth. If I
can judge by my own experience, the poor woman must have shouted with
relief and joy when we separated. That is the only farewell greeting I
hoped for from her."

"But who forced you to use such restraint."

"Paris, society, the world. Being married according to public opinion,
we were bound by it."

"And now you are no longer so bound?"

"Now there is one thing that overshadows everything else, the thought of
losing you, of seeing you no more. Oh! when I learned of your flight,
when I saw the sign: TO LET, on your door, I felt that the time for
poses and grimaces had gone by, that there was nothing for me to do but
to pack up and rush after my happiness, which you were carrying away.
You left Paris, I did the same. Everything in your house was sold;
everything in my house is to be sold."

"And she?" rejoined Felicia, with a shudder. "She, the irreproachable
companion, the virtuous woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will
she go? what will she do? And you have come to propose to me to take her
place? A stolen place, and in what a hell! Aha! And our motto, honest
Jenkins, virtuous Jenkins, what are we to do with that? 'Do good without
hope,' old man!"

At that sneer, stinging as a blow from a whip, which must have left its
mark in red on his face, the wretch rejoined, gasping for breath:

"Enough, enough; do not mock me so. It is too horrible, after all that
has gone. In God's name doesn't it touch you to be loved as I love you,
sacrificing everything to you, wealth, honor, reputation? Come, look at
me. However carefully applied my mask may have been, I have torn it off
for you, I have torn it off before all the world. And now, look! here is
the hypocrite!"

There was a dull sound as of two knees falling upon the floor. And mad
with love, stammering, humbling himself before her, he implored her to
consent to marry him, to give him the right to go everywhere with her,
to defend her; then words failed him, his voice was choked by a
passionate sob, so deep, so heart-rending, that it might well have
touched any heart, especially in presence of that gorgeous scenery lying
impassive in the perfumed, enervating heat. But Felicia was not moved,
and her manner was still haughty as she said brusquely: "Enough of this,
Jenkins, what you ask is impossible. We have nothing to conceal from
each other; and after your confidences of a moment ago, I propose to
tell you something which it wounds my pride to tell, but which your
persistence seems to me to deserve. I was Mora's mistress."

Paul was not unprepared for that. And yet that sweet voice burdened with
such a confession was so sad amid the intoxicating aromas of that lovely
blue atmosphere, that his heart was sorely oppressed, and he had in his
mouth the taste of tears left by an unavowed regret.

"I knew it," replied Jenkins in a hollow voice. "I have here the letters
you wrote him."

"My letters?"

"Oh! I will give them back to you; take them. I know them by heart, by
dint of reading and re-reading them. That is the kind of thing that
hurts when one is in love. But I have undergone other tortures. When I
think that it was I--" he paused, he was suffocating--"I who was
destined to furnish combustion for your flames, to warm that frozen
lover, to send him to you, ardent and rejuvenated! Ah! he made away with
the pearls, I tell you. It was of no use for me to say no, he always
wanted more. At last I went mad. 'You want to burn, villain. Well,
burn!'"

       *       *       *       *       *

Paul sprang to his feet in dismay. Was he about to hear the confession
of a crime?

But he had not to undergo the shame of listening further.

A sharp knock, on his door this time, warned him that the _calesino_ was
ready.

"Hallo! Signor Francese."

There was profound silence in the adjoining room, then a hurried
whispering. There was somebody close by, who was listening to
them!--Paul de Géry rushed downstairs. He longed to be far away from
that hotel parlor, to escape the haunting memory of the horrors that had
been disclosed to him.

As the post-chaise started, he saw, between the cheap white curtains
that hang at every window in the South, a pale face with the hair of a
goddess and great blazing eyes, watching for him to pass. But a glance
at Aline's portrait soon banished that disturbing vision, and, cured
forever of his former passion, he travelled until evening through an
enchanted country with the pretty bride of the breakfast, who carried
away in the folds of her modest dress, of her maidenly cloak, all the
violets of Bordighera.

[Illustration: "_The First Night of 'Révolte.'_"]




CHAPTER XXV

THE FIRST NIGHT OF "RÉVOLTE."


"Ready for the first act!"

That cry from the stage manager, standing, with his hands at his mouth
like a trumpet, at the foot of the actors' stairway, soars upward in its
lofty well, rolls hither and thither, loses itself in the recesses of
passage-ways filled with the noise of closing doors and hurried
footsteps, of despairing calls to the wig-maker and the dressers, while
on the landings of the different floors, slowly and majestically,
holding their heads perfectly still for fear of disarranging the
slightest detail of their costumes, all the characters of the first act
of _Révolte_ appear one by one, clad in elegant modern ball costumes,
with much creaking of new shoes, rustling of silk trains, and clanking
of handsome bracelets pushed up by the gloves in process of being
buttoned. They all seem excited, nervous, pale under their paint, and
little shivers pass in waves of shadow over the skilfully prepared
velvety flesh of shoulders drenched with white lead. They talk but
little, their mouths are dry. The most self-assured, while affecting to
smile, have in their eyes and their voices the hesitation of
absent-mindedness, that feeling of apprehension of the battle before the
footlights which will always be one of the most potent attractions of
the actor's profession, its piquancy, its ever-recurring springtime.

On the crowded stage, where scene-shifters and machinists are running
hither and thither, jostling one another in the soft, snowy light from
the wings, soon to give place, when the curtain rises, to the brilliant
light from the theatre, Cardailhac in black coat and white cravat, his
hat cocked over one ear, casts a last glance over the arrangement of the
scenery, hastens the workmen, compliments the _ingénue_, humming a tune
the while, radiant and superb. To see him, no one would ever suspect the
terrible anxieties by which his mind is beset. As he was involved with
all the others in the Nabob's downfall, in which his stock company was
swallowed up, he is staking his little all on the play to be given this
evening, and will be forced--if it does not succeed--to leave this
marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard,
unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce
take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that
feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely
new on the posters, flatters the gambler's superstitions.

André Maranne is not so confident. As the time for the performance draws
near, he loses faith in his work, dismayed by the sight of the crowded
hall, which he surveys through a hole in the curtain as through the
small end of a stereoscope.

A magnificent audience, filling the hall to the ceiling, despite the
lateness of the season and the fashionable taste for going early to the
country; for Cardailhac, the declared foe of nature and the country, who
always struggles to keep Parisians in Paris as late as possible, has
succeeded in filling his theatre, in making it as brilliant as in
mid-winter. Fifteen hundred heads swarming under the chandeliers, erect,
leaning forward, turned aside, questioning, with a great abundance of
shadows and reflections; some massed in the dark corners of the pit,
others brilliantly illuminated by the reflection of the white walls of
the lobby shining through the open doors of the boxes; a first-night
audience, always the same, that collective brigand from the theatrical
columns of the newspapers, who goes everywhere and carries by assault
those much-envied places when some claim to favor or the exercise of
some public function does not give them to him.

In the orchestra-stalls, lady-killers, clubmen, glistening craniums with
broad bald streaks fringed with scanty hair, light gloves, huge
opera-glasses levelled at the boxes. In the galleries, a medley of
castes and fine dresses, all the names well known at functions of the
sort, and the embarrassing promiscuousness which seats the chaste,
modest smile of the virtuous woman beside the eyes blazing with kohl and
the lips streaked with vermilion of the other kind. White hats, pink
hats, diamonds and face paint. Higher up, the boxes present the same
scene of confusion: actresses and courtesans, ministers, ambassadors,
famous authors, critics solemn of manner and frowning, lying back in
their chairs with the impassive gloom of judges beyond the reach of
corruption. The proscenium boxes are ablaze with light and splendor,
occupied by celebrities of the world of finance, décolletée, bare-armed
women, gleaming with jewels like the Queen of Sheba when she visited the
King of the Jews. But one of those great boxes on the left is entirely
unoccupied, and attracts general attention by its peculiar decoration,
lighted by a Moorish lantern at the rear. Over the whole assemblage
hovers an impalpable floating dust, the flickering of the gas, which
mingles its odor with all Parisian recreations, and its short, sharp
wheezing like a consumptive's breath, accompanying the slow waving of
fans. And with all the rest, ennui, deathly ennui, the ennui of seeing
the same faces always in the same seats, with their affectations or
their defects, the monotony of society functions, which results every
winter in turning Paris into a backbiting provincial town, more gossipy
and narrow-minded than the provinces themselves.

Maranne noticed that sullen humor, that evident weariness on the part of
the audience, and as he reflected upon the change that would be wrought
by the success of his drama in his modest life, now made up entirely of
hopes, he asked himself, in an agony of dread, what he could do to bring
his thoughts home to that multitude of human beings, to force them to
lay aside their preoccupied manner, to set in motion in that vast throng
a single current which would attract to him those distraught glances,
those minds, now scattered over all the notes in the key-board and so
difficult to bring into harmony. Instinctively he sought friendly faces,
a box opposite the stage filled by the Joyeuse family; Élise and the
younger girls in front, and behind them Aline and their father, a lovely
family group, like a bouquet dripping with dew in a display of
artificial flowers. And while all Paris was asking disdainfully: "Who
are those people?" the poet placed his destiny in those little
fairy-like hands, newly gloved for the occasion, which would boldly give
the signal for applause when it was time.

"Clear the stage!" Maranne has barely time to rush into the wings; and
suddenly he hears, far, very far away, the first words of his play,
rising, like a flock of frightened birds, in the silence and immensity
of the theatre. A terrible moment! Where should he go? What would become
of him? Should he remain there leaning against a post, with ears
strained and a feeling of tightness at his heart; to encourage the
actors when he was so in need of encouragement himself? He prefers to
confront the danger face to face, and he glides through a little door
into the lobby outside the boxes and stops at a box on the first tier
which he opens softly.--"Sh!--it's I." Some one is sitting in the
shadow, a woman whom all Paris knows, and who keeps out of sight. André
takes his place beside her, and sitting side by side, invisible to all,
the mother and son, trembling with excitement, watch the performance.

The audience was dumbfounded at first. The Théâtre des Nouveautés,
situated at the heart of the boulevard, where its main entrance was a
blaze of light, among the fashionable restaurants and select clubs,--a
theatre to which small parties used to adjourn after a choice dinner to
hear an act or two of something racy, had become in the hands of its
clever manager the most popular of all Parisian play-houses, with no
well-defined speciality but providing a little of all sorts, from the
spectacular fairy-play which exhibits the women in scant attire, to the
great modern drama which does the same for our morals. Cardailhac was
especially bent upon justifying his title of "manager of the
Nouveautés,"[9] and since the Nabob's millions had been behind the
undertaking, he had striven to give the frequenters of the boulevard
some dazzling surprises. That of this evening surpassed them all: the
play was in verse--and virtuous.


FOOTNOTES:

[9] Novelties.


A virtuous play!

The old monkey had realized that the time had come to try that _coup_,
and he tried it. After the first moments of amazement, and a few
melancholy ejaculations here and there in the boxes: "Listen! it's in
verse!" the audience began to feel the charm of that elevating, healthy
work, as if someone had shaken over it, in that rarefied atmosphere,
some cool essence, pleasant to inhale, an elixir of life perfumed with
the wild thyme of the hillsides.

"Ah! this is fine--it is restful."

That was the general exclamation, a thrill of comfort, a bleat of
satisfaction accompanying each line. It was restful to the corpulent
Hemerlingue, puffing in his proscenium box on the ground floor, as in a
sty of cherry-colored satin. It was restful to tall Suzanne Bloch, in
her antique head-dress with crimps peeping out from under a diadem of
gold; and Amy Férat beside her, all in white like a bride, sprigs of
orange-blossoms in her hair dressed _à la chien_, it was restful to her,
too.

There were numbers of such creatures there, some very stout with an
unhealthy stoutness picked up in all sorts of seraglios, triple-chinned
and with an idiotic look; others absolutely green despite their rouge,
as if they had been dipped in a bath of that arsenite of copper known to
commerce as "Paris green," so faded and wrinkled that they kept out of
sight in the back of their boxes, letting nothing be seen save a bit of
white arm or a still shapely shoulder. Then there were old beaux, limp
and stooping, of the type then known as little _crevés_, with protruding
neck and hanging lips, incapable of standing straight, or of uttering a
word without a break. And all these people exclaimed as one man: "This
is fine--it is restful." Beau Moëssard hummed it like a tune under his
little blond moustache, while his queen in a first tier box opposite
translated it into her barbarous foreign tongue. Really it was restful
to them. But they did not say why they needed rest, from what
heart-sickening toil, from what enforced task as idlers and utterly
useless creatures.

All these well-disposed murmurs, confused and blended, began to give the
theatre the aspect that it wore on great occasions. Success was in the
air, faces became brighter, the women seemed embellished by the
reflection of the prevailing enthusiasm, of glances as thrilling as
applause. André, sitting beside his mother, thrilled with an unfamiliar
pleasure, with that proud delight which one feels in stirring the
emotions of a crowd, even though it be as a street-singer in the
faubourgs, with a patriotic refrain and two tremulous notes in one's
voice. Suddenly the whispering redoubled, changed into a tumult. People
began to move about and laugh sneeringly. What was happening? Some
accident on the stage? André, leaning forward in dismay toward his
actors, who were no less surprised than himself, saw that all the
opera-glasses were levelled at the large proscenium box, empty until
then, which some one had just entered and had taken his seat there, both
elbows on the velvet rail, opera-glass in hand, in ominous solitude.

The Nabob had grown twenty years older in ten days. Those impulsive
Southern natures, rich as they are in enthusiastic outbursts, in
irresistible spurts of flame, collapse more utterly than others. Since
his rejection by the Chamber the poor fellow had remained shut up in
his own room, with the curtains drawn, refusing to see the daylight or
to cross the threshold beyond which life awaited him, engagements he had
entered into, promises made, a wilderness of protests and summonses. The
Levantine having gone to some watering-place, attended by her masseur
and her negresses, absolutely indifferent to the ruin of the
family,--Bompain, the man in the fez, aghast amid the constant demands
for money, being utterly at a loss to know how to approach his
unfortunate employer, who was always in bed and turned his face to the
wall as soon as any one mentioned business to him,--the old mother was
left alone to struggle with the disaster, with the limited, guileless
knowledge of a village widow, who knows what a stamped paper is, and a
signature, and who considers honor the most precious possession on
earth. Her yellow cap appeared on every floor of the great mansion,
overlooking the bills, introducing reforms among the servants, heedless
of outcries and humiliations. At every hour in the day the good woman
could be seen striding along Place Vendôme, gesticulating, talking to
herself, saying aloud: "Bah! I'll go and see the bailiff." And she never
consulted her son except when it was indispensable, and then only in a
few concise words, careful to avoid looking at him. To arouse Jansoulet
from his torpor nothing less would suffice than a despatch from Paul de
Géry at Marseille, announcing his arrival with ten millions. Ten
millions, that is to say, failure averted, a possibility of standing
erect once more, of beginning life anew. And behold our Southerner,
rebounding from the depths to which he had fallen, drunk with joy and
hope. He ordered the windows to be thrown open, newspapers to be
brought. What a magnificent opportunity that first night of _Révolte_
would afford him to show himself to the Parisians, who believed that he
had gone under, to re-enter the great eddying whirlpool through the
folding doors of his box at the Nouveautés! His mother, warned by an
instinctive dread, made a slight effort to hold him back. Paris
terrified her now. She would have liked to take her child away to some
secluded corner in the South, to care for him with the Elder, both ill
with the disease of the great city. But he was the master. It was
impossible to resist the will of that man whom wealth had spoiled. She
helped him to dress, "made him handsome," as she laughingly said, and
watched him not without a certain pride as he left the house, superb,
revivified, almost recovered from the terrible prostration of the last
few days.

Jansoulet quickly remarked the sensation caused by his presence in the
theatre. Being accustomed to such exhibitions of curiosity, he usually
responded to them without the least embarrassment, with his kindly,
expansive smile; but this time the manifestation was unfriendly, almost
insulting.

"What!--is that he?"

"There he is!"

"What impudence!"

Such exclamations went up from the orchestra stalls, mingled with many
others. The seclusion and retirement in which he had taken refuge for
the past few days had left him in ignorance of the public exasperation
in his regard, the sermons, the dithyrambs with which the newspapers
were filled on the subject of his corrupting wealth, articles written
for effect, hypocritical verbiage to which public opinion resorts from
time to time to revenge itself on the innocent for all its concessions
to the guilty. It was a terrible disappointment, which caused him at
first more pain than anger. Deeply moved, he concealed his distress
behind his opera-glass, turning three-fourths away from the audience and
giving close attention to the slightest details of the performance, but
unable to avoid the scandalized scrutiny of which he was the victim, and
which made his ears ring, his temples throb, and covered the dimmed
lenses of his opera-glass with multi-colored circles, whirling about in
the first vagaries of apoplexy.

When the act came to an end and the curtain fell, he remained, without
moving, in that embarrassed attitude; but the louder whispering, no
longer restrained by the stage dialogue, and the persistency of certain
curious persons who changed their seats in order to obtain a better view
of him, compelled him to leave his box, to rush out into the lobby like
a wild beast fleeing from the arena through the circus.

Under the low ceiling, in the narrow circular passage common in theatre
lobbies, he stumbled upon a compact crowd of dandies, newspaper men,
women in gorgeous hats, tightly laced, laughers by trade, shrieking with
idiotic laughter as they leaned against the wall. From the open boxes,
which sought a breath of fresh air from that swarming, noisy corridor,
issued broken, confused fragments of conversation:

"A delightful play. It is so fresh and clean!"

"That Nabob! What insolence!"

"Yes, it really is very restful. One feels the better for--"

"How is it he hasn't been arrested yet?"

"A very young man, it seems; this is his first play."

"Bois-l'Héry at Mazas!--It isn't possible. There's the marchioness just
opposite us in the first gallery, with a new hat."

"What does that prove? She's plying her trade of _lanceuse_. That's a
very pretty hat, by the way--the colors of Desgranges' horse."

"And Jenkins? What has become of Jenkins?"

"At Tunis with Felicia. Old Brahim saw them both. It seems that the bey
has taken a decided liking to the pearls."

"_Bigre!_"

Farther on, sweet voices whispered:

"Go, father, do go. See how entirely alone he is, poor man."

"But I don't know him, children."

"Even so, just a bow. Something to show him that he isn't utterly
abandoned."

Whereupon a little old gentleman, in a white cravat, with a very red
face, darted to meet the Nabob and saluted him with a respectful
flourish of his hat. How gratefully, with what an eager, pleasant smile,
was that single salutation returned, that salutation from a man whom
Jansoulet did not know, whom he had never seen, but who, nevertheless,
exerted a very great influence upon his destiny; for, except for Père
Joyeuse, the president of the council of the _Territoriale_ would
probably have shared the fate of the Marquis de Bois-l'Héry. So it is
that in the network of modern society, that vast labyrinth of selfish
interests, ambitions, services accepted and rendered, all castes
communicate between themselves, mysteriously connected by hidden bonds,
from the most elevated to the humblest existences; therein lies the
explanation of the variegated coloring, the complication of this study
of manners, the assemblage of scattered threads of which the writer with
a regard for truth is compelled to make the groundwork of his drama.

Glances cast vaguely into the air, steps turned aimlessly aside, hats
pulled abruptly over the eyes, in ten minutes the Nabob was subjected to
all the outward manifestations of that terrible ostracism of Parisian
society, where he had neither kindred nor substantial connections of any
sort, and where contempt isolated him more surely than respect isolates
a sovereign when paying a visit. He staggered with embarrassment and
shame. Some one said aloud: "He has been drinking," and all that the
poor man could do was to go back into the salon of his box and close the
door. Ordinarily that little _retiro_ was filled during the entr'actes
with financiers and journalists. They laughed and talked and smoked
there, making a great uproar; the manager always came to pay his
respects to his partner. That evening, not a soul. And the absence of
Cardailhac, with his keen scent for success, showed Jansoulet the full
measure of his disgrace.

"What have I done to them? Why is it that Paris will no longer have
anything to do with me?"

He questioned himself thus in a solitude which was emphasized by the
sounds all about, the sudden turning of keys in the doors of boxes, the
innumerable exclamations of an amused crowd. Then suddenly the newness
of his luxurious surroundings, the odd shadows cast by the Moorish
lantern on the brilliant silk covering of the couch and the hangings
reminded him of the date of his arrival. Six months! Only six months
since he arrived in Paris! Everything consumed and vanished in six
months! He relapsed into a sort of torpor from which he was aroused by
enthusiastic applause and bravos. Clearly this play of _Révolte_ was a
great success. They had now reached the powerful, satirical passages;
and the virulent declamation, a little emphatic in tone but relieved by
a breath of youth and sincerity, made every heart beat fast after the
idyllic effusions of the first act. Jansoulet determined to look and
listen with the rest. After all, the theatre belonged to him. His seat
in that proscenium box had cost him more than a million; surely the
least he was entitled to was the privilege of occupying it.

Behold him seated once more at the front of his box. In the hall a
heavy, suffocating heat, stirred but not dissipated by the waving fans,
their glittering spangles mingling their reflections with the impalpable
outbreathings of the silence. The audience listened intently to an
indignant and spirited passage against the pirates, so numerous at that
period, who had become cocks of the roost after long haunting the
darkest corners to rob all who passed. Certainly Maranne, when he wrote
those fine lines, had had nobody less in his mind than the Nabob. But
the audience saw in them an allusion to him; and while a triple salvo of
applause greeted the end of the tirade, all eyes were turned toward the
box on the left, with an indignant, openly insulting movement. The poor
wretch, pilloried in his own theatre! A pillory that had cost him so
dear! That time he did not seek to avoid the affront, but settled
himself resolutely on his seat, with folded arms, and defied that crowd,
which stared at him with its hundreds of upturned, sneering faces, that
virtuous All-Paris which took him for a scapegoat and drove him forth
after loading all its crimes upon him.

A pretty assemblage, in sooth, for such an exhibition! Opposite, the box
of an insolvent banker, the wife and the lover side by side in front,
the husband in the shadow, neglected and grave. At one side the frequent
combination of a mother who has married her daughter according to her
(the mother's) own heart, and to make the man she loved her son-in-law.
Contraband couples too, courtesans flaunting the price of their shame,
diamonds in circlets of flame riveted around arms and necks like
dog-collars, stuffing themselves with bonbons, which they swallowed in
gluttonous, beastly fashion because an exhibition of the animal nature
in woman pleases those who pay for it. And those groups of effeminate
fops, with low collars and painted eyebrows, whose embroidered lawn
shirts and white satin corsets aroused admiration in the guest chambers
at Compiègne; _mignons_ of Agrippa's day, who called one another: "My
heart," or "My dear love." Scandal and wickedness in every form,
consciences sold or for sale, the vice of an epoch devoid of grandeur or
originality, attempting to copy the freaks of all other epochs, and
contributing to the Jardin Bullier that duchess, the wife of a minister
of state, who rivalled the most shameless dancers of that resort. And
they were the people who turned their back upon him, who cried out to
him: "Begone! You are unworthy."

"I unworthy! Why, I am worth a hundred times more than the whole of you,
vile wretches! You reproach me with my millions. In God's name, who
helped me squander them?--Look you, you cowardly, treacherous friend,
hiding in the corner of your box your fat carcass like a sick pasha's! I
made your fortune as well as my own in the days when we shared
everything like brothers.--And you, sallow-faced marquis, I paid a
hundred thousand francs at the club to prevent your being expelled in
disgrace.--I covered you with jewels, you hussy, so letting people think
you were my mistress, because that is good form in our circle, and never
asked you for anything in return.--And you, brazen-faced journalist,
with no other brains than the dregs of your inkstand, and with as many
leprous spots on your conscience as your queen has on her skin, you
consider that I didn't pay you what you were worth, and that's the
secret of your insults.--Yes, yes, look at me, _canaille_! I am proud. I
am better than you."

All that he said thus to himself, in a frenzy of wrath, visible in the
trembling of his thick, pallid lips, the unhappy man, upon whom madness
was swooping down, was, perhaps, on the point of shouting aloud in the
silence, of pouring out a flood of maledictions upon that insulting mob,
and, who can say? of leaping down into the midst of them and killing
some one, ah! God's blood! of killing some one, when he felt a light
touch on his shoulder; and he saw a blond head, a frank, grave face, and
two outstretched hands which he grasped convulsively, like a drowning
man.

"Ah! my dear--my dear--" stammered the poor man. But he had no strength
to say more. That grateful emotion coming upon him in the midst of his
frenzy, melted it into a sob of tears, of blood, of choking speech. His
face became purple. He motioned: "Take me away." And, leaning on Paul de
Géry's arm, he stumbled through the door of his box and fell to the
floor in the lobby.

"Bravo! bravo!" shouted the audience at the conclusion of the actor's
tirade; and there was a noise as of a hail-storm, an enthusiastic
stamping,--while the great inert body, borne by scene-shifters, passed
through the brilliantly-lighted wings, obstructed by men and women
crowding around the entrances to the stage, excited by the atmosphere of
success, and hardly noticing the passage of that lifeless victim carried
in men's arms like the victim of a street affray. They laid him on a
couch in the property room, Paul de Géry by his side with a physician
and two attendants who were eager to help. Cardailhac, who was very busy
with the performance, had promised to come and see how he was getting
on, "in a moment, after the fifth act."

Bloodletting upon bloodletting, cupping, plasters, nothing produced even
a twitching of the skin in the sick man, who was insensible to all the
methods of resuscitation usually resorted to in cases of apoplexy. A
relaxation of every fibre of his being seemed to give him over to death,
to prepare his body for the rigidity of the corpse; and that in the most
dismal place on earth, chaos lighted by a dark lantern, where all the
débris of plays that had been performed, gilded furniture, hangings with
gorgeous fringe, carriages, strong boxes, card-tables, discarded flights
of stairs and banisters, were heaped together pell-mell under the dust,
among ropes and pulleys, a wilderness of damaged, broken, demolished,
cast-off stage properties. Bernard Jansoulet, as he lay amid that
wreckage, his shirt torn away from his chest, at once bleeding and
bloodless, was the typical shipwrecked victim of life, bruised and cast
ashore with the pitiable débris of his artificial splendor broken and
scattered by the Parisian whirlpool. Paul, broken-hearted, gazed sadly
at that face with its short nose, retaining in its inert condition the
wrathful yet kindly expression of an inoffensive creature who tried to
defend himself before dying, but had no time to bite. He blamed himself
for his inability to serve him to any useful purpose. What had become of
that fine project of his of leading Jansoulet through the quagmires, of
saving him from ambuscades? All that he had been able to do was to
rescue a few millions, and even those came too late.

       *       *       *       *       *

The windows were opened on the balcony overlooking the boulevard, then
at its full tide of noise and animation, and blazing with light. The
theatre was surrounded with rows of gas-jets, a circle of flame lighting
up the most obscure recesses where flickering lanterns gleamed like
stars travelling through the dark sky. The play was done. The audience
was leaving the theatre. The dark throng moved in a compact mass down
the steps and scattered to right and left along the white sidewalks, to
spread through the city the news of a great success and the name of an
unknown author, who would be illustrious and famous on the morrow. A
most enjoyable evening, causing the restaurant windows to blaze with
delight and the streets to be filled with long lines of belated
carriages. That holiday uproar, of which the poor Nabob had been so fond
and which was well adapted to the giddy whirl of his existence, aroused
him for a second. His lips moved, and his staring eyes, turned toward de
Géry, assumed in presence of death a sorrowful, imploring, rebellious
expression, as if to call upon him to bear witness to one of the
greatest, the most cruel acts of injustice that Paris ever committed.


THE END.

[Illustration: Publishers mark]

       *       *       *       *       *


=George Sand's Works in English.=

  MAUPRAT.
  ANTONIA.
  THE BAGPIPERS.
  MONSIEUR SYLVESTRE.
  THE SNOW MAN.
  NANON.
  THE MILLER OF ANGIBAULT.

As to "Mauprat," if there were any doubts as to George Sand's power, it
would forever set them at rest.--_Harper's Monthly._

=12mo. Half Russia, uniform with Balzac's Novels. Each, $1.50.=

       *       *       *       *       *

=Little Classics, by George Sand.=

  FADETTE.
  FRANCOIS THE WAIF.
  THE DEVIL'S POOL.
  THE MASTER MOSAIC WORKERS.

Translated by Jane Minot Sedgwick, Ellery Sedgwick, and Charlotte C.
Johnston. With etched frontispieces by Abot and an etched portrait of
Titian.

=16mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top. Each, $1.25.=

Studies of rustic life, of which "La Petite Fadette," "François le
Champi," and "La Mare au Diable" are the chief, and which some of her
admirers regard as her greatest works.--_George Saintsbury, in Chambers'
Cyclopædia._

No description is needed of works so well known as "La Petite Fadette,"
"La Mare au Diable," and "François le Champi." Like Wordsworth, with the
inward eye she sees into the life of things.--_Encyclopædia Britannica._

"The Master Mosaic Workers" is _one of the most delightful of historical
novels_, and gives a vivid picture of the life in Venice at the time
when Titian, Tintoretto, and Giorgione were in their zenith, and when
the famous mosaics which still adorn St. Mark's were being
made.--_Literary World._

       *       *       *       *       *

=George Sand's Convent Life.=

Translated from "L'Histoire de ma Vie" by Maria Ellery McKaye.

These brief chapters from a fragmentary autobiography of the famous
French author have been translated from the published memoirs, and are
much more familiar in France than here. They relate to George Sand's
girlhood, and cover only a few years, and yet are written with that
vivid and picturesque charm peculiar to all her writings. They show us,
with much force and interest, the kind of life which young girls led in
convents seventy years ago.--_N. Y. Times._

=16mo. Cloth. With portrait. $1.00.=

       *       *       *       *       *

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,

254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.



=The New Library Molière.=

TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY.

TRANSLATOR OF BALZAC'S NOVELS.

_With Preface to Molière's Works by Honoré de Balzac, Criticisms on the
Author by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits by Coypel and Mignard, and decorative
Titlepages._

=Arrangement of the Plays.=

  Vol. I.   The Misanthrope; Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
  Vol. II.  Tartuffe; Les Précieuses Ridicules; George Dandin.
  Vol. III. Les Femmes Savantes; Le Malade Imaginaire.
  Vol. IV.  L'Avare; Don Juan; Les Fâcheux.
  Vol. V.   L'École des Femmes; L'École des Maris; Monsieur
            de Pourceaugnac.
  Vol. VI.  L'Étourdi; Le Mariage Forcé; Le Médecin Malgré
          Lui; La Critique de l'École des Femmes.

       *       *       *       *       *

All are familiar with Miss Wormeley's admirable English version of
Balzac; and we know of no greater praise in behalf of her recent
translation of Molière than to say it betrays the same knowledge, skill,
and insight that has made her name famous among the lovers of high
literature. While it is undoubtedly true that the student of Molière
would turn by preference to the original, it is equally true that those
who cannot read his works in their native form are now indebted to Miss
Wormeley for an appreciation of Sainte-Beuve's declaration "that to love
Molière is to love uprightness and health of mind, in others as well as
in ourselves." She did a splendid service for two literatures by her
admirable English rendering of the author whom many regard as France's
first novelist, and now she continues by an equally excellent
translation of the works of the genius to whom is conceded with still
greater unanimity the rank of France's first dramatist. And by a happy
thought Miss Wormeley avails herself, for the presentation of Molière to
American readers, of the eloquent tribute which Balzac paid to him in
his preface to his own edition of Molière, issued in his younger days.
The translator also calls attention to the singular parallel afforded in
the lives of the two writers. These "fathers of the 'Comedy of Human
Life' and of realism," she says, "died at the same age (fifty-one); the
fame of both was of little more than fifteen years' duration in their
lifetime; both died of the toil to which their genius impelled them; and
both are going down with ever-brightening lustre to posterity."--_Boston
Budget._

=12mo. Half leather. Per volume, $1.50.=

       *       *       *       *       *

Orders may be addressed to

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,

254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.



=PASTELS OF MEN.=

BY PAUL BOURGET.

TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE P. WORMELEY,

TRANSLATOR OF BALZAC'S NOVELS.

       *       *       *       *       *

=First Series=

  A SAINT.
  M. LEGRIMAUDET.
  TWO LITTLE BOYS:
  1. M. Veples' Brother; 2. Marcel.

=Second Series=

  MAURICE OLIVIER.
  A GAMBLER.
  ANOTHER GAMBLER.
  JACQUES MOLAN.
  A LOWLY ONE.
  CORSÈQUES.

The title suggests the character of the stories, which are, for the most
part, miniature studies of men and women, done with exquisite grace and
with no little power. M. Bourget is just now one of the foremost figures
among contemporary French writers. He is a critic as well as a
novelist._--Christian Union._

=2 volumes. 16mo. Cloth. Each, $1.00=.

       *       *       *       *       *

=A SAINT. By Paul Bourget.=

From the "Pastels of Men." Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.
With 12 illustrations by Paul Chabas.

=12mo. Parchment. $1.00.=

The "saint" is an old monk who lives with only two others in one of
those old monasteries in Italy which, since the government decree, have
gradually fallen into disuse. It is a beautiful little story, in which
we are taught the lesson of Christ's manner of dealing with those who
are tempted and go astray, and are brought back into the right
path.--_Boston Times._

M. Bourget is a master of literary art; his portraits are drawn with a
wonderful distinctness, and with a realism that is as true to the
possibilities of human nature as it is fascinating.--_Boston Home
Journal._

       *       *       *       *       *

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.

=The Romances of Victor Hugo=.



_LIBRARY EDITION._

_Including important passages and chapters hitherto omitted._

WITH 28 PORTRAITS AND PLATES.

       *       *       *       *       *

=LIST OF STORIES.=

  Les Misérables. 5 vols.
  Notre Dame. 2 vols.
  Ninety-Three, 1 vol.
  The Man who Laughs. 2 vols.
  Toilers of the Sea. 2 vols.
  Hans of Iceland, 1 vol.
  Bug-Jargal; Claude Gueux; The Last Day of a Condemned, 1 vol.

14 vols. 12mo. Decorated cloth, gilt top, $1.50 per volume; plain cloth,
$1.25 per volume; half calf or half morocco, gilt top, $3.00 per volume.

_Any story supplied separately in cloth._

Large handsome type, clear white paper, and choicely decorated covers
combine to make this the most beautiful and desirable library edition of
these great works.

       *       *       *       *       *

To what other man can we attribute such sweeping innovations, such a new
and significant presentment of the life of man, such an amount, if we
merely think of the amount, of equally consummate performance.--ROBERT
LOUIS STEVENSON.

_A model edition for use and convenience._--_Cincinnati Commercial
Gazette._

A permanent, delightful book to all good judges of publishing.--_The
Beacon._

_A most beautiful and desirable library edition._--_Baltimore American._

A delight to the eye and the touch.--_Boston Journal._

       *       *       *       *       *

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,

254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.



=BRICHANTEAU, ACTOR=.

Translated from the French of

=JULES CLARETIE, Manager of the Comédie Française=

With Preface by FRANCISQUE SARCEY.

12mo. Cloth, extra, gilt top. $1.50.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. Jules Claretie has had a wide acquaintance with actors. He has had an
opportunity of studying them still more closely since he has been the
manager of the Comédie Française. Brichanteau is charming because he is
always treading the boards, because he believes in good faith that his
life is a drama, in which he plays the principal part. The work is
written with a sprightly and witty pen.--FRANCISQUE SARCEY.

The translation has preserved the sprightly wit and grace of the
original, in which all the shades of character, frequently delicate and
elusive, are brought out by refined turns of expression.--_Philadelphia
Press._

As a whole, the book is a delightful and beautiful work of art. The man
of whom Claretie writes becomes a living character to us, and we love
him as we would such a man in real life.--_Cincinnati Tribune._

He is more than a sketch; he is a Meissonier portrait, painted with all
that accuracy of detail for which Meissonier was famous.--_Boston
Literary World._

One of the most pathetically humorous books ever written, and it should
become a classic.--_St. Louis Mirror._

That there is a lovable, generous, elevated, human and humane
picturesqueness to the caricatured strolling player is shown with such
admirable truth by Claretie, that his "Brichanteau" deserves permanency
among desirable books.--_Washington Times._

You love Brichanteau and take him to your heart, for he is an honest
fellow, who fights gallantly and merrily with his bad luck.--_New York
Times._

A lively, amusing, intensely Gallic series of studies of stage
life.--_The Outlook._

A delicious character, this Brichanteau.--_Detroit Free Press._

The author is so witty and the ridiculous side of his hero is so well
described that the book is a treat--restful and refreshing.

The delicious absurdity of this "optimist failure," "Brichanteau Actor,"
reminds one of Don Quixote, while his consummate good nature is almost
equal to Sir Roger de Coverley's. The clever French author has made his
actor tell for the most part his own story, and in a natural, easy
manner--the perfection of polished French style.--_Chicago Farm, Field,
and Fireside._

       *       *       *       *       *

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,

254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.



=Alphonse Daudet in English=.

=New Uniform Edition of the Novels, Romances, and Memoirs of Alphonse
Daudet, the greatest French Writer since Victor Hugo=. Newly Translated
by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, Translator of Balzac's Novels; Jane
Minot Sedgwick, Translator of George Sand; Charles de Kay, and others.

=Printed from large clear type, with Frontispieces. Twenty volumes. 12mo.
Cloth, gilt top. $1.50 per volume=.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Arrangement of the volumes._

ALPHONSE DAUDET. By Léon Daudet. To which is added
"My Brother and Myself," by Ernest Daudet           1 vol.

FROMONT AND RISLER                                  1 vol.

THE NABOB                                           2 vols.

KINGS IN EXILE                                      1 vol.

NUMA ROUMESTAN                                      1 vol.

THE LITTLE PARISH and ROBERT HELMONT                1 vol.

LITTLE WHAT'S HIS NAME                              1 vol.

TARTARIN OF TARASCON and TARTARIN ON THE ALPS       1 vol.

PORT TARASCON and LA BELLE NIVERNAISE               1 vol.

THIRTY YEARS IN PARIS, etc.                         1 vol.

THE IMMORTAL, etc                                   1 vol.

SOUVENIRS OF A MAN OF LETTERS and ARTISTS' WIVES    1 vol.

THE EVANGELIST and ROSE AND NINETTE                 1 vol.

JACK                                                2 vols.

MONDAY TALES                                        1 vol.

LETTERS FROM MY MILL, etc                           1 vol.

SAPPHO                                              1 vol.

THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY                              1 vol.

       *       *       *       *       *


Of the brilliant group of men who have made contemporaneous French
literature, of that coterie toward which the eyes of all the reading
world have been turned with admiration and interest during the last half
a century, Daudet was the greatest. He was the most universal, the most
original, the most human.--_From an Article in The Book Buyer, by L. Van
Vorst._

Has, perhaps, transferred bodily into his writings more actual events,
related in the newspapers, in the court-house, or in society, than any
other writer of the present age. Of some of his novels one hardly dare
say that they are works of fiction; their characters are men and women
of our time; they do in the book almost exactly what they had done in
real life.--_Prof. Adolph Cohn, in The Bookman._

He is a novelist to his finger-tips. No one has such grace, such
lightness and brilliancy of execution.--_Henry James, in The Century._

The slightest pages from his pen will preserve the vibration of his soul
so long as our tongue exists imperishable. He is the author of twenty
masterpieces.--ÉMILE ZOLA.

       *       *       *       *       *

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,

254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2), by Alphonse Daudet



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