Chapter IV (4)

"Yes, certainly; only, I advise you, first of all to try and obtain the money from a friend. If I were in your place I know very well what I should do. I should simply apply to Monsieur de Saffré."

Renée smiled in a constrained manner.

"But it would hardly be proper," she answered, "since you pretend that he is so much in love."

The old woman looked at her with a fixed stare; then her flabby face gently softened into a smile of tender pity.

"Poor dear," she muttered, "you have been crying; don't deny it, I can see it by your eyes. You must be strong and accept life. Come, let me arrange the little matter in question."

Renée rose up, twisting her fingers, and making her gloves crack. And she remained standing, quite shaken by a cruel internal struggle. She was opening her mouth, to accept perhaps, when a gentle ring at the bell resounded in the next room. Madame Sidonie hastily went out, leaving the door ajar, so that a double row of pianos could be seen. The young woman then heard a man's step, and the stifled sound of a conversation carried on in an undertone. She mechanically went to examine more closely the yellowish stain with which the mattresses had streaked the wall. This stain disturbed her, made her ill at ease. Forgetting everything, Maxime, the fifty thousand francs, and Monsieur de Saffré, she stepped back to the front of the bed, reflecting; this bed had been much better placed, as it had formerly stood; some women were really wanting in taste; of a certainty when one lay down one must have the light in one's eyes. And in the depths of her memory she vaguely saw the figure of the stranger of the Quai Saint-Paul rise up, her novel in two assignations, that chance amour which she had partaken of, there, at that other place. The wearing away of the wall paper was all that remained of it. Then the room filled her with uneasiness, and the hum of voices which continued in the next apartment made her feel impatient.

When Madame Sidonie returned, opening and closing the door with due precaution, she made repeated signs with the tips of her fingers, to recommend Renée to speak low. Then, she whispered in her ear:

"You don't know, the adventure's a good one: it's Monsieur de Saffré who's there."

"You didn't tell him though that I was here?" asked the young woman anxiously.

The agent seemed surprised, and with an air of great simplicity answered:

"But I did--He is waiting for me to tell him to come in. Of course I didn't speak about the fifty thousand francs--"

Renée, who was quite pale, had drawn herself up as if she had been struck with a whip. A great pride again rose to her heart. That creaking of boots, which she heard growing louder in the next room, exasperated her:

"I am going," she said curtly. "Come and open the door for me."

Madame Sidonie tried to smile.

"Don't be childish," she said. "I can't be left with that fellow on my hands, since I have told him you are here--You really compromise me--"

But the young woman had already descended the little staircase. She repeated, in front of the closed shop door:

"Open it, open it."

When the lace-dealer withdrew the brass knob, she had the habit of putting it in her pocket. She wished to continue parleying. Finally seized with anger herself, and displaying in the depths of her grey eyes the tart acridity of her nature, she cried: "But come, what shall I say to the man?"

"That I'm not for sale," replied Renée, who already had one foot on the side-walk.

And it seemed to her that she could hear Madame Sidonie muttering as she banged the door: "Eh! get off, you jade! you shall pay me for this!"

"By heavens," thought Renée as she again entered her brougham, "I prefer my husband to that."

She returned straight home. In the evening she told Maxime not to come; she was poorly, she needed repose. And, on the morrow, when she handed him the fifteen thousand francs for Sylvia's jeweller, she remained embarrassed in presence of his surprise and his questions. Her husband, she said, had done a good stroke of business. From that day forth, however, she became more capricious, she often changed the hour of the appointments which she gave the young fellow, and even she frequently watched for him in the conservatory to send him away. He did not worry himself much about these changes of humour; it pleased him to be an obedient thing in women's hands. What bored him a great deal more was the moral turn which their lovers' meetings took at times. She became quite sad; and it even happened that she had big tears in her eyes. She left off singing the refrain about the "handsome young man" in the _Belle Hélène_, she played the hymns she had learnt at school and asked her lover if he did not think that sin was always punished, sooner or later.

"She's decidedly growing old," he thought. "It will be the utmost if she's funny for another year or two."

The truth was that she suffered cruelly. She would now have preferred to deceive Maxime with Monsieur de Saffré. She had revolted at Madame Sidonie's, she had given way to instinctive pride, to disgust for such a low bargain. But on the following days, when she endured the anguish of adultery, everything in her foundered; and she felt herself so despicable that she would have surrendered herself to the first man who pushed open the door of the room containing the pianos. The thought of her husband had, at times, formerly passed before her, amid her incest, like a touch of voluptuous horror; but henceforth the husband, the man himself, entered into it with a brutality that transformed her most delicate sensations into intolerable sufferings. She, who had enjoyed the refinement of her sin, and had willingly dreamt of a corner of a superhuman paradise where the gods partook of their amours together, was now descending to vulgar debauchery, to being shared by two men. In vain did she try to derive enjoyment from her infamy. Her lips were still warm with Saccard's kisses when she offered them to Maxime's. Her inquisitiveness descended to the depths of these accursed pleasures. She went as far as to mingle the two affections, and to seek for the son amid the father's hugs. And she emerged yet more alarmed and more bruised from this journey into unknown evil, from this ardent darkness in which she confounded the person of her double lover, with a terror which was like the death-rattle of her enjoyment.

She kept this drama to herself alone, and increased the suffering it occasioned by the feverishness of her imagination. She would have preferred to die rather than own the truth to Maxime. She had an inward fear that the young man might revolt and leave her; she had such an absolute belief in the monstrosity of her sin and in eternal damnation, that she would have more willingly crossed the Parc Monceaux naked than have confessed her shame aloud. On the other hand, she still remained the madcap who astonished Paris by her extravagant conduct. Nervous gaiety seized hold of her, prodigious caprices which the newspapers talked about, designating her by her initials. It was at this period that she seriously wished to fight a duel with pistols with the Duchess de Sternich who had, intentionally, so she said, upset a glass of punch over her dress. To calm her, it was necessary for her brother-in-law, the minister, to get angry. On another occasion she bet with Madame de Lauwerens that she would make the round of the Longchamps racecourse in less than ten minutes, and it was only a question of costume that deterred her from doing so. Maxime himself began to feel afraid of this head, in which madness lurked; and on the pillow at night-time he thought he could hear all the hubbub of a city bent on enjoying itself.

One evening they went together to the Théâtre-Italien. They had not even looked at the bill. They wished to see the great Italian tragedian, Ristori, who then attracted all Paris, and in whom, by the command of fashion, they were bound to interest themselves. The play was _Phèdre_. Maxime remembered his classical repertory sufficiently, and Renée knew enough Italian to follow the performance. And indeed they derived an especial emotion from this drama, performed in a foreign language, the sonority of which seemed to them at times to be a simple orchestral accompaniment supporting the pantomime of the actors. Hippolytos was a tall, pale fellow, a very poor actor, who whimpered his part.

"What a ninny!" muttered Maxime.

However, Ristori, with her broad shoulders shaken by her sobs, with her tragical face and fat arms, moved Renée deeply. Phædra was of Pasiphae's blood, and she asked herself of what blood she was, the incestuous stepmother of modern times. She saw nought of the piece save this tall woman drawing the ancient crime over the stage. When Phædra confides her criminal tenderness to Œnone in the first act; when, all on fire, she declares herself to Hippolytos in the second; and later on, in the fourth act, when the return of Theseus overwhelms her and she curses herself, in a crisis of gloomy fury, she filled the house with such a cry of savage passion, with such a yearning for superhuman voluptuousness, that the young woman felt every shudder of her desire and remorse pass through her own flesh.

"Wait," murmured Maxime in her ears, "you are going to hear Theramene's narrative. The old fellow has a funny head!"

And he muttered in a hollow voice:

"Scarce had we passed the gates of Trezene,
He on his chariot mounted--"

But while the old fellow spoke, Renée neither looked nor listened any more. The light blinded her, and stifling heat came to her from all the pale faces stretched out towards the stage. The monologue continued, interminable. She imagined herself in the conservatory under the ardent foliage, and she dreamt that her husband came in and surprised her in the arms of his son. She suffered horribly, she was losing consciousness, when the death-rattle of Phædra, repentant and dying in the convulsions caused by the poison, made her open her eyes again. The curtain fell. Would she have the strength to poison herself some day? How petty and shameful her drama was beside the ancient epopœia! And while Maxime fastened her opera cloak under her chin, she still heard, growling behind her, Ristori's rough voice to which Œnone's complacent murmur replied.

In the brougham, the young fellow talked on alone. He considered tragedies sickening as a rule, and preferred the pieces performed at the Bouffes. However, _Phèdre_ was spicy. He had taken an interest in it, because--And he pressed Renée's hand to complete his meaning. Then a funny idea darted through his head, and he gave way to an impulse to say something witty.

"It was I," he murmured, "who did right not to approach the sea at Trouville."

Renée, lost in the depths of her painful dream, remained silent. It was necessary for him to repeat his phrase.

"Why?" asked she, astonished and failing to understand.

"But the monster--"

And he gave vent to a little titter. This joke froze the young woman. Everything was upset in her head. Ristori was no longer aught, but a big puppet who tucked up her peplum and poked out her tongue to the public like Blanche Müller in the third act of the _Belle Hélène_; Theramene danced the cancan, and Hippolytos eat bread and jam while stuffing his fingers into his nose.

When a more galling remorse made Renée shudder, she evinced superb revolt. What was her crime after all, and why should she blush? Did she not every day tread upon greater infamies? Did she not elbow at the ministers', at the Tuileries, everywhere in fact, wretches like herself who had millions on their flesh, and who were adored on both knees! And she thought of the shameful friendship of Adeline d'Espanet and Suzanne Haffner, at which one smiled, at times, at the Empress's Mondays. And she recalled to herself the traffic of Madame de Lauwerens, whom husbands celebrated for her good conduct, her order, and her exactitude in settling her tradesmen's bills. She named Madame Daste, Madame Teissière, the Baroness de Meinhold, those creatures whose luxury was paid for by their lovers, and who were quoted in society like shares are quoted upon change. Madame de Guende was so stupid and so well formed, that she had three superior officers for her lovers at the same time, and was unable to distinguish them from each other on account of their uniforms. This made that demon of a Louise say that she first of all made them strip to their shifts so as to know which of the three she was talking to. As for the Countess Vanska, she remembered the courtyards in which she had sung, the side-walks on which people pretended they had again seen her, dressed in printed calico, and prowling about like a she-wolf. Each of these women had her shame, her triumphant, displayed sore. And, overtopping them all, the Duchess de Sternich rose up, ugly, old, worn out, with the glory of having passed a night in the Imperial bed; she typified official vice, from which she derived the majesty of debauchery and a kind of sovereignty over this band of illustrious hussies.

The incestuous stepmother accustomed herself to her sin, as to a gala robe the stiffness of which might at first have inconvenienced her. She followed the fashions of the period, she dressed and undressed herself in the style of others. She ended by believing that she lived amid a circle above common morality, in which the senses became more acute and developed, and in which one was allowed to strip oneself naked for the joy of all Olympus. Sin became a luxury, a flower set in the hair, a diamond fastened on the brow. And she again saw, like a justification and redemption, the Emperor passing on the general's arm, between two rows of inclined shoulders.

Only one man, Baptiste, her husband's valet, continued to disturb her. Since Saccard showed himself gallant, this tall, pale, dignified valet, seemed to walk around her with the solemnity of mute censure. He did not look at her, his cold glances passed higher, above her chignon, with the modesty of a beadle who refuses to defile his eyes by letting them rest on a hair of a sinner. She imagined that he knew everything, and she would have purchased his silence had she dared. Then feelings of uneasiness took possession of her, she experienced a kind of confused respect when she met Baptiste, and said to herself that all the honesty of her household had withdrawn and hidden itself under this lackey's dress-coat.

One day she asked Céleste:

"Does Baptiste joke in the servants' hall? Do you know if he has had any adventure, if he has any mistress?"

"What a question!" was all the maid replied.

"Come, he must have paid you some attentions?"

"Why! he never looks at women. We barely see him. He is always in master's rooms or in the stables. He says that he is very fond of horses."

Renée was irritated by this respectability, for she would have liked to be able to despise her servants. Although she had taken a liking to Céleste, she would have rejoiced to learn that she was someone's mistress.

"But you, Céleste," she continued, "don't you think that Baptiste is a good-looking fellow?"

"I, madame!" cried the chambermaid with the stupefied air of a person who has just heard something prodigious. "Oh! I've very different ideas in my head. I don't want a man. I've my plan. You will see later on. I'm not a fool, no."

Renée could not draw anything more precise from her. Moreover, her worries were growing. Her noisy life, her mad rambles, met with numerous obstacles which she had to overcome, and against which she at times bruised herself. It was thus that Louise de Mareuil rose up one day between herself and Maxime. Renée was not jealous of the "hunchback," as she disdainfully called her; she knew her to be condemned by the doctors, and could not believe that Maxime would ever marry such an ugly chit, even at the price of a dowry of a million. In her fall she had retained a middle-class naivete respecting the people around her; although she despised herself, she readily believed that they were superior and very estimable. But whilst rejecting the possibility of a marriage which would have seemed to her a piece of sinister debauchery and a theft, she suffered from the young folks' familiarities and friendliness. When she spoke of Louise to Maxime, he laughed with satisfaction, he repeated the child's sayings to her, and said:

"The urchin calls me her little man, you know."

And he displayed such freedom of mind that she did not dare to tell him that this urchin was seventeen, and that their playfulness with their hands, and their eagerness when they met in drawing-rooms to find out some shady corner to poke fun at everybody, grieved her and spoilt her most pleasant evenings.

An incident occurred which imparted a strange character to the situation. Renée often felt the need of acting boastingly, and she had whims of brutal boldness. She dragged Maxime behind a curtain, behind a door, and kissed him at the risk of being seen. One Thursday evening, when the buttercup drawing-room was full of people, she was seized with the fine idea of calling the young fellow who was talking with Louise, she advanced from the depths of the conservatory where she was to meet him, and abruptly kissed him on the mouth between two clumps of shrubbery, thinking that she was sufficiently concealed. But Louise had followed Maxime, and when the lovers raised their heads, they saw her a few paces off, looking at them with a strange smile, without the least blush or astonishment, but with the quiet friendly air of a companion in vice, who is learned enough to understand and appreciate such a kiss.

Maxime felt really frightened that day, and it was Renée who showed herself indifferent and almost joyful. It was all over. It was now impossible for the hunchback to take her lover from her. She thought:

"I ought to have done it on purpose. She now knows that her 'little man' belongs to me."

Maxime felt reassured when he again found Louise as gay and as funny as before. He considered her to be "very acute and a very good-natured girl." And that was all.

There was good reason, however, for Renée to be disturbed. For some little time past Saccard had been thinking of his son's marriage with Mademoiselle de Mareuil. There was a dowry of a million francs to be had, which he did not wish to let escape, meaning to get his hands into this money later on. As Louise remained in bed during nearly three weeks at the beginning of the winter, he was so afraid of seeing her die before the projected union was accomplished, that he decided the children should marry at once. He certainly thought them rather young; but the doctors feared the month of March for the consumptive girl. Monsieur de Mareuil on his side was in a delicate position. He had eventually succeeded in getting himself returned as a deputy at the last poll. Only the Corps Législatif had just quashed his election, which had provoked a great scandal when the Chamber deliberated on the validity of the returns. This election was quite a heroi-comical poem, on which the newspapers lived for a whole month. Monsieur Hupel de la Noue, the prefect of the department, had displayed such vigour that the other candidates had not even been able either to placard their addresses to the electors, or to distribute their voting papers. At his advice, Monsieur de Mareuil covered the constituency with tables at which the peasants ate and drank for a week. He, moreover, promised a railway line, the erection of a bridge and three churches, and on the eve of the poll he forwarded to the influential electors the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, two large engravings covered with glass and set in gold frames. This gift met with tremendous success, and the majority in Monsieur de Mareuil's favour was overwhelming. But when the Chamber, in presence of the bursts of laughter which came from all France, found itself compelled to send Monsieur de Mareuil back to his electors, the minister flew into a terrible passion with the prefect and the unfortunate candidate who had really shown themselves too "zealous." He even spoke of choosing someone else as the official candidate. Monsieur de Mareuil was terrified, he had spent three hundred thousand francs in the department, he owned there some large estates where he felt bored, and which he would have to sell at a loss. So he came to beg his dear colleague to appease his brother, and to promise him in his name a most properly conducted election. It was on this occasion that Saccard again spoke of the children's marriage and that the two fathers finally decided upon it.

When Maxime was sounded on the subject he felt embarrassed. Louise amused him, and the dowry tempted him still more. He said yes, he accepted all the dates that Saccard named to avoid the worry of a discussion. But, at heart, he owned to himself that matters would unfortunately not be arranged with such charming facility. Renée would never consent, she would cry, she would upbraid him, she was capable of provoking some great scandal to astonish Paris. It was very disagreeable. She now frightened him. She watched him with alarming eyes, and she possessed him so despotically that he thought he could feel claws digging into his shoulder whenever she laid her white hand on it. Her turbulence became roughness, and there was a cracked sound in the depths of her laughter. He really feared that she would go mad one night in his arms. With her, remorse, fear of being surprised, the cruel joys of adultery did not manifest themselves as with other women, by tears and dejection, but by greater extravagance, and a more irresistible longing for noise. And amid her growing affrightment one began to hear a rattling, the derangement of this adorable, astonishing machine which was breaking up.

Maxime passively awaited an occasion which would rid him of this troublesome mistress. He again said that they had been very stupid. If their comradeship had at first lent additional voluptuousness to their love, it now prevented him from breaking off as he would certainly have done from any other woman. He would not have returned; that was his mode of bringing his amours to a finish so as to avoid any effort or any quarrel. But he felt himself incapable of a row, and he still even willingly forgot himself in Renée's embraces; she behaved maternally, she paid his expenses, and she would pull him out of embarrassment if any creditors became angry. Then the thought of Louise, the thought of the dowry of a million of francs returned to him, and made him reflect--even amid the young woman's kisses--"that it was all very charming and nice, but that it wasn't serious and must come to an end."

One night Maxime was so rapidly stumped at the house of a woman where one often gambled till daylight, that he experienced one of those mute attacks of anger familiar to the gamester whose pockets are empty. He would have given everything in the world to have been able to fling a few more louis on the table. He took up his hat, and with the mechanical step of a man who is impelled by a fixed idea, he repaired to the Parc Monceaux, opened the little gate, and found himself in the conservatory. It was past midnight. Renée had forbidden him to come that night. When she now closed her door to him she did not even try to invent an explanation, while he merely thought of profiting of his holiday. He only clearly remembered the young woman's prohibition when he was in front of the glass door of the little drawing-room which was closed. As a rule when he was to come, Renée undid the fastening of this door in advance.

"Bah!" said he on seeing that the window of the dressing-room was lighted up, "I will whistle and she will come down. I sha'n't disturb her; if she has a few louis, I will go off at once."

And he whistled gently. He indeed often employed this signal to announce his arrival. But that evening he fruitlessly whistled several times. He grew obstinate, raising the key, and unwilling to abandon his idea of an immediate loan. At last he saw the glass door opened with infinite precaution and without his having heard the least sound of footsteps. In the dim light of the conservatory Renée appeared to him, with her hair down, and scarcely dressed, as if she were going to bed. She was barefooted. She pushed him towards one of the arbours, descending the steps and walking over the gravel of the pathways, without seeming to feel the cold or the roughness of the ground.

"It's stupid to whistle as loud as that," she muttered with restrained anger. "I told you not to come. What do you want with me?"

"Eh? Let's go up," said Maxime, surprised by this reception. "I will tell you upstairs. You will catch cold here."

But as he stepped forward she held him back and he then perceived that she was horribly pale. Mute fright bent her form. Her clothes, the lace of her linen, hung down like tragic shreds upon her shuddering skin.

He examined her with growing astonishment:

"What is the matter with you? You are ill?"

And instinctively he raised his eyes and looked through the glass panes of the conservatory at the window of the dressing-room where he had seen a light.

"But there's a man in your room," he said suddenly.

"No, no, it isn't true," she stammered, supplicating, distracted.

"Pooh, my dear, I see his shadow."

Then, for a minute they remained there face to face, not knowing what to say to each other. Renée's teeth chattered with terror, and it seemed to her as if some one were throwing bucketsful of iced water over her bare feet. Maxime experienced more irritation than he would have believed; but he still remained sufficiently possessed to reflect, and say to himself that the occasion was a good one, and that he would now break off the connection.

"You won't make me believe that Céleste wears a coat," he continued. "If the glass panes of the conservatory were not so thick I should perhaps recognize the gentleman."

She pushed him deeper into the shadow of the foliage, saying, with her hands clasped, and seized with growing terror:

"I beg of you, Maxime--"

But all the young fellow's teasing faculties were aroused, a ferocious malice which sought for vengeance. He was too weak to ease himself by anger. Spite compressed his lips; and, instead of striking her, as he had at first had the impulse of doing, he sharpened his voice and rejoined:

"You ought to have told me of it, I shouldn't have come to disturb you--It happens every day that one no longer cares for one another. I myself was beginning to have enough of it--Come, don't be impatient. I will let you go up again; but not before you have told me the gentleman's name--"

"Never, never!" murmured the young woman, forcing back her tears.

"It isn't to call him out, it's to know--The name, tell me the name, quick, and off I go."

He had caught hold of her wrists and he looked at her, laughing his wicked laugh. She struggled, distracted, bent upon not opening her lips again, so that the name he asked for might not escape from them.

"We shall make a noise, you will be nicely placed then. Why are you frightened? Aren't we good friends? I want to know who replaces me, it's legitimate--Come, I will help you--It's Monsieur de Mussy whose grief has touched you."

She did not answer. She bowed her head beneath such an interrogatory.

"It isn't Monsieur de Mussy? The Duke de Rozan, then? Really, nor he either? Perhaps the Count de Chibray? Not even he?"

He stopped short, he reflected.

"The devil, I can't think of any one else. It can't be my father after what you told me--"

Renée quivered as if she had been burnt, and said huskily:

"No. You know very well that he no longer comes. I shouldn't accept, it would be ignoble."

"Then who is it?"

And he pressed her wrists still more tightly. The poor woman struggled for a few moments longer.

"Oh, Maxime, if you knew! I can't, however, tell you--"

Then conquered, crushed, looking with affright at the lighted window: "It is Monsieur de Saffré," she stammered in a very low voice.

Maxime, whom the cruel game had amused, turned extremely pale on hearing this confession which he had asked for so persistently. He was irritated by the unexpected pain which this man's name caused him. He violently threw back Renée's wrists, drawing near to her, and saying to her full in the face, and with clinched teeth:

"Well, do you want to know you are a ----!"

He said the word. And he was going off, when she hastened to him, sobbing, taking him in her arms, murmuring tender things, requests for pardon, swearing that she still adored him, and that she would explain everything to him on the morrow. But he disengaged himself, and banged the door of the conservatory, replying:

"No! all's over, I've had quite enough of it."

She remained crushed. She watched him crossing the garden. It seemed to her that the trees of the conservatory revolved round her. Then she slowly dragged her bare feet over the gravel of the pathways, she reascended the steps, her skin discoloured by the cold, and more tragical than ever amid the disorder of her lace. Upstairs she answered, in reply to the questions of her husband who was waiting for her, that she had thought she could recollect where she had dropped a little note-book she had lost since the morning. And when she was in bed, she suddenly felt immense despair on reflecting that she ought to have told Maxime that his father, after returning home with her, had followed her into her room to talk to her about some money matter.

It was on the morrow that Saccard decided to hasten the finish of the Charonne matter. His wife belonged to him; he had just felt her, soft and inert in his hands, like something that surrenders itself. On the other hand, the line which the Boulevard du Prince Eugène was to follow was about to be decided upon, and it was necessary that Renée should be despoiled before the approaching expropriation was noised about. Saccard displayed an artist's love in all this affair; it was with devotion that he watched his plan ripen, and he set his traps with the refinement of a sportsman who prides himself on capturing his game in skilful fashion. He felt the satisfaction of an expert gamester, of a man who derives a special enjoyment from stolen gain; he wished to obtain the ground for a crust of bread, and then to give his wife a hundred thousand francs' worth of jewellery, amid the joy of the triumph. The simplest operations grew complicated, became black dramas, as soon as he dealt with them; he became impassioned, he would have beaten his father for five francs. But afterwards he scattered gold in regal fashion. However, before obtaining from Renée the cession of her share in the property, he prudently went to probe Larsonneau as to the black-mailing intentions which he had scented in him. His instinct saved him on this occasion. The expropriation agent had imagined, on his side, that the fruit was ripe and that he could pluck it. When Saccard entered the office in the Rue de Rivoli he found his compeer overcome, and showing signs of the most violent despair.

"Ah! my friend," murmured Larsonneau, taking hold of his hands, "we are lost. I was about to hasten to your place so that we might consult together and get out of this horrible scrape."

While he wrung his arms and tried to sob, Saccard noticed that he had been engaged in signing letters prior to his arrival, and that the signatures were penned with admirable precision. He accordingly looked at him quietly, saying:

"Bah! what has befallen us then?"

But the agent did not reply at once; he had thrown himself into his arm-chair in front of his writing table, and there, with his elbows on the blotting pad and his brow between his hands, he furiously shook his head. Finally in a husky voice:

"I have been robbed of the ledger containing the inventory, you know."

And he related that one of his clerks, a scamp worthy of the galleys, had abstracted a large number of papers among which the famous inventory figured. The worst was that the thief had realized to what use he might turn the document in question, and he wished to sell it back for a hundred thousand francs.

Saccard reflected. The story seemed to him altogether too clumsy. Plainly enough Larsonneau did not much care at heart whether he was believed or not. He sought for a simple pretext to make Saccard understand that he wanted a hundred thousand francs in the Charonne affair; and indeed, that he would, on this condition, return the compromising papers which were in his possession. The bargain seemed too onerous to Saccard. He would willingly have allowed his ex-colleague a share, but he was irritated by the setting of this snare, by this pretension to make a dupe of him. On the other hand he was not without his apprehensions; he knew the personage he had to deal with, he knew that he was quite capable of taking the documents to his brother, the minister, who would certainly have paid a price for them so as to stifle any scandal.

"The devil!" he muttered, sitting down in his turn, "this is a nasty story. And can one see the scamp in question?"

"I will have him sent for," said Larsonneau. "He lives close by, in the Rue Jean-Lantier."

Ten minutes had not elapsed when a little young fellow with a squint, light hair, and a face covered with freckles, stepped softly into the room, taking care that the door should not make a noise. He wore an old black frock coat, too large for him and horribly threadbare. He remained standing at a respectful distance, quietly looking at Saccard out of the corner of his eye. Larsonneau, who called him Baptistin, made him undergo an interrogatory, to which he replied in monosyllables without humbling himself the least in the world; indeed he accepted with the utmost indifference the epithets of thief, swindler and scoundrel, which his master thought fit to adjoin to each of his questions.

Saccard admired this wretched fellow's coolness. At one moment the expropriation agent sprang from his arm-chair as if to strike him; and he contented himself with retreating a step, squinting with still more humility.

"That will do, leave him alone," said the financier. "And so, sir, you demand a hundred thousand francs for the papers."

"Yes, a hundred thousand francs," replied the young man.

And he went off. Larsonneau seemed unable to calm himself.

"What a blackguard, eh?" he stammered. "Did you see his underhand looks? Fellows of that stamp have a timid air, but they would murder a man for twenty francs."

Saccard however interrupted him, saying:

"Pooh! he isn't terrible. I think one will be able to arrange matters with him--I came to see you about a much more worrying affair--You were right in mistrusting my wife, my dear friend. Just fancy, she's going to sell her share of the property to Monsieur Haffner. She needs money, she says. Her friend Suzanne must have influenced her."

The other abruptly ceased despairing; he listened, rather pale, readjusting his stick-up collar, which had become bent during his fit of anger.

"This sale," continued Saccard, "means the ruin of our hopes. If Monsieur Haffner becomes your fellow-partner, not only will our profits be compromised, but I am dreadfully afraid that we shall find ourselves in a most disagreeable position towards that over-scrupulous fellow, who will want to go over the accounts."

The expropriation agent began walking about with an agitated step, his patent leather boots creaking on the carpet.

"You see," muttered he, "in what a position one puts oneself to oblige people! But, my dear fellow, if I were in your place, I should absolutely prevent my wife from doing anything so foolish. I would beat her sooner."

"Ah! my friend!" said the financier with a wily smile, "I have no more power over my wife than you seem to have over that blackguard of a Baptistin."

Larsonneau stopped short in front of Saccard, who was still smiling, and gazed at him with a profound air. Then he resumed walking up and down, but with a slow measured step. He approached a looking glass, pulled up the bow of his necktie, and then walked on again, regaining his usual elegant manner. And suddenly:

"Baptistin!" he cried.

The little young fellow who squinted came in, but by another door. He no longer carried his hat, but twisted a pen between his fingers.

"Go and fetch the ledger," said Larsonneau to him.

And when the clerk was no longer there, the agent discussed the sum that was to be given him.

"Do it for me," he ended by plainly saying.

Thereupon Saccard consented to give thirty thousand francs out of the future profits of the Charonne affair. He considered that he still escaped cheaply from the usurer's gloved hand. The latter had the promise made out in his name, prolonging the comedy to the end, and stating that he would be accountable to the young man for the thirty thousand francs. It was with a laugh of relief that Saccard burnt the ledger page by page at the fire flaming in the grate. Then, this operation over, he exchanged vigorous hand shakes with Larsonneau, and left him saying:

"You are going to Laure's this evening, aren't you? Wait for me there. I shall have arranged everything with my wife, I we will decide on our final plans."

Laure d'Aurigny, who often moved, then resided in a large apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann, in front of the Expiatory Chapel. She had just fixed one day a week to be at home, like a lady of real society. It was a manner of assembling on the same occasion, the men who saw her, one by one, during the week. Aristide Saccard triumphed on Tuesday evenings; he was the acknowledged protector; and he turned his head with a vague laugh whenever the mistress of the house betrayed him between two doors, by giving one of the gentlemen an appointment for the same night. When he remained there, the last of the set, he lit another cigar, talked business, and joked about the gentleman who was dancing attendance in the street, waiting until he left; then after calling Laure his "dear child," and giving her a little pat on the cheek, he quietly went off by one door while the gentleman came in by another. The secret treaty of alliance which had consolidated Saccard's credit and procured the d'Aurigny two sets of furniture in a month, still continued to amuse them. But Laure wanted a finish to the comedy. This finish, a predetermined one, was to consist in a public rupture, to the profit of some fool who would pay dearly for the right of being the serious protector, known as such to all Paris. The fool was found. The Duke de Rozan, tired of uselessly boring the women of the same social standing as himself, dreamt of acquiring the reputation of a debauchee, so as to lend some relief to his insipid personality. He was very assiduous at the Tuesday at homes of Laure, whom he had conquered by his absolute simplicity. Unfortunately, although thirty-five years old, he was still dependent upon his mother, to such a point that he could at the most dispose of merely ten louis at a time. On the evenings when Laure deigned to take his ten louis, pitying herself, and talking of the hundred thousand francs she needed, he sighed, and promised her the amount on the day when he would be the master. It was then that she had the idea of putting him on friendly terms with Larsonneau, who was one of her good friends. The two men went to lunch together at Tortoni's; and at dessert Larsonneau, while relating his amours with a delicious Spanish beauty, pretended that he knew some money-lenders; but he strongly advised Rozan never to let himself pass into their hands. This confidential announcement inflamed the duke, who ended by wringing from his dear friend a promise that he would occupy himself about his "little affair." He occupied himself about it so well that he was to bring the money on the very evening that Saccard was to meet him at Laure's.

When Larsonneau arrived, the d'Aurigny's large white and gold drawing-room only contained some five or six women, who took hold of his hands, and clung to his neck with a furious outburst of affection. They called him "that big Lar!" a caressing nickname which Laure had invented. And he in a fluty voice exclaimed:

"There, that'll do, my little kittens; you will crush my hat."

They calmed down, and gathered close around him on a couch, while he told them about an attack of indigestion which had befallen Sylvia, with whom he had supped the night before. Then drawing a sweetmeat box from the pocket of his dress-coat he offered them some burnt almonds. Meanwhile, Laure came out of her bedroom, and as several gentlemen arrived, she drew Larsonneau into a boudoir situated at one end of the drawing-room, from which it was separated by double hangings.

"Have you got the money?" she asked him when they were alone.

Larsonneau, without replying, bowed in a jocular manner and tapped the inner pocket of his coat.

"Oh! you big Lar!" murmured the delighted young woman.

She took him round the waist and kissed him.

"Wait a bit," she said, "I want the flimsies--Rozan is in my room, I will go and fetch him."

But he detained her, and, in his turn, kissing her shoulders:

"You know what commission I asked of _you_."

"Why, yes, you big stupid, it's agreed."

She came back bringing Rozan. Larsonneau was dressed more correctly than the duke, with better fitting gloves, and a more artistic bow to his necktie. They negligently touched hands, and talked about the races of two days before, at which one of their friends had had a horse beaten. Laure stamped impatiently.

"Come, never mind all that, my darling," said she to Rozan. "Big Lar has the money, you know. The affair had better be settled."

Larsonneau pretended to remember.

"Ah, yes, it's true," he said, "I have the amount--But how much better you would have done had you listened to me, my dear fellow! To think that these rogues demanded fifty per cent of me. However I agreed to it all the same, as you told me that it didn't matter."

Laure d'Aurigny had procured some bill stamps during the day. But when it was a question of a pen and an inkstand, she looked at the two men with an air of consternation, doubting whether these objects would be found in the place. She wanted to go and look in the kitchen, when Larsonneau drew from his pocket, the pocket containing the sweetmeat box, two marvels, a silver pen-holder which lengthened by means of a screw, and a steel and ebony inkstand, of jewel-like finish and delicacy. And as Rozan sat down:

"Draw the notes to my name," the agent said. "I didn't wish to compromise you, you understand? We will arrange matters together. Six notes of twenty-five thousand francs each, eh?"

Laure counted the flimsies on a corner of the table. Rozan did not even see them. When he had signed and raised his head, they had already disappeared in the young woman's pocket. However she came to him and kissed him on both cheeks, which appeared to delight him. Larsonneau looked at them philosophically while folding the promissory notes, and replacing the inkstand and pen-holder in his pocket.

The young woman still had her arms round Rozan's neck, when Aristide Saccard raised a corner of the door-hanging.

"Well, don't disturb yourselves," he said, laughing.

The duke blushed. But Laure went to shake the financier's hand, exchanging a wink of intelligence with him. She was radiant.

"It's done, my dear," said she. "I warned you of it. You are not too angry with me?"

Saccard shrugged his shoulders with a good-natured air. He pulled back the hanging, and drawing aside to allow Laure and the duke to pass, he cried out in an usher's yelping voice:

"The duke, the duchess!"

This witticism met with tremendous success. On the morrow the newspapers repeated it, plainly naming Laure d'Aurigny, and designating the two men, by extremely transparent initials. The rupture between Aristide Saccard and fat Laure, caused even more of a stir than their pretended amours had done.

Saccard had let the door curtain fall again amid the burst of gaiety which his jocularity had occasioned in the drawing-room.

"Ah! what a good girl!" said he, turning towards Larsonneau. "She is vicious! It's you, you scamp, who no doubt profits by all this. What are you to have?"

But the agent protested, with smiles, and pulled down his shirt-cuffs, which had caught up under the sleeves of his coat. At last he went and sat down near the door, on a couch to which Saccard motioned him:

"Come here, I don't want to confess you, dash it all! Let us now deal with serious matters, my dear fellow. I have had a long talk with my wife this evening. Everything is decided."

"She consents to cede her share in the property?" asked Larsonneau.

"Yes, but it wasn't without trouble on my part--Women are so obstinate! My wife, you know, had promised an old aunt not to sell the ground. There was no end to her scruples. Luckily, however, I had prepared quite a decisive story."

He rose up to light a cigar at the candelabrum which Laure had left on the table, and returning and stretching himself languidly on the couch:

"I told my wife," he continued, "that you were completely ruined--You had gambled at the Bourse, spent your money with harlots, dabbled in bad speculations; in fact you are on the point of ending by a frightful bankruptcy--I even let it be understood that I did not consider you perfectly honest--Then I explained to her that the Charonne affair would be wrecked in your fall, and that the best course would be for her to accept the proposal you had made to me to disengage her, by buying her share, for a crust of bread, it's true."

"It isn't an able story," muttered the expropriation agent. "Do you fancy your wife will believe such trash?"

Saccard smiled. He was in a disposition to be communicative.

"You are simple, my dear fellow," he resumed. "The basis of the story is of little consequence; the details, gestures and tone of voice are everything. Call Rozan and I bet I will persuade him that it is broad daylight. My wife has scarcely any more brains than Rozan--I let her have a glimpse of a precipice. She hasn't the least idea of the coming expropriation. As she was astonished, that in the midst of a catastrophe, you could think of taking a still heavier burden on your shoulders, I told her that no doubt she hampered you in dealing some ugly blow intended for your creditors. Finally, I advised the transaction as the only means of avoiding being mixed up in interminable law suits, and of deriving some money from the ground."

Larsonneau still considered the story somewhat brutal. His method was less dramatic; each of his operations was concocted and unravelled with the elegance of a drawing-room comedy.

"I should have imagined something different," he said. "However, everyone his own system. So all we have to do now is to pay--"

"It is on this point," replied Saccard, "that I want to make arrangements with you. To-morrow I will take the deed of sale to my wife, and she will simply have to send you this deed to receive the stipulated amount. I prefer to avoid any interview."

He had indeed never allowed Larsonneau to visit them on a footing of intimacy. He did not invite him to his entertainments, and he accompanied him to Renée's on the days when it was absolutely necessary that they should meet; this had happened on three occasions at the utmost. He almost always transacted matters with a power of attorney from his wife, not wishing to let her see too closely into his affairs.

He now opened his pocket-book, adding:

"Here are the two hundred thousand francs' worth of bills accepted by my wife; you will give them her in payment, and you will add to them a hundred thousand francs which I will bring you to-morrow morning. I am bleeding myself, my dear friend. This business will cost me a fortune."

"But that will only make three hundred thousand francs," remarked the expropriation agent. "Will the receipt be for that amount?"

"A receipt for three hundred thousand francs!" rejoined Saccard, laughing. "Ah! in that case we should be nicely placed later on! According to our inventories, the property must now be estimated at two millions five hundred thousand francs. The receipt will naturally be for half that amount."

"Your wife will never sign it."

"Yes, she will. I tell you that it is all agreed. Why, dash it all! I told her that that was your first condition. You present a pistol at our heads with your bankruptcy, do you understand? And it was for that reason that I appeared to doubt your honesty, and accused you of wanting to dupe your creditors. Do you think my wife understands anything of all that?"

Larsonneau shook his head, muttering:

"No matter, you ought to have devised something simpler."

"But my story is simplicity itself!" said Saccard, very much astonished. "How the devil do you find it complicated?"

He was not conscious of the incredible number of devices which he tacked on to the most ordinary transaction. He derived real enjoyment from the cock-and-bull story which he had just told Renée; and what delighted him was the impudence of the lie, the piling up of impossibilities, the astonishing complicacy of the plot. He would long since have had the ground if he had not imagined all this drama; but he would have experienced less enjoyment had he obtained it easily. Besides, he displayed the utmost simplicity in making the Charonne speculation quite a financial melodrama.

He rose up, and taking Larsonneau's arm, walked towards the drawing-room:

"You have perfectly understood me, eh?" he said. "Content yourself with following my instructions, and you will applaud me later on. Do you know, my dear fellow, you do wrong to wear yellow gloves, they quite spoil your hands."

The expropriation agent contented himself with smiling and murmuring:

"Oh! gloves have their value, dear master: one can touch anything without dirtying oneself."

As they returned into the drawing-room, Saccard was surprised and somewhat alarmed to find Maxime on the other side of the door curtains. He was seated on a couch beside a fair-haired woman, who was telling him, in a monotonous voice, a long story, no doubt her own. The young fellow had, in point of fact, overheard the conversation between his father and Larsonneau. The two accomplices seemed to him to be a pair of sharp blades. Still vexed by Renée's betrayal, he tasted a cowardly enjoyment in learning the theft of which she was about to be the victim. It avenged him a little. His father came and shook his hand with a suspicious air; but Maxime, showing him the fair-haired woman, whispered in his ear:

"She isn't bad looking, is she? I mean to have her this evening."

Thereupon Saccard attitudinized, and showed himself gallant. Laure d'Aurigny came and joined them for a moment. She complained that Maxime scarcely paid her one visit a month. But he pretended that he had been very much occupied, which statement made everybody laugh. He added that in future he should be here, there and everywhere.