[1]"Being bound simply to observe here that it is folly to think that any of our kings ever bore frogs. On the contrary, what has been written to that effect came from the enemies of French honor, and in derision of the fact that they are descended from the Paluds meotides."
[1]"Being bound simply to observe here that it is folly to think that any of our kings ever bore frogs. On the contrary, what has been written to that effect came from the enemies of French honor, and in derision of the fact that they are descended from the Paluds meotides."
[2]Within these shady woods and forests Are wild boars and shy, timid hinds, And shoats, and young of hinds and does, And antlered stags, to woodsmen known; In brief, all pleasure, solace and delight That huntsman may in woodland fair enjoy.
[2]Within these shady woods and forests Are wild boars and shy, timid hinds, And shoats, and young of hinds and does, And antlered stags, to woodsmen known; In brief, all pleasure, solace and delight That huntsman may in woodland fair enjoy.
[3]There is but one honor, there are many mistresses.
[3]There is but one honor, there are many mistresses.
"Nothing in the château shall be touched!" repeated Chaffin half an hour later. He was climbing the grand staircase on his way to the apartment that Landri occupied when he came to Grandchamp,—the apartment of the eldest son. It was twelve years already since the last-born, become the only son, had been installed therein.—"Everything shall be touched, monsieur le marquis!" And the disloyal steward's face expressed the hatred that wicked servants feel for their betrayed masters while he looked at the Beauvais panels on the walls, one of the glories of the château, the complete set of tapestries representing Chinese scenes after Fontenay, Vernensaal and Dumont. Princes, in rich Asiatic costumes, were seated on Persian carpets. Princesses, arrayed in white stuffs embellished with precious stones, rode in palanquins. Servants carried parasols. Negro boys offered fruits under canopies enwreathed with foliage.
It was long, long ago that Chaffin had first climbed those stairs and marvelled, with the stupefaction of a petty bourgeois suddenly transported into a scene of fashionable life, at all that magnificence befitting the "Thousand and One Nights!" He was then a poor professor, unattached, married, with a family of children. He had just been introduced into the château by the chaplain, as tutor to the youngest son. The priest, who had educated the older sons, was too old to undertake another task of the sort. He dreaded the presence of another ecclesiastic. Being instructed by the marquis to find some one, he remembered an instructor whom he had met in a religious boarding-school in Paris. He, on being appealed to, suggested his colleague Chaffin.
In consenting, as he had done, to entrust Landri's education to a chance tutor, M. de Claviers had conformed once more to the classic type of theGrand Seigneur. One is amazed at the extraordinary facility with which, in all times, people who bear the greatest names abandon their children to uncertain influences. Even princes are no more painstaking in this respect. A youth upon whom the future of an empire depends will sometimes have been educated by a withered fruit of the University, comparable for refinement to the Regent's Dubois! Luckily for Landri, Chaffin still had, at that time, the habits of a father of a family, if not genuine virtues. Married and having children of his own, his guaranties of honorable conduct were real. But, as he had passed his fortieth year without succeeding in anything, he was already embittered and very near looking upon humble toilers of his own sort as social dupes. The atmosphere of great luxury, which he had entered thus without preparation, spoiled him. It was agreed that he should live with his pupil. This arrangement, separating him from his home and his former life, had made him helpless against his new environment. Thereupon Chaffin had undergone the secret, gradual process of corruption inevitably forced upon the poor plebeian, when he is essentially vulgar, by the discovery of the hidden immoralities of the nobly born and the wealthy. It is a genuine apprenticeship in depravity, is this official pessimism, compounded of secret envy and mean espionage.
When the marquis—his son's education being completed—had offered him the post of secretary-manager, Chaffin was ripe for the rôle of intendant "after the old manner." M. de Claviers' expression is only too appropriate here. This appointment was for the châtelain of Grandchamp an heroic resolution: tired of the constant waste, he had determined to administer his fortune himself. That is generally the moment at which, with persons of his rank, the final ruin begins. After three months the so-called secretary settled the accounts alone, and before the end of the first year the peculations had begun. They had multiplied from settling-day to settling-day, to reach their climax in the detestable conspiracy already mentioned, which a group of usurious dealers in curios was about to execute upon the treasures of Grandchamp, with his assistance.
By what steps had the conscience of the former professor descended to that degree of dishonesty? The change in his features during the last years told the story. The arrogant unrest of the thief, always on the brink of detection, distorted his face, sharpened his eyes, imparted uncertainty to his movements. But we cease to look at the persons whom we see every day. The marquis had not observed those tell-tale indications, nor had Landri. Moreover, the moment that the knave was in their presence, he kept watch upon himself with a circumspection that became more rigid as his villainies multiplied. So it was, that, when he had reached the top of the staircase and stood before the door behind which he knew that he should find the young man, he did not knock until he had paused a moment, long enough to compose his features; and when he entered, upon the response from within to his knock, the harsh and sneering cynic had disappeared. There was only the humble and faithful retainer of the family, deeply moved but self-restrained, upon whom his devotion enjoins the most painful of measures. He hesitates no longer. His secret chokes him. He must cry out. This rôle was all the easier to maintain under the circumstances because Chaffin was hardly going to lie. His plan, formidable in its very simplicity, by which he expected to ensure himself for all time against any suspicion of complicity, consisted in setting before the marquis's heir the true situation of the house of Claviers-Grandchamp in the year of grace 1906. He proposed to be silent only concerning his own peculations and his understanding with the leaders of the final assault.
"What is it, my good Chaffin?" inquired the young man. To receive his visitor, he had risen from the lounging chair in which he had passed some terrible moments, since he had left his father, in going over again and again the details, so cruel to him, of their conversation. "What has happened? You frighten me."
At sight of his former tutor's discomposed countenance the thought of an accident suddenly flashed through his mind—that the marquis had had a stroke.
"No, nothing has happened," replied Chaffin, "nothing as yet! But I cannot bear to be silent any longer. If you had not come to Grandchamp to-day, I should have gone to Saint-Mihiel. Things cannot go on so. I should go mad. I should kill myself.—Landri, Monsieur de Claviers won't let me speak to him. I have the title of secretary, which means that I am the manager of the property. Well! if things go on as they are going, Landri, I shall be manager of nothing. There will be no property, do you hear, no property, nothing, nothing—"
"You say that my father won't let you speak to him," Landri interrupted. "You surprise me beyond measure. He is giving much thought himself to the situation of affairs. He complained to me to-day of the heaviness of his burdens. Come, calm yourself, my dear master;" and he added these words, so absolute was his confidence in that man who represented to him his early youth: "Your affection for us makes very trivial difficulties seem tragic, I am sure. Tell me what they are."
"I will give you the figures," rejoined Chaffin simply, "and you can judge whether I exaggerate. Do you know how much Monsieur le Marquis owes on his real estate—Grandchamp, the house on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, your houses in Plaine Monceau, and the villas at Cabourg—all told? Two million five hundred and fifty thousand francs, divided as follows: seventeen hundred and fifty thousand francs to the Credit Foncier, and eight hundred thousand to another creditor. We have on this account more than a hundred and fifty thousand francs of interest a year to pay, before any other outlay."
"If it were anybody else but you I should think that I was dreaming," said Landri, after a pause. He repeated: "Two million five hundred and fifty thousand francs? And my father has an income of more than four hundred thousand! Is it possible? He doesn't gamble. His life is beyond reproach. He has no racing stable. Where has all that money gone?"
"You shall know in a moment," replied the implacable Chaffin. "First let us finish with the debts. There are others. Besides the mortgages there are the unsecured notes. Under this head he owes more than two millions more,—I mean for sums borrowed on his signature. I say nothing of overdue accounts with tradespeople, wages in arrears, and all the rest. That's another million perhaps, but it's a floating debt with which I deal as best I can. It's a daily battle. I fight it and win it! With these negotiable notes, I can do nothing. Look you, Landri. When I have told you everything you will share my desperation. The two millions, as you can imagine, are not a single debt. There are ten, fifteen, twenty different debts. There were, I should say. For to-day—But let me go into details. You are going to learn how these debts have reached such fantastic figures by the brutal piling-up of interest, very simply, and why I used the past tense. There was, for instance, a Gruet debt. I select it for it is typical, and because in connection with it the bomb has burst. In 1903 we were absolutely in need of three hundred thousand francs. Maître Métivier, our notary, obtained them for us through one Monsieur Gruet, an honest broker,—for there are such; there is this one, for instance, as you can judge,—with an office on Rue Lafayette. The loan fell due July 15, 1905. We were not ready. Gruet himself tells me of a money-lender, not overgrasping, one Madame Müller, who keeps a second-hand shop on Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. I go there on the chance. To my great surprise she consents. She reimburses Gruet and the notes are assigned to her before a notary. Nothing more correct, as you see. But on July 15 last the three hundred thousand Gruet francs had become three hundred and forty-six thousand five hundred Müller francs: two years' interest to the date of maturity in 1905, thirty thousand, plus sixteen thousand five hundred for 1905-1906. Let us follow it out. On this 15th of July the like inability to pay. Appeals to Madame Müller, entreaties,—it was I who made them. I would submit to much worse things for Monsieur le Marquis! A little time was given me, and one fine day this Gruet debt, which had become a Müller debt, has become an Altona debt. The first notice is served on us. I conceal the fact from Monsieur le Marquis, understand, and I go at once to this Altona. I find a man installed in a magnificent mansion on Place Vendôme, with the air of agrand seigneurI should say, if I did not know Monsieur le Marquis and you, Landri—and beautiful antiques all about him. It was a stock in trade arranged as a collection—a museum for sale at retail. This Altona receives me with the manners of a prince, and composedly, calmly, he informs me that the Müller claim is not the only one he has bought. A quantity of our other notes are in his hands or in those of his men of straw. Not all of them, but almost all. He has them to the amount of more than fourteen hundred thousand francs. He has accumulated all that he could. With no less composure he declares that he is acting for a syndicate of his brethren. There is a large number of them who have had their eyes for years on the treasures preserved at Grandchamp. How did they obtain their information concerning Monsieur le Marquis's embarrassment? How did they succeed in learning the names of the money-lenders to whom we had to apply? How did they negotiate with them? I can not tell you. I know nothing about it. This much is certain, that that first bailiff's notice was the shot that opened the engagement. In short, they are in a position to proceed against us and to have us sold up by process of law. Altona did not conceal from me his purpose to proceed mercilessly unless—"
"Unless what?" demanded Landri, as the other paused. "Finish your sentence."
"Unless we accept the offer he made me on behalf of his partners—that is evidently thecoupthey have prepared. 'We have calculated,' he said, still with his perfect courtesy, 'the risks of a public sale. We may gain by it, we may lose. Certain pieces which we can place advantageously at once may escape us. We prefer to make you a proposition to buy the whole in one lump. We will give you four millions cash for the lot, that is, for all the articles enumerated in thepièce justificativeNo. 44, in the appendix of the book on the "History of the House of Grandchamp." Both you and we will do a good stroke of business. You too avoid the possible loss of an auction. You have your debts paid and more than two millions in cash to put you on your feet again. As for us, our profit is assured. We have with us two Americans who will give fifteen hundred thousand francs for the tapestries alone. You have a fortnight to decide.'—I repeat what he said, word for word.—A fortnight! It was six days ago that I had the interview with this Altona, and I haven't yet found the courage to inform Monsieur le Marquis! And you expect me not to feel as if my brain was going."
"I am the one to tell him," cried the young man, "and instantly. You have lost six days, Chaffin, six days out of fourteen! You have failed seriously in your duty. Let us go to him."
"And tell him what?" queried the secretary, placing himself before the door toward which Landri had already taken a step.
"Why, the facts, just as they are."
"And with what result? With the result that he'll refuse to believe you, against all the evidence, and say: 'Touch Grandchamp!—they'll not dare!'—Or else he'll use the week in looking for money, enough to pay the Altona gang. It may be that he'll find it, for, after all, the tapestries and furniture and pictures and bronzes are here, and we know they're worth at least four millions, as the other man offers that. Well, then, Monsieur le Marquis finds the money. At what price? He borrows at twenty, thirty, perhaps fifty per cent. And in a year we're just where we are now, with this difference, that our two millions due on those notes will have become two millions three hundred thousand, to say nothing of getting four or five hundred thousand francs more to continue during that year a sort of life that must at any price be changed. You hear, Landri—itmust! You have reproached me for neglecting my duty. It is true that I haven't been able to say to your father those horrible words:you must. Consider that all this wreck of his vast fortune is due to the fact that he would never consent to say to himself those two little words:I must. You ask me where that fortune has gone. Why, in living at the rate of five hundred thousand francs a year, when he and Madame la Marquise had four hundred thousand—as you said just now—when they married. With a pencil and paper and two columns, one of income, one of outgo, I will show you the whole thing in a nutshell. The marquis was determined to keep up the same establishment at Grandchamp that his father did with almost twice his income, and his grandfather with three times as much. Madame your aunt and madame your great-aunt carried the rest with them to the Nançays and the Vardes. Monsieur le Marquis is always cursing the Civil Code, and he is quite right. But it is the Civil Code, and it's stronger than we are and than he is. He has kept up the château as if he were your grandfather and great-grandfather. Do you know what that means? In the first place, a hundred thousand francs for the park, gardens and conservatories, plus sixty thousand for the hounds, forty thousand for the shooting, thirty-five thousand for the stables. We have got to two hundred and thirty-five thousand at once. And so with the rest. The table? We have forty people at dinner to-night, and the marquis would consider himself disgraced if his chef were not cited as one of the best in Paris! The servants? You know how many there are, and you know too that Monsieur le Marquis never dreams of parting with an old retainer without giving him a pension. We had a discussion only yesterday about young Mauchaussée. Twelve hundred francs to the father, and a house; twelve hundred francs to the son. There are more than thirty others taken care of in the same way. That makes forty thousand francs. And there are demands all day to which Monsieur le Marquis makes but one reply: 'Give.' And we give—for brotherhoods and sisterhoods, for hospitals and churches, for schools, and for the elections. Without counting the private alms, which don't pass through my hands. A hundred thousand francs put in Monsieur de Lautrec's hand, without a receipt, just when we are so straightened, to settle a gambling debt! I have the proof of it. I spoke to Monsieur le Marquis about it. I had the courage.—'If we don't help one another,' was his reply, 'who will help us?'—That he should do such things the first or second year, in '66 and '67, even down to the war, was natural. But when he saw the income of the property decreasing, the mortgages growing bigger, the unpaid bills piling up, that he did not try to stop is extraordinary. But it's the fact. I understand it so well. Every economy was a degradation of the house of Grandchamp, and degradation of a concrete sort, which he could have seen with his eyes and touched with his hands. Economies, do I say? There were the hedges trimmed every three years,—but in the interval? the avenues not so well kept,—but after the rains?—Fewer flowers in the beds, fewer horses in the stable, stag-hunting with fewer dogs and fewer whippers-in! His heart was nearly broken. He went back the next year. The debt increased. It whirled him off in its eddies. And then, he has always hoped; yesterday, it was a fortunate investment,—Monsieur Jaubourg had put him on the track of a good thing. He gained a hundred and twenty thousand francs. A drop of water in the desert! Day, before yesterday, one of your cousins. Monsieur de Nançay, died and left him a hundred thousand francs. Another drop of water. These unexpected windfalls misled him with a mirage which harmonized only too well with his hereditary instinct. It would be easier for him to break off his habits altogether, than to change—that is the conclusion at which I have arrived. On that account, Landri, I look upon this offer of Altona's as providential, you understand. Monsieur le Marquis must accept it. Grandchamp once emptied of its furnishings, which are sacred reliques to him, he will never want to come here again. No more gardensà la française. At all events we will reduce the cost of keeping them. No more stag-hunting, no more open house. With what is left he will still have enough to live very handsomely. We will let the shooting, the château perhaps. Then we will begin to redeem the mortgages. The house of Claviers-Grandchamp will be shorn of its splendor for a few years. But it will live up to its motto:E tenebris inclarescent. It will not go down forever."
Engrossed by the heat of his demonstration, Chaffin had made a false step. He had changed his tone as he dwelt upon the figures,—a terrible commentary on the harangue delivered by the marquis to his son in the forest two hours earlier, on the splendor of the name! To be sure, the heartless jubilation of the ascent of the staircase no longer gleamed threateningly in his yellow eyes; but his despicable sentiments toward his imprudent and magnanimous employer made themselves manifest in the pitiless clearness with which he thought and spoke of the disaster. He thought that he knew Landri well, knowing him to be eminently impressionable, and having formerly contributed, by dint of surreptitious criticism, to detach him from hismilieu. He had seen how he stood out against the marquis on the subject of Saint-Cyr. Moreover, was it not now a question of the swallowing-up of his future inheritance? He was aware neither of the extent of the young man's unselfishness nor how deeply the genuine poesy of M. de Claviers' character stirred the chords of that tender heart. That poesy the brutal draftsman of the balance-sheet of ruin did not even suspect. His picture of the marquis's life, so foolishly ill-ordered but so generous, his indictment rather, wherein he had emphasized thegrand seigneur'scraze for appearances, without sufficiently setting forth his idealism and his charity, was strangely at variance with the attitude of a faithful and growling watch-dog which he ordinarily affected. Landri felt the difference, by instinct only. The revelation of the impending catastrophe impressed him much too painfully. It was enough, however, for him to feel an unconquerable longing to identify himself with his father, and he replied:—
"What? You entertain that idea, you, Chaffin? The furniture of Grandchamp sold? The treasures that our grandmother rescued so heroically in '93, dispersed? My father driven from his house by that vile crew? Never! I would rather sacrifice my own fortune!"
"Well!" insinuated Chaffin, "ask him for it."
"Don't tell me that it is swallowed up, like—" exclaimed the young man. He did not finish the sentence, but said emphatically: "I know that's not true!"
"It isn't true, in fact," rejoined the secretary. "Monsieur le Marquis still has a capital much larger than the fifteen hundred thousand francs that you inherited from Madame de Claviers. After he rendered his accounts as guardian, you gave him a general power of attorney which included the right to sell and to mortgage. You did it because he inherited a fourth of your mother's property, say five hundred thousand francs. That property consisted in part of houses. You insisted that it should remain undivided. It is sufficient, therefore, for him to be all straight with you, that he should turn over to you the fifteen hundred thousand francs, the income of which he has always paid you in full; he can do it, but on one condition, and that is asine qua non: he must sell the personal property at Grandchamp,—the only thing that he can realize on. The lands and buildings are so loaded down with mortgages and so hard to turn into cash,—we need not talk of that. How long should you have to wait, do you suppose? And you would not be a privileged creditor. You have come of yourself to the point to which I was trying to bring you. That is the whole motive of my action, Landri. You can get Monsieur de Claviers out of this cul-de-sac, you and nobody else, and you can do it by demanding your fortune."
"I? of him?"
"Yes, you, and by withdrawing your power of attorney. He will not choose, that you should for a second suspect him of having misused it. He won't have any peace until he has restored it all to you, on the spot. If Altona's four million is offered him at that moment, he'll accept it. Grandchamp stripped of its treasures is horrible to think of, I agree. But one can refurnish a dismantled château. One can not reconstruct a squandered fortune, and with five years more of this life yours is gone, forever. I owed you the truth. I have told it to you. Make up your mind."
While Chaffin was formulating these suggestions Landri looked at him in such a way that the other had to avert his eyes. For the first time the former pupil of the dishonest steward asked himself this question: "Is this really the same man?" In the flare of a sudden intuition he caught a glimpse of the dangerous plot woven about the ancient estate, one of the artisans of which was this man who advised him—to do what? To commit moral parricide, in view of M. de Claviers' character. But it was only a gleam. This cruel advice might, after all, have been suggested to the steward, at his wits' end, by the desperation born of one of those crises in affairs in which humanity vanishes before the implacability of figures. However that might be, Landri had been wounded too deeply in his instinctive delicacy, and a restrained indignation trembled in his reply.
"I will not do that," he said. "I prefer anything to losing his heart. My first impulse was the true one. I must tell him everything, and instantly. The future of the family is at stake, and he is its head. It is for him to decide, not me. Let us go."
"I have done all that I can," said Chaffin. "You refuse. Let us go."
He opened the door, and instantly the two men found themselves face to face with Landri's valet. The man was waiting in the corridor, ready to go in as soon as his master should be free.
"Was he listening?" said Chaffin to himself. "Bah! they've known it all for a long while."
He slandered the man, who was the son of one of the old lamp-men of the château. Grandchamp was lighted throughout by oil, and it required three men specially assigned for that service!—This valet had a message to deliver, the mysterious nature of which disturbed him. Such was the exceedingly simple explanation of his standing sentry.
"A person wishes to speak with Monsieur le Comte at once. It is very urgent and very important, but it's only for a word. The person is waiting in Monsieur le Comte's bedroom."
"If it's only for a word," said Landri, himself astonished, even in his trouble, by that message and the messenger's insistence, "I will go. I will return in a moment, Chaffin, wait for me. Do you, Jean, go and find where Monsieur le Marquis is just now."
"Landri will tell Monsieur de Claviers nothing," repeated the former tutor when he was left alone. That meeting of their glances, a few moments before, had revealed to him an unsuspected energy and perspicacity in his pupil. He had accepted without further remonstrance the proposition to tell the marquis the truth, for fear of arousing suspicion. He answered it in anticipation, mentally: "But then, let him tell him all. What does it matter to me? My accounts are all straight. I have never acted without written authority.—No. He won't tell him anything. No one can speak to that man. Landri will think better of it. He's going to Paris to-morrow. He'll take advice. Advice? From whom? Jaubourg perhaps. No, he doesn't like him, and he loves, yes, adores, the marquis! The voice of the blood is like their wonderful Race; what an excellent joke!" Chaffin sneered. In thought he insulted his master twice over, in his person and in his ideas. "Landri will go and see Métivier, the notary, it's more likely. Yes, that's the better way. Métivier will send for me. When he knows the situation of affairs, he'll agree with me. This Altona offer means, at one per cent, forty thousand francs for me. By the same token, for them it means salvation."
The cunning calculator hardly suspected that if, resorting to the degrading practice of which he had instantly accused the valet, he had placed his ear against the door of the next room, he would have heard arrangements made for one of the very interviews that he had imagined. The "person"—as Jean discreetly said—who was awaiting Landri was the maître d'hôtel of the invalid on Rue de Solferino, who had come all the way from Paris to say to the young man:—
"When Monsieur Jaubourg learned that Monsieur le Comte had called to inquire for him without going upstairs, he was very much put out—more than put out, distressed. I must needs take the first train for Clermont. He is absolutely determined to see Monsieur le Comte. I am to insist that Monsieur le Comte come to-morrow if he passes through Paris again.—Monsieur Jaubourg is so ill, Monsieur le Comte! If he lasts two or three days, the skies will fall! He was very particular to tell me not to show myself, so that Monsieur le Marquis should not know of my coming. He was afraid of disturbing him too much. However, here I am."
"Tell Monsieur Jaubourg I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock," replied Landri. The care taken by a dying man to spare his old friend a pang touched him. He felt the delicacy of it all the more keenly because his heart was frozen, as it were, by the deferential brutality of formal respect, so cruel in reality, of his former tutor. At any other time, the peculiarity of the proceeding, sending this servant a two hours' journey by railway, would have puzzled him; but a too genuine and too present anxiety suspended in him all morbid labor of the imagination, and while he was going down the stairs with Chaffin, it mattered little to him what Jaubourg's reasons were for desiring so earnestly to see him, or whether it was or was not for the purpose of insisting on his marriage to Marie de Charlus.
Jean had returned to say that M. de Claviers-Grandchamp was in the dining-room. And it was there that the son and the secretary found the improvident owner of the treasures coveted by the Altona band. Thegrand seigneurstill wore his hunting costume. He had not had a quarter of an hour to himself since his return. He was engaged now with his major-domo—another example of his grand manner—in arranging the seats around the enormous table, which was all laid and ready. Innumerable lighted candles already shone upon the silver plate engraved by Roëttiers. The flat dishes displayed their edges of interlaced ribbons on the brilliant whiteness of the cloth, around the central épergne, a masterpiece signed by Germain. It represented the abduction of Europa, on a largerocaille pedestal. Wainscoting rebuilt in the eighteenth century, in the style of Gabriel, covered the walls of the octagonal room. Eight pillars at the eight angles, fluted, and topped by Corinthian capitals, imparted a majestic aspect, which was enlivened by four high Gobelin tapestries, of Oudry's hunting series, alternating with mirrors. On occasions like this these panels prolonged on the walls the day's amusement, as did the hunting-horns surrounded by laurel-branches, chefs-d'œuvre of Gonthière, which could be distinguished in the decorations. The cream-white tone of the woodwork harmonized with that of the cane-seated dining-chairs, and with the reflection of the central chandelier, of Venetian glass,—a caprice of one of the châtelaines of former days, the wife of the restorer of Grandchamp, whose portrait by Parrocel was set into the wall over the white marble chimneypiece. He was on horseback and wore the uniform of a lieutenant-general,—which he had earned by being wounded at Fontenoy,—the cuirass under the light blue coat, the white scarf, the red ribbon, and held in his hand the baton of a general.
This ensemble, with the soft and vivid hues of the flowers, blended with the glistening of the glasses, imparted a touch of grace amid all the magnificence, which suddenly assumed a tragic aspect in the young man's eyes. The figures set forth by Chaffin appeared on the walls as distinctly as the Mene-Tekel-Upharsin of the Biblical feast; and as suddenly he was conscious of that impossibility which the other had foreseen—the impossibility of inflicting the pain of a similar vision upon the impoverished and superb "Émigré," whose last joy this sumptuous entertainment might prove to be—a childish joy, but heartfelt and earnest in its bountiful outflow.
"Forty!" he cried as soon as he saw his son: "there will surely be forty of us. An Academy!—I made up the number by inviting our neighbors the Sicards, and some friends they have with them, the Saint-Larys. Two charming couples! I will indulge my old eyes with their youthful happiness.—Well, Chaffin, was I right in ordering dinner for forty? You won't accuse me of wastefulness again." And he laughed his frank, hearty laugh. "Look at our Parrocel, Landri. Hasn't he a look of the place? To think that I shall never see you dressed like that, even if you're a general some day and I am still in this world! Ah! the fine bright uniforms of the old days! And the spruce young officers who went into battle as to a fête, in those colors! Everything is sad with us, even heroism. But you must help me. I was seating my company. First of all I had placed Madame de Férussac opposite me, and you over here, beside—" He showed his son a card on which was written the name of Mademoiselle de Charlus. "I am putting them all awry. You are the one to sit opposite me."
"Why, no, father," said Landri hastily, "I beg you to leave me where you had put me. I assure you that I prefer that."
"Really? do you mean it?" said M. de Claviers. There was so much artless gratitude in his expression, that preoccupation about a change of seats at the table disclosed such a loving regard for the susceptibilities of the young man's heart, that the tears came to his eyelids, and when his father asked him,—
"Well, what is it? Why were you looking for me?"
"To ask you if I shall see you to-morrow before I go," he replied. Already he was preparing to postpone the revelation which he had insisted should be made instantly.
"I think not," replied the marquis. "You take the train at Clermont, don't you? At ten o'clock? In that case, surely not."—And Landri did not protest!—"You passed the night on the railway, and you are travelling again to-morrow. You must have a good rest. And I have to go and see one of my farmers, a long way off, who is asking for some repairs. You know, Chaffin, Père Chabory. He won't get them, I promise you. I will be immovable. There's no claim in his case. I shall take advantage of the errand to try my new roan a bit. A splendid beast that Régie Ardrahan sent me from Dublin—another Toby. But the English have never learned to teach a horse to trot. I shall start at half after seven, so as to have returned when my guests wake.—No, we shall not see each other again. And this evening doesn't count! We will make up for it at your next visit. I was going up to your room to urge you to call at Jaubourg's when you go through Paris, and to see him yourself, if you can. You can telegraph me how you found him."
"Landri will do as he pleases," Chaffin interjected, "but I have a despatch already—from my son—received just now, and which I came to tell you of. Monsieur Jaubourg is better, much better."
"Ah! that's good news!" exclaimed M. de Claviers. "You take a weight off my heart, Chaffin. The fête will be perfect then. This morning a ten-branched stag"; and he hummed the refrain:—
"Un dix cors jeunement.Qui débûche à l'instant.
"Un dix cors jeunement.Qui débûche à l'instant.
"And to-night a dinner of the sort that Lardin knows how to serve."—Lardin was his cook.—He hummed another hunting-song, La Bourbon:—
"La chasse, la vin, et les bellesC'était le refrain de Bourbon.
"La chasse, la vin, et les bellesC'était le refrain de Bourbon.
"But we must go and dress, my dear Landri, so that we may be on hand when they arrive, these 'belles'!"
"You see," said Chaffin to Landri in an undertone, as they left the dining-room behind the marquis, "you didn't speak to him, you couldn't. To-morrow you won't be able to any better. You felt it. I was sure you would. Look the situation in the face. You will do what I have advised. It's the only way. I shall wait forty-eight hours more before I tell him."
He walked away in the direction of his office before Landri had found a word to reply. He felt humiliated by the consciousness that he had justified, by his own attitude, the silence for which he had warmly rebuked his former tutor. He realized fully, however, that the motive of passionate affection to which he yielded in postponing the awakening from that blissful dream on the brink of an abyss had nothing in common with the obscure schemes of a decidedly double-faced personage. Landri had received this impression anew when the other spoke of the despatch alleged to have been sent during the day by his son. The message that he had himself received a half hour before contradicted this improvement, which was clearly fabricated by Chaffin. For what purpose? As a chance shot, and to diminish the probabilities of a consultation with the shrewd Jaubourg concerning the course to be pursued. The young man was unable to divine this reason. But it was equally true that he could no longer tell himself in good faith that it was "to spare my father anxiety." The first shock of surprise was past. His new-born reflections revealed too many riddles in the performance, and first of all this persistent abandonment of the contest, this acceptance of an event which should have been the outcome of nothing less than a desperate resistance. But in that case Chaffin was not loyal? This supposition opened horizons so dark that Landri rejected it. His memories of childhood and youth cried out against it. "He has warned me," he said to himself. "What forced him to do it? My God! how I wish I knew the truth, and above all things what my duty is!"
What was his duty? He had no sooner propounded that question than it occupied the whole field of his thought. How gladly he would have asked advice of some one! But of whom? As he passed through his library again, after he had dressed, on his way down to the salons on the ground floor, his glance fell upon a portrait of his mother, and he stopped to gaze at it, as if the face of the dead might take on life to sustain him, to give him a hint. Alas! to no purpose would his filial piety have questioned for days and days the delicate and deceitful features which had been those of the beautiful Madame de Claviers. He would have derived nothing but doubts concerning her, had the denunciator carried to the end his confidences concerning the secret sorrows of the family. That portrait was of 1878. Landri was just born, and Madame de Claviers was thirty years old. She was painted sitting down, in a red velvet evening gown, which left bare her lovely arms, her supple shoulders, her neck, a trifle long, about which gleamed a row of enormous pearls. She had a very small head, with an abundance of chestnut hair, a mouth of sinuous shape, upon which flickered a smile, but impersonal and seemingly forced. The eyes, whose expression was at once dreamy and observing, passionate and guarded, contradicted the artificial banality of that smile. It was the image of a woman, very sweet and very simple at first glance, very complex at the second, and quite unintelligible,—a happy woman, but whose happiness was of that deep-seated and perturbed sort that never comes to fruition, being condemned, by sin, to remain concealed.
Landri, without quite understanding why, had never cared overmuch for that canvas, which he preserved as a relique. His mother had bequeathed it to him expressly, in a will made during the last days of the terrible illness of which she died. Obsessed by the anxiety which consumed him, he suddenly detested that picture, and hurriedly walked away from it. Thatgrande dame, in her festival costume, who had reigned over that life of extravagance while bearing her part in it, had no moral aid to offer him! Nor had the grandfathers and grandmothers, whose old-time faces covered all the walls of the salons once inhabited by them according to the same principle of unbridled expenditure. The marquis's guests were beginning to crowd the rooms, and the young man contemplated those family portraits over their heads: young women and old women of bygone centuries, lords and prelates, ambassadors and field-marshals, commanders of the Saint-Esprit and Grand Crosses of Saint-Louis. Those faces, by their presence alone, seemed to entreat the inheritor of their name to labor to spare them that last great outrage—to be carried away from the ancestral dwelling, to become simply a Rigaud or a Largillière, a Nattier or a Tocqué, a Drouet or a Vigée-Lebrun, in some random collection. To spare them that outrage—but how? And Landri felt that his uncertainty increased.—Yes, what was his duty? But what if Chaffin were sincere, if his outlook were just, if, in order to save his father from a final crash, it were necessary, man-fashion, to sacrifice those portraits and everything else,—the Gobelins and that series by Boucher, theNoble Pastorale, and Natoire's Mark Antony, and the Beauvais tapestries, and the gilded wainscotings of Foliot and Cagny, and the carpets from La Savonnerie, and the bronzes, and the hangings, and all that array of beautiful objects, whose frivolous magnificence inevitably demanded such assemblages as that of this evening?
Passing from inanimate things to people, Landri studied one after another, first in the salons, afterward in the dining-hall, the familiar faces of M. de Claviers' guests and of M. de Claviers himself. On the day when those Férussacs and Hautchemins and Traverses and Sicards and Saint-Larys and all the rest, and Louis de Bressieux and Florimund de Charlus, should learn of their host's downfall, would they pity him much more than his secretary did? Their egoisms, their fickleness, their indifference seemed to become visible to the son's grief-stricken imagination.
Meanwhile the dinner had begun. The servants in the Claviers-Grandchamp livery were passing to and fro behind the guests. The light fabrics of the décolleté gowns alternated with the black coats, eyes shone, lips laughed, the dishes succeeded one another, wine filled the glasses, and the marquis, at the centre of his table, contemplated the fête with eyes sparkling with life. It was as if all the Claviers-Grandchamps were entertaining in his person, superbly. Hardly more than a suspicion of dissatisfaction veiled his eyes, when, turning in his son's direction, he observed his evident preoccupation. "Poor Landri is thinking of his Madame Olier!" he said to himself; and his magnanimous old heart felt a vague remorse which he banished by raising his head and gazing at the portrait of the lieutenant-general, wounded at Fontenoy.
The voices rose higher and higher. The laughter became more and more uproarious. Complexions tingling with the country air assumed a ruddier hue in the atmosphere of the dining-hall. Landri's suffering became more and more acute. Was it possible that this fête was really the last? But what was he to do? What was he to do? He could scarcely force himself to talk of indifferent subjects with his two neighbors in turn, one of whom, at his left, was the pretty, fair-haired and insignificant Madame de Férussac. The other, clever Marie de Charlus, carried her jovial humor to ever greater lengths as the dinner proceeded. She realized that she did not exist, so far as Landri was concerned, and she yielded to the instinct that has ruined the happiness of so many love-lorn women: to make an impression at any cost on the man they love, and to disgust him rather than not be noticed at all by him. Ascribing her conduct to the atmosphere, she began to run through a long list of satirical sobriquets, such as it was the fashion in Paris, last winter, to distribute at random.
"And Bressieux," she said at one moment, "do you know what they call Bressieux? Monsieur le Vicomte de la Rochebrocante. And poor Jaubourg, on account of his swell associates among us? Jaubourg-Saint-Germain. For my part, I call it very amusing!"
"Jaubourg-Saint-Germain?" said Sicard, the spiteful damsel's right-hand neighbor. "I don't know him. True, it is amusing!"
The most amusing part of it was that the Sicard couple had their own nick-name—unknown to the parties concerned, of course:—"The three halves." This wretched pun signified that the very diminutive Madame de Sicard, married to the very diminutive M. de Sicard, was supposed to have a tender penchant for the very diminutive M. de Travers. The historian of contemporary manners would apologize for noting, even cursorily, such trifles, were it not that they have a slight documentary value. This innocent fooling of a society so threatened measured the degree of its heedlessness.
Ordinarily these idiocies of the prevailing mode annoyed Landri de Claviers. That refined and intelligent youth lacked, it must be confessed, the precious gift of smiling, which the marquis had, and which the English call by an untranslatable phrase, "the sense of humor." He took everything alike too muchau sérieux. However, he did not think at that moment of taking offence at Marie's wretched taste. The epigram concerning Bressieux had suddenly reminded him that his father and himself had surprised the gentleman-broker in conversation with Chaffin. He looked at him across the table and saw that the other was looking at him. Was Bressieux mixed up in the schemes of the Altona gang? Was that possible, too?—Oh! what to do? what to do? And, above all, how to learn the truth?
The second of the sobriquets mentioned by Mademoiselle de Charlus started Landri's mind upon another scent.—Jaubourg? But he was to see Jaubourg to-morrow. Suppose Jaubourg, who knew everybody in their circle, as that absurd name indicated, suppose that Jaubourg, too, knew that imminent peril menaced their house? Suppose that was what he wanted to speak about to his friend's son, being unable to induce that friend himself to listen? And in the event that he knew nothing, why should not Landri tell him the truth, in order to obtain the advice for which his longing became more and more intense? Jaubourg was really fond of M. de Claviers-Grandchamp. The young man's mind fastened upon this idea, which he did nothing but turn over and over all the evening.
How long it seemed to him before the last carriage, rumbling over the pavement of the courtyard, had borne away the last guest! And no less long the beginning of the night, when, having gone up to his room, and being left to himself, he tried to formulate an appeal to the experience and affection of a man with whom he had never felt at his ease! He had too often encountered M. Jaubourg's interference, always concealed, in matters that concerned only M. de Claviers and himself. He had never learned anything of it except by chance. So it was to-day with this Charlus project. And with it all, Jaubourg had never manifested to Landri that good-humored affection which is the privilege of old family friends who have seen us grow up. He had kept the child, and, later, the young man, at a distance, by an attitude of constant criticism, courteous and scornful at the same time. There had always been an atmosphere of constraint between them. Chaffin's prevision was accurate on this first point. Nor had he gone astray upon the second. The more Landri dwelt on the idea of relying upon Jaubourg, the more the wonted antipathy revived. "Besides," he concluded, "sick as he is, incapable of taking any active step, ignorant of the Code, of what assistance can he be to me, if there's a conspiracy to be foiled and legal precautions to be taken?"
Then it was, as the thought of possible litigation came to his mind, that he remembered Métivier, the notary. "Where were my wits?" he thought. "Métivier's the man I must see. One can appeal from a judgment. One can resist. A notary knows how to do it. He knows the ways to borrow money. My fortune is still intact. Chaffin admitted as much. Métivier will tell me if I can use it to save Grandchamp, and how to go about it."
He reflected that, as he was to pass only half a day in Paris, he had not time to make an appointment with Maître Métivier, a very busy man, who, perhaps, would not be at his office. He did not go to bed until he had written a long and very succinct letter, which he proposed to leave at the notary's in case of his absence. He set forth in detail the whole story that Chaffin had told him, giving the names of Madame Müller and Altona, the figures given to him, the advice insinuated by his former tutor, his determination to sacrifice his personal interests absolutely in order that the château might be kept intact. He added that, being obliged to return to Saint-Mihiel, he would arrange to be at Paris as soon as his presence was necessary.
As he read the letter over he was amazed to notice how easy it seemed to him, now, to apply to his colonel for another leave, which had seemed to him impossible that morning, in view of the prospective inventories. Chaffin's revelation had changed the whole course of his thought. Other revelations, more tragical, were about to supervene, and to lead him in still another direction. He had no more suspicion of them than he had had of these the night before, when he deemed himself so unfortunate, and when the whole drama of his life seemed to him to be comprised in those two desires: not to quit his profession as a soldier, and not to lose the woman he loved. He had not, however, forgotten her, that friend who was so dear to him. As he fell asleep, at the close of that day so full of events, which preceded another day of even more cruel trial, he reverted mentally to his conversation of the morning in the little salon on Rue Monsieur. He marvelled at the unexpected détours of life, which keeps such surprises in store for us, and he reproached himself, like a true lover, for having given Valentine no place in his thoughts during the last few hours.
"But it is for her, too, that I shall go to see Métivier to-morrow," he said to himself. "This disaster to my father, which should part me from her, will draw me nearer to her, if I prove to him how devoted I am to him. Let me save Grandchamp, and he will no longer oppose my marriage. If we are ruined, Mademoiselle de Charlus's great fortune will become an argument.—And even if he should persist in saying no, my conscience would be at rest, having sacrificed myself to him, as I wish, as I am determined to do."
This sweet and tender image of the adorable woman upon whom Landri had formed the pious habit of letting his thoughts rest every night, for years past, before closing his eyes, was there again when he woke. Such is the sorcery of a passionate love in youth. To be sure, he was much engrossed by the step he was arranging to take with respect to Maître Métivier; the confusion in their financial affairs disclosed by Chaffin was most serious, and brought with it threatening consequences in the future. Moreover, none of the obstacles against which he had bruised himself the night before had disappeared. He was still likely to receive, before the end of the week, an order to proceed to take one of the two church inventories announced as about to be taken in the neighborhood of Saint-Mihiel. He knew too well, despite the sophistical reasoning of his desire, that his father's opposition to a mésalliance would not readily give way. But he was to see Valentine Olier at two o'clock, and in spite of everything, an intimate joy had possession of him. While he was dressing and breakfasting, he constantly interrupted himself to gaze admiringly at the depths of the blue sky, at the forest bronzed by the autumn, at the gardenà la françaisespreading beneath his windows, and at the statues, whose white lines stood out against the dense dark foliage of the yews, trimmed in the shape of balls and pyramids.
That same blue sky enveloped the château as with an aureole when he turned to look at it once more, in the carriage that was taking him to the Clermont station. He had had the good fortune not to fall in with Chaffin as he was leaving,—he had dreaded such a meeting a little,—and he had the additional good fortune to meet his father in person at a turn in the road, mounted, as he had said, on his new horse.
"I was determined to introduce him to you," cried the old nobleman as soon as his son was within earshot, "and also to bid you good-morning. Did you rest well? Good!—My farmer has hoodwinked me—he was sure to. He'll have his repairs. Chaffin will scold me.—As for this old fellow," and he patted the arched neck of the powerful Irish horse which was dancing nervously, "he tried hard to unseat his new rider.—Whoa! whoa! I am not in favor of divorce, my boy.—I have taken him down a little all the same, by giving him a chance to gallop. As for the trot, we shall not say anything about that for some time. But I'll show you what he can do."
Riding at a ditch near-by, he raised the beast, which leaped readily to the other side. There was a low stone wall a short distance away, at which M. de Claviers drove the roan straight, with no less daring and grace than if he had been five-and-twenty instead of five-and-sixty. The horse leaped the obstacle. The marquis waved his hat triumphantly.
"A second Toby!" he cried exultantly to his son. "And he's shrewd too, the beast! Oh, he is!—Adieu, my son, and don't forget Jaubourg. A despatch at once!"
He disappeared. How often Landri was destined to see again in memory that horseman, so proud of mien, riding away across the fields! "Adieu, father!" he cried in response; and it was indeed an adieu that they exchanged,—although they were to meet again,—adieu of the father to the son, of the son to the father. And neither knew it!
"He is too anxious about his friend," said Landri to himself as he left the train, an hour later, on the platform of the Gare du Nord. "I will go there first. Then to Métivier's. Place de la Madeleine—that's on my way to luncheon at the club. My father will have his telegram all the earlier. Mon Dieu! if only I have no terrible news to send him!"
As so often happens, the unhappy youth dreaded the very thing that he ought most earnestly to have desired. He had a slight sense of relief when he noticed, on reaching Rue de Solferino, that the straw was still spread in front of the house. M. de Claviers' friend was still alive. But the bulletin, posted in the concierge's lodge, contained one line, more ominous than that of the preceding day: "A very restless night. Increasing weakness." Beside it was a register on which were inscribed long columns of signatures "with currents of air," as the free-mason-colonel was wont to say in his coarse and picturesque "fichards'" slang. Our death-beds and our burials sum up, in a synopsis, as it were, our whole social individuality.
"Jaubourg-Saint-Germain" was taking his departure as if he really deserved that biting epigram. Who, pray, in Paris is sufficiently interested in the real motives of our actions to seek them beyond our gestures? The son of a stock-broker, Jaubourg had frequented a circle very different from that of his birth, for reasons which were not vanity. All his shrewdness had exerted itself to dissemble them. Moreover, if he had been a great lover he had been this also,—the social status makes itself felt even in the tender passion,—a wealthy bourgeois training among patricians. All sorts of little indications adjusted themselves to that rôle in his case. He had chosen for his abode the first floor of an old parliamentary house, spared when Boulevard Saint-Germain was laid out. The immeasurably high-studded rooms presented a seignorial aspect, in harmony with the very beautiful furniture and the tapestries that Charles Jaubourg had collected therein,—as at Grandchamp. But the furniture and tapestries did not constitute a true ensemble. The aristocratic stage-setting, which was so alive in the château de Claviers, took on here the factitious aspect of a museum. It was the work of a man who had employed the leisure acquired by the toil of his parents in not resembling them. He proceeded thus from the small to the great.
The servant who opened the door to Landri was the old maître-d'hôtel who had carried the dying man's message the night before. Jaubourg's relations with him were very analogous to those of M. de Claviers with the Mauchaussées and their like. But the châtelain knew his men "plant and root," to use again one of his favorite expressions. They were of the soil, of the neighborhood of Grandchamp; their fathers and mothers doffed their caps on the road to the defunct marquis, as they called Landri's grandfather; whereas Joseph, Jaubourg's servant, had entered his service by chance, on the recommendation of the secretary of a club. He had become attached to his master, however, with the affection that shrewd servants conceive for bachelors. He had made himself a home there. His devotion was genuine, but to a master whom he could not replace. This sentiment, composed largely of selfishness, bore no resemblance whatever to the familiar and hereditarily feudal deference with which the marquis's retainers enveloped him. There was something of the confederate in Joseph, of the safe witness, who has entered into a tacit contract of discreet silence with a rich and independent Parisian.
Jaubourg had never said a word or made a motion which authorized any person whomsoever, especially his servant, even to suspect the nature of the interest that Landri aroused in him; and yet it was with a semi-reproachful air that the wily and zealous Joseph greeted the young man. He had anticipated the ringing of the bell, a sign that he was watching for his arrival.
"Ah! how much Monsieur would have liked to see Monsieur le Comte yesterday! To-day—" He compressed his lips and touched his forehead. "Will Monsieur le Comte allow me to ask him not to contradict Monsieur in anything? Monsieur was so sick last night! The head! the head! I was afraid he'd go mad! He's better since morning. But if Monsieur le Comte would like to speak with Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin, while I go to prepare Monsieur for his visit—"
The son of the ex-tutor, who had been since the conversation of the preceding evening an object of such suspicion to Landri, occupied the room that Jaubourg, a gentleman of leisure, used for a study. A library of some size justified that title. It exhibited on its shelves the backs of rare volumes, which the collector had bought for the editions and for the bindings, and seldom opened. Pierre Chaffin had seated himself in front of a magnificent Riesener desk. The morocco top of that regal piece had certainly never before been used for such tasks as those in which he was engaged. He was correcting the proofs of a medical pamphlet, in order not to waste his time in the interval between his sittings by the bedside of the invalid, who, for his part, had written nothing at that desk, for many years, except notes accepting or declining invitations to dinner!
Between the doctor and Landri de Claviers-Grandchamp the relations had always been rather peculiar. As children they played together. Then the difference in their ranks had separated them. Old Chaffin's surly temperament—which he turned to account as knaves do their failings, by exaggerating it—reappeared in Pierre, without artifice or hidden motive. Very intelligent and energetic, taking life by its only good side, work, the head of the clinical staff affected the rough manner of the pure professional who is incessantly irritated by incompetence and pretentiousness. In his eyes all the people in society—and Landri was included in that category—were useless and incapable. Strange as such an anomaly may seem, many physicians, albeit very shrewd observers in respect to physiological symptoms, form such judgments of matters relating to the life of the mind, with the simplicity of primary-school children. Literally, they do not see it. Never had Pierre Chaffin suspected the inward drama through which the young noble was passing, torn asunder between his caste and his epoch. As his proud uncourtliness kept him away from the luxury and the festivities of Grandchamp, he was wholly ignorant of the reverse side of a society of which his father never spoke except in phrases of the most conventional and the most hypocritical respect. He was equally ignorant that he inspired in Landri a deep interest blended with generous envy. Yes, ever since their youth, the heir of the Claviers-Grandchamps had envied the student his independence in the struggle of life, and the reality of his activity. Unknown to his playmate, he had followed him through the successes of his service as intern, recommending him again and again to the illustrious Professor Louvet, his family physician. To these advances, to that regard which goes forth to meet friendship half-way, Pierre Chaffin never responded save by a stubborn coldness, in which there was some embarrassment, a defence, at once brutal and alarmed, against a sympathy of which he could not fathom the cause. There entered into it also a little of another, less generous, sort of envy,—that of the son of a salaried employee for the son of the employer, of the plebeian for the aristocrat.
He displayed no more amenity than usual on this occasion, in acknowledging Landri's greeting and his questions concerning Jaubourg's illness.
"It's acute pneumonia in its classic form," he said, raising from his proofs his broad face, surrounded by a reddish beard, to which a pair of gold-bowed spectacles imparted the expression of a German scholar. "A cold contracted by imprudence, fatigue for several days, lame back, headache. Then the peculiar chill, so characteristic of the disease, that cry of agony of the whole organism attacked, and, immediately after, thirty-nine degrees of fever. That's the first day. The second, a hundred and ten pulsations a minute, and forty respirations, instead of fourteen or eighteen. Last night, delirium. This evening or to-morrow, judgment will be pronounced on the pneumonia, and I fear it will be very harsh, considering the patient's age."
"Do you think that he will still know me?" asked Landri. "Joseph used the word madness."
"Joseph doesn't know what that word means," interposed the physician abruptly, with a shrug of the shoulders which was not far from signifying, "Nor you, either."—"I myself," he continued, "used almost the same word, which one should never do. It was not delirium that Monsieur Jaubourg had last night, it was subdelirium. The upper parts of the brain were under the influence of toxins, and the others, the unconscious parts, were free and wandering. It's a sort of poisoning peculiar to pneumonia, and which sometimes indicates its coming. It is very analogous to alcoholic poisoning. It manifests itself by a dream which expresses itself in speech and is incoherent to us. Probably, if we knew the past life of a person intoxicated in this way, we should discover that his incoherence is logical and true. Most frequently, he lives over past events. It's a phenomenon that has been carefully observed. We have given it one of those names of which society folk make sport, I know, I know. Since Molière's time we are used to such sarcasms. We call it anecmnésiquestate, when the depths of the memory come to the surface, as we call this delirious dreamonirique. Why does a certain microbe produce this effect when it attacks the meninges? This problem would lead us on to define what the mind is, and it is probable that you and I would not agree!—But let us drop this, which is scarcely interesting to you. I wanted simply to explain to you that Monsieur Jaubourg has never been mad, and that he has all his wits this morning. You can see him. Not for very long, and don't tire him."
Once more, in the persistently technical tone of this dry and unfeeling speech, Landri detected that instinctive hostility, unintelligible to him, which he had always encountered in Pierre. The physician had lectured in order to avoid having to talk. And not a word of inquiry as to his own father, when they had not met for more than a year! Not a word about M. de Claviers-Grandchamp, who had always been so kind to him! Pierre Chaffin had an excuse—the ill-humor in which his master, Professor Louvet, had put him by asking him not to leave Rue de Solferino. The head of the clinic obeyed his "grand pontiff,"—the students irreverently give that title to the masters on whom their futures depend,—and he relieved himself by being ungracious to one who, more than all others, represented that fashionable society to the prestige of which his chief sacrificed him. There was not the slightest failure of professional duty. A physician must not cavil at his science,—with the friends of a patient. That was nothing—that theory concerning the dreams of delirium—except a slightly pedantic excursus. It was sufficient to cause the words extorted from Jaubourg by the intoxication of his disease, if the crisis should come on in Landri's presence, to assume an entirely different meaning in the young man's mind. Alas! he had no need of that scientific "key." Unaided he would have deciphered only too easily the dying man's words! They carried their terrifying clearness with them. Nevertheless, the hypothesis of a death-bed insanity would have left room for a doubt which the scientist's lucid diagnosis had made untenable.
When Madame de Claviers' son entered his chamber, the dying man seemed to be exhausted by the high fever of the night, and to be more calm. He lay on a bed in the middle of the room, himself a curiosity for exhibition, like all the articles of furniture of that room, brought together during many years, with the painstaking zeal of a collector. This elegance of stage-setting rendered more painful the last hours of the old man, whose appearance shocked Landri, warned though he had been. The cheeks were burning, the whole face hyperæmic; the eyes shone with the unnatural brilliancy of suffering, and the hurried, almost spasmodic, dilatation of the nostrils told of the struggle against suffocation.
In his lifetime—it was already permissible to speak thus of him—Jaubourg had been the typical society man, who does not surrender; the worldling whose courageous courtesy spares others the contact and the spectacle of his degeneration. That degeneration was complete to-day, ominously undeniable and irreparable. But as a matter of habit the Parisian had mustered energy to make a last toilet. His face was washed and shaved, his sparse gray locks brushed, his hands cared for. He had put on a dressing-jacket of soft silk. Puerile yet pathetic details, which indicated his desire not to leave a too perverted image of himself in the memory of his visitor, the only one whom he had admitted during the last half-week. He had expressly forbidden Joseph to notify the few relations—very distant they were—that he still possessed. He had trembled lest they should suspect a condition of affairs which he had made it a point of honor to conceal for twenty-nine years. Yes, every effort of his life had had but one aim: to leave his fortune to the son he had had by another man's wife, without causing the world or that other man to wonder. The world—he had succeeded in hoodwinking it almost absolutely by such prodigies of diplomacy! The stories told by two or three members of his family, such as Madame Privat, had not gone outside a very small circle, and intimates with the perspicacity of a Bressieux are rare. The friendship which Jaubourg had manifested for M. de Claviers since his widowhood, and which, by a strange but very human anomaly, was sincere, would have put that noble-minded man's suspicions to sleep, if he had conceived any. But that great heart did not know what it was to distrust! It was he whom Jaubourg by his will had made his sole legatee, without informing him or anyone else. His reflections had led him to this roundabout method of assuring to Landri his three millions at least. He had, as we have seen, carried his scrupulosity to the point of being persistently cold in his treatment of the young man, who, like everybody else, must never know the truth.
The adulterine father had anticipated everything, everything except the death-agony among the hallucinations of memory! On his death-bed he was to destroy this masterpiece of his prudence, and, we must add, of a chivalry instigated perhaps by a tacit rivalry with the magnanimous friend whom his passion had caused him to betray. He had failed therein, for the first time, in yielding to the unspeakable craving to see once more, before taking his departure forever, that son who bore another's name and who was so dear to him.
Few men have the strength to die absolutely alone. Jaubourg had alleged to himself the pretext of talking to the young man of the project of marriage with Mademoiselle de Charlus, to which he attached very great importance. He had not foreseen the loss of energy under the attacks of his malady, or the animal cry of nature in rebellion.
"You have come, my friend," he said in a short, jerky voice, in which there was already a hint of the death-rattle. "You have come," he repeated; "thanks." And he pressed the hand that the other held out, in a passionate grasp. What a contrast to the guarded and quickly withdrawn clasp that he had always given him, as if unwillingly and with the ends of his fingers! This had been one of the most painful to the sensitive Landri of all the indications of his antipathy. "I wanted to speak to you—before I die—For I am going to die." And, as the other protested: "What's the use of lying? I feel death coming. I haven't much strength. Every word tears me apart." He pointed to both sides of his chest. "I must speak quickly—I wanted to talk to you," he insisted,—"about your marriage—"
"To Mademoiselle de Charlus?" rejoined the young man. He had noticed that Jaubourg, like Chaffin a moment earlier, did not mention M. de Claviers. "He doesn't really care for him, either," he thought, recalling the last words that the marquis had shouted after him as they parted. "It's the disease," he reflected further. "And I had thought of consulting him about the tricks of our creditors—and I find him in this state!"—He added, aloud: "My father told me how deeply you had interested yourself for me in that matter, and I thank you heartily, you understand,—heartily."
"Claviers mentioned it to you?" rejoined the dying man; and added, with feverish anxiety, "and you replied?"
"That I shall never marry a woman I do not love, and that I do not love Mademoiselle de Charlus."
"I was sure of it!" groaned Jaubourg, leaning forward sorrowfully. A hoarse cough shook him, which he tried to check with his handkerchief, upon which spots like rust appeared. "Don't call," he summoned strength to say to Landri, who was putting out his hand to touch the button of the electric bell. In face of the manifest terror of that appeal, he remembered the doctor's recommendations. He obeyed. The invalid, exhausted by the paroxysm of coughing, smoothed his hand to signify his gratitude. He had thrown himself back, with his eyes closed. He reopened them, to resume: "Butshelovesyou! And she is charming! And then, there's the future—I don't know what you will find when Claviers is no longer there. I have never been able to make him talk about his money matters. He doesn't know where he stands himself. Ah! I tremble for you. I have done what I could. But this Charlus marriage—everything would be straightened out, everything. This Chaffin, in whom he has such blind confidence, what is he? I have never been able to find out that, either. Oh! my poor, poor Landri!"
His excitement increased. The young man did not yet interpret in their true meaning words which, however, clothed with a new aspect that strange nature; did they not betray a preoccupation wholly intent upon him, in a man whom he regarded as a friend of his father exclusively? On the other hand these words of distrust in connection with Chaffin corresponded too nearly with the feeling aroused in his own mind for him not to follow them up.
"Do you, too, look upon Chaffin with suspicion?"
"For a very long time," Jaubourg replied. "You will ask me: 'In that case, why do you place yourself in his son's care?' Louvet forced him on me. I did not refuse. I didn't think that I was so seriously ill! And then, the son isn't the same sort as the father. But you don't know what it is, to feel at times that you are going off, that you are speaking, that you have spoken. And then you don't remember what you have said—not a word. Everything is black before the mind. How I suffered from that impression last night! Joseph swore that I didn't say anything. You can believe him. He is reliable, perfectly reliable.—My God! that feeling is coming back!—My head!—it aches. Oh! how it aches! It's as if I had a pain in my mind!"—He took his head in his hands and pressed it. Another paroxysm of coughing bent him double; he came out of it repeating: "No! no! no! no!" Then, as if that almost convulsive denial had renewed his strength, he added, speaking more jerkily than ever: "I know why you won't marry this girl, who is so rich, who would rescue you if Claviers has squandered everything! I know why. You still love the other."
"What other?" queried Landri. The overmastering compassion that he felt for the invalid's evident agony did not prevent him from starting at that direct allusion. One fact stood out in his memory: Valentine imploring him not to go up to Jaubourg's room, not to see him. Were they acquainted, then? His surprise was so great that he insisted almost harshly: "What other, I say? Whom are you referring to?"
"To that Madame Olier," said Jaubourg. "Oh! Landri, not those eyes, not that voice! I can't stand that!—Look you,—I say nothing against her. I know that no one ever spoke ill of her. But at Saint-Mihiel you saw her constantly—I know that. She is a widow. I know that too, and where she lives. I should have found a way to know her, if it had been necessary. I know everything that concerns you, you see. I have always found a way to know it, day by day, ever since you were born. You mustn't think of marrying her. If she loves you for yourself, she ought not to think of it, either. In the first place, Claviers will never consent. And secondly you must be rich. I want you to be rich—I want it.—You don't understand. You must not understand.—Ah! I have always loved you so dearly, you know, Landri, and I have never been able to show it. It was my duty not to. It's my duty now.—My head is getting confused again, like yesterday.—But I don't want—I don't want—No. No. No. I won't say anything.—Go away, Joseph. Go away, Chaffin. They're looking at me. They shall not know. They shall not know.—My Landri! my own Landri!"
"Neither Joseph nor Chaffin is here," said the young man. "Calm yourself, Jaubourg. Calm yourself."
He made him lie down again, very gently. Those few sentences from the dying man's lips had moved him to the inmost depths of his being. With what a passionate interest the man must have followed him in order to have obtained such detailed information concerning incidents of so private a nature! M. de Claviers did not even suspect Madame Olier's existence before their conversation in the forest, and Jaubourg knew everything about her! He knew everything about him, he had said, "day by day, ever since he was born." What did those enigmatic words mean, and uttered, too, in such a tone? And those other words: "I have always loved you so dearly! I have never been able to show it.It was my duty not to!"
And, already disturbed even to anguish, Landri repeated: "They are not here. I am alone with you, all alone;" and, almost in a tone of entreaty: "Before me you can say anything; speak, if that will calm you. For you must calm yourself. You must."