Chapter XVI: Part 16

“Oh, listen to me, some one, I beg,” said the poor mother, throwing her hands and her voice round her to assemble and retain her hearers; but all fled, melted away, disappeared--deputies, reporters, unknown and mocking faces to whom she wished at any cost to tell her story, careless of the indifference where her sorrows and her joys fell, her pride and maternal tenderness expressed in a tornado of feeling. And while she was thus exciting herself and struggling--distracted, her bonnet awry--at once grotesque and sublime, as are all the children of nature when brought into civilization, taking to witness the honesty of her son and the injustice of men, even the liveried servants, whose disdainful impassibility was more cruel than all, Jansoulet appeared suddenly beside her.

“Take my arm, mother. You must not stop there.”

He said it in a tone so firm and calm that all the laughter ceased, and the old woman, suddenly quieted, sustained by this solid hold, still trembling a little with anger, left the palace between two respectful rows. A dignified and rustic couple, the millions of the son gilding the countrified air of the mother, like the rags of a saint enshrined in a golden _chasse_--they disappeared in the bright sunlight outside, in the splendour of their glittering carriage--a ferocious irony in their deep distress, a striking symbol of the terrible misery of the rich.

They sat well back, for both feared to be seen, and hardly spoke at first. But when the vehicle was well on its way, and he had behind him the sad Calvary where his honour hung gibbeted, Jansoulet, utterly overcome, laid his head on his mother’s shoulder, hid it in the old green shawl, and there, with the burning tears flowing, all his great body shaken by sobs, he returned to the cry of his childhood: “Mother.”

DRAMAS OF PARIS

Que l’heure est donc breve,
Qu’on passe en aimant!
C’est moins qu’un moment,
Un peu plus qu’un reve.

In the semi-obscurity of a great drawing-room filled with flowers, the seats of the furniture covered with holland, the chandeliers draped with muslin, the windows open, and the venetians lowered, Mme. Jenkins is seated at the piano reading the new song of the fashionable musician; some melodic phrases accompanying exquisite verse, a melancholy _Lied_, unequally divided, which seems written for the tender gravities of her voice and the disturbed state of her soul.

Le temps nous enleve
Notre enchantement

sighs the poor woman, moved by the sound of her own voice, and while the notes float away in the court-yard of the house, where the fountain falls drop by drop among a bed of rhododendrons, the singer breaks off, her hands holding the chord, her eyes fixed on the music, but her look far away. The doctor is absent. The care of his health and business has exiled him from Paris for some days, and the thoughts of the beautiful Mme. Jenkins have taken that grave turn, as often happens in solitude, that analytical tendency which sometimes makes even momentary separations fatal in the most united households. United they had not been for sometime. They only saw each other at meal-times, before the servants, hardly speaking unless he, the man of unctuous manners, allowed himself to make some disobliging or brutal remark on her son, or on her age, which she began to show, or on some dress which did not become her. Always gentle and serene, she stifled her tears, accepted everything, feigned not to understand; not that she loved him still after so much cruelty and contempt, but it was the story, as their coachman Joe told it, “of an old clinger who was determined to make him marry her.” Up to then a terrible obstacle--the life of the legitimate wife--had prolonged a dishonourable situation. Now that the obstacle no longer existed she wished to put an end to the situation, because of Andre, who from one day to another might be forced to despise his mother, because of the world which they had deceived for ten years--a world she never entered but with a beating heart, for fear of the treatment she would receive after a discovery. To her allusions, to her prayers, Jenkins had answered at first by phrases, grand gestures: “Could you distrust me? Is not our engagement sacred?”

He pointed out the difficulty of keeping an act of this importance secret. Then he shut himself up in a malignant silence, full of cold anger and violent determinations. The death of the duke, the fall of an absurd vanity, had struck a final blow at the household; for disaster, which often brings hearts ready to understand one another nearer, finishes and completes disunions. And it was indeed a disaster. The popularity of the Jenkins pearls suddenly stopped, the situation of the foreign doctor and charlatan, ably defined by Bouchereau in the Journal of the Academy, and people of fashion looked at each other in fright, paler from terror than from the arsenic they had imbibed. Already the Irishman had felt the effect of those counter blasts which make Parisian infatuations so dangerous.

It was for that reason, no doubt, that Jenkins had judged it wise to disappear for some time, leaving madame to continue to frequent the houses still open to them, to gauge and hold public opinion in respect. It was a hard task for the poor woman, who found everywhere the cool and distant welcome which she had received at the Hemerlingues. But she did not complain; thus earning her marriage, she was putting between them as a last resource the sad tie of pity and common trials. And as she knew that she was welcomed in the world on account of her talent, of the artistic distraction she lent to their private parties, she was always ready to lay on the piano her fan and long gloves, to play some fragment of her vast repertory. She worked constantly, passing her afternoons in turning over new music, choosing by preference sad and complicated harmonies, the modern music which no longer contents itself with being an art, but becomes a science, and answers better to our nerves, to our restlessness, than to sentiment.

Daylight flooded the room as a maid brought a card to her mistress; “Heurteux, business agent.”

The gentleman was there, he insisted on seeing madame.

“You have told him the doctor is travelling?”

He had been told, but it was to madame he wished to speak.

“To me?”

Disturbed, she examined this rough, crumpled card, this unknown name: “Heurteux.” What could it be?

“Well, show him in.”

Heurteux, business agent, coming from broad daylight into the semi-obscurity of the room, was blinking with an uncertain air, trying to see. She, on the other hand, saw very distinctly a stiff figure, with iron-gray whiskers and protruding jaw, one of those hangers-on of the law whom one meets round the law courts, born fifty years old, with a bitter mouth, an envious air, and a morocco portfolio under the arm. He sat down on the edge of the chair which she pointed out to him, turned his head to make sure that the servant had gone out, then opened his portfolio methodically to search for a paper. Seeing that he did not speak, she began in a tone of impatience:

“I ought to warn you, sir, that my husband is absent, and that I am not acquainted with his business.”

Without any astonishment, his hand in his papers, the man answered: “I know that _M. Jenkins_ is absent, madame”--he emphasized more particularly the two words “M. Jenkins”--“especially as I come on his behalf.”

She looked at him frightened. “On his behalf?”

“Alas! yes, madame. The doctor’s situation, as you are no doubt aware, is one, for the moment, of very great embarrassment. Unfortunate dealings on the Stock Exchange, the failure of a great financial enterprise in which his money is invested, the _OEuvre de Bethleem_ which weighs heavily on him, all these reverses coming at once have forced him to a grave resolution. He is selling his mansion, his horses, everything that he possesses, and has given me a power of attorney for that purpose.”

He had at last found what he was looking for--one of those stamped folded papers, interlined and riddled with references, where the impassible law makes itself responsible for so many lies. Mme. Jenkins was going to say: “But I was here. I would have carried out all his wishes, all his orders--” when she suddenly understood by the coolness of her visitor, his easy, almost insolent attitude, that she was included in this clearing up, in the getting rid of the costly mansion and useless riches, and that her departure would be the signal for the sale.

She rose suddenly. The man, still seated, went on: “What I have still to say, madame”--oh, she knew it, she could have dictated to him, what he had still to say--“is so painful, so delicate. M. Jenkins is leaving Paris for a long time, and in the fear of exposing you to the hazards and adventures of the new life he is undertaking, of taking you away from a son you cherish, and in whose interest perhaps you had better----”

She heard no more, saw no more, and while he was spinning out his gossamer phrases, given over to despair, she heard the song over and over in her mind, as the last image seen pursues a drowning man:

Le temps nous enleve
Notre enchantement.

All at once her pride returned. “Let us put a stop to this, sir. All your turns and phrases are only an additional insult. The fact is that I am driven out--turned into the street like a servant.”

“Oh, madame, madame! The situation is cruel enough, don’t let us make it worse by hard words. In the evolution of his _modus vivendi_ M. Jenkins has to separate from you, but he does so with the greatest pain to himself; and the proposals which I am charged to make are a proof of his sentiments for you. First, as to furniture and clothes, I am authorized to let you take--”

“That will do,” said she. She flew to the bell. “I am going out. Quick--my hat, my mantle, anything, never mind what. I am in a hurry.”

And while they went to fetch her what she wanted she said:

“Everything here belongs to M. Jenkins. Let him dispose of it as he likes. I want nothing from him. Don’t insist; it is useless.”

The man did not insist. His mission fulfilled, the rest mattered little to him.

Steadily, coldly, she arranged her hat carefully before the glass, the maid fastening her veil, and arranging on her shoulders the folds of her mantle, then she looked round her and considered for a moment whether she was forgetting anything precious to her. No, nothing--her son’s letters were in her pocket, she never allowed them to be away from her.

“Madame does not wish for the carriage?”

“No.” And she left the house.

It was about five o’clock. At that moment Bernard Jansoulet was crossing the doorway of the legislative chamber, his mother on his arm; but poignant as was the drama enacted there, this one surpassed it--more sudden, unforeseen, and without any stage effects. A drama between four walls, improvised in Paris day by day. Perhaps it is this which gives that vibration to the air of the city, that tremor which forces the nerves into activity. The weather was magnificent. The streets of the wealthy quarter, large and straight as avenues, shone in the declining light, embellished with open windows, flowery balconies, and patches of green seen on the boulevards, light and soft among the narrow, hard prospects of stone. Mme. Jenkins hurried in this direction, walking aimlessly, in a dull stupor. What a horrible crash! Five minutes ago rich, surrounded by all the respect and comfort of easy circumstances. Now--nothing. Not even a roof to sleep under, 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 acknowledge her fault, to blush before her own child, to weep while taking from him the right to console her, was more than she could do. No, there was nothing for her but death. To die as soon as possible, to escape shame by a complete disappearance, to unravel in this way an inextricable situation. But where to die! How? There are so many ways of departure! And she called them all up mentally while she walked. Life flowed around her, its luxury at this time of the year in full flower, round the Madeleine and its market, in a space marked off by the perfume of carnations and roses. On the wide footpath were well-dressed women whose skirts mingled their rustle with the trembling of the young leaves; there was some of the pleasure here of a meeting in a drawing-room, an air of acquaintance among the passers-by, of smiles and discreet greetings in passing. And all at once Mme. Jenkins, anxious lest her features might betray her, fearing what might be thought if any one saw her rushing on so blindly, slackened her pace to the aimless gait of an afternoon walk, stopping here and there. The light materials of the dresses spoke of summer, of the country; a thin skirt for the sandy paths of the parks, gauze-trimmed hats for the seaside, fans, sunshades. Her fixed eyes fastened on these trifles without seeing them; but in a vague and pale reflection in the clear windows she saw her image, lying motionless on the bed of some hotel, the leaden sleep of a poison in her head; or, down there, beyond the walls, among the slime of some sunken boat. Which of the two was better?

She hesitated, considered, compared; then, her decision made, started off with the resolved air of a woman tearing herself regretfully from the temptations of the window. As she moved away, the Marquis de Monpavon, proud and well-dressed, a flower in his coat, saluted her at a distance with that sweep of the hat so dear to women’s vanity, the well-bred brow, with the hat lifted high above the erect head. She answered him with her pretty Parisian’s greeting, expressed in an imperceptible inclination of the body and a smile; and seeing this exchange of politeness in the midst of the spring gaiety, one would never think that the same sinister idea was guiding the two, meeting by chance on the road they were traversing in opposite directions, but to the same end.

The prediction of Mora’s valet had come true for the marquis: “We may die or lose power; then there will be a reckoning, and it will be terrible.” It was terrible. The former receiver-general had obtained with difficulty a delay of a fortnight to make up his deficiencies, taking the last chance that Jansoulet, with his election confirmed, and with full control over his millions again, would come to the rescue once more. The decision of the Assembly had just taken from him this last hope. As soon as he knew it, he returned to the club calmly, and went up to his room, where Francis was waiting impatiently for him with an important paper just arrived. It was a notification to the Sieur Louis-Marie-Agenor de Monpavon to appear the next day in the office of the Juge d’Instruction. Was it addressed to the censor of the Territorial Bank or to the former receiver-general? In any case, the bold formula of a judicial assignation in the first instance, instead of a private invitation, spoke sufficiently of the gravity of the situation and the firm resolution of Justice.

In view of such an extremity, foreseen and expected for long, he had made his plans. A Monpavon in the criminal courts!--a Monpavon, librarian in a convict prison! Never! He put all his affairs in order, tore up his papers, emptied his pockets carefully, and took something from his toilet-table, so calmly and naturally, that when he said to Francis, as he was going out, “Am going to the baths--That dirty Chamber--Filthy dust”--the servant took him at his word. And the marquis was not lying. His exciting post up there in the dust of the tribune had tired him as much as two nights in the train; and his decision to die associated itself with his desire to take a bath, the old Sybarite thought of going to sleep in the bath, like what’s his name, and other famous personages of antiquity. And in justice, it must be said that not one of these Stoics went to his death more quietly than he.

With a white camellia in his buttonhole, above his rosette of the Legion of Honour, he was going up the Boulevard des Capucines with a light step, when the sight of Mme. Jenkins troubled his serenity for a moment. She had a youthful air, a light in her eyes, something so piquant that he stopped to look at her. Tall and beautiful, with her long dress of black gauze, her shoulders wrapped in a lace mantle, her hat trimmed with a garland of autumn leaves, she disappeared in the midst of other elegant women in the balmy atmosphere; and the thought that his eyes were going to close forever on this delightful sight, whose pleasures he knew so well, saddened Monpavon a little, and took the spring from his step. But a few paces farther on, a meeting of another kind gave him back all his courage.

Some one, threadbare, shamefaced, dazzled by the light, was coming down the Boulevard. It was old Marestang, former senator, former minister, so deeply compromised in the affairs of the “Malta Biscuits,” that, in spite of his age, his services, and the great scandal of such a proceeding, he had been condemned to two years of prison, struck off the roll of the Legion of Honour, of which he had been one of the dignitaries. The affair was long ago; the poor wretch had just been let out of prison before his sentence had expired, lost, ruined, not having even the means to gild his trouble, for he had had to pay what he owed. Standing on the curb, he was waiting with bent head till the crowds of carriages should allow him to pass, embarrassed by this stoppage at the fullest spot of the boulevards between the passers-by and the sea of open carriages filled with familiar figures. Monpavon walking near him, caught his timid, uneasy look, imploring a recognition and hiding from it at the same time. The idea that one day he could humiliate himself thus, gave him a shudder of revolt. “Oh! that is not possible!” And straightening himself up and throwing out his chest, he kept on his way, firmer and more resolute than before.

M. de Monpavon walks to his death! He goes there by the long line of the boulevards, all on fire in the direction of the Madeleine, where he treads the elastic asphalt once more as a lounger, nose in the air, hands crossed behind. He has time; there is no hurry; he is master of the rendezvous. At each instant he smiles before him, waves a greeting from the ends of his fingers or makes the more formal bow we have just seen. Everything revives him, charms him, the noise of the watering-carts, the awnings of the _cafes_, pulled down to the middle of the foot-paths. The approach of death gives him the feelings of a convalescent accessible to all the delicacy, the hidden poesy of an exquisite hour of summer in the midst of Parisian life--of an exquisite hour--his last, and which he will prolong till night. No doubt it is for that reason that he passes the sumptuous establishment where he ordinarily takes his bath. He does not stop either at the Chinese Baths. He is too well known here. All Paris would know of it the same evening. There would be a scandal of bad taste, much coarse rumour about his death in the clubs and drawing-rooms. And the old sensualist, the well-bred man, wishes to spare himself this shame, to plunge and be swallowed up in the vague anonymity of suicide, like those soldiers who, after great battles, neither wounded, dead, or living, are simply put down as “missing.” That is why he has nothing on him which can be recognised, or furnish a hint to the inquiries of the police, why he seeks in this immense Paris the distant quarter where will open for him the terrible but oblivious confusion of the pauper’s grave. Already, since Monpavon has been walking, the aspect of the boulevard has changed. The crowd has become more compact, more active, and preoccupied, the houses smaller, marked with signs of commerce. When the gates of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin are passed, with their overflow from the faubourgs, the provincial physiognomy of the town accentuates itself. The old beau no longer knows any one, and can congratulate himself on being unknown.

The shopkeepers looking curiously after him, with his fine linen, his well-cut coat, and good figure, take him for some famous actor strolling on the boulevard--witness of his first triumphs--before the play begins. The wind freshens, the twilight softens the distances, and while the long road behind him still glitters, it grows darker now at every step--like the past, with its retrospections to him who looks back and regrets. It seems to Monpavon that he is walking into blackness. He shivers a little, but does not falter, and continues to walk with erect head and chest thrown out.

M. de Monpavon walks to his death! Now he is entering the complicated labyrinth of noisy streets, where the clatter of the omnibus mingles with the thousand humming trades of the working city, where the heat of the factory chimneys loses itself in the fever of a whole people struggling against hunger. The air trembles, the gutters steam, the houses shake at the passing of the wagons, of the heavy drays rumbling round the narrow streets. On a sudden the marquis stops; he has found what he wanted. Between the black shop of a charcoal-seller and the establishment of a packing-case maker, whose pine boards leaning on the walls give him a little shiver, there is a wide door, surmounted by its sign, the word BATHS on a dirty lantern. He enters, crosses a little damp garden where a jet of water weeps in a rockery. Here is the gloomy corner he was looking for. Who would ever believe that the Marquis de Monpavon had come there to cut his throat? The house is at the end, low, with green blinds and a glass door, with a sham air of a villa. He asks for a bath, and while it is being prepared he smokes his cigar at the window, with the noise of the water behind him, looks at the flower-bed of sparse lilac, and the high walls which inclose it.

At the side there is a great yard, the court-yard of a fire station, with a gymnasium, whose masts and swings, vaguely seen from below, look like gibbets. A bugle-call sounds in the yard, and its call takes the marquis thirty years back, reminds him of his campaigns in Algeria, the high ramparts of Constantine, the arrival of Mora at the regiment, and the duels, and the little parties. Ah! how well life began then! What a pity that those cursed cards--ps--ps--ps--Well, it’s something to have saved appearances.

“Your bath is ready, sir,” said the attendant.

At that moment, breathless and pale, Mme. Jenkins was entering Andre’s studio, where an instinct stronger than her will had brought her--the wish to embrace her child before she died. When she opened the door (he had given her a key) she was relieved to find that he was not there, and that she would have time to calm her excitement, increased as it was by the long walk to which she was so little accustomed. No one was there. But on the table was the little note which he always left when he went out, so that his mother, whose visits were becoming shorter and less frequent on account of the tyranny of Jenkins, could tell where he was, and wait for him or rejoin him easily. The two had not ceased to love each other deeply, tenderly, in spite of the cruelty of life which forced into the relations of mother and son the clandestine precautions of an intrigue.

“I am at my rehearsal,” said the note to-day, “I shall be back at seven.”

This attention of the son, whom she had not seen for three weeks, yet who persisted in expecting her all the same, brought to the mother’s eyes the flood of tears which was suffocating her. She felt as if she had just entered a new world. This little room was so pure, so quiet, so elevated. It kept the last rays of the setting sun on its windows, and seemed, with its bare walls, hewn from a corner of the sky. It was adorned only with one great portrait, hers, nothing but hers, smiling in the place of honour, and again, down there, on the table in a gilt frame. This humble little lodging, so light when all Paris was becoming dark, made an extraordinary impression on her, in spite of the poverty of its sparse furniture, scattered in two rooms, its common chintz, and its chimney garnished with two great bunches of hyacinths--those flowers which are hawked round the streets in barrowsful. What a good and worthy life she could have led by the side of her Andre! And in her mind’s eye she had arranged her bed in one corner, her piano in another, she saw herself giving lessons, and caring for the home to which she was adding her share of ease and courageous gaiety. How was it that she had not seen that her duty, the pride of her widowhood, was there? By what blindness, what unworthy weakness?

It was a great fault, no doubt, but one for which many excuses might be found in her easy and tender disposition, and the clever knavery of her accomplice, always talking of marriage, hiding from her that he himself was no longer free, and when at last obliged to confess it, painting such a picture of his dull life, of his despair, of his love, that the poor creature, so deeply compromised already, and incapable of one of those heroic efforts which raise the sufferer above the false situations, had given way at last, had accepted this double existence, so brilliant and so miserable, built on a lie which had lasted ten years. Ten years of intoxicating success and unspeakable unhappiness--ten years of singing, with the fear of exposure between each verse--where the least remark on irregular unions wounded her like an allusion--where the expression of her face had softened to the air of mild humility, of a guilty woman begging for pardon. Then the certainty that she would be deserted had come to spoil even these borrowed joys, had tarnished her luxury; and what misery, what sufferings borne in silence, what incessant humiliations, even to this last, the most terrible of all!

While she is thus sadly reviewing her life in the cool of the evening and the calm of the deserted house, a gust of happy laughter rose from the rooms beneath; and recalling the confidences of Andre, his last letter telling the great news, she tried to distinguish among all these fresh and limpid voices that of her daughter Elise, her son’s betrothed, whom she did not know, whom she would never know. This reflection added to the misery of her last moments, and loaded them with so much remorse and regret that, in spite of her will to be brave, she wept.

Night comes on little by little. Large shadows cover the sloping windows, where the immense depth of the sky seems to lose its colour, and to deepen into obscurity. The roofs seem to draw close together for the night, like soldiers preparing for the attack. The bells count the hours gravely, while the martins fly round their hidden nests, and the wind makes its accustomed invasion of the rubbish of the old wood-yard. To-night it sighs with the sound of the river, a shiver of the fog; it sighs of the river, to remind the unfortunate woman that it is there she must go. She shivers beforehand in her lace mantle. Why did she come here to reawaken her desire for a life impossible after the avowal she was forced to make? Hasty steps shake the staircase; the door opens precipitately; it is Andre. He is singing, happy, in a great hurry, for they are waiting dinner for him below. But, as he is striking the match, he feels that someone is in the room--a moving shadow among the shadows at rest.

“Who is there?”

Something answers him like a stifled laugh or a sob. He believes that it is one of his little neighbours, a plot of the children to amuse themselves. He draws near. Two hands, two arms, seize and surround him.

“It is I.”

And with a feverish voice, hurrying as if to assure herself, she tells him that she is setting out on a long journey, and that before going--

“A journey! And where are you going?”

“Oh, I do not know. We are going over there, a long way, on business in his own part of the world.”

“What! You will not be here for my play? It is in three days. And then, immediately after, my marriage. Come now, he cannot hinder you from coming to my marriage?”

She makes excuses, imagines reasons, but her hands burning between her son’s, and her altered voice, tell Andre that she is not speaking the truth. He is going to strike a light; she prevents him.

“No, no; it is useless. We are better without it. Besides, I have so much to get ready still. I must go away.”

They are both standing up, ready for the separation, but Andre will not let her go without telling him what is the matter, what tragic care is hollowing that fair face where the eyes--was it an effect of the dusk?--shone with a strange light.

“Nothing; no, nothing, I assure you. Only the idea of not being able to take part in your happiness, your triumph. At any rate, you know I love you; you don’t mistrust your mother, do you? I have never been a day without thinking of you: do the same--keep me in your heart. And now kiss me and let me go quickly. I have waited too long.”

Another minute and she would have the strength for what she had to do. She darts forward.

“No, you shall not go. I feel that something extraordinary is happening in your life which you do not want to tell. You are in some great trouble, I am sure. This man has done some infamous thing.”

“No, no. Let me go! Let me go!”

But he held her fast.

“Tell me, what is it? Tell me.”

Then, whispering in her ear, with a voice tender and low as a kiss:

“He has left you, hasn’t he?”

The wretched woman shivers, hesitates.

“Ask me nothing. I will say nothing. Adieu!”

He pressed her to his heart:

“What could you tell me that I do not know already, poor mother? You did not guess, then, why I left six months ago?”

“You know?”

“I know everything. And what has happened to you to-day I have foreseen for long, and hoped for.”

“Oh, wretch, wretch that I am, why did I come?”

“Because it is your home, because you owe me ten years of my mother. You see now that I must keep you.”

He said all this on his knees, before the sofa on which she had let herself fall, in a flood of tears, and the last painful sobs of her wounded pride. She wept thus for long, her child at her feet. And now the Joyeuse family, anxious because Andre did not come down, hurried up in a troop to look for him. It was an invasion of innocent faces, transparent gaiety, floating curls, modest dress, and over all the group shone the big lamp, the good old lamp with the vast shade which M. Joyeuse solemnly carried, as high, as straight as he could, with the gesture of a caryatid. Suddenly they stopped before this pale and sad lady, who looked, touched to the depths, at all this smiling grace, above all at Elise, a little behind the others, whose conscious air in this indiscreet visit points her out as the _fiancee_.

“Elise, embrace our mother and thank her. She has come to live with her children.”

There she is, caught in all these caressing arms, pressed against four little feminine hearts which have missed the shelter of a mother’s love for so long; there she is introduced, and so gently, into the luminous circle of the family lamp, widened to allow her to take her place there, to dry her eyes, to warm and brighten her spirit at this steady flame, even in this little studio near the roof, where just now the terrible storm blew so wildly.

He who breathes his last over there, lying in his blood-stained bath, has never known this sacred flame. Egoistical and hard, he has lived up to the last for show, throwing out his chest in a bubble of vanity. And this vanity was what was best in him. It alone had held him firm and upright so long; it alone clinched his teeth on the groans of his last agony. In the damp garden the water drips sadly. The bugle of the firemen sounds the curfew. “Go and look at No. 7,” says the mistress, “he will never have done with his bath.” The attendant goes, and utters a cry of fright, of horror: “Oh, madame, he is dead! But it is not the same man.” They go, but nobody can recognise the fine gentleman who entered a short time ago, in this death’s-head puppet, the head leaning on the edge of the bath, a face where the blood mingles with paint and powder, all the limbs lying in the supreme lassitude of a part played to the end--to the death of the actor. Two cuts of the razor across the magnificent chest, and all the factitious majesty has burst and resolved itself into this nameless horror, this heap of mud, of blood, of spoiled and dead flesh, where, unrecognisable, lies the man of appearances, the Marquis Louis-Marie-Agenor de Monpavon.

MEMOIRS OF AN OFFICE PORTER THE LAST LEAVES

I put down in haste and with an agitated pen the terrible events of which I have been the plaything for the last few days. This time it is all up with the Territorial and with my ambitious dreams. Disputed bills, men in possession, visits of the police, all our books in the hands of the courts, the governor fled, Bois l’Hery, the director, in prison, another--Monpavon--disappeared. My brain reels in the midst of these catastrophes. And if I had obeyed the warnings of reason, I should have been quietly six months ago at Montbars cultivating my vineyard, with no other care than that of seeing the clusters grow round and golden in the good Burgundian sun, and to gather from the leaves, after the dew, the little gray snails, so excellent when they are fried. I should have built for myself with my savings, at the end of the vineyard, on the height--I can see the place at this moment--a tower in rough stone, like M. Chalmette’s, so convenient for an afternoon nap, while the quails are chirping round the place. But always misled by deceiving illusions, I wished to enrich myself, speculate, meddle in finance, chain my fortune to the car of the conquerors of the day; and now here I am back again in the saddest pages of my history, clerk in a bankrupt establishment, my duty to answer a horde of creditors, of shareholders drunk with fury, who load my white hairs with the worst outrages, and would like to make me responsible for the ruin of the Nabob and the flight of the governor; as if I myself was not as cruelly struck by the loss of my four years of arrears, and my seven thousand francs which I had confided to that scoundrel of Paganetti de Porto-Vecchio.

But it is my fate to empty the cup of humiliation and degradation to the dregs. Have I not been made to appear before a Juge d’Instruction--I, Passajon, former apparitor of the faculty, with thirty years of faithful service, and the ribbon of Officer of the Academy? Oh! when I saw myself going up that staircase of the Palace of Justice, so big, so conspicuous, without a rail to hold by, I felt my head turning and my legs sinking under me. I was forced to reflect there, crossing these halls, black with lawyers and judges, studded with great green doors behind which one heard the imposing noise of the hearings; and up higher, in the corridor of the Juges d’Instruction, during my hour’s waiting on a bench, where the prison vermin crawled on my legs, while I listened to a lot of thieves, pickpockets, and loose women talking and laughing with the gendarmes, and the butts of the rifles echo in the passages, and the dull roll of prison vans. I understood then the danger of “combinations,” and that it was not always good to ridicule M. Gogo.

What reassured me, however, was that never having taken any part in the deliberations of the Territorial, I had no share in their dealings and intrigues. But explain this to me: Once in the judge’s office, before that man in a velvet cap looking at me across his table with his little eyes like hooks, I felt so pierced through, searched, turned over to the very depth of my being, that, in spite of my innocence, I wanted to confess. Confess what? I don’t know. But that is the effect which the law had. This devil of a man spent five minutes looking at me without speaking, all the while turning over a book filled with writing not unknown to me, and suddenly he said, in a mocking and severe tone:

“Well, M. Passajon, how long is it since the affair of the drayman?”

The memory of a certain little misdeed, in which I had taken part in my days of distress, was already so distant that I did not understand at once; but some words of the judge showed me how completely he knew the history of our bank. This terrible man knew everything, down to the least details, the most secret things. Who could have informed him so thoroughly?

It was all very short, very dry, and, when I wished to enlighten justice with some wise observations, a certain insolent fashion of saying, “Don’t make phrases,” so much the more wounding at my age and with my reputation of a good talker; also we were not alone in his office. A clerk seated near me was writing down my deposition, and behind I heard the noise of great leaves turning. The judge asked me all sorts of questions about the Nabob--the time when he had made his payments, the place where we kept our books; and all at once, addressing himself to the person whom I could not see: “Show us the cash-book, _M. l’Expert_.”

A little man in a white tie brought the great register to the table. It was M. Joyeuse, the former cashier of Hemerlingue & Sons. But I had not time to offer him my respects.

“Who has done that?” asked the judge, opening the book where a page was torn out. “Don’t lie, now.”

I did not lie; I knew nothing of it, never having had to do with the books. However, I thought it my duty to mention M. de Gery, the Nabob’s secretary, who often came at night into the office and shut himself up for hours casting balances. Then little Father Joyeuse turned red with anger.

“That is an absurdity, M. le Juge d’Instruction. M. de Gery is the young man of whom I have spoken to you. He came to the Territorial as a superintendent, and thought too much of this poor M. Jansoulet to remove the receipts for his payments; that is the proof of his blind but thorough honesty. Besides, M. de Gery, who has been detained in Tunis, is on his way back, and will furnish before long all the explanation necessary.”

I felt that my zeal was about to compromise me.

“Take care, Passajon,” said the judge. “You are only here as a witness; but if you attempt to mislead justice, you may return a prisoner” (he, the monster, had, indeed, the manner of desiring it). “Come now, consider; who tore out this page?”

Then I very fortunately remembered that some days before he left Paris the governor had me made bring the books to his house, where they were all night. The clerk took a note of my declaration, after which the judge dismissed me with a sign, warning me to be ready when I was wanted. Then, on the threshold, he called me back: “Stay, M. Passajon, take this away. I don’t want it any more.”

He held out the papers he had been consulting while he was questioning me; and judge of my confusion when I saw on the cover the word “Memoirs,” written in my best round-hand. I, myself, had provided material to Justice--important details which the suddenness of our catastrophe had prevented me from saving from the police search of our office.

My first idea on returning home was to tear up these indiscreet papers; but on reflection, and after having assured myself that the Memoirs contained nothing that would compromise me, I have decided to go on with them, with the certainty of getting some profit out of them one day or another. There are plenty of novelists at Paris who have no imagination and can only put true stories in their books, who would be glad to buy a little book of incidents. That is how I shall avenge myself on this society of well-to-do swindlers, with which I have been mixed up to my shame and misfortune.

Besides, I must occupy my leisure time. There is nothing to do at the bank, which is completely deserted since the judicial inquiry began, except to arrange the bills of all colours. I have again undertaken the writing for the cook on the second floor, Mlle. Seraphine, from whom I accept in return some little refreshment, which I keep in the strong-box, once more become a provision safe. The wife of the governor is also very good to me, and stuffs my pockets each time I go to see her in her great rooms on the Chaussee d’Antin. There nothing has changed; the same luxury, the same comfort, also a three-months’-old baby--the seventh--and a superb nurse, whose Norman cap is the admiration of the Bois de Boulogne. It seems that once started on the rails of fortune, people need a certain time to slacken their speed or stop. Besides, this thief of a Paganetti had, in case of accident, settled everything on his wife. Perhaps that is why this rag-bag of an Italian woman has such an unshakable admiration for him. He has fled, he is in hiding; but she remains convinced that her husband is a little Saint-John of innocence, the victim of his goodness and credulity. One ought to hear her. “You know him, you Moussiou Passajon. You know if he is scrupulous. But as true as there is a God, if my husband had committed such crimes as he is accused of, I myself--you hear me--I myself would put a blunderbuss in his hands, and would say to him, ‘Here, Tchecco, blow out your brains!’” and by the way in which she opens the nostrils of her little turned-up nose, her round eyes, black as jet, one feels that this little Corsican would have acted as she spoke. He must be very clever, this infernal governor, to deceive even his wife, to act a part even at home, where the cleverest let themselves be seen as they really are.

In the meantime all these rogues have good dinners; even Bois l’Hery has his meals sent in to the prison from the Cafe Anglais, and poor old Passajon is reduced to live on scraps picked up in the kitchen. Still we must not grumble too much. There are others more wretched than we are--witness M. Francis, who came in this morning to the Territorial, thin, pale, with dirty linen and frayed cuffs, which he still pulled down by force of habit.

I was at the moment grilling some bacon before the fire in the board-room, my plate laid on the corner of a marqueterie table, with a newspaper underneath to preserve it. I invited Monpavon’s valet to share my frugal meal; but since he has waited on a marquis he had come to think that he formed part of the nobility, and he declined with a dignified air, perfectly ridiculous with his hollow cheeks. He began by telling me that he still had no news of his master; that they had sent him away from the club, all the papers under seal, and a horde of creditors like locusts on the marquis’s small wardrobe. “So that I am a little short,” added M. Francis. That is to say, that he had not the worth of a radish in his pockets, that he had been sleeping for two days on the benches in the streets, awakened at each instant by the police, obliged to rise, to pretend to be drunk so as to seek another shelter. As to eating, I believe he had not done so for a long time, for he looked at the food with such hungry eyes as to wring one’s heart, and when I insisted on putting before him a slice of bacon and a glass of wine, he fell on it like a wolf. All at once the blood came back to his cheeks and, still eating, he began to chatter.

“You know, _pere_ Passajon,” said he to me between two mouthfuls, “I know where he is. I have seen him.”

He winked his eye knowingly. I looked at him in wonder. “Who is it you have seen, M. Francis?”

“The marquis, my master--over there in the little white house behind Notre-Dame.” (He did not use the word morgue, it is too low.) “I was sure I should find him there. I went there first thing next morning. There he was. Oh, well disguised, I tell you. Only his valet could recognise him. The hair gray, the teeth gone, the wrinkles showing his sixty-five years, which he used to hide so well. On the marble slab, with the tap running above, I seemed to see him at his dressing-table.”

“And you said nothing?”

“No. I knew his intentions on the subject for long. I let him go away discreetly, without awakening attention, as he wished. But, all the same, he might have given me a crust of bread before he went, after a service of twenty years.”

And on a sudden, striking the table with his fist with rage:

“When I think that if I had liked I might have been with Mora, instead of going to Monpavon, that I might have had Louis’s place. What luck he has had! How many bags of gold he laid his hands on when his duke died! And the wardrobe--hundreds of shirts, a dressing-gown of blue fox fur worth more than twenty thousand francs. Like Noel, too, he must have made his pile! He had to hurry, too, for he knew that it would stop soon. Now there is nothing to be got in the Place Vendome. An old policeman of a mother who manages everything. Saint-Romans is to be sold, the pictures are to be sold, half the house to be let. It is a real break-up.”

I must confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction, for this wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who boasted of being so rich, who said so everywhere. The public bit at it like a fish who sees the scales shine through the net. He has lost millions, I admit, but why did he make us believe he had more? They have arrested Bois l’Hery; they should have arrested _him_. Ah! if we had had another expert, I am sure it would have been done. Besides, as I said to Francis, you had only to look at this upstart of a Jansoulet to see what he was worth. What a head--like a bandit!

“And so common,” said the ex-valet.

“No principles.”

“An absolute want of form. Well, there he is on his beam-ends, and then Jenkins, too, and plenty of others with them.”

“What! the doctor too? Ah! so much the worse. Such a polite and amiable man.”

“Yes, still another breaking-up of his establishment. Horses, carriages, furniture. The yard of the house is full of bills, and it sounds as empty as if some one were dead. The place at Nanterre is on sale. There were half a dozen of the ‘little Bethlehems’ left whom they packed up in a cab. It is a break-up, I tell you, _pere_ Passajon, a ruin which we, old as we are, may not see the end of, but it will be complete. Everything is rotten, it must all come down!”

He was a sinister figure, this old steward of the Empire, thin, stubbly, covered with mud, and shouting like a Jeremiah, “It is the downfall!” with a toothless mouth, black and wide open. I felt afraid and ashamed of him, with a great desire to see him outside, and I thought: “Oh, M. Chalmette! Oh, my little vineyard of Montbars!”

_Same date_.--Great news. Mme. Gaganetti came this afternoon to bring me mysteriously a letter from the governor. He is in London, going to begin a magnificent thing. Fine offices in the best part of the town, a superb list of shareholders. He offers me the chance of joining him, “happy to repair thus the damage he has caused me,” says he. I shall have twice my wages at the Territorial, be lodged comfortably, five shares in the new bank, and all my arrears paid. All I need is a little money to go there and to pay a few small debts round here. Good luck! My fortune is assured. I shall write to the notary of Montbars to mortgage my vineyard.

AT BORDIGHERA

As M. Joyeuse had told the Juge d’Instruction, Paul de Gery returned from Tunis after three weeks’ absence. Three interminable weeks spent in struggling among intrigues, and traps secretly laid by the powerful hatred of the Hemerlingues--in wandering from hall to hall, from ministry to ministry through the immense palace of the Bardo, which gathered within one enclosure, bristling with culverins, all the departments of the State, as much under the master’s eye as his stables and harem. On his arrival, Paul had learned that the Chamber of Justice was preparing secretly Jansoulet’s trial--a derisive trial, lost beforehand; and the closed offices of the Nabob on the Marine Quay, the seals on his strong boxes, his ships moored to the Goulette, a guard round his palace, seemed to speak of a sort of civil death, of a disputed succession of which the spoils would not long remain to be shared.

There was not a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious crowd; the French colony itself appeared satisfied with the fall of a courtier who had so long monopolized the roads to favour. To attempt to snatch this prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph at the Assembly, was not to be thought of. All that de Gery could hope for was to save some shreds of his fortune, and this only if he hurried, for he was expecting day by day to learn of his friend’s complete ruin.

He set himself to work, therefore, hurried on his business with an activity which nothing could discourage, neither Oriental discursiveness--that refined fair-spoken politeness, under which is hidden ferocity--nor coolly indifferent smiles, nor averted looks, invoking divine fatalism when human lies fail. The self-possession of this southerner, in whom was condensed, as it were, all the exuberance of his compatriots, served him as well as his perfect knowledge of French law, of which the Code of Tunis is only a disfigured copy.