A man, it might be said without injustice, who was not much of a Catholic, that Saulvard!... A third-rate savant, a most mediocre intellect, an anemic writer, moreover a sycophant and a greedy intriguer. He had made use of his relations with high finance to enter the Institute, and then of his title of Academician to join the boards of companies. One had but to consult the Year-book. (And Cyprien feverishly turned the pages again.) He was there in three different places, as member of three well-remunerated, although discredited, boards. As to his wife....
“Probably a bigot?” Raindal the younger asked.
No, she was not a bigot;—she was a shameless hussy. Schleifmann, usually better informed, did not know the names of her several lovers, but he could give him two at all events, asserting in a symbolic and summary sense, that she had sinned with gods and devils. She was vain, moreover, an inveterate snob, painted and powdered way down to her waist, a back-biter, whose stomach troubles had ruined her disposition....
Raindal could stand it no longer. He was choking.
“Excuse me, Schleifmann,” he said, laying a friendly hand on the Galicia shoulder. “I forgot the time.... I am dining with my brother who is going to a dance to-night at the house of precisely this scoundrel.... I am very glad to be so thoroughly informed.... I assure you, yes, quite satisfied.... You do mind, do you? I have barely enough time! I must run away.... Are you coming?”
At the bottom of the stairs he parted hurriedly from his friend. A deep longing urged him to reach the flat in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, there to unload on his indolent brother the mass of filth with which Schleifmann had liberally filled him.
Not without apprehension did M. Raindal watch the arrival of his brother, having earlier in the day found that it was one of his talkative days. He anticipated a fresh outbreak of hostilities and controversiesand that ill-disposed him beforehand. He received his brother with marked coldness, and carelessly held out his hand in order to forestall any new attempt.
“Just a minute! I am finishing an urgent piece of work.... If yo like to wait for me in the drawing-room, the ladies are there....”
When Uncle Cyprien had gone he congratulated himself upon his firmness. As a matter of fact, he had always intensely disliked discussing any subject with his brother. It was as in the tourneys of old, which were open to none but Knights. Before he would oppose a man in a discussion, that man had to be his peer, a gallant champion of his own caste, of his own intellectual rank, and one who practiced without flinching the noble art of tilting with ideas. With other men, Eusèbe Raindal avoided the contest; he turned tail in courteous agreement or even, if necessary, shammed sudden deafness.
His self-satisfaction increased at the dinner-table. Never had Uncle Cyprien proved so gay, so affable or so little inclined to quarrel. He teased Thérèse about her “forthcoming marriage,” repeatedly addressed her as “Mamzelle my nephew” or informed Brigitte, the young, ruddy-faced maid from Brittany, that,sapristi!it would soon be her turn.
Thérèse readily put up with his somewhat vulgar facetiousness. She tolerated much from her uncle, because she guessed at all the real tenderness hidden beneath his intolerance and his rabid abuse.
Mme. Raindal herself secretly admired her brother-in-law. She was grateful for the fact that he hated the Jews, whom she saw as the abhorred tormentors of the Saviour. She condoned his blasphemies concerning the priests because of his aversion towards the deicide race.
Her small, round face with its soft, pale cheeks reddened with a sudden flush of pride when he praised her pie. She laughed at all his remarks to the end of the meal, although she often missed his real point.
For politeness’ sake, M. Raindal smiled with her. When they had drunk their coffee, he returned to his study with Cyprien while the two women retired to dress. Left alone, they remained for a while in silent meditation. The master of the house, his feet drawn towards the red glow of the fire, dozed with his eyes half-closed, in that perfect coil of peacefulness that one feels in the company of a trusted friend. Uncle Cyprien lighted his heavy cherry-wood pipe from the Vosges mountains and paced the room, blowing his smoke out in strong puffs. He was preparing to let out his exterminating ammunition, all those deadly revelations which he had been holding back for the last two hours in sheer refinement of pleasure.
Brutally, he sent forth the first volley.
“By the way! Your chap of this evening, he is a nice bird!”
The effect was that of the alarm gun calling forth the soldier asleep in his tent. M. Raindal shivered with emotion and asked angrily.
“What? Whom do you mean?”
“Your Saulvard, of course!... Yes, I have some fine lines on him.... That gentlemen may well boast of them!”
One after the other, all the munitions piled up by Schleifmann followed in rapid succession.
“You surprise me very much!” M. Raindal muttered. “I admit that I do not know Saulvard very much.... I never had any but professional relations with him.... Yet, I never heard it said.... Your friend Schleifmann must be exaggerating....”
His brother Cyprien smiled shyly at this evasion but did not reply at once. He emptied his pipe in an ash tray. After a while, he broke the silence.
“Tell me ... where does this Saulvard live?”
The query made M. Raindal restless in his chair. He foresaw how grave was the reply he would have to give and tried to equivocate:
“Why, really, I do know.... It is the first time we are going there.... Thérèse has the invitation; she will be able to tell you....”
“You do know!” Cyprien replied, aggressively sarcastic. “Go on! I am willing to grant you may not know the number of the house; but surely you know the name of the street; you must at least know in what district it is!”
M. Raindal hid his uneasiness and pretended deeply to search into his memory.
“It seems to me,” he replied at length, “that he livesin the avenue Kléber.... Yes, tha it, avenue Kléber.”
“Of course! I would have laid a bet on it!” Uncle Cyprien said victoriously.
Thereupon the dreaded storm burst upon the master in a tumult of abuse and imprecations.
Cyprien had effectively found the opportunity once more to air his theory of the “two banks” and he hurled it out with a crash.
As a matter of fact, it was not altogether his own. The Galician had supplied the idea and Cyprien had but added the eloquent developments and the vigor of his lungs. But they had so often recited it to each other, chiseled it together and together enlarged upon it that they no longer discerned their particular share in the collaboration, and each of them claimed the authorship, whenever the other happened to be absent.
According to them, Paris was composed of two cities, absolutely distinct in population, ways of life and customs. The river Seine divided these two enemy cities. On its two banks, Sion the venerable faced Gomorrah.
Sion, the left bank, that was, stood for the home of virtue, science and faith. Her people were chaste, modest and diligent; they had preserved, in poverty and toil, the honest and decent national traditions. There the men were pure and the women beyond reproach. The whole inheritance of the ancestors—loyalty, devotion and high-mindedness were transmitted from fathers to sons, sheltered from the corruptionof money and the shameful example of the foreigners. In sooth, it was the holy city.
Gomorrah, the right bank, was the region of vice, license and dishonesty. It was the hunting-ground of all the cosmopolitan riff-raff, all the shifty hordes of exotics who had gradually foregathered and silently slipped into France after the war of 1870. They formed a nomadic, rascally and thievish multitude, without principles, country or morals and were united solely by their greed for gold or a thirst for coarse pleasures. Gambling in stocks had filled their coffers and criminal transactions paid for their fatuous homes. The women were no better than the men; the adultery of the former flourished by the side of the swindling of the latter. Whole districts, and some of the finest, had become their domicile. Chaillot, Monceau, Malesherbes and the Roule bowed at their orders and their money. There were long rows of hotels all filled withrastaquouères, and houses which the Jews had conquered from top to bottom, occupying every floor. Semites from Frankfort fraternized there with adventurers from the New World, shady Americans with dubious Orientals. And the whole country was sucked dry in the service of that impudent mob which gave its orders in doubtful French. The right bank—it was the cursed city!
Cyprien always drew great effects and lengthy orations from these descriptions and parallels; he used them also as a sort of touchstone by which to appreciate people. If one lived on the left bank of theriver, he was at once entitled to Cyprie sympathies. But if one dwelt on the right bank, in a rich neighborhood, Cyprien was at once wary of him, and would only make amends later after his title to respect had been established.
M. Raindal had labored hard to point out how such a theory was psychologically doubtful and topographically inexact; but his brother persisted in it because it was simple, violent, and corroborated his passions.
Especially this evening when he had been rested by two days’ silence and stimulated by Schleifman call, he was riding his hobby all around M. Raindal with an increasing air of challenge and daring.
“Yes,” he shouted at his brother, stamping the carpet, “you are blind.... You know nothing, you see nothing.... You live in your corner, buried among your mummies and your old books.... You have never been further than the bridge of the Saints-Pères.... You are duped and exploited; you are a child—a kid, as Schleifmann says. Why do you go for a walk some day through those places I am telling you about?... Talk, ask, find out.... You will see.... In that world, in those houses, abominable deeds are performed and all manner of foulness!”
The voiceless patience of M. Raindal was worn out. He risked one of those defenses which he had used before in the course of that polemic when the returnshad at length become regular and mechanical as in a stage duel:
“Yet you are not alleging that the whole virtue of Paris has found asylum in our district!... I shall never be tired of repeating it to you: on the other side of the water are to be found many people that belong to decent society, and even to the aristocracy, people who have left the Faubourg to go and live in the new sections, the Champs Elysées, for instance.... Well! those people—you are not going to tell me that they....”
Cyprien sneered with commiseration and took up the gauntlet.
“Ha! ha! I am not going to tell you?... Of course, I am going to tell you!...”
And tell he did. He jumped from digression to digression, slashing right and left, forward and back, twirling his ideas about and knocking heads down everywhere in the craze of a wholesale assault. One after the other, the degenerated aristocracy, the Jews, the grafters and the priests fell under his blows. He reinforced himself with quotations from his favorite masters and these excited him as a war cry.
M. Raindal kept his peace for a moment, but feeling that his silence was perhaps even more exasperating to his adversary than mild retorts, he turned on the tap of conciliatory generalities. They oozed from his lips in amorphous, unfinished sentences, in small, intermittent streams, similar to the colorless and limpiddribble that runs along the chin of a baby; or else they suddenly dried up under the wind of invective.
“The plague of democracies.... A necessary evil.... This M. Rochefort is truly clever.... Experience teaches us.... M. Drumont is not lacking in spirit.... One of the vices of the plutocratic régime.... It is not a new thing to see financiers and revenue farmers.... I do not deny that M. Schleifmann is a very distinguished thinker.... We have come to a turning point of history....”
Thérèse came in and interrupted him, for her Uncle Cyprien instinctively lowered his voice when he saw her. The shy evasions of M. Raindal increased his assurance; but he dreaded sarcastic remarks or the sharp retorts of “Mademoiselle his nephew.”
“Well, what is happening?” Thérèse asked sweetly.... “Uncle, I bet you are teasing my poor father again?
“Hum! Not at all!” Uncle Cyprien replied shame-facedly.... “Not at all, we were merely talking.... You understand, one warms up, one gets excited....”
Thérèse pouted derisively.
“Yes, yes, I know, you warm up, you get excited.... I heard you from my room....”
She turned to M. Raindal.
“Come on, father, it is eleven.... Mother is ready.... Go and dress....”
Alone with her uncle, she walked to the fireplace to straighten in front of the mirror her hair whichshe had disarranged here and there when inserting her flowers. She wore white carnations—in memory ofAlbârt. Their spreading whiteness enlivened her face. Her neck seemed by reflection less sallow and more delicate in the pink muslin frame of her corsage.
Artlessly she smiled at herself, surprised to find herself thus dainty, attractive, almost pretty. As a matter of fact, she did have that ethereal iridescence of beauty which the unusual splendor of a party dress projects at once upon women. It is an ephemeral charm, light as a pastel, which fades away, evaporates in the heat and the jealousy of a ball; but at home it encourages the most homely. For one instant in the solitude of her own room, in front of her own mirror, a woman finds herself beautiful enough, too beautiful—and she is willing to go, and does, in fact, go.
Her Uncle Cyprien, in a friendly mood, observed her little coquettish ways:
“Well, my nephew? And so we are going to make merry in the merry world?”
“Oh, prodigiously,” Thérèse replied with a sigh. “We must enjoy ourselves in this world.... There will always be people to enjoy themselves.... Always there will be a frivolous and depraved society.... If they did not make merry on the other side of the river, they would do it here.... It is the rule and you cannot alter it....”
Uncle Cyprien brushed back with his hand his hair which was so close-trimmed that is crackled with aruffling noise under his fingers. He murmured disdainfully:
“Philosophy! Philosophy!... You know, my dear nephew, that we do not argue, you and I, ... you are too strong and too sure of yourself. There, I do mind admitting it, you make me feel ill at ease!”
M. Raindal returned, followed by his wife, her form hidden in her long cape. She wore in her hair an old mauve aigrette, the barbs of which were limp and spread out like a worn-out paint-brush.
“Well, are we ready?” the master of the house asked, looking at his brother.
“Yes, wl all go down together. Come along!”
A cab was waiting outside. Brigitte gave the drive number to M. Raindal.
The family sat closely huddled in the back seat. Uncle Cyprien closed the door on them and shouted as the carriage began to move:
“Good luck! A pleasant evening, nephew!”
He gave a friendly pinch to the chin of Brigitte, who stood stupidly smiling.
“Good night, my girl.... Go and dream of a fiancé!”
He turned up the collar of his coat and took the rue Vavin. In the fever of his triumph at every step he flourished his thick cornel stick as if it had been a gory mace.
THEball given by M. and Mme. Lemeunier de Saulvard (of the Institute) “in their apartment” in the avenue Kléber, on the occasion of the engagement of their niece, Mlle. Genevieve de Saulvard, to M. Brisset de Saffry de Lamorneraie, lieutenant of the 21st hussars, had attracted a large assembly of guests.
The army, the fine arts, literature, science, the upper bourgeoisie, men of learning, club-men, men of finance and men of the drawing-room—the full contingent of their acquaintances filled their apartment after 11 lock. All the guests, for lack of any other common ground, were at least agreed on the subject of the party and voted it a success.
As a matter of fact, the Saulvards deserved the praise, for they had shown themselves far from niggardly. The buffet was sumptuous, covered with silver plate, viands and piles of sandwiches, ices, sweet-smelling drinks and spread here and there with dishes of frozen fruit in large pale pink or green rings like dull-colored silk plaques. And everywhere there were flowers, in bushes, baskets and garlands. Rows of white chrysanthemums concealed the upper parts of the windows with their intricate strands, and chains of delicate winter roses climbed along the chandeliers,whence fell through the crystal the calm, intense glow of the electric lights.
The orchestra was made up of gypsies in red coats with heavy gold braidings. They formed a sort of barbaric guard of honor in front of the piano. In the interval between the dances people stopped to watch them cleaning their strange instruments as if they were wild men in a camp.
They began to play their sensuous airs. One couple rose, then two, then three. Then all at once the reflections made by the lights upon the empty shiny floor disappeared under the mixed crowd of dancers. Mothers smiled. Old savants dreamily beat the rhythm with their feet; the heads of young women were bent backwards and their eyes shone in enamored glances. The enervating beatitude of that music caused them all to tremble for an instant in spite of themselves with the same pleasure that drew them together. At those moments one might have imagined himself witnessing one of those gatherings where people of the same set are fused in joyous intimacy and with the feeling of being secure among themselves.
But the illusion disappeared with the last note. It was like refractory liquids which, as soon as one ceases to beat them together, separate and naturally resume their own color and their own place. The whirlwind of the dancers was broken up; close embraces ceased and steady glances turned away. Instinctively everyone fell back among his own set, returned to his caste.Once more between hostile groups the floor in the center of the room stretched out under the lights a desert of frightening barrenness.
There were but a few daring young men from the great clubs who ventured on it; Gerald de Meuze, Tommy Barbier, Patrice de Vernaise, Saint-Pons and the little prince of Tavarande; they had committed themselves at the urgent entreaty of Mme. de Saulvard. There were also some brother officers of the fiancé, in sky-blue coats and red trousers with light bands, most of them titled or bearing those bourgeois names which, while not noble, announced at least an ancient worth and a duly established family.
They walked round the drawing-rooms alone, or by twos, seemingly meditative, supporting their bent elbows with one hand and curling their mustaches with the other. They examined the women, one by one, studiously, as if these had been cattle at a fair. With their heavy, disdainful eyelids, one could hardly tell whether they were purposely shrinking their eyes to the dimensions of that small world or whether they were perhaps tormented by a persistent and rebellious desire to sneeze.
Saulvard had vainly attempted at first to merge the other elements of the assembly. He had had to give it up in the face of resistance.
Thus high finance and great industry and their satellites formed a compact clan in the right-hand corner of the first drawing-room. They laughed, cackled and chattered, and were sufficient unto themselves;the minute a stranger dared to break in, seeking a chair or a little more elbow room, in short, the slightest opening, this group assumed dark countenances. They had a welcome for none but the representatives of the aristocracy. The latter, however, were massed a little away from them; they formed a small élite, had closed their ranks after the necessary greetings, and henceforth affected to ignore their jovial neighbors, reserving for each other their cordiality and their smiles. Apart from a few noblemen whom the smell of blood or the need for financial advice moved to approach the other clan, the aristocratic group remained effectively faithful to its principles of separatism and its arrogant virtuosity.
The Academicians also kept their distance. The five sections of the Institute kept to their circle but did not fraternize. They hardly even exchanged brief amenities or passed chairs to each other in order to avoid any promiscuity with the Academy of Medicine—intruders who were signaled to all by a volatile smell of iodoform or phenol brought in their clothing.
The literary men and their wives had constituted a close circle with the groups of painters and musicians. But even that brought forth constraint or reciprocal animosity.
The result was that Saulvard, who stood on duty near the door, assumed more and more the air of a guardian of a public dancing hall, or the controller of a casino who checked the entrance of the subscribersand jollied equally all his diverse classes of patrons.
He was short and bald; his yellow face was framed by two short white whiskers—the face of a Japanese turned butler; he smiled ceaselessly, bowed and straightened himself up again; he hopped on his high pointed heels as if waiting, or thanking for, a tip. He murmured, following them five or six steps, appropriate flatteries to all his invited guests, as soon as they reached the doorstep. His glances wandered round, discreet and confidential. From afar one might have thought that he was showing the newcomers the way to the cloakroom.
As soon as the Raindal family appeared, he nimbly rose to meet them.
“Ah, my dear colleague!... What joy!... I was almost despairing....”
His two hands caught that of M. Raindal and he went on:
“I have not seen you since your success!... What a triumph!... What a beautiful book!... Madame.... Mademoiselle....”
He bowed, then, standing on tiptoe so as to reach the ear of M. Raindal, he whispered:
“You know, our young man is here ... a charming fellow. He will attract your daughter very much.... No escape....Fata volunt.... This way, please, come, my dear colleague, and I shall bring you that phenix....”
By an instinctive pressure on the shoulder heshunted Raindal towards a corner of the drawing-room where the section of the Inscriptions had disposed its trenches. A few chairs were left unoccupied in the first and second rows. M. and Mme. Raindal settled down behind and Thérèse sat in front of them between the two daughters of one of her fathe colleagues. They were thin and small, like the raw-boned hectic teams that draw the Paris public cabs. They conversed, but furtively inspected the gir dress. Thérèse looked up when she heard the voice of Saulvard who was making his reappearance, followed by a young man of very short stature.
“My dear friend, dear master,” he called over the heads of the girls, “allow me to introduce one of our young confrères, whose name you surely know: M. Pierre Boerzell....” Each of the two savants mumbled courteous expressions which the other could not catch. Then Saulvard added:
“M. Pierre Boerzell ... Mlle. Raindal.”
The young man bowed awkwardly. The orchestra was preluding with the slow harmonies of a waltz. He murmured:
“Mademoiselle, will you give me the pleasure of this waltz?”
Sympathetically Thérèse refused.
“No, Monsieur, thank you.... I do dance ... but if you wish ... we might, as one says, I believe, talk it....”
Boerzell stammered a grateful acceptance. The two “hackney horses” had started immediately for thewaltz. He took one of the chairs they had left empty by the side of Thérèse. The conversation, which she had cleverly directed at once towards scientific matters, became cordial and almost familiar.
He was not handsome. His chest was narrow, his nose short; his cheeks were bloated and flabby, almost falling over a suspicion of a beard. His eyelids were heavy from night work. His eyes, however, behind the thick glasses of his pince-nez, shone with a kind and tender light. When he talked, his voice had those caressing and particular inflections of intellectual people who enjoy having their words sound like true coin; and while he spoke his gestures became more alert and vivacious; his arms relaxed as he grew less embarrassed.
M. Raindal out of curiosity soon brought his chair forward and took part in the discussion of the two young people. They were flirting over the interpretation of a tri-lingual inscription recently discovered in Mesopotamia. Thérèse was defending her interpretation with that professional assurance, that ma voice, which she always assumed in the course of scientific discussions.
“Ah, Monsieur!” Boerzell exclaimed in discouragement. “Mademoiselle is very strong; she knows much more than I.... She has beaten me....”
Smilingly M. Raindal agreed.
“Well, you are not the first!... Often I myself....”
The waltz had finished and the two cab horses werecoming back to their stand which the young savant had to leave. He asked Thérèse:
“Would you allow me to take you to the buffet with Madame, your mother?”
“With pleasure, monsieur! Will you come, Mother?”
Mme. Raindal took Boerzel arm and Thérèse followed behind, going towards the buffet through the crowd of dancers who were returning to their seats.
M. Raindal watched them go. He was sitting in his favorite position: his elbows were pressed against his sides, his forearms up, and his hands hung limp at the end of his wrists like the paws of a “begging” dog. From his seat through the wide open door he could see without effort into the dining-room. He perceived the back of his wife; she was bent over the elaborate table hastily making her choice. Against the high chimney covered with white blossoms Thérèse stood with Boerzell; they were sipping out of their spoons a pink fruit-like ice; they stopped at times and looked at each other laughingly, chatting, their heads close together, like life-long friends.
If only she could make up her mind! If she would accept that young man!... No, that would be too fine!... And yet, who knew!... The ebb and flow of contradictory thoughts caused M. Rainda lips to stretch in softened smiles or to purse in bitter grimaces.
Then his colleagues approached and began to congratulate him upon his new book. More of themjoined the first ones. A small, applauding group surrounded M. Raindal and hid his daughter from his sight. The last comers tipped their heads to one side, straining their ears to catch the maste replies. “You are very good....” “I am ashamed, really....” “Be sure that on my side....” The complimenters vied with each other in outbidding and protested their sincerity in extravagant praise.
At length the enthusiasm came to an end. They became silent and listened to M. Raindal, who was recalling memories of his youth and the misery of his early efforts.
Suddenly the purring voice of Saulvard caused the ranks of the audience to open.
“Pardon, Gentlemen! Pardon!”
With one hand bent like the prow of a boat, he was making a path for a dark-haired young woman who hung on his arm; he came to a stop near M. Raindal.
“My dear friend.... Will you help me satisfy the wishes of one of your lady admirers who is longing to make your acquaintance?... M. Eusèbe Raindal ... Mme. Georges Chambannes....”
M. Raindal rose and bowed, one hand resting on the back of his chair.
“Madame, I am delighted....”
Mme. Chambannes protested.
“It is I, on the contrary, Monsieur....”
They stood facing each other in distress as if, inspite of their mutual good will, they did not know what to say.
Shyly M. Raindal glanced at the young woman. Her little eagle face was softened by light brown eyes with a languorous expression; the waves of her black hair, brushed in classic style back towards her neck, concealed in its rich coils something savage and willful. At length she spoke again in halting sentences, the words often lacking the precision which she might have desired.
“Yes, Monsieur, I greatly admire your book.... It is a charming book, a great masterpiece.... I cannot say how much I was charmed with it, and how much amused.... Ah! it must be so interesting to write books like that.... And the style is so delightful, so pleasant to read!...”
“Well, I must leave you!” M. Saulvard interrupted, as he blinked his slanting eyes.... “My guests.... Excuse me!...”
He disappeared leaving them alone, as the members of the little group had discreetly vanished one by one.
After a glance of mutual agreement M. Raindal and the young woman sat down to continue their conversation.
But he noticed the pale blue satin dress of Mme. Chambannes so close to the black cloth of his trousers that instinctively he withdrew slightly to one side. Smilingly she piled up her compliments. Then the discomfort which the master habitually felt whenconversing with people of inferior culture—ignorant people, men or women of society—was increased by the embarrassment he felt at being so close to the low-cut dress of his admirer. Despite himself his glances were fastened to it and followed her full and easy curves. It seemed to him that an invisible force compelled his eyes to look at that skin, dull and diaphanous like a piece of fine china, at those perfumed breasts that rose and fell quietly against the ruffles of the opening without needing its support for their young firmness. Distractedly, all out of place, with sudden flights of thought, he answered the exclamations and multiple queries of Mme. Chambannes. And while he tried to listen to her he was comparing her to one of Cleopatr attendants, one of those dainty Greek slaves whose saucy prettiness provided a setting for the Queen of Egypt, as nymphs around a goddess.
Nevertheless the lad flow of praise was ceasing. Her smooth little brow, framed by the two flat curls, was furrowed by a searching frown. She found no more chapters or passages in which to plant her “so charming” and her “so pretty” like equal good marks of alternate colors. Suddenly her graceful face smiled again and her wide nostrils palpitated with mischief. She teased M. Raindal with the challenge that he could not guess her last reason for liking his book so much.
The master pretended to search. Finally he declared with modesty:
“I do know.”
“Well, think a moment,” commanded Mme. Chambannes familiarly, rolling her .
M. Raindal was not trying to find the answer but thought to himself.
“She is very attractive but somewhat silly!”
What he said aloud, imitating her tone, was:
“No, I really ca think what it is.”
Then she resigned herself and voiced her secret, her final surprise, and indeed her pretext for further acquaintanceship, her supreme bait. Well! precisely, next winter, she intended to travel with her husband, to go to Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile. M. Rainda book had come in most handy, at the precise moment when she was beginning to study the Egyptian antiquities in view of that expected trip and naturally....
“My dear lady,” a guttural voice interrupted them. “Forgive me.... Would you be kind enough to introduce me to Monsieur....”
“Why, of course!”
Then she made the presentations.
“Monsieur le Marquis de Meuze ... one of our best friends ... and one who adores your book.”
He was a powerful old man with a majestic waistband and an aristocratic carriage. His white whiskers and curled up white mustache gave him the air of an Austrian general, for his was one of those heads which one readily fancies wearing a gold-braided cocked hat ornamented with a panache ofgreen feathers. At the time of the financial smash of 1882, he had suffered from an attack of facial paralysis which had deprived him of the use of his left eyelid. It hung gray and lifeless and hid three quarters of his eye—this infirmity completed, like a glorious wound, his resemblance to an old warrior.
He multiplied protests of admiration. Then, following the immutable rule which prompts most people to conclude their compliments with an apology, he broached the true cause that had brought him to the master. He had once possessed a collection of cameos, a quite remarkable and exceptional collection. (As to the quality of the different pieces of which it had been composed, M. Raindal could consult several of his colleagues: the Count de Lastreins, of the Academy of Inscriptions; Baron Grollet, unattached member of the Beaux Arts, or the Viscount de Sernhac, of the Académie Française, all good friends or old comrades of the Marquis.) Well, one of the gems of that collection had been a cameo of Cleopatra. Alas! M. de Meuze had had to part with it, following financial losses. But he knew where it had gone; into the hands of a Jewish stock broker, a M. Stralhaus, and, if M. Raindal so desired, the Marquis fancied that he could obtain permission to examine that piece.
The master neither accepted nor refused. The conversation circled around the art of cameo-making, with a few comments on the closely-related subject of numismatics, of which the marquis was not altogetherignorant. Out of her element Mme. Chambannes piped softly at intervals her “very prettys” and “very charmings.” M. Chambannes, a tall, fair-haired man, with a faded complexion, a weak eye and fine and scanty hair, had joined her in the meantime. His thick cylindrical mustache was like a hinged cover, so closely did it fit his lips. Taken as a whole, his tired appearance might have been either that of a flabby scoundrel or of a pleasant young man worn out by his excesses.
All three surrounded M. Raindal, who replied to their chatter with assenting but weary smiles. He would have reproached himself had he rebuffed ever so slightly strangers who were so courteous for all their stupidity. Nevertheless, after a while he grew impatient with this strained politeness, the end of which he could not foresee. He was now equally bored by that old marquis with his verbose chatter, which was worthy of a second-hand dealer, his stories about cameos, sales, and bargains, and his quotations from catalogues.
At last reinforcements arrived to rescue him. Mme. Raindal returned with Thérèse and Boerzell. Then began new introductions. Immediately Mme. Chambannes briefly repeated her compliments. Mme. Raindal, blushing continually, stammered replies that were like so many apologies. Thérèse observed in silence; her virile glance judged it all mercilessly. Then Mme. Chambannes asked what their receiving day was and if she might have permission to call.There came a period of quiet when they merely talked for the sake of talking, of the ball, the orchestra and the dances. Of a sudden Mme. Chambannes called the marquis.
“M. de Meuze....”
“Madame?”
“A little secret. Will you permit me, ladies?”
Behind her spread-out fan she whispered a few words to M. de Meuze, who listened, bent towards her, his eyebrows arched in deep attention.
“Do you think so?... I do know whether he will.... Well, I shall take a chance!”
He stepped uncertainly towards the next room, holding aloft his proud field-marsha head and searching the groups with his one small green eye. At the door of the buffet he promptly turned to one side, his hand stretched out like a hook to catch someone who was walking away from him.
Thérèse could distinguish nothing but the square shoulders and the brown neck above the shining white collar of the tall young man whom the marquis had caught. No doubt M. de Meuze must be asking something absurd and impracticable, for she could see that brown neck shaken in indignant denials; the young man was apparently asserting that they were mad or playing a trick upon him.... But suddenly she saw the neck assent and the tall man turned right about, shrugging his shoulders. The heart of Thérèse was suddenly twisted like a wounded serpent.
It was almost Albârt. An older Albârt, morerefined, more fashionable, of a superior class, but himself: the same big eyes of the color of a dark agate, the same black mustache with its impertinent tips, the same swaying of the body over two straight legs. He was coming towards her preceded by the marquis, his eyes awake as if to reconnoitre from afar and see what enemy it was against whom he was led.
Thérèse bent her head down; her back was strained against her chair; she was gathered upon herself with fright. No longer did she see her parents nor the Chambannes, nor Boerzell, nor the couples that were beginning to dance, nor the people near her, nor those beyond. She saw nothing but the long patent leather shoes, the long narrow feet of the young man, and they were coming nearer, nearer still.
When they were quite close to her the marquis effaced himself and bowed.
“Mademoiselle, may I introduce my son, M. Gerald de Meuze....”
The young count was slightly swaying before her.
“Mademoiselle, will you please grant me the end of this dance?”
Unconsciously, in the tone of a schoolgirl, Thérèse replied:
“Monsieur, I cannot dance.... I do not know how.”
“What does it matter? It all depends on your partner....”
He gave Mme. Chambannes a quick wink, either friendly or ironical, as if he were winning a bet.
“No danger, Mademoiselle, I guarantee the waltz....”
Sharply, in a sudden need to see him well, to take in all his features, Thérèse looked at him fixedly. She could not resist. Perspiration ran down her back. She was dominated by the desire to be in those arms, as once she had been in others so very much like them. She rose shortly, her voice almost harsh in spite of the smile with which she tried to correct it, and said:
“Very well, monsieur, let us try.”
Gerald put one arm round her and they began to whirl. At the first steps she stumbled out of ignorance and fear of losing the rhythm. Then he lifted her as if she were a child and carried her off gently among the dancers. Her feet no longer touched the floor. Couples brushed lightly against her. She had the impression of sliding in rhythms upon clouds with a robust lover. She closed her eyes. Voluptuous sobs choked her throat. He thought she was out of breath and stopped.
“Well, mademoiselle.... What did I say?... It goes beautifully....”
Thérèse approved with a nod; her thin lips were pale with pleasure. The count went on paternally:
“Dancing is like swimming!... You must throw yourself blindly into it.... Music pushes you along like waves.... Then, after that, you have nothing to do but let yourself go....”
In order to avoid an impolite silence he continued his theory and his comparisons.
Thérèse gave him only half answers, in indistinct monosyllables. She was regaining control of herself as she did upon awaking from those guilty dreams when Albârt sometimes came in the night so gently to press her.
What! She, Thérèse Raindal, giving way as if she were a perverse child, a boarding-school girl, in the arms of this insipid male! She was disgusted with herself. In order to hide her chagrin she applied herself to watching the leader of the gypsies, a big, olive-skinned man who played with serious expression. The long movements of his bow tore from his violin these panting melodies and his fat scarlet-coated chest swayed with the effort; he had the listening eye and his eyelids trembled. Thérèse envied his bestiality and the unthinking joy which animated that ma dark face. Why was she not like that, a thoughtless brute, without subtlety, one who lived only by his senses, which supported him even in his art?... A movement from Gerald brought her back.
“Do we start again?...”
She was still hoping she might refuse and, constraining herself, murmured:
“But, monsieur, the dance is nearly over!”
“All the more reason.... One more round.”
He had said this without enthusiasm and already his eyes turned to the place where he had to bring her back. A sudden fear seized her. She saw herself duly thanked, sitting down again, weaned for the restof the evening from these rediscovered delights. In a surge of stronger desire she said resolutely:
“Well, yes, one more round.”
He fell back with her among the dancing couples. His stretched arm gave the beat in an imperceptible palpitation; at each of these soft passes Thérèse felt the floor giving way under them. Unwittingly she fastened herself to Gerald, squeezed herself in his embrace. At this contact the whole past flew back to her in brutal jerks that maddened her.
She wanted to make a last appeal to her reasoning powers, to her dignity, to that Mlle. Raindal that she was. But she was dazed, ravished. She ceased to struggle and, her eyes once more closed, abandoned herself as a woman who gives in with dread and frenzy.
Gerald guessed nothing at all of this confusion. He smiled at his comrades. His scornful glances called upon them to witness what a “wall-flower,” what a “package,” what a “wood-basket” he had to steer around. Another great idea they had had, his father and Zozé!... Moreover that young child was pulling all the skin off his shoulder with her bony fingers that clung to him to save her from falling. Ah! Well! This was really too much! A feverish pinching gripped his shoulder. As he bent down to see if by chance the little one was not losing her head, he had to hold Thérèse back with his two arms. She had fainted, white and stiff as a corpse.
“This is the last drop! Just my luck!...”
He swung her rapidly towards the hall, jostling a little the people who were in his way. He set her upon a bench against a wall and ran out to warn the family.
In a twinkle the Raindals, the Chambannes, Boerzell and the marquis jumped to their feet and rushed with him to Thérèse.
Mme. Chambannes pulled out of her pocket a gold bottle of salts, the top of which was a shining ruby; almost on her knees she brought it to the young gir nostrils, but Thérèse made no movement. Only a faint sad moan escaped from her parted lips which showed her uneven teeth. They bathed her temples with fresh water but this brought no result either. As one goes to requisition the firemen on duty, Saulvard had marched straight to the corner where the Academy of Medicine was encamped in order to find a doctor. One came, put his ear to the moist skin of Thérèse and gave his diagnosis.
“The girl is choking.... You must loosen her dress!”
At last she opened her eyes in Mme. Saulvar room, where her mother and Mme. Chambannes had taken her.
At once her glance fell with stupefaction upon her opened dress. Then she recognized Mme. Chambannes bending over her in the pose of a guardian angel, and her mother praying beside her as if she were at the bedside of someone on the point of death.
She turned her head away. She saw again all thedetails of her accident, the unavoidable intoxication that had made her lose her head and her ridiculous fall in the middle of a dance. What a double insult to her pride! She wanted to plunge into nothingness, to destroy with her own body the memory of it all. Revolt caused her to choke and suddenly she burst into tears.
“Tha right! Tha right! Cry! Quiet your nerves!” Mme. Chambannes encouraged her.
This vulgar solicitude merely exasperated Thérèse. She mastered herself suddenly, stood up, and in a rage began to fasten her dress again.
In the mirror she shunned the eyes of her mother and of Mme. Chambannes. A growing anger put fresh speed into her fingers. Yes! They might well look at her! She had indeed the look of a woman who had just fainted. She could not have jumped up in worse disorder and less command of herself had a man seen her thus undressed and disheveled. Her eyes shone bigger; her eyelids showed a dark shadow as if she had spent a sleepless night. Perspiration had laid oily tints on the wings of her nostrils and marked her powdered cheeks with greasy lines. Her bunch of carnations had fallen down; there was a deep gap in her hair, just over her forehead, like a dark-edged wound. In her haste she had hooked her corsage awry and the gauze gaped over her breast, a loose, transparent cord.
“Poor girl!” Mme. Chambannes risked.... “Do you feel better?”
Thérèse coldly replied:
“Much better, madame, thank you.”
She turned to her mother and asked in a tone of command:
“Well, mother, are we going?”
“Just as you say, dear,” Mme. Raindal replied.
They went to the anteroom where the men were waiting.
As she came in sight, Gerald rushed forward to inquire and Boerzell imitated him. But Thérèse, with intentional oversight, hurried towards the cloakroom. When she came back, leaning on her fathe arm, they were gone. Stupefied, M. Raindal, his satin hat curled under his arm, supported her wearily. Mme. Raindal closed the cortège, her back bent under her cape as if she had been an aged servant. Saulvard escorted them to the top of the stairs.
“It is the heat, that damned heat!” he repeated petulantly.
Bending his little form over the ebony banisters, he shouted:
“To-morrow, I shall send for news.... It will be nothing, I hope, my dear colleague!”
In the cab that took them home M. Raindal had sat opposite them, leaving the back seat to his wife and daughter. For a long time they were silent. Dreamily they gazed through the windows dimmed by the steam, watching the black streets and the gas street-lamps with their yellow flames flattened in fanshape.Sitting sideways the master lost his balance at every jump of the wheels. He had to catch himself up with the help of the strap that hung in front of the windows; the hard leather cut his hands and the wooden door hurt his bones. A heavier jolt threw him against his daughter. Thérèse exclaimed impatiently:
“Father, you are very uncomfortable. Come and sit here between us.”
“No,” M. Raindal replied, “not at all.... Do you move.... Well, how are you getting on?”
“Very well, father, thank you.”
Silence fell again and once more Thérèse sat motionless.
Through the semi-darkness M. Raindal contemplated her pouting profile behind which, no doubt, lurked sorrowful thoughts. He mustered all his energy and gently asked:
“Well, dear?”
She repeated, “Well, what, father?”
A pause. Then M. Raindal spoke.
“Well, this young man.... At the dance.” Thérèse started; she looked at him fiercely and replied with bravado:
“What young man?”
“This M. Boerzell!”
A sigh of relief escaped her. Oh, only that one.... Poor fellow, she had forgotten him so! She smiled, and her voice firmly uttered:
“No, father, never!”
M. Raindal insisted.
“Why? You seemed to like him....”
“Yes, to talk to, perhaps ... but tha all.”
“And so you do want him?... You have thought it over well? Let me know at least....”
“You know since I told you.... I do want him.”
She grabbed her fathe hand and tenderly bent towards him, offering her cheek.
M. Raindal kissed her and grunted:
“As you like. I have no right to compel you.”
Then cunningly, to make sure, he added, without releasing her hand:
“To be sure, he is not such a good-looking man as the other one.”
He paused, feeling the contraction in his daughte hand.
“Yes, the other one.... Your dancer.... What was his name?... This M. de Meuze....”
Sharply Thérèse pulled her hand back and said with vexation:
“Oh, father, do make any comparison, please.... M. Boerzell does not appeal to me.... I refuse him.... Tha enough.... I think I am old enough, am I not?”
The master did not reply. There was no doubt about it. It was that tall man, that sort of worldly Dastarac, who had spoiled everything and ruined the prospects of little Boerzell owing to that advantageous height of his. A lost attempt! M. Raindal becameabsorbed in self-recriminations. Nothing more was heard but the noise of the wheels on the pavement and the vibrations of the carriage windows in their frames.
Thérèse, her head bent back, was apparently dozing, and so was Mme. Raindal in her corner. But she was not asleep. A remorseful torture, more atrocious than a nightmare, kept her eyes awake under their lids. With anguish she was estimating the number of hours that would stretch before the next morning, the blessed moment when she could confess her recent sins in the peace of the Church. Had she not, prompted by thirst, or led into temptation, helped herself three times to iced coffee and twice tomarquise au champagne, without counting a number ofpetits-foursand other dainties?
ITwas past eleven lock and Mme. Chambannes had almost finished dressing when someone knocked at her door. Her maid opened it just enough to allow one arm to pass in, holding a special delivery letter, while a voice proclaimed:
“Telegram for Madame.”
“Give it to me ... quick!” Mme. Chambannes said.
Her maid was fastening her dress, but left it and hurried to take the message.
Mme. Chambannes tore it open with trembling fingers and read rapidly, glancing hurriedly at the lines: