Chapter X: Part 10

"You will find the memorandum to which I refer," said Paul de Géry in conclusion, "in the first drawer in my desk. Various receipts are affixed to it. I have not put it in your room, because I am distrustful of Noël as of all the rest. To-night, when I go away, I will hand you the key. For I am going away, my dear friend and benefactor, I am going away, overflowing with gratitude for the benefits you have conferred on me, and in despair because your blind confidence has prevented me from repaying them in part. My conscience as a man of honor would reproach me were I to remain longer useless at my post. I am looking on at a terrible disaster, the pillage of a Summer Palace, which I am powerless to check; but my heart rises in revolt at all that I see. I exchange grasps of the hand which dishonor me. I am your friend, and I seem to be their confederate. And who knows whether, by living on in such an atmosphere, I might not become so?"

This letter, which he read slowly, thoroughly, even to the spaces between the words and the lines, made such a keen impression on the Nabob that, instead of going to bed, he went at once to his young secretary. Paul occupied a study at the end of the suite of salons, where he slept on a couch, a provisional arrangement which he had never cared to change. The whole house was still asleep. As he walked through the long line of great salons, which were not used for evening receptions, so that the curtains were always open and at that moment admitted the uncertain light of a Parisian dawn, the Nabob paused, impressed by the melancholy aspect that his magnificent surroundings presented. In the heavy odor of tobacco and various liquors that filled the rooms, the furniture, the wainscotings, the decorations seemed faded yet still new. Stains on the crumpled satin, ashes soiling the beautiful marbles, marks of boots on the carpet reminded him of a huge first-class railway carriage, bearing the marks of the indolence, impatience and ennui of a long journey, with the destructive contempt of the public for a luxury for which it has paid. Amid that stage scenery, all in position and still warm from the ghastly comedy that was played there every day, his own image, reflected in twenty cold, pale mirrors, rose before him, at once ominous and comical, ill-at-ease in his fashionable clothes, with bloated cheeks and face inflamed and dirty.

What an inevitable and disenchanting morrow to the insane life he was leading!

He lost himself for a moment in gloomy thoughts; then, with the vigorous shrug of the shoulders which was so familiar in him, that packman's gesture with which he threw off any too painful preoccupation, he resumed the burden which every man carries with him, and which causes the back to bend more or less, according to his courage or his strength, and entered de Géry's room, where he found him already dressed and standing in front of his open desk, arranging papers.

"First of all, my boy," said Jansoulet, closing the door softly on their interview, "answer me this question frankly. Are the motives set forth in your letter your real motives for resolving to leave me? Isn't there underneath it all one of these infamous stories that I know are being circulated against me in Paris? I am sure you would be frank enough to tell me, and to give me a chance to--to set myself right in your eyes."

Paul assured him that he had no other reasons for going, but that those he had mentioned were surely sufficient, as it was a matter of conscience.

"Listen to me then, my child, and I am sure that I shall be able to keep you. Your letter, eloquent as it was with honesty and sincerity, told me nothing new, nothing that I had not been convinced of for three months. Yes, my dear Paul, you were right; Paris is more complicated than I thought. What I lacked when I arrived here was an honest, disinterested cicerone to put me on my guard against persons and things. I found none but people who wanted to make money out of me. All the degraded scoundrels in the city have left the mud from their boots on my carpets. I was looking at those poor salons of mine just now. They need a good thorough sweeping; and I promise you that they shall have, _jour de Dieu!_ and from no light hand. But I am waiting until I am a deputy. All these rascals are of service to me in my election; and the election is too necessary to me for me to throw away the slightest chance. This is the situation in two words. Not only does the bey not intend to repay the money I loaned him a month ago; he has met my claim with a counter-claim for twenty-four millions, the figure at which he estimates the sums I obtained from his brother. That is infernal robbery, an impudent slander. My fortune is my own, honestly my own. I made it in my dealings as a contractor. I enjoyed Ahmed's favor; he himself furnished me with opportunities for making money. It is very possible that I have screwed the vise a little hard sometimes. But the matter must not be judged with the eyes of a European. The enormous profits that the Levantines make are a well-known and recognized thing over yonder; they are the ransom of the savages whom we introduce to western comforts. This wretched Hemerlingue, who is suggesting all this persecution of me to the bey, has done very much worse things. But what's the use of arguing? I am in the wolf's jaws. Pending my appearance to justify myself before his courts--I know all about justice in the Orient--the bey has begun by putting an embargo on all my property, ships, palaces and their contents. The affair has been carried on quite regularly, in pursuance of a decree of the Supreme Council. I can feel the claw of Hemerlingue Junior under it all. If I am chosen deputy, it is all a jest. The Council revokes its decree and my treasures are returned with all sorts of excuses. If I am not elected, I lose everything, sixty, eighty millions, even the possible opportunity of making another fortune; it means ruin, disgrace, the bottomless pit. And now, my son, do you propose to abandon me at such a crisis? Remember that I have nobody in the world but you. My wife? you have seen her, you know how much support, how much good advice she gives her husband. My children? It's as if I had none. I never see them, they would hardly know me in the street. My ghastly magnificence has made an empty void around me, so far as affections are concerned, has replaced them by shameless selfish interests. I have no one to love but my mother, who is far away, and you, who come to me from my mother. No, you shall not leave me alone among all the slanders that are crawling around me. It is horrible--if you only knew! At the club, at the theatre, wherever I go, I see Baroness Hemerlingue's little snake's head, I hear the echo of her hissing, I feel the venom of her hatred. Everywhere I am conscious of mocking glances, conversations broken off when I appear, smiles that lie, or kindness in which there is a mingling of pity. And then the defections, the people who move away as if a catastrophe were coming. For instance, here is Felicia Ruys, with my bust just finished, alleging some accident or other as an excuse for not sending it to the Salon. I said nothing, I pretended to believe it. But I understood that there was some infamy on foot in that quarter, too,--and it's a great disappointment to me. In emergencies as grave as that I am passing through, everything has its importance. My bust at the Exhibition, signed by that famous name, would have been of great benefit to me in Paris. But no, everything is breaking, everything is failing me. Surely you see that you must not fail me."

END OF VOL. I.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2), by Alphonse Daudet