Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

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 Andre'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 Elise, who stands a little behind the others, and whose embarrassment in making that indiscreet visit stamps her as the _fiancee_.

"Elise, 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-Agenor 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'Hery 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 Gery, 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 Pere Joyeuse turned red with anger.

"What he says is absurd, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Monsieur de Gery 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 Gery, 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 Seraphine, 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 Chaussee 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 Ile 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'Hery at Mazas has his meals sent from the Cafe 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, Pere 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 Noel, 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 Vendome 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'Hery, 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 chateau 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, Pere 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.