“SUPERB!”
“A tremendous success! Barye has never done anything so good before.”
“And the bust of the Nabob! What a marvel. How happy Constance Crenmitz is! Look at her trotting about!”
“What! That little old lady in the ermine cape is the Crenmitz? I thought she had been dead twenty years ago.”
Oh, no! Very much alive, on the contrary. Delighted, made young again by the triumph of her goddaughter, who had made what is decidedly the success of the exhibition, she passes about among the crowd of artists and fashionable people, who, wedged together and stifling themselves in order to get a look at the two points where the works sent by Felicia are exhibited, form as it were two solid masses of black backs and jumbled dresses. Constance, ordinarily so timid, edges her way into the front rank, listens to the discussions, catches, as they fly, disjointed phrases, formulas which she takes care to remember, approves with a nod, smiles, raises her shoulders when she hears a stupid remark made, inclined to murder the first person who should not admire.
Whether it be the good Crenmitz or another, you will always see it at every opening of theSalon, that furtive silhouette, prowling near wherever a conversation is going on, with an anxious manner and alert ear; sometimes a simple old fellow, some father, whose glance thanks you for any kind word said in passing, or assumes a grieved expression by reason of some epigram, flung at the work of art, that may wound some heart behind you. A figure not to be forgotten, certainly, if ever it should occur to any painter with a passion for modernity to fix on canvas that very typical manifestation of Parisian life, the opening of an exhibition in that vast conservatory of sculpture, with its paths of yellow sand, and its immense glass roof beneath which, half-way up, stand out the galleries of the first floor, lined by heads bent over to look down, and decorated with improvised flowing draperies.
In a rather cold light, made pallid by those green curtains that hang all around, in which one would fancy that the light-rays become rarefied, in order to give to the vision of the people walking about the room a certain contemplative justice, the slow crowd goes and comes, pauses, disperses itself over the seats in serried groups, and yet mixing up different sections of society more thoroughly than any other assembly, just as the weather, uncertain and changeable at this time of the year, produces a confusion in the world of clothes, causes to brush each other as they pass, the black laces, the imperious train of the great lady come to see how her portrait looks, and the Siberian furs of the actress just back from Russia and anxious that everybody should know it.
Here, no boxes, no stalls, no reserved seats, and it is this that gives to thispremierein full daylight so great a charm of curiosity. Genuine ladies of fashion are able to form an opinion of those painted beauties who receive so much commendation in an artificial light; the little hat, following a new mode of the Marquise de Bois l’Hery, confronts the more than modest toilette of some artist’s wife or daughter; while the model who posed for that beautiful Andromeda at the entrance, goes by victoriously, clad in too short a skirt, in wretched garments that hide her beauty beneath all the false lines of fashion. People observe, admire, criticise each other, exchange glances contemptuous, disdainful, or curious, interrupted suddenly at the passage of a celebrity, of that illustrious critic whom we seem still to see, tranquil and majestic, his powerful head framed in its long hair, making the round of the exhibits in sculpture followed by a dozen young disciples eager to hear the verdict of his kindly authority. If the sound of voices is lost beneath that immense dome, sonorous only under the two vaults of the entrance and the exit, faces take on there an astonishing intensity, a relief of movement and animation concentrated especially in the huge, dark bay where refreshments are served, crowded to overflowing and full of gesticulation, the brightly coloured hats of the women and the white aprons of the waiters gleaming against the background of dark clothes, and in the great space in the middle where the oval swarming with visitors makes a singular contrast with the immobility of the exhibited statues, producing the insensible palpitation with which their marble whiteness and their movements as of apotheosis are surrounded.
There are wings poised in giant flight, a sphere supported by four allegorical figures whose attitude of turning suggests some vague waltz-measure—a total effect of equilibrium well conveying the illusion of the sweeping onward of the earth; and there are arms raised to give the signal, bodies heroically risen, containing an allegory, a symbol which stamps them with death and immortality, secures to them a place in history, in legend, in that ideal world of museums which is visited by the curiosity or the admiration of the nations.
Although Felicia’s group in bronze had not the proportions of these large pieces, its exceptional merit had caused it to be selected to adorn one of the open spaces in the middle, from which at this moment the public was holding itself at a respectful distance, watching, over the hedge of custodians and policemen, the Bey of Tunis and his suite, an array of long bernouses falling in sculptural folds, which had the effect of placing living statues opposite the other ones.
The Bey, who had been in Paris since a few days before, and was the lion of all thepremieres, had desired to see the opening of the exhibition. He was “an enlightened prince, a friend of art,” who possessed at the Bardo a gallery of remarkable Turkish paintings and chromo-lithographic reproductions of all the battles of the First Empire. The moment he entered, the sight of the big Arab greyhound had struck him as he passed. It was thesleughiall over, the truesleughi, delicate and nervous, of his own country, the companion of all his hunting expeditions. He laughed in his black beard, felt the loins of the animal, stroked its muscles, seemed to want to urge it on still faster, while with nostrils open, teeth showing, all its limbs stretched out and unwearying in their vigorous elasticity, the aristocratic beast, the beast of prey, ardent in love and the chase, intoxicated with their double intoxication, its eyes fixed, was already enjoying a foretaste of its capture with a little end of its tongue which hung and seemed to sharpen the teeth with a ferocious laugh. When you only looked at the hound you said to yourself, “He has got him!” But the sight of the fox reassured you immediately. Beneath the velvet of his lustrous coat, cat-like almost lying along the ground, covering it rapidly without effort, you felt him to be a veritable fairy; and his delicate head with its pointed ears, which as he ran he turned towards the hound, had an expression of ironical security which clearly marked the gift received from the gods.
While an Inspector of Fine Arts, who had rushed up in all haste, with his official dress in disorder, and a head bald right down to his back, explained to Mohammed the apologue of “The Dog and the Fox,” related in the descriptive catalogue with these words inscribed beneath, “Now it happened that they met,” and the indication, “The property of the Duc de Mora,” the fat Hemerlingue, perspiring and puffing by his Highness’s side, had great difficulty to convince him that this masterly piece of sculpture was the work of the beautiful young lady whom they had encountered the previous evening riding in the Bois. How could a woman, with her feeble hands, thus mould the hard bronze, and give to it the very appearance of the living body? Of all the marvels of Paris, this was the one which caused the Bey the most astonishment. He inquired consequently from the functionary if there was nothing else to see by the same artist.
“Yes, indeed, monseigneur, another masterpiece. If your Highness will deign to step this way I will conduct you to it.”
The Bey commenced to move on again with his suite. They were all admirable types, with chiselled features and pure lines, warm pallors of complexion of which even the reflections were absorbed by the whiteness of theirhaiks. Magnificently draped, they contrasted with the busts ranged on either side of the aisle they were following, which, perched on their high columns, looking slender in the open air, exiled from their own home, from the surroundings in which doubtless they would have recalled severe labours, a tender affection, a busy and courageous existence, had the sad aspect of people gone astray in their path, and very regretful to find themselves in their present situation. Excepting two or three female heads, with opulent shoulders framed in petrified lace, and hair rendered in marble with that softness of touch which gives it the lightness of a powdered wig, excepting, too, a few profiles of children with their simple lines, in which the polish of the stone seems to resemble the moistness of the living flesh, all the rest were only wrinkles, crow’s-feet, shrivelled features and grimaces, our excesses in work and in movement, our nervousness and our feverishness, opposing themselves to that art of repose and of beautiful serenity.
The ugliness of the Nabob had at least energy in its favour, the vulgar side of him as an adventurer, and that expression of benevolence, so well rendered by the artist, who had taken care to underlay her plaster with a layer of ochre, which gave it almost the weather-beaten and sunburned tone of the model. The Arabs, when they saw it, uttered a stifled exclamation, “Bou-Said!” (the father of good fortune). This was the surname of the Nabob in Tunis, the label, as it were, of his luck. The Bey, for his part, thinking that some one had wished to play a trick on him in thus leading him to inspect the bust of the hated trader, regarded his guide with mistrust.
“Jansoulet?” said he in his guttural voice.
“Yes, Highness: Bernard Jansoulet, the new deputy for Corsica.”
This time the Bey turned to Hemerlingue, with a frown on his brow.
“Deputy?”
“Yes, monseigneur, since this morning; but nothing is yet settled.”
And the banker, raising his voice, added with a stutter:
“No French Chamber will ever admit that adventurer.”
No matter. The stroke had fallen on the blind faith of the Bey in his baron financier. The latter had so confidently affirmed to him that the other would never be elected and that their action with regard to him need not be fettered or in any way hampered by the least fear. And now, instead of a man ruined and overthrown, there rose before him a representative of the nation, a deputy whose portrait in stone the Parisians were coming to admire; for in the eyes of the Oriental, an idea of distinction being mingled in spite of everything with this public exhibition, that bust had the prestige of a statue dominating a square. Still more yellow than usual, Hemerlingue internally accused himself of clumsiness and imprudence. But how could he ever have dreamed of such a thing? He had been assured that the bust was not finished. And in fact it had been there only since morning, and seemed quite at home, quivering with satisfied pride, defying its enemies with the good-tempered smile of its curling lip. A veritable silent revenge for the disaster of Saint-Romans.
For some minutes the Bey, cold and impassible as the sculptured image, gazed at it without saying anything, his forehead divided by a straight crease wherein his courtiers alone could read his anger; then, after two quick words in Arabic, to order the carriages and to reassemble his scattered suite, he directed his steps gravely towards the door of exit, without consenting to give even a glance to anything else. Who shall say what passes in these august brains surfeited with power? Even our sovereigns of the West have incomprehensible fantasies; but they are nothing compared with Oriental caprices. Monsieur the Inspector of Fine Arts, who had made sure of taking his Highness all round the exhibition and of thus winning the pretty red-and-green ribbon of the Nicham-Iftikahr, never knew the secret of this sudden flight.
At the moment when the whitehaikswere disappearing under the porch, just in time to see the last wave of their folds, the Nabob made his entry by the middle door. In the morning he had received the news, “Elected by an overwhelming majority”; and after a sumptuous luncheon, at which the new deputy for Corsica had been extensively toasted, he came, with some of his guests, to show himself, to see himself also, to enjoy all his new glory.
The first person whom he saw as he arrived was Felicia Ruys, standing, leaning on the pedestal of a statue, surrounded by compliments and tributes of admiration, to which he made haste to add his own. She was simply dressed, clad in a black costume embroidered and trimmed with jet, tempering the severity of her attire with a glittering of reflected lights, and with a delightful little hat all made of downy plumes, the play of colour in which her hair, curled delicately on her forehead and drawn back to the neck in great waves, seemed to continue and to soften.
A crowd of artists and fashionable people were assiduous in their attentions to so great a genius allied to so much beauty; and Jenkins, bareheaded, and puffing with warm effusiveness, was going from one to the other, stimulating their enthusiasm but widening the circle around this young fame of which he constituted himself at once the guardian and the trumpeter. His wife during this time was talking to the young girl. Poor Mme. Jenkins! She had heard that savage voice, which she alone knew, say to her, “You must go and greet Felicia.” And she had gone to do so, controlling her emotion; for she knew now what it was that hid itself at the bottom of that paternal affection, although she avoided all discussion of it with the doctor, as if she had been fearful of the issue.
After Mme. Jenkins, it is the turn of the Nabob to rush up, and taking the artist’s two long, delicately-gloved hands between his fat paws, he expresses his gratitude with a cordiality which brings the tears to his own eyes.
“It is a great honour that you have done me, mademoiselle, to associate my name with yours, my humble person with your triumph, and to prove to all this vermin gnawing at my heels that you do not believe the calumnies which have been spread with regard to me. Yes, truly, I shall never forget it. In vain I may cover this magnificent bust with gold and diamonds, I shall still be your debtor.”
Fortunately for the good Nabob, with more feeling than eloquence, he is obliged to make way for all the others attracted by a dazzling talent, the personality in view; extravagant enthusiasms which, for want of words to express themselves, disappear as they come; the conventional admirations of society, moved by good-will, by a lively desire to please, but of which each word is a douche of cold water; and then the hearty hand-shakes of rivals, of comrades, some very frank, others that communicate to you the weakness of their grasp; the pretentious great booby, at whose idiotic eulogy you must appear to be transported with gladness, and who, lest he should spoil you too much, accompanies it with “a few little reserves,” and the other, who, while overwhelming you with compliments, demonstrates to you that you have not learned the first word of your profession; and the excellent busy fellow, who stops just long enough to whisper in your ear “that so-and-so, the famous critic, does not look very pleased.” Felicia listened to it all with the greatest calm, raised by her success above the littleness of envy, and quite proud when a glorious veteran, some old comrade of her father, threw to her a “You’ve done very well, little one!” which took her back to the past, to the little corner reserved for her in the old days in her father’s studio, when she was beginning to carve out a little glory for herself under the protection of the renown of the great Ruys. But, taken altogether, the congratulations left her rather cold, because there lacked one which she desired more than any other, and which she was surprised not to have yet received. Decidedly he was more often in her thoughts than any other man had ever been. Was it love at last, the great love which is so rare in an artist’s soul, incapable as that is of giving itself entirely up to the sway of sentiment, or was it perhaps simply a dream of honestbourgeoiselife, well sheltered againstennui, that spiritlessennui, the precursor of storms, which she had so much reason to dread? In any case, she was herself taken in by it, and had been living for some days past in a state of delicious trouble, for love is so strong, so beautiful a thing, that its semblances, its mirages, allure and can move us as deeply as itself.
Has it ever happened to you in the street, when you have been preoccupied with thoughts of some one dear to you, to be warned of his approach by meeting persons with a vague resemblance to him, preparatory images, sketches of the type to appear directly afterward, which stand out for you from the crowd like successive appeals to your overexcited attention? Such presentiments are magnetic and nervous impressions at which one should not be too disposed to smile, since they constitute a faculty of suffering. Already, in the moving and constantly renewed stream of visitors, Felicia had several times thought to recognise the curly head of Paul de Gery, when suddenly she uttered a cry of joy. It was not he, however, this time again, but some one who resembled him closely, whose regular and peaceful physiognomy was always now connected in her mind with that of her friend Paul through the effect of a likeness more moral than physical, and the gentle authority which both exercised over her thoughts.
“Aline!”
“Felicia!”
If nothing is more open to suspicion than the friendship of two fashionable ladies sharing the prerogatives of drawing-room royalty and lavishing on each other epithets, and the trivial graces of feminine fondness, the friendships of childhood keep in the grown woman a frankness of manner which distinguishes them, and makes them recognisable among all others, bonds woven naively and firm as the needlework of little girls in which an experienced hand had been prodigal of thread and big knots; plants reared in fresh soil, in flower, but with strong roots, full of vitality and new shoots. And what a joy, hand in hand—you glad dances of boarding-school days, where are you?—to retrace some steps of one’s way with somebody who has an equal acquaintance with it and its least incidents, and the same laugh of tender retrospection. A little apart, the two girls, for whom it has been sufficient to find themselves once more face to face to forget five years of separation, carry on a rapid exchange of recollections, while the littlepereJoyeuse, his ruddy face brightened by a new cravat, straightens himself in pride to see his daughter thus warmly welcomed by such an illustrious person. Proud certainly he had reason to be, for the little Parisian, even in the neighbourhood of her brilliant friend, holds her own in grace, youth, fair candour, beneath her twenty smooth and golden years, which the gladness of this meeting brings to fresh bloom.
“How happy you must be! For my part, I have seen nothing yet; but I hear everybody saying it is so beautiful.”
“Happy above all to see you again, little Aline. It is so long—”
“I should think so, you naughty girl! Whose the fault?”
And from the saddest corner of her memory, Felicia recalls the date of the breaking off of their relations, coinciding for her with another date on which her youth came to its end in an unforgettable scene.
“And what have you been doing, darling, all this time?”
“Oh, I, always the same thing—or, nothing to speak of.”
“Yes, yes, we know what you call doing nothing, you brave little thing! Giving your life to other people, isn’t it?”
But Aline was no longer listening. She was smiling affectionately to some one straight in front of her; and Felicia, turning round to see who it was, perceived Paul de Gery replying to the shy and tender greeting of Mlle. Joyeuse.
“You know each other, then?”
“Do I know M. Paul! I should think so, indeed. We talk of you very often. He has never told you, then?”
“Never. He must be a terribly sly fellow.”
She stopped short, her mind enlightened by a flash; and quickly without heed to de Gery, who was coming up to congratulate her on her triumph, she leaned over towards Aline and spoke to her in a low voice. That young lady blushed, protested with smiles and words under her breath: “How can you think of such a thing? At my age—a ‘grandmamma’!” and finally seized her father’s arm in order to escape some friendly teasing.
When Felicia saw the two young people going off together, when she had realized the fact, which they had not yet grasped themselves, that they were in love with each other, she felt as it were a crumbling all around her. Then upon her dream, now fallen to the ground in a thousand fragments, she set herself to stamp furiously. After all, he was quite right to prefer this little Aline to herself. Would an honest man ever dare to marry Mlle. Ruys? She, a home, a family—what nonsense! A harlot’s daughter you are, my dear; you must be a harlot too if you want to become anything at all.
The day wore on. The crowd, more active now that there were empty spaces here and there, commenced to stream towards the door of exit after great eddyings round the successes of the year, satisfied, rather tired, but excited still by that air charged with the electricity of art. A great flood of sunlight, such as sometimes occurs at four o’clock in the afternoon, fell on the stained-glass rose-window, threw on the sand tracks of rainbow-coloured lights, softly bathing the bronze or the marble of the statues, imparting an iridescent hue to the nudity of a beautiful figure, giving to the vast museum something of the luminous life of a garden. Felicia, absorbed in her deep and sad reverie, did not notice the man who advanced towards her, superb, elegant, fascinating, through the respectfully opened ranks of the public, while the name of “Mora” was everywhere whispered.
“Well, mademoiselle, you have made a splendid success. I only regret one thing about it, and that is the cruel symbol which you have hidden in your masterpiece.”
As she saw the duke before her, she shuddered.
“Ah, yes, the symbol,” she said, lifting her face towards his with a smile of discouragement; and leaning against the pedestal of the large, voluptuous statue near which they happened to be standing, with the closed eyes of a woman who gives or abandons herself, she murmured low, very low:
“Rabelais lied, as all men lie. The truth is that the fox is utterly wearied, that he is at the end of his breath and his courage, ready to fall into the ditch, and that if the greyhound makes another effort——”
Mora started, became a shade paler, all the blood he had in his body rushing back to his heart. Two sombre flames met with their eyes, two rapid words were exchanged by lips that hardly moved; then the duke bowed profoundly, and walked away with a step gay and light, as though the gods were bearing him.
At that moment there was in the palace only one man as happy as he, and that was the Nabob. Escorted by his friends, he occupied, quite filled up, the principal bay with his own party alone, speaking loudly, gesticulating, proud to such a degree that he looked almost handsome, as though by dint of naive and long contemplation of his bust he had been touched by something of the splendid idealization with which the artist had haloed the vulgarity of his type. The head, raised to the three-quarters position, standing freely out from the wide, loose collar, drew contradictory remarks on the resemblance from the passers-by; and the name of Jansoulet, so many times repeated by the electoral ballot-boxes, was repeated over again now by the prettiest mouths, by the most authoritative voices, in Paris. Any other than the Nabob would have been embarrassed to hear uttered, as he passed, these expressions of curiosity which were not always friendly. But the platform, the springing-board, well suited that nature which became bolder under the fire of glances, like those women who are beautiful or witty only in society, and whom the least admiration transfigures and completes.
When he felt this delirious joy growing calmer, when he thought to have drunk the whole of its proud intoxication, he had only to say to himself, “Deputy! I am a Deputy!” And the triumphal cup foamed once more to the brim. It meant the embargo raised from all his possessions, the awakening from a nightmare that had lasted two months, the puff of cool wind sweeping away all his anxieties, all his inquietudes, even to the affront of Saint-Romans, very heavy though that was in his memory.
Deputy!
He laughed to himself as he thought of the baron’s face when he learned the news, of the stupefaction of the Bey when he had been led up to his bust; and suddenly, upon the reflection that he was no longer merely an adventurer stuffed with gold, exciting the stupid admiration of the crowd, as might an enormous rough nugget in the window of a money-changer, but that people saw in him, as he passed, one of the men elected by the will of the nation, his simple and mobile face grew thoughtful with a deliberate gravity, there suggested themselves to him projects of a career, of reform, and the wish to profit by the lessons that had been latterly taught by destiny. Already, remembering the promise which he had given to de Gery, for the household troop that wriggled ignobly at his heels, he made exhibition of certain disdainful coldnesses, a deliberate pose of authoritative contradiction. He called the Marquis de Bois l’Hery “my good fellow,” imposed silence very sharply on the governor, whose enthusiasm was becoming scandalous, and made a solemn vow to himself to get rid as soon as possible of all that mendicant and promising Bohemian set, when he should have occasion to begin the process.
Penetrating the crowd which surrounded him, Moessard—the handsome Moessard, in a sky-blue cravat, pale and bloated like a white embodiment of disease, and pinched at the waist in a fine frock-coat—seeing that the Nabob, after having gone twenty times round the hall of sculpture, was making for the door, dashed forward, and passing his arm through his, said:
“You are taking me with you, you know.”
Especially of late, since the time of the election, he had assumed, in the establishment of the Place Vendome, an authority almost equal to that of Monpavon, but more impudent; for, in point of impudence, the Queen’s lover was without his equal on the pavement that stretches from the Rue Drouot to the Madeleine. This time he had gone too far. The muscular arm which he pressed was shaken violently, and the Nabob answered very dryly:
“I am sorry,mon cher, but I have not a place to offer you.”
No place in a carriage that was as big as a house, and which five of them had come in!
Moessard gazed at him in stupefaction.
“I had, however, a few words to say to you which are very urgent. With regard to the subject of my note—you received it, did you not?”
“Certainly; and M. de Gery should have sent you a reply this very morning. What you ask is impossible. Twenty thousand francs!Tonnerre de Dieu!You go at a fine rate!”
“Still, it seems to me that my services—” stammered the beauty-man.
“Have been amply paid for. That is how it seems to me also. Two hundred thousand francs in five months! We will draw the line there, if you please. Your teeth are long, young man; you will have to file them down a little.”
They exchanged these words as they walked, pushed forward by the surging wave of the people going out. Moessard stopped:
“That is your last word?”
The Nabob hesitated for a moment, seized by a presentiment as he looked at that pale, evil mouth; then he remembered the promise which he had given to his friend:
“That is my last word.”
“Very well! We shall see,” said the handsome Moessard, whose switch-cane cut the air with the hiss of a viper; and, turning on his heel, he made off with great strides, like a man who is expected somewhere on very urgent business.
Jansoulet continued his triumphal progress. That day much more would have been required to upset the equilibrium of his happiness; on the contrary, he felt himself relieved by the so-quickly achieved fulfilment of his purpose.
The immense vestibule was thronged by a dense crowd of people whom the approach of the hour of closing was bringing out, but whom one of those sudden showers, which seem inseparable from the opening of theSalon, kept waiting beneath the porch, with its floor beaten down and sandy like the entrance to the circus where the young dandies strut about. The scene that met the eye was curious, and very Parisian.
Outside, great rays of sunshine traversing the rain, attaching to its limpid beads those sharp and brilliant blades which justify the proverbial saying, “It rains halberds”; the young greenery of the Champs-Elysees, the clumps of rhododendrons, rustling and wet, the carriages ranged in the avenue, the mackintosh capes of the coachmen, all the splendid harness-trappings of the horses receiving from the rain and the sunbeams an added richness and effect, and blue everywhere looming out, the blue of a sky which is about to smile in the interval between two downpours.
Within, laughter, gossip, greetings, impatience, skirts held up, satins bulging out above the delicate folds of frills, of lace, of flounces gathered up in the hands of their wearers in heavy, terribly frayed bundles. Then, to unite the two sides of the picture, these prisoners framed in by the vaulted ceiling of the porch and in the gloom of its shadow, with the immense background in brilliant light, footmen running beneath umbrellas, crying out names of coachmen or of masters, broughams coming up at walking pace, and flustered couples getting into them.
“M. Jansoulet’s carriage!”
Everybody turned round, but, as one knows, that did not embarrass him. And while the good Nabob, waiting for his suite, stood posing a little amid these fashionable and famous people, this mixedtout Pariswhich was there, with its every face bearing a well-known name, a nervous and well-gloved hand was stretched out to him, and the Duc de Mora, on his way to his brougham, threw to him, as he passed, these words, with that effusion which happiness gives to the most reserved of men:
“My congratulations, my dear deputy.”
It was said in a loud voice, and every one could hear it: “My dear deputy.”
There is in the life of all men one golden hour, one luminous peak, whereon all that they can hope of prosperity, joy, triumph, waits for them and is given into their hands. The summit is more or less lofty, more or less rugged and difficult to climb, but it exists equally for all, for powerful and humble alike. Only, like that longest day of the year on which the sun has shone with its utmost brilliance, and of which the morrow seems a first step towards winter, thissummumof human existences is but a moment given to be enjoyed, after which one can but redescend. This late afternoon of the first of May, streaked with rain and sunshine, thou must forget it not, poor man—must fix forever its changing brilliance in thy memory. It was the hour of thy full summer, with its flowers in bloom, its fruits bending their golden boughs, its ripe harvests of which so recklessly thou wast plucking the corn. The star will now pale, gradually growing more remote and falling, incapable ere long of piercing the mournful night wherein thy destiny shall be accomplished.
Great festivities last Saturday in the Place Vendome. In honour of his election, M. Bernard Jansoulet, the new deputy for Corsica, gave a magnificent evening party, with municipal guards at the door, illumination of the entire mansion, and two thousand invitations sent out to fashionable Paris.
I owed to the distinction of my manners, to the sonority of my vocal organ, which the chairman of the board had had occasion to notice at the meetings at the Territorial Bank, the opportunity of taking part in this sumptuous entertainment, at which, for three hours, standing in the vestibule, amid the flowers and hangings, clad in scarlet and gold, with that majesty peculiar to persons who are rather generously built, and with my calves exposed for the first time in my life, I launched, like a cannon-ball, through the five communicating drawing-rooms, the name of each guest, which a glittering beadle saluted every time with the “bing” of his halberd on the floor.
How many the curious observations which that evening again I was able to make; how many the pleasant sallies, the high-toned jests exchanged among the servants upon all that world as it passed by! Not with the vine-dressers of Montbars in any case should I have heard such drolleries. I should remark that the worthy M. Barreau, to begin with, had caused to be served to us all in his pantry, filled to the ceiling with iced drinks and provisions, a solid lunch well washed down, which put each of us in a good humour that was maintained during the evening by the glasses of punch and champagne pilfered from the trays when dessert was served.
The masters, indeed, seemed in less joyous mood than we. So early as nine o’clock, when I arrived at my post, I was struck by the uneasy nervousness apparent on the face of the Nabob, whom I saw walking with M. de Gery through the lighted and empty drawing-rooms, talking quickly and making large gestures.
“I will kill him!” he said; “I will kill him!”
The other endeavoured to soothe him; then madame came in, and the subject of their conversation was changed.
A mighty fine woman, this Levantine, twice as stout as I am, dazzling to look at with her tiara of diamonds, the jewels with which her huge white shoulders were laden, her back as round as her bosom, her waist compressed within a cuirass of green gold, which was continued in long braids down the whole length of her stiff skirt. I have never seen anything so imposing, so rich. She suggested one of those beautiful white elephants that carry towers on their backs, of which we read in books of travel. When she walked, supporting herself with difficulty by means of clinging to the furniture, her whole body quivered, her ornaments clattered like a lot of old iron. Added to this, a small, very piercing voice, and a fine red face which a little negro boy kept cooling for her all the time with a white feather fan as big as a peacock’s tail.
It was the first time that this indolent and retiring person had showed herself to Parisian society, and M. Jansoulet seemed very happy and proud that she had been willing to preside over his party; which undertaking, for that matter, did not cost the lady much trouble, for, leaving her husband to receive the guests in the first drawing-room, she went and lay down on the divan of the small Japanese room, wedged between two piles of cushions, motionless, so that you could see her from a distance right in the background, looking like an idol, beneath the great fan which her negro waved regularly like a piece of clockwork. These foreign women possess an assurance!
All the same, the Nabob’s irritation had struck me, and seeing thevalet de chambrego by, descending the staircase four steps at a time, I caught him on the wing and whispered in his ear:
“What’s the matter, then, with your governor, M. Noel?”
“It is the article in theMessenger,” was his reply, and I had to give up the idea of learning anything further for the moment, the loud ringing of a bell announcing that the first carriage had arrived, followed soon by a crowd of others.
Wholly absorbed in my occupation, careful to utter clearly the names which were given to me, and to make them echo from salon to salon, I had no longer a thought for anything besides. It is no easy business to announce in a proper manner persons who are always under the impression that their name must be known, whisper it under their breath as they pass, and then are surprised to hear you murder it with the finest accent, and are almost angry with you on account of those entrances which, missing fire and greeted with little smiles, follow upon an ill-made announcement. At M. Jansoulet’s, what made the work still more difficult for me was the number of foreigners—Turks, Egyptians, Persians, Tunisians. I say nothing of the Corsicans, who were very numerous that day, because during my four years at the Territorial I have become accustomed to the pronunciation of those high-sounding, interminable names, always followed by that of the locality: “Paganetti de Porto Vecchio, Bastelica di Bonifacio, Paianatchi de Barbicaglia.”
It was always a pleasure to me to modulate these Italian syllables, to give them all their sonority, and I saw clearly, from the bewildered airs of these worthy islanders, how charmed and surprised they were to be introduced in such a manner into the high society of the Continent. But with the Turks, these pashas, beys, and effendis, I had much more trouble, and I must have happened often to fall on a wrong pronunciation; for M. Jansoulet, on two separate occasions, sent word to me to pay more attention to the names that were given to me, and especially to announce in a more natural manner. This remark, uttered aloud before the whole vestibule with a certain roughness, annoyed me greatly, and prevented me—shall I confess it?—from pitying this richparvenuwhen I learned, in the course of the evening, what cruel thorns lay concealed in his bed of roses.
From half past ten until midnight the bell was constantly ringing, carriages rolling up under the portico, guests succeeding one another, deputies, senators, councillors of state, municipal councillors, who looked much rather as though they were attending a meeting of shareholders than an evening-party of society people. What could account for this? I had not succeeded in finding an explanation, but a remark of the beadle Nicklauss opened my eyes.
“Do you notice, M. Passajon,” said that worthy henchman, as he stood opposite me, halberd in hand, “do you notice how few ladies we have?”
That was it, egad! Nor were we the only two to observe the fact. As each new arrival made his entry I could hear the Nabob, who was standing near the door, exclaim, with consternation in his thick voice like that of a Marseillais with a cold in his head:
“What! all alone?”
The guest would murmur his excuses. “Mn-mn-mn—his wife a trifle indisposed. Certainly very sorry.” Then another would arrive, and the same question call forth the same reply.
By its constant repetition this phrase “All alone?” had eventually become a jest in the vestibule; lackeys and footmen threw it at each other whenever there entered a new guest “all alone!” And we laughed and were put in good-humour by it. But M. Nicklauss, with his great experience of the world, deemed this almost general abstention of the fair sex unnatural.
“It must be the article in theMessenger,” said he.
Everybody was talking about it, this rascally article, and before the mirror garlanded with flowers, at which each guest gave a finishing touch to his attire before entering, I surprised fragments of whispered conversation such as this:
“You have read it?”
“It is horrible!”
“Do you think the thing possible?”
“I have no idea. In any case, I preferred not to bring my wife.”
“I have done the same. A man can go everywhere without compromising himself.”
“Certainly. While a woman——”
Then they would go in, opera hat under arm, with that conquering air of married men when they are unaccompanied by their wives.
What, then, could there be in this newspaper, this terrible article, to menace to this degree the influence of so wealthy a man? Unfortunately, my duties took up the whole of my time. I could go down neither to the pantry nor to the cloak-room to obtain information, to chat with the coachmen and valets and lackeys whom I could see standing at the foot of the staircase, amusing themselves by jests upon the people who were going up. What will you? Masters give themselves great airs also. How not laugh to see go by with an insolent manner and an empty stomach the Marquis and the Marquise de Bois l’Hery, after all that we have been told about the traffickings of Monsieur and the toilettes of Madame? And the Jenkins couple, so tender, so united, the doctor carefully putting a lace shawl over his lady’s shoulders for fear she should take cold on the staircase; she herself smiling and in full dress, all in velvet, with a great long train, leaning on her husband’s arm with an air that seems to say, “How happy I am!” when I happened to know that, in fact, since the death of the Irishwoman, his real, legitimate wife, the doctor is thinking of getting rid of the old woman who clings to him, in order to be able to marry a chit of a girl, and that the old woman passes her nights in lamentation, and in spoiling with tears whatever beauty she has left.
The humorous thing is that not one of these people had the least suspicion of the rich jests and jeers that were spat over their backs as they passed, not a notion of the filth which those long trains drew after them as they crossed the carpet of the antechamber, and they all would look at you so disdainfully that it was enough to make you die of laughing.
The two ladies whom I have just named, the wife of the governor, a little Corsican, to whom her bushy eyebrows, her white teeth, and her shining cheeks, dark beneath the skin, give the appearance of a woman of Auvergne with a washed face, a good sort, for the rest, and laughing all the time except when her husband is looking at other women; in addition, a few Levantines with tiaras of gold or pearls, less perfect specimens of the type than our own, but still in a similar style, wives of upholsterers, jewellers, regular tradesmen of the establishment, with shoulders as large as shop-fronts, and expensive toilettes; finally, sundry ladies, wives of officials of the Territorial, in sorry, badly creased dresses; these constituted the sole representation of the fair sex in the assembly, some thirty ladies lost among a thousand black coats—that is to say, practically none at all. From time to time Cassagne, Laporte, Grandvarlet, who were serving the refreshments in trays, stopped to inform us of what was passing in the drawing-rooms.
“Ah, my boys, if you could see it! it has a gloom, a melancholy. The men don’t stir from the buffets. The ladies are all at the back, seated in a circle, fanning themselves and saying nothing. The fat old lady does not speak to a soul. I fancy she is sulking. You should see the look on Monsieur! Come,perePassajon, a glass of Chateau-Larose; it will pick you up a bit.”
They were charmingly kind to me, all these young people, and took a mischievous pleasure in doing me the honours of the cellar so often and so copiously, that my tongue commenced to become heavy, uncertain, and as the young folk said to me, in their somewhat free language. “Uncle, you are babbling.” Happily the last of the effendis had just arrived, and there was nobody else to announce; for it was in vain that I sought to shake off the impression, every time I advanced between the curtains to send a name hurtling through the air at random, I saw the chandeliers of the drawing-rooms revolving with hundreds of dazzling lights, and the floors slipping away with sharp and perpendicular slopes like Russian mountains. I was bound to get my speech mixed, it is certain.
The cool night-air, sundry ablutions at the pump in the court-yard, quickly got the better of this small discomfort, and when I entered the cloak-room nothing of it was any longer apparent. I found a numerous and gay company collected round amarquise au champagne, of which all my nieces, wearing their best dresses, with their hair puffed out and cravats of pink ribbon, took their full share notwithstanding exclamations and bewitching little grimaces that deceived nobody. Naturally, the conversation turned on the famous article, an article by Moessard, it appears, full of frightful occupations which the Nabob was alleged to have followed fifteen or twenty years ago, at the time of his first sojourn in Paris.
It was the third attack of the kind which theMessengerhad published in the course of the last week, and that rogue of a Moessard had the spite to send the number each time done up in a packet to the Place Vendome.
M. Jansoulet received it in the morning with his chocolate; and at the same hour his friends and his enemies—for a man like the Nabob could be regarded with indifference by none—would be reading, commenting, tracing for themselves the relation to him a line of conduct designed to save them from becoming compromised. Today’s article must be supposed to have struck hard all the same; for Jansoulet, the coachman, recounted to us a few hours ago, in the Bois, his master had not exchanged ten greetings in the course of ten drives round the lake, while ordinarily his hat is as rarely on his head as a sovereign’s when he takes the air. Then, when they got back, there was another trouble. The three boys had just arrived at the house, all in tears and dismay, brought home from the College Bourdaloue by a worthy father in the interest of the poor little fellows themselves, who had received a temporary leave of absence in order to spare them from hearing in the parlour or the playground any unkind story or painful allusion. Thereupon the Nabob flew into a terrible passion, which caused him to destroy a service of porcelain, and it appears that, had it not been for M. de Gery, he would have rushed off at once to punch Moessard’s head.
“And he would have done very well,” remarked M. Noel, entering at these last words, very much excited. “There is not a line of truth in that rascal’s article. My master had never been in Paris before last year. From Tunis to Marseilles, from Marseilles to Tunis, those were his only journeys. But this knave of a journalist is taking his revenge because we refused him twenty thousand francs.”
“There you acted very unwisely,” observed M. Francis upon this—Monpavon’s Francis, Monpavon the old beau whose solitary tooth shakes about in the centre of his mouth at every word he says, but whom the young ladies regard with a favourable eye all the same on account of his fine manners. “Yes, you were unwise. One must know how to conciliate people, so long as they are in a position to be useful to us or to injure us. Your Nabob has turned his back too quickly upon his friends after his success; and between you and me,mon cher, he is not sufficiently firmly established to be able to disregard attacks of this kind.”
I thought myself able here to put in a word in my turn:
“That is true enough, M. Noel, your governor is no longer the same since his election. He has adopted a tone and manners which I can hardly but describe as reprehensible. The day before yesterday, at the Territorial, he raised a commotion which you can hardly imagine. He was heard to exclaim before the whole board: ‘You have lied to me; you have robbed me, and made me a robber as much as yourselves. Show me your books, you set of rogues!’ If he has treated Moessard in the same sort of fashion, I am not surprised any longer that the latter should be taking his revenge in his newspaper.”
“But what does this article say?” asked M. Barreau. “Who is present that has read it?”
Nobody answered. Several had tried to buy it, but in Paris scandal sells like bread. At ten o’clock in the morning there was not a single copy of theMessengerleft in the office. Then it occurred to one of my nieces—a sharp girl, if ever there was one—to look in the pocket of one of the numerous overcoats in the cloak-room, folded carefully in large pigeon-holes. At the first which she examined:
“Here it is!” exclaimed the charming child with an air of triumph, as she drew out aMessengercrumpled in the folding like a paper that has just been read.
“Here is another!” cried Tom Bois l’Hery, who was making a search on his own account. A third overcoat, a thirdMessenger. And in every one the same thing: pushed down to the bottom of a pocket, or with its titlepage protruding, the newspaper was everywhere, just as its article must have been in every memory; and one could imagine the Nabob up above exchanging polite phrases with his guests, while they could have reeled off by heart the atrocious things that had been printed about him. We all laughed much at this idea; but we were anxious to make acquaintance in our own turn with this curious article.
“Come,perePassajon, read it aloud to us.”
It was the general desire, and I assented.
I don’t know if you are like me, but when I read aloud I gargle my throat with my voice; I introduce modulations and flourishes to such an extent that I understand nothing of what I am saying, like those singers to whom the sense of the words matters little, provided the notes be true. The thing was entitled “The Boat of Flowers”—a sufficiently complicated story, with Chinese names, about a very rich mandarin, who had at one time in the past kept a “boat of flowers” moored quite at the far end of the town near a barrier frequented by the soldiers. At the end of the article we were not farther on than at the beginning. We tried certainly to wink at each other, to pretend to be clever; but, frankly, we had no reason. A veritable puzzle without solution; and we should still be stuck fast at it if old Francis, a regular rascal who knows everything, had not explained to us that this meeting place of the soldiers must stand for the Military School, and that the “boat of flowers” did not bear so pretty a name as that in good French. And this name, he said it aloud notwithstanding the presence of the ladies. There was an explosion of cries, of “Ah’s!” and “Oh’s!” some saying, “I suspected it!” others, “It is impossible!”
“Pardon me,” added Francis, formerly a trumpeter in the Ninth Lancers—the regiment of Mora and of Monpavon—“pardon me. Twenty years ago, during the last half year of my service, I was in barracks in the Military School, and I remember very well that near the fortifications there was a dirty dancing-hall known as the Jansoulet Rooms, with a little furnished flat above and bedrooms at twopence-halfpenny the hour, to which one could retire between two quadrilles.”
“You are an infamous liar!” said M. Noel, beside himself with rage—“a thief and a liar like your master. Jansoulet has never been in Paris before now.”
Francis was seated a little outside our circle engaged in sipping something sweet, because champagne has a bad effect on his nerves and because, too, it is not a sufficiently distinguished beverage for him. He rose gravely, without putting down his glass, and, advancing towards M. Noel, said to him very quietly:
“You are wanting in manners,mon cher. The other evening I found your tone coarse and unseemly. To insult people serves no good purpose, especially in this case, since I happen to have been an assistant to a fencing-master, and, if matters were carried further between us, could put a couple of inches of steel into whatever part of your body I might choose. But I am good-natured. Instead of a sword-thrust, I prefer to give you a piece of advice, which your master will do well to follow. This is what I should do in your place: I should go and find Moessard, and I should buy him, without quibbling about price. Hemerlingue has given him twenty thousand francs to speak; I would offer him thirty thousand to hold his tongue.”
“Never! never!” vociferated M. Noel. “I should rather go and knock the rascally brigand’s head off.”
“You will do nothing of the kind. Whether the calumny be true or false, you have seen the effect of it this evening. This is a sample of the pleasures in store for you. What can you expect,mon cher? You have thrown away your crutches too soon, and thought to walk by yourselves. That is all very well when one is well set up and firm on the legs; but when one had not a very solid footing, and has also the misfortune to feel Hemerlingue at his heels, it is a bad business. Besides, your master is beginning to be short of money; he has given notes of hand to old Schwalbach—and don’t talk to me of a Nabob who gives notes of hand. I know well that you have millions over yonder, but your election must be declared valid before you can touch them; a few more articles like to-day’s, and I answer for it that you will not secure that declaration. You set yourselves up to struggle against Paris,mon bon, but you are not big enough for such a match; you know nothing about it. Here we are not in the East, and if we do not wring the necks of people who displease us, if we do not throw them into the water in a sack, we have other methods of effecting their disappearance. Noel, let your master take care. One of these mornings Paris will swallow him as I swallow this plum, without spitting out either the stone or skin.”
He was terrible, this old man, and notwithstanding the paint on his face, I felt a certain respect for him. While he was speaking, we could hear the music upstairs, and the horses of the municipal guards shaking their curb-chains in the square. From without, our festivities must have seemed very brilliant, all lighted up by their thousands of candles, and with the great portico illuminated. And when one reflected that ruin perhaps lay beneath it all! We sat there in the vestibule like rats that hold counsel with each other at the bottom of a ship’s hold, when the vessel is beginning to leak and before the crew has found it out, and I saw clearly that all the lackeys and chambermaids would not be long in decamping at the first note of alarm. Could such a catastrophe indeed be possible? And in that case what would become of me, and the Territorial, and the money I had advanced, and the arrears due to me?
That Francis has left me with a cold shudder down my back.