[Illustration: "'_Take away your flowers, my dear. _'"]

THE NABOB

BY

ALPHONSE DAUDET

TRANSLATED BY

GEORGE BURNHAM IVES

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

BRANDER MATTHEWS

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I. 

BOSTONLITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY1902

_Copyright, 1898_, By Little, Brown, and Company. 

_All rights reserved. _

University Press:John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE TO FRENCH EDITION

We have been informed that at the time of the publication of _TheNabob_ in serial form, the government of Tunis was offended at theintroduction therein of individuals whom the author dressed in namesand costumes peculiar to that country. We are authorized by M. AlphonseDaudet to declare that those scenes in the book which relate to Tunisare entirely imaginary, and that he never intended to introduce any ofthe functionaries of that state. 

ALPHONSE DAUDET. 

Alphonse Daudet is one of the most richly gifted of modern Frenchnovelists and one of the most artistic; he is perhaps the mostdelightful; and he is certainly the most fortunate. In his own countryearlier than any of his contemporaries he saw his stories attain to thevery wide circulation that brings both celebrity and wealth. Beyond theborders of his own language he swiftly won a popularity both with thebroad public and with the professed critics of literature, second onlyto that of Victor Hugo and still surpassing that of Balzac, who is onlyof late beginning to receive from us the attention he has so longdeserved. 

Daudet has had the rare luck of pleasing partisans of almost everyschool; the realists have joyed in his work and so have the romanticists;his writings have found favor in the eyes of the frank impressionistsand also at the hands of the severer custodians of academic standards. Mr. Henry James has declared that Daudet is "at the head of hisprofession" and has called him "an admirable genius. " Mr. Robert LouisStevenson thought Daudet "incomparably" the best of the present Frenchnovelists and asserted that "Kings in Exile" comes "very near to beinga masterpiece. " M. Jules Lemaitre tells us that Daudet "trails allhearts after him, --because he has charm, as indefinable in a work ofart as in a woman's face. " M. Ferdinand Brunetière, who has scantrelish for latter-day methods in literature, admits ungrudgingly that"there are certain corners of the great city and certain aspects ofParisian manners, there are some physiognomies that perhaps no one hasbeen able to render so well as Daudet, with that infinitely subtle andpatient art which succeeds in giving even to inanimate things theappearance of life. "

I. 

The documents are abundant for an analysis of Daudet such asSainte-Beuve would have undertaken with avidity; they are more abundantindeed than for any other contemporary French man of letters even inthese days of unhesitating self-revelation; and they are also of anabsolutely impregnable authenticity. M. Ernest Daudet has written awhole volume to tell us all about his brother's boyhood and youth andearly manhood and first steps in literature. M. Léon Daudet has writtenanother solid tome to tell us all about his father's literaryprinciples and family life and later years and death. Daudet himselfput forth a pair of pleasant books of personal gossip about himself, narrating his relations with his fellow authors and recording thecircumstances under which he came to compose each of his earlierstories. Montaigne--whose "Essays" was Daudet's bedside book and whomay be accepted not unfairly as an authority upon egotism--assures usthat "there is no description so difficult, nor doubtless of so greatutility, as that of one's self. " And Daudet's own interest in himselfis not unlike Montaigne's, --it is open, innocent and illuminating. 

Cuvier may have been able to reconstruct an extinct monster from theinspection of a single bone; but it is a harder task to revive thefigure of a man, even by the aid of these family testimonies, thisself-analysis, the diligence of countless interviewers of allnationalities, and indiscretion of a friend like Edmond de Goncourt(who seems to have acted on the theory that it is the whole duty of manto take notes of the talk of his fellows for prompt publication). Yetwe have ample material to enable us to trace Daudet's heredity, and toestimate the influence of his environment in the days of his youth, andto allow for the effect which certain of his own physical peculiaritiesmust have had upon his exercise of his art. His near-sightedness, forexample, --would not Sainte-Beuve have seized upon this as significant?Would he not have seen in this a possible source of Daudet's mastery ofdescription? And the spasms of pain borne bravely and uncomplainingly, the long agony of his later years, what mark has this left on his work, how far is it responsible for a modification of his attitude, --for thechange from the careless gaiety of "Tartarin of Tarascon" to the sombresatire of "Port-Tarascon"? What caused the joyous story-teller of the"Letters from my Mill" to develop into the bitter iconoclast of the"Immortal. "

These questions are insistent; and yet, after all, what matters theanswer to any of them? The fact remains that Daudet had his share ofthat incommunicable quality which we are agreed to call genius. Thisonce admitted, we may do our best to weigh it and to resolve it intoits elements, it is at bottom the vital spark that resists allexamination, however scientific we may seek to be. We can test for thisand for that, but in the final analysis genius is inexplicable. It iswhat it is, because it is. It might have been different, no doubt, butit is not. It is its own excuse for being; and, for all that we can sayto the contrary, it is its own cause, sufficient unto itself. Even ifwe had Sainte-Beuve's scalpel, we could not surprise the secret. 

Yet an inquiry into the successive stages of Daudet's career, aconsideration of his ancestry, of his parentage, of his birth, of thecircumstances of his boyhood, of his youthful adventures, --these thingsare interesting in themselves and they are not without instruction. They reveal to us the reasons for the transformation that goes so farto explain Daudet's peculiar position, --the transformation of a youngProvençal poet into a brilliant Parisian veritist. Daudet was aProvençal who became a Parisian, --and in this translation we may findthe key to his character as a writer of fiction. 

He was from Provence as Maupassant was from Normandy; and Daudet hadthe Southern expansiveness and abundance, just as Maupassant had theNorthern reserve and caution. If an author is ever to bring forth fruitafter his kind he must have roots in the soil of his nativity. Daudetwas no orchid, beautiful and scentless; his writings have always thefull flavor of the southern soil. He was able to set Tartarin before usso sympathetically and to make Numa Roumestan so convincing because herecognized in himself the possibility of a like exuberance. He couldnever take the rigorously impassive attitude which Flaubert taughtMaupassant to assume. Daudet not only feels for his characters, but heis quite willing that we should be aware of his compassion. 

He is not only incapable of the girding enmity which Taine detected anddetested in Thackeray's treatment of Becky Sharp, but he is also devoidof the callous detachment with which Flaubert dissected Emma Bovaryunder the microscope. Daudet is never flagrantly hostile toward one ofhis creatures; and, however contemptible or despicable the charactershe has called into being, he is scrupulously fair to them. Sidonie andFélicia Ruys severally throw themselves away, but Daudet is neverintolerant. He is inexorable, but he is not insulting. I cannot butthink that it is Provence whence Daudet derived the precious birthrightof sympathy, and that it is Provence again which bestowed on him therarer gift of sentiment. It is by his possession of sympathy and ofsentiment that he has escaped the aridity which suffocates us in theworks of so many other Parisian novelists. The South endowed him withwarmth and heartiness and vivacity; and what he learnt from Paris wasthe power of self-restraint and the duty of finish. 

He was born in Provence and he died in Paris; he began as a poet and heended as a veritist; and in each case there was logical evolution andnot contradiction. The Parisian did not cease to be a Provençal; andthe novelist was a lyrist still. Poet though he was, he had an intenseliking for the actual, the visible, the tangible. He so hungered aftertruth that he was ready sometimes to stay his stomach with facts in itsstead, --mere fact being but the outward husk, whereas truth is the richkernel concealed within. His son tells us that Daudet might have takenas a motto the title of Goethe's autobiography, "Dichtung undWahrheit, "--Poetry and Truth. And this it is that has set Daudet apartand that has caused his vogue with readers of all sorts andconditions, --this unique combination of imagination and verity. "Hisoriginality, " M. Jules Lemaitre has acutely remarked, "is closely tounite observation and fantasy, to extract from the truth all that itcontains of the improbable and the surprising, to satisfy at the sametime the readers of M. Cherbuliez and the readers of M. Zola, to writenovels which are at the same time realistic and romantic, and whichseem romantic only because they are very sincerely and very profoundlyrealistic. "

II. 

Alphonse Daudet was born in 1840, and it was at Nîmes that he firstbegan to observe mankind; and he has described his birthplace and hisboyhood in "Little What's-his-name, " a novel even richer inautobiographical revelation than is "David Copperfield. " His father wasa manufacturer whose business was not prosperous and who was forced atlast to remove with the whole family to Lyons in the vain hope of doingbetter in the larger town. After reading the account of this parent'speculiarities in M. Ernest Daudet's book, we are not surprised that theaffairs of the family did not improve, but went from bad to worse. Alphonse Daudet suffered bitterly in these years of desperate struggle, but he gained an understanding of the conditions of mercantile life, tobe serviceable later in the composition of "Fromont and Risler. "

When he was sixteen he secured a place as _pion_ in a boarding schoolin the Cévennes, --_pion_ is a poor devil of a youth hired to keep watchon the boys. How painful this position was to the young poet can beread indirectly in "Little What's-his-name, " but more explicitly in thehistory of that story, printed now in "Thirty Years of Paris. " Fromthis remote prison he was rescued by his elder brother, Ernest, who wastrying to make his way in Paris and who sent for Alphonse as soon as hehad been engaged to help an old gentleman in writing his memoirs. Theyounger brother has described his arrival in Paris, and his firstdress-coat and his earliest literary acquaintances. Ernest's salary wasseventy-five francs a month, and on this the two brothers managed tolive; no doubt fifteen dollars went further in Paris in 1857 than theywill in 1899. 

In those days of privation and ambition Daudet's longing was to makehimself famous as a poet; and when at last, not yet twenty years old, he began his career as a man of letters it was by the publication of avolume of verse, just as his fellow-novelists, M. Paul Bourget andSignor Gabriele d'Annunzio have severally done. Immature as juvenilelyrics are likely to be, these early rhymes of Daudet's have a flavorof their own, a faintly recognizable note of individuality. He is morenaturally a poet than most modern literators who possess theaccomplishment of verse as part of their equipment for the literarylife, but who lack a spontaneous impulse toward rhythm. It may even besuggested that his little poems are less artificial than most Frenchverse; they are the result of a less obvious effort. He lisped innumbers; and with him it was rather prose that had to be consciouslyacquired. His lyric note, although not keen and not deep, is heardagain and again in his novels, and it sustains some of the mostgraceful and tender of his short stories, --"The Death of the Dauphin, "for instance, and the "Sous-préfet in the Fields. "

Daudet extended poetry to include playmaking; and alone or with afriend he attempted more than one little piece in rhyme--tiny plays ofa type familiar enough at the Odéon. He has told us how the news of theproduction of one of these poetic dramas came to him afar in Algierswhither he had been sent because of a weakness of the lungs, threatening to become worse in the gray Parisian winter. Other plays ofhis, some of them far more important than this early effort, wereproduced in the next few years. The most ambitious of these was the"Woman of Arles, " which he had elaborated from a touching short storyand for which Bizet composed incidental music as beautiful and asoverwhelming as that prepared by Mendelssohn for the "Midsummer Night'sDream. "

No one of Daudet's dramatic attempts was really successful; not the"Woman of Arles, " which is less moving in the theatre than in itsbriefer narrative form, not even the latest of them all, the freshestand the most vigorous, the "Struggle for Life, " with its sinisterfigure of Paul Astier taken over from the "Immortal. " Apparently, withall his desire to write for the stage, Daudet must have beeninadequately endowed with the dramaturgic faculty, that special gift ofplaymaking which many a poet lacks and many a novelist, but which thehumblest playwright must needs have and which all the great dramatistshave possessed abundantly in addition to their poetic power. 

Perhaps it was the unfavorable reception of his successive dramas whichis responsible for the chief of Daudet's lapses from the kindlinesswith which he treats the characters that people his stories. He seemsto have kept hot a grudge against the theatre: and he relieves hisfeelings by taking it out of the stage-folk he introduces into hisnovels. To actors and actresses he is intolerant and harsh. What isfactitious and self-overvaluing in the Provençal type, he understoodand he found it easy to pardon; but what was factitious andself-overvaluing in the player type, he would not understand and herefused to pardon. And here he shows in strong contrast with asuccessful dramatist, M. Ludovic Halévy, whose knowledge of thehistrionic temperament is at least as wide as Daudet's and whose humoris as keen, but whose judgment is softened by the grateful memory ofmany victories won by the united effort of the author and the actor. 

Through his brother's influence, Alphonse Daudet was appointed by theDuke de Morny to a semi-sinecure; and he has recorded how he told hisbenefactor before accepting the place that he was a Legitimist and howthe Duke smilingly retorted that the Empress was also. Although it wasas a poet that Daudet made his bow in the world of letters, his firstappearance as a dramatist was not long delayed thereafter; and he sooncame forward also as a journalist, --or rather as a contributor to thepapers. While many of the articles he prepared for the daily and weeklypress were of ephemeral interest only, as the necessity of journalismdemands, to be forgotten forty-eight hours after they were printed, nota few of them were sketches having more than a temporary value. Parisian newspapers are more hospitable to literature than are thenewspapers of New York or of London; and a goodly proportion of theyoung Southerner's journalistic writing proved worthy of preservation. 

It has been preserved for us in three volumes of short stories andsketches, of fantasies and impressions. Not all the contents of the"Letters from my Mill, " of the "Monday Tales" and of "Artists' Wives, "as we have these collections now, were written in these early years ofDaudet's Parisian career, but many of them saw the light before 1870, and what has been added since conforms in method to the work of his'prentice days. No doubt the war with Prussia enlarged his outlook onlife; and there is more depth in the satires this conflict suggestedand more pathos in the pictures it evoked. The "Last Lesson, " forexample, that simple vision of the old French schoolmaster taking leaveof his Alsatian pupils, has a symbolic breath not easy to match in thelivelier tales written before the surrender at Sédan; and in the "Siegeof Berlin" there is a vibrant patriotism far more poignant than we candiscover in any of the playful apologues published before the war. Hehad had an inside view of the Second Empire, he could not help seeingits hollowness, and he revolted against the selfishness of itsservants; no single chapter of M. Zola's splendid and terrible"Downfall" contains a more damning indictment of the leaders of theimperial army than is to be read in Daudet's "Game of Billiards. "

The short story, whether in prose or in verse, is a literary form inwhich the French have ever displayed an easy mastery; and from Daudet'sthree volumes it would not be difficult to select half-a-dozen littlemasterpieces. The Provençal tales lack only rhymes to stand confessedas poesy; and many a reader may prefer these first flights beforeDaudet set his Pegasus to toil in the mill of realism. The "Pope'sMule, " for instance, is not this a marvel of blended humor and fantasy?And the "Elixir of Father Gaucher, " what could be more naïvely ironic?Like a true Southerner, Daudet delights in girding at the Church; andthese tales bristle with jibes at ecclesiastical dignitaries; but hisstroke is never malignant and there is no barb to his shaft nor poisonon the tip. 

Scarcely inferior to the war-stories or to the Provençal sketches arecertain vignettes of the capital, swift silhouettes of Paris, glimpsedby an unforgetting eye, the "Last Book, " for one, in which an unlovelycharacter is treated with kindly contempt; and for another, the"Book-keeper, " the most Dickens-like of Daudet's shorter pieces, yethaving a literary modesty Dickens never attained. The alleged imitationof the British novelist by the French may be left for laterconsideration; but it is possible now to note that in the earlierdescriptive chapters of the "Letters from my Mill" one may detect acertain similarity of treatment and attitude, not to Dickens but to twoof the masters on whom Dickens modelled himself, Goldsmith and Irving. The scene in the diligence, when the baker gently pokes fun at the poorfellow whose wife is intermittent in her fidelity, is quite in themanner of the "Sketch Book. "

There is the same freshness and fertility in the collection called"Artists' Wives" as in the "Letters from my Mill, " and the "MondayTales, " but not the same playfulness and fun. They are severe studies, all of them; and they all illustrate the truth of Bagehot's saying thata man's mother might be his misfortune, but his wife was his fault. Itis a rosary of marital infelicities that Daudet has strung for us inthis volume, and in every one of them the husband is expiating hisblunder. With ingenious variety the author rings the changes on onetheme, on the sufferings of the ill-mated poet or painter or sculptor, despoiled of the sympathy he craves, and shackled even in the exerciseof his art. And the picture is not out of drawing, for Daudet can seethe wife's side of the case also; he can appreciate her bewilderment atthe ugly duckling whom it is so difficult for her to keep in the nest. The women have made shipwreck of their lives too, and they arecompanions in misery, if not helpmeets in understanding. This isperhaps the saddest of all Daudet's books, the least relieved by humor, the most devoid of the gaiety which illumines the "Letters from myMill" and the first and second "Tartarin" volumes. But it is also oneof the most veracious; it is life itself firmly grasped and honestlypresented. 

It is not matrimonial incongruity at large in all its shifting aspectsthat Daudet here considers; it is only the married unhappiness of theartist, whatever his mode of expression, and whichever of the muses hehas chosen to serve; it is only the wedded life of the man incessantlyin search of the ideal, and never relaxing in the strain of hisstruggle with the inflexible material from which he must shape hisvision of existence. Not only in this book, but in many another hasDaudet shown that he perceives the needs of the artistic temperament, its demands, its limitations and its characteristics. There is aplaywright in "Rose and Ninette;" there is a painter in the "Immortal;"there is an actor in "Fromont and Risler;" there are a sculptor, apoet, and a novelist on the roll of the heroine's lovers in "Sapho. "Daudet handles them gently always, unless they happen to belong to thetheatre. Toward the stage-folk he is pitiless; for all other artists hehas abundant appreciation; he is not blind to their little weaknesses, but these he can forgive even though he refuses to forget; he is athome with them. He is never patronizing, as Thackeray is, who alsoknows them and loves them. Thackeray's attitude is that of a gentlemanborn to good society, but glad to visit Bohemia, because he can speakthe language; Daudet's is that of a man of letters who thinks that hisfellow-artists are really the best society. 

III. 

Not with pictures of artists at home did Daudet conquer his commandingposition in literature, not with short stories, not with plays, notwith verses. These had served to make him known to the inner circle oflovers of literature who are quick to appreciate whatever is at oncenew and true; but they did not help him to break through the crust andto reach the hearts of the broad body of readers who care little forthe delicacies of the season, but must ever be fed on strong meat. Whenthe latest of the three volumes of short stories was published, andwhen the "Woman of Arles" was produced, the transformation wascomplete: the poet had developed into a veritist, without ceasing to bea poet, and the Provençal had become a Parisian. His wander-years wereat an end, and he had made a happy marriage. Lucky in the riskyadventure of matrimony, as in so many others, he chanced upon a womanwho was congenial, intelligent and devoted, and who became almost acollaborator in all his subsequent works. 

His art was ready for a larger effort; it was ripe for a richerfruitage. Already had he made more than one attempt at a long story, but this was before his powers had matured, and before he had come to afull knowledge of himself. "Little What's-his-name, " as he himself hasconfessed, lacks perspective; it was composed too soon after thepersonal experiences out of which it was made, --before Time had put thescenes in proper proportion and before his hand was firm in its stroke. "Robert Helmont" is the journal of an observer who happens also to be apoet and a patriot; but it has scarcely substance enough to warrantcalling it a story. Much of the material used in the making of thesebooks was very good indeed; but the handling was a little uncertain, and the result is not quite satisfactory, charming as both of them are, with the seductive grace which is Daudet's birthright and histrademark. In his brief tales he had shown that he had thestory-telling faculty, the ability to project character, the gift ofarousing interest; but it remained for him to prove that he possessedalso the main strength requisite to carry him through the long labor ofa full-grown novel. It is not by gentle stories like "Robert Helmont"and "Little What's-his-name" that a novelist is promoted to the frontrank; and after he had written these two books he remained where he wasbefore, in the position of a promising young author. 

The promise was fulfilled by the publication of "Fromont andRisler, "--not the best of his novels, but the earliest in which hisfull force was displayed. Daudet has told us how this was plannedoriginally as a play, how the failure of the "Woman of Arles" led himto relinquish the dramatic form, and how the supposed necessities ofthe stage warped the logical structure of the story, turning upon theintrigues of the young wife the interest which should have beenconcentrated upon the partnership, the business rivalry, the mercantileintegrity, whence the novel derived its novelty. The falsifying habitof thrusting marital infidelity into the foreground of fiction when thetheme itself seems almost to exclude any dwelling on amorousmisadventure, Daudet yielded to only this once; and this is one reasonwhy a truer view of Parisian life can be found in his pages than inthose of any of his competitors, and why his works are far lessmonotonous than theirs. 

He is not squeamish, as every reader of "Sapho" can bear witness; buthe does not wantonly choose a vulgar adultery as the staple of hisstories. French fiction, ever since the tale of "Tristan and Yseult"was first told, has tended to be a poem of love triumphant over everyobstacle, even over honor; and Daudet is a Frenchman with French ideasabout woman and love and marriage; he is not without his share ofGallic salt; but he is too keen an observer not to see that there areother things in life than illicit wooings, --business, for example, andpolitics, and religion, --important factors all of them in ourcomplicated modern existence. At the root of him Daudet had a steadfastdesire to see life as a whole and to tell the truth about itunhesitatingly; and this is a characteristic he shares only with thegreat masters of fiction, --essentially veracious, every one of them. 

Probably Dickens, frequently as he wrenched the facts of life intoconformity with his rather primitive artistic code, believed that healso was telling the truth. It is in Daudet's paper explaining how hecame to write "Fromont and Risler" that he discusses the accusationthat he was an imitator of Dickens, --an accusation which seems absurdenough now that the careers of both writers are closed, and that we cancompare their complete works. Daudet records that the charge wasbrought against him very early, long before he had read Dickens, and heexplains that any likeness that may exist is due not to copying but tokinship of spirit. "I have deep in my heart, " he says, "the same loveDickens has for the maimed and the poor, for the children brought up inall the deprivation of great cities. " This pity for the disinherited, for those that have had no chance in life, is not the only similaritybetween the British novelist and the French; there is also the peculiarcombination of sentiment and humor. Daudet is not so bold as Dickens, not so robust, not so over-mastering; but he is far more discreet, fartruer to nature, far finer in his art; he does not let his humor carryhim into caricature, nor his sentiment slop over into sentimentality. 

Even the minor French novelists strive for beauty of form, and wouldbe ashamed of the fortuitous scaffolding that satisfies the Britishstory-tellers. A eulogist of Dickens, Mr. George Gissing, has recentlyremarked acutely that "Daudet has a great advantage in his mastery ofconstruction. Where, as in 'Fromont and Risler, ' he constructs toowell, that is to say, on the stage model, we see what a gain it wasto him to have before his eyes the Paris stage of the Second Empire, instead of that of London in the earlier Victorian time. " Where Dickensemulated the farces and the melodramas of forgotten Britishplaywrights, Daudet was influenced rather by the virile dramas of Dumas_fils_ and Augier. But in "Fromont and Risler, " not only is the plot atrifle stagy, but the heroine herself seems almost a refugee of thefootlights; exquisitely presented as Sidonie is, she fails quite tocaptivate or convince, perhaps because her sisters have been seen sooften before in this play and in that. And now and again even in hislater novels we discover that Daudet has needlessly achieved the adroitarrangement of events so useful in the theatre and not requisite in thelibrary. In "The Nabob, " for example, it is the "long arm ofcoincidence" that brings Paul de Géry to the inn on the Riviera, and tothe very next room therein at the exact moment when Jenkins catches upwith the fleeing Félicia. 

Yet these lapses into the arbitrary are infrequent after all; and as"Fromont and Risler" was followed first by one and then by anothernovel, the evil influence of theatrical conventionalism disappears. Daudet occasionally permits himself an underplot; but he acts always onthe principle he once formulated to his son: "every book is anorganism; if it has not its organs in place, it dies, and its corpse isa scandal. " Sometimes, as in "Fromont and Risler, " he starts at themoment when the plot thickens, returning soon to make clear theantecedents of the characters first shown in action; and sometimes, asin "Sapho, " he begins right at the beginning and goes straight throughto the end. But, whatever his method, there is never any doubt as tothe theme; and the essential unity is always apparent. This severity ofdesign in no way limits the variety of the successive acts of hisdrama. 

While a novel of Balzac's is often no more than an analysis ofcharacter, and while a novel of Zola's is a massive epic of humanendeavor, a novel of Daudet's is a gallery of pictures, brushed in withthe sweep and certainty of a master-hand, --portraits, landscapes withfigures, marines, battlepieces pieces, bits of _genre_, views of Paris. And the views of Paris outnumber the others, and almost outvalue themalso. Mr. Henry James has noted that "The Nabob" is "full of episodeswhich are above all pages of execution, triumphs of translation. Theauthor has drawn up a list of the Parisian solemnities, and painted theportrait, or given a summary, of each of them. The opening day at theSalon, a funeral at Père la Chaise, a debate in the Chamber ofDeputies, the _première_ of a new play at a favorite theatre, furnishhim with so many opportunities for his gymnastics of observation. " And"The Nabob" is only a little more richly decorated than the "Immortal, "and "Numa Roumestan, " and "Kings in Exile. "

These pictures, these carefully wrought masterpieces of rendering arenot lugged in, each for its own sake; they are not outside of thenarrative; they are actually part of the substance of the story. Daudetexcels in describing, and every artist is prone to abound in the senseof his superiority. As the French saying puts it, a man has always thedefects of his qualities; yet Daudet rarely obtrudes his descriptions, and he generally uses them to explain character and to set off or bringout the moods of his personages. They are so swift that I am tempted tocall them flash-lights; but photographic is just what they are not, forthey are artistic in their vigorous suppression of the unessentials;they are never gray or cold or hard; they vibrate with color and tinglewith emotion. 

And just as a painter keeps filling his sketch-books with graphic hintsfor elaboration later, so Daudet was indefatigable in note-taking. Heexplains his method in his paper of "Fromont and Risler;" how he hadfor a score of years made a practice of jotting down in littlenote-books not only his remarks and his thoughts, but also a rapidrecord of what he had heard with his ears ever on the alert, and whathe had seen with those tireless eyes of his. Yet he never let the dustof these note-books choke the life out of him. Every one of his novelswas founded on fact, --plot, incidents, characters and scenery. 

He used his imagination to help him to see; he used it also to peerinto and behind the mere facts. All that he needed to invent was aconnecting link now and again; and it may as well be admitted at oncethat these mere inventions are sometimes the least satisfactory part ofhis stories. The two young men in "The Nabob, " for instance, whom Mr. Henry James found it difficult to tell apart, the sculptor-painter inthe "Immortal, " the occasional other characters which we discover to bemade up, lack the individuality and the vitality of figures taken fromreal life by a sympathetic effort of interpretative imagination. Delobelle, Gardinois, "all the personages of 'Fromont' have lived, "Daudet declares; and he adds a regret that in depicting old Gardinoishe gave pain to one he loved, but he "could not suppress this type ofegotist, aged and terrible. "

Since the beginning of the art of story-telling, the narrators musthave gone to actuality to get suggestions for their character-drawing;and nothing is commoner than the accusation that this or that novelisthas stolen his characters ready-made, --filching them from nature'sshop-window, without so much as a by-your-leave. Daudet is bold incommitting these larcenies from life and frank in confessing them, --farfranker than Dickens, who tried to squirm out of the charge that he hadput Landor and Leigh Hunt unfairly into fiction. Perhaps Dickens wasbolder than Daudet, if it is true that he drew Micawber from his ownfather, and Mrs. Nickleby from his own mother. Daudet was taxed withingratitude that he had used as the model of Mora, the Duke de Morny, who had befriended him; and he defended himself by declaring that hethought the duke would find no fault with the way Mora had beenpresented. But a great artist has never copied his models slavishly; hehas utilized them in the effort to realize to his own satisfaction whathe has already imagined. Daudet maintained to his son that those whowere without imagination cannot even observe accurately. Inventionalone, mere invention, an inferior form of mental exercise, suffices toprovide a pretty fair romantic tale, remote from the facts of every-daylife, but only true imagination can sustain a realistic novel whereevery reader's experience qualifies him to check off the author'sprogress, step by step. 

IV. 

It would take too long--although the task would be amusing--to call theroll of Daudet's novels written after "Fromont and Risler" had revealedto him his own powers, and to discuss what fact of Parisian history hadbeen the starting point of each of them and what notabilities of Parishad sat for each of the chief characters. Mr. Henry James, forinstance, has seen it suggested that Félicia Ruys is intended as aportrait of Mme. Sarah-Bernhardt; M. Zola, on the other hand, deniesthat Félicia Ruys is Mme. Sarah-Bernhardt and hints that she is ratherMme. Judith Gautier. Daudet himself refers to the equally absurd reportthat Gambetta was the original of Numa Roumestan, --a report over whichthe alleged subject and the real author laughed together. Daudet's ownattitude toward his creations is a little ambiguous or at least alittle inconsistent; in one paper he asserts that every character ofhis has had a living original, and in another he admits that ElyséeMéraut, for example, is only in part a certain Thérion. 

The admission is more nearly exact than the assertion. Every novelistwhose work is to endure even for a generation must draw from life, sometimes generalizing broadly and sometimes keeping close to thesingle individual, but always free to modify the mere fact as he mayhave observed it to conform with the larger truth of the fable he shalldevise. Most story-tellers tend to generalize, and their fictions lackthe sharpness of outline we find in nature. Daudet prefers to retain asmuch of the actual individual as he dares without endangering the webof his composition; and often the transformation is very slight, --Mora, for instance, who is probably a close copy of Morny, but who stands onhis own feet in "The Nabob, " and lives his own life as independently asthough he was a sheer imagination. More rarely the result is not sosatisfactory; J. Tom Lévis, for example, for whose authenticity theauthor vouches, but who seems out of place in "Kings in Exile, " like afantastic invention, such as Balzac sometimes permitted himself as arelief from his rigorous realism. 

For incident as well as for character Daudet goes to real life. Theescape of Colette from under the eyes of her father-in-law, --thatactually happened; but none the less does it fit into "Kings in Exile. "And Colette's cutting off her hair in grief at her husband'sdeath, --that actually happened also; but it belongs artistically in the"Immortal. " On the other hand, the fact which served as the foundationof the "Immortal"--the taking in of a _savant_ by a lot of forgedmanuscripts--has been falsified by changing the _savant_ from amathematician (who might easily be deceived about a matter ofautographs) to a historian (whose duty it is to apply all known testsof genuineness to papers purporting to shed new light on the past). This borrowing from the newspaper has its evident advantages, but ithas its dangers also, even in the hands of a poet as adroit as Daudetand as imaginative. Perhaps the story of his which is most artistic inits telling, most shapely, most harmonious in its modulations of asingle theme to the inevitable end, developed without haste and withoutrest, is "Sapho;" and "Sapho" is the novel of Daudet's in which thereseems to be the least of this stencilling of actual fact, in which thegeneralization is the broadest, and in which the observation is leastrestricted to single individuals. 

But in "Sapho" the theme itself is narrow, narrower than in "NumaRoumestan, " and far narrower than in either "The Nabob" or "Kings inExile;" and this is why "Sapho, " fine as it is, and subtle, is perhapsless satisfactory. No other French novelist of the final half of thenineteenth century, not Flaubert, not Goncourt, not M. Zola, notMaupassant, has four novels as solid as these, as varied in incident, as full of life, as rich in character, as true. They form thequadrilateral wherein Daudet's fame is secure. 

"Sapho" is a daughter of the "Lady of the Camellias, " and agrand-daughter of "Manon Lescaut, "--Frenchwomen, all of them, and of aclass French authors have greatly affected. But Daudet's book is not aspecimen of what Lowell called "that _corps-de-ballet_ literature inwhich the most animal of the passions is made more temptingly naked bya veil of French gauze. " It is at bottom a moral book, much as "TomJones" is moral. Fielding's novel is English, robust, hearty, brutal ina way, and its morality is none too lofty. Daudet's is French, softer, more enervating, and with an almost complacent dwelling on the sins ofthe flesh. But neither Fielding nor Daudet is guilty of sentimentality, the one unforgivable crime in art. In his treatment of the relation ofthe sexes Daudet was above all things truthful; his veracity isinexorable. He shows how man is selfish in love and woman also, and howthe egotism of the one is not as the egotism of the other. He shows howFanny Legrand slangs her lover with the foul language of the gutterwhence she sprang, and how Jean when he strikes back, refrains fromfoul blows. He shows how Jean, weak of will as he was, gets rid of themillstone about his neck, only because of the weariness of the woman towhom he has bound himself. He shows us the various aspects of the lovewhich is not founded on esteem, the Héttema couple, De Potter and Rose, Déchelette and Alice Doré, all to set off the sorry idyl of Fanny andJean. 

In "Numa Roumestan" there is a larger vision of life than in "Sapho, "even if there is no deeper insight. The construction is almost assevere; and the movement is unbroken from beginning to end, withoutexcursus or digression. The central figure is masterly, --the kindly andselfish Southerner, easy-going and soft-spoken, an orator who is soeloquent that he can even convince himself, a politician who thinksonly when he is talking, a husband who loves his wife as profoundly ashe can love anybody except himself, and who loves his wife more thanhis temporary mistress, even during the days of his dalliance. Numa isa native of the South of France, as was Daudet himself; and it is outof the fulness of knowledge that the author evolves the character, brushing in the portrait with bold strokes and unceasingly addingcaressing touches till the man actually lives and moves before oureyes. The veracity of the picture is destroyed by no finalinconsistency. What Numa is, Numa will be. Daudet never descends at theend of his novels like a god from the machine to change character inthe twinkling of an eye, and to convert bad men to good thoughts andgood deeds. 

He can give us goodness when he chooses, a human goodness, notoffensively perfect, not preaching, not mawkish, but high-minded andengaging. There are two such types in "Kings in Exile, " the Queen andElysée Méraut, essentially honest both of them, thinking little ofself, and sustained by lofty purpose. Naturalistic novelists generally(and M. Zola in particular), live in a black world peopled mainly byfools and knaves; from this blunder Daudet is saved by his Southerntemperament, by his lyric fervor, and, at bottom, by his wisdom. Heknows better; he knows that while a weak creature like Christian II. Iscommon, a resolute soul like Frédérique is not so very rare. He knowsthat the contrast and the clash of these characters is interestingmatter for the novelist. And no novelist has had a happier inspirationthan that which gave us "Kings in Exile, " a splendid subject, splendidly handled, and lending itself perfectly to the display ofDaudet's best qualities, his poetry, his ability to seize the actual, and his power of dealing with material such as the elder Dumas wouldhave delighted in with a restraint and a logic the younger Dumas wouldhave admired. Plot and counter-plot, bravery, treachery, death, --theseare elements for a romanticist farrago; and in Daudet's hands they arewoven into a tapestry almost as stiff as life itself. The stuff isromantic enough, but the treatment is unhesitatingly realistic; and"Kings in Exile, " better than any other novel of Daudet's, explains hisvogue with readers of the most divergent tastes. 

In "The Nabob, " the romantic element is slighter than in "Kings inExile;" the subject is not so striking; and the movement of the storyis less straightforward. But what a panorama of Paris it is that heunrolls before us in this story of a luckless adventurer in the city ofluxury then under the control of the imperial band of brigands! Nodoubt the Joyeuse family is an obtrusion and an artistic blemish, sincethey do not logically belong in the scheme of the story; and yet they(and their fellows in other books of Daudet's) testify to his effort toget the truth and the whole truth into his picture of Paris life. Moraand Félicia Ruys and Jenkins, these are the obverse of the medal, exposed in the shop-windows that every passer-by can see. The Joyeusegirls and their father are the reverse, to be viewed only by those whotake the trouble to look at the under side of things. They are samplesof the simple, gentle, honest folk, of whom there must be countlessthousands in France and even in its capital, but who fail to interestmost French novelists just because they are not eccentric or wicked orugly. Of a truth, Aline Joyeuse is as typically Parisian as FéliciaRuys herself; both are needed if the census is to be complete; and theomission of either is a source of error. 

There is irony in Daudet's handling of these humbler figures, but it iscompassionate and almost affectionate. If he laughs at Father Joyeusethere is no harshness and no hostility in his mirth. For the Joyeusedaughters he has indulgence and pity; and his humor plays about themand leaves them scart-free. It never stings them or scorches or sears, as it does Astier-Réhu and Christian II. And the Prince of Axel, inspite of his desire to be fair toward all the creatures of his brain. 

Irony is only one of the manifestations of Daudet's humor. Wit he hasalso, and satire. And he is doubly fortunate in that he has both humorand the sense-of-humor--the positive and the negative. It is thesense-of-humor, so called, that many humorists are without, adeprivation which allows them to take themselves so seriously that theybecome a laughing-stock for the world. It is the sense-of-humor thatmakes the master of comedy, that helps him to see things in dueproportion and perspective, that keeps him from exaggeration andemphasis, from sentimentality and melodrama and bathos. It is thesense-of-humor that prevents our making fools of ourselves; it is humoritself that softens our laughter at those who make themselvesridiculous. In his serious stories Daudet employs this negative humorchiefly, as though he had in memory La Bruyère's assertion that "he whomakes us laugh rarely is able to win esteem for himself. " His positivehumor, --gay, exuberant, contagious, --finds its full field for displayin some of the short stories, and more especially in the Tartarinseries. 

Has any book of our time caused more laughter than "Tartarin ofTarascon"--unless it be "Tartarin on the Alps"? I can think only of onerival pair, "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn, "--for Mark Twain andAlphonse Daudet both achieved the almost impossible feat of writing asuccessful sequel to a successful book, of forcing fortune to arepetition of a happy accident. The abundant laughter the Frenchhumorist excited is like that evoked by the American humorist, --clean, hearty, healthy, self-respecting; it is in both cases what George Eliotin one of her letters called "the exquisite laughter that comes from agratification of the reasoning faculty. " Daudet and Mark Twain areimaginative realists; their most amusing extravagance is but anexaggeration of the real thing; and they never let factitious fantasysweep their feet off the ground. Tartarin is as typical of Provence asColonel Sellers--to take that figure of Mark Twain's which is mostlike--is typical of the Mississippi Valley. 

Tartarin is as true as Numa Roumestan; in fact they may almost be saidto be sketched from the same model but in a very different temper. In"Numa Roumestan" we are shown the sober side of the Southerntemperament, the sorrow it brings in the house though it displays joyin the street; and in "Tartarin" we behold only the immense comicalityof the incessant incongruity between the word and the deed. Tartarin isSouthern, it is true, and French; but he is very human also. There is aboaster and a liar in most of us, lying in wait for a chance to rushout and put us to shame. It is this universality of Daudet's satirethat has given Tartarin its vogue on both sides of the Atlantic. Theingenuity of Tartarin's misadventures, the variety of them in Algiersand in Switzerland, the obvious reasonableness of them all, thedelightful probability of these impossibilities, the frank gaiety andthe unflagging high spirits, --these are precious qualities, all ofthem; but it is rather the essential humanness of Tartarin himself thathas given him a reputation throughout the world. Very rarely indeed nowor in the past has an author been lucky enough to add a single figureto the cosmopolitan gallery of fiction. Cervantes, De Foe, Swift, LeSage, Dumas, have done it; Fielding and Hawthorne and Turgenef havenot. 

It is no wonder that Daudet takes pride in this. The real joy of thenovelist, he declares, is to create human beings, to put on their feettypes of humanity who thereafter circulate through the world with thename, the gesture, the grimace he has given them and who are cited andtalked about without reference to their creator and without even anymention of him. And whenever Daudet heard some puppet of politics orliterature called a Tartarin, a shiver ran through him--"the shiver ofpride of a father, hidden in the crowd that is applauding his son andwanting all the time to cry out 'That's my boy!'"

V. 

The time has not yet come for a final estimate of Daudet'sposition, --if a time ever arrives when any estimate can be final. Butalready has a selection been made of the masterpieces which survive, and from which an author is judged by the next generation that willhave time to criticise only the most famous of the works thisgeneration leaves behind it. We can see also that much of Daudet'slater writing is slight and not up to his own high standard, althougheven his briefest trifle had always something of his charm, of hismagic, of his seductive grace. We can see how rare an endowment he haswhen we note that he is an acute observer of mankind, and yet withoutany taint of misanthropy, and that he combines fidelity of reproductionwith poetic elevation. 

He is--to say once more what has already been said in these pages morethan once--he is a lover of romance with an unfaltering respect forreality. We all meet with strange experiences once in our lives, with"things you could put in a story, " as the phrase is; but we none of ushave hairbreadth escapes every morning before breakfast. The romanticis as natural as anything else; it is the excess of the romantic whichis in bad taste. It is the piling up of the agony which is disgusting. It is the accumulation upon one impossible hero of many exceptionaladventures which is untrue and therefore immoral. Daudet's mostindividual peculiarity was his skill in seizing the romantic aspects ofthe commonplace. In one of his talks with his son he said that anovelist must beware of an excess of lyric enthusiasm; he himselfsought for emotion, and emotion escaped when human proportions wereexceeded. Balance, order, reserve, symmetry, sobriety, --these are thequalities he was ever praising. The real, the truthful, thesincere, --this is what he sought always to attain. 

Daudet may lack the poignant intensity of Balzac, the lyric sweep ofHugo, the immense architectural strength of M. Zola, the implacabledisinterestedness of Flaubert, the marvellous concentration ofMaupassant, but he has more humor than any of them and morecharm, --more sympathy than any but Hugo, and more sincerity thanany but Flaubert. His is perhaps a rarer combination than any oftheirs, --the gift of story-telling, the power of character-drawing, the grasp of emotional situation, the faculty of analysis, the feelingfor form, the sense of style, an unfailing and humane interest in hisfellow-men, and an irresistible desire to tell the truth about life ashe saw it with his own eyes. 

BRANDER MATTHEWS. 

Columbia University, in the City of New York. 

CONTENTS

 Page

 I. DR. JENKINS' PATIENTS 7

 II. A BREAKFAST ON PLACE VENDÔME 37

 III. MEMOIRS OF A CLERK. --A CASUAL GLANCE AT THE "CAISSE TERRITORIALE" 63

 IV. A DÉBUT IN SOCIETY 77

 V. THE JOYEUSE FAMILY 103

 VI. FELICIA RUYS 128

 VII. JANSOULET AT HOME 156

VIII. THE WORK OF BETHLEHEM 172

 IX. GRANDMAMMA 193

 X. MEMOIRS OF A CLERK. --THE SERVANTS 216

 XI. THE FÊTES IN HONOR OF THE BEY 238

 XII. A CORSICAN ELECTION 272

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Take away your flowers, my dear'" _Frontispiece_

In Felicia's Studio _Page_ 26

"'His Excellency, the Duc de Mora!'" " 88

From drawings by Lucius Rossi. 

THE NABOB. 

A hundred years ago Le Sage wrote these words at the head of _GilBlas_:

 "As there are persons who cannot read a book without making personal application of the vicious or absurd characters they find therein, I hereby declare for the benefit of such evil-minded readers that they will err in making such application of the portraits in this book. I make public avowal that my only aim has been to represent the life of mankind as it is. "

Without attempting to draw any comparison between Le Sage's novel andmy own, I may say that I should have liked to place a declaration ofthe same nature on the first page of _The Nabob_, at the time of itspublication. Several reasons prevented my doing so. In the first place, the fear that such an advertisement might seem too much like a baitthrown out to the public, an attempt to compel its attention. Secondly, I was far from suspecting that a book written with a purely literarypurpose could acquire at a bound such anecdotal importance, and bringdown upon me such a buzzing swarm of complaints. Indeed, such a thingwas never seen before. Not a line of my work, not one of its heroes, not even a character of secondary importance, but has become a pretextfor allusions and protestations. To no purpose does the author deny theimputation, swear by all the gods that there is no key to hisnovel--every one forges at least one, with whose assistance he claimsto open that combination lock. It must be that all these types havelived, bless my soul! that they live to-day, exactly identical fromhead to foot. Monpavon is So-and-So, is he not? Jenkins' resemblance isstriking. One man is angry because he is in it, another one because heis not in it; and, beginning with this eagerness for scandal, there isnothing, not even chance similarities of name, fatal in the modernnovel, descriptions of streets, numbers of houses selected at random, that has not served to give identity to beings built of a thousandpieces and, moreover, absolutely imaginary. 

The author is too modest to take all this outcry to himself. He knowshow great a part the friendly or treacherous indiscretions of thenewspapers have had therein; and without thanking the former more thanis seemly, without too great ill-will to the latter, he resigns himselfto the stormy prospect as something inevitable, and simply deemshimself in duty bound to affirm that he has never, in twenty years ofupright, literary toil, resorted to that element of success, neither onthis occasion nor on any other. As he turned the leaves of his memory, which it is every novelist's right and duty to do, he recalled astrange episode that occurred in cosmopolitan Paris some fifteen yearsago. The romance of a dazzling career that shot swiftly across theParisian sky like a meteor evidently served as the frame-work of _TheNabob_, a picture of manners and morals at the close of the SecondEmpire. But around that central situation and certain well-knownincidents, which it was every one's right to study and revive, what aworld of fancy, what inventions, what elaboration, and, above all, whatan outlay of that incessant, universal, almost unconscious observation, without which there could be no imaginative writers. Furthermore, toobtain an idea of the "crystallizing" labor involved in transportingthe simplest circumstances from reality to fiction, from life toromance, one need only open the _Moniteur Officiel_ of February, 1864, and compare a certain session of the Corps Législatif with the picturethat I give of it in my book. Who could have supposed that, after thelapse of so many years, this Paris, famous for its short memory, wouldrecognize the original model in the idealized picture the novelist hasdrawn of him, and that voices would be raised to charge withingratitude one who most assuredly was not his hero's "assiduousguest, " but simply, in their infrequent meetings, an inquisitiveacquaintance on whose mind the truth is quickly photographed, and whocan never efface from his memory the images that are once imprintedthereon?

I knew the "real Nabob" in 1864. I occupied at that time asemi-official position which forced me to exhibit great reserve in myvisits to that luxurious and hospitable Levantine. Later I wasintimately associated with one of his brothers; but at that time thepoor Nabob was far away, struggling through thickets of cruel brambles, and he was seen at Paris only occasionally. Moreover, it is veryunpleasant for a courteous man to reckon thus with the dead, and tosay: "You are mistaken. Although he was an agreeable host, I was notoften seen at his table. " Let it suffice therefore, for me to declarethat, in speaking of Mère Françoise's son as I have done, it has beenmy purpose to represent him in a favorable light, and that the chargeof ingratitude seems to me an absurdity from every standpoint. Thatthis is true is proved by the fact that many people consider theportrait too flattering, more interesting than nature. To such peoplemy reply is very simple: "Jansoulet strikes me as an excellent fellow;but at all events, if I am wrong, you can blame the newspapers fortelling you his real name. I gave you my novel as a novel, good or bad, without any guaranty of resemblances. "

As to Mora, that is another matter. Something has been said ofindiscretion, of political defection. Great Heaven! I have never made asecret of it. At the age of twenty, I was connected with the office ofthe high functionary who has served as my model; and my friends ofthose days know what a serious political personage I made. TheDepartment also must have strange recollections of that eccentric clerkwith the Merovingian beard, who was always the last to arrive and thefirst to depart, and who never went up to the duke's private officeexcept to ask leave of absence; of a naturally independent character, too, with hands unstained by anything like sycophancy, and so littlereconciled to the Empire that, on the day when the duke proposed to himto enter his service, the future attaché deemed it his duty to declarewith touching juvenile solemnity that "he was a Legitimist. "

"So is the Empress, " was His Excellency's reply, and he smiled withcalm and impertinent condescension. I always saw him with that smile onhis face, nor had I any need to look through keyholes; and I have drawnhim so, as he loved to appear, in his Richelieu-Brummel attitude. History will attend to the statesman. I have exhibited him, introducinghim at long range in my fictitious drama, as the worldly creature thathe was and wished to be, being well assured that in his lifetime itwould not have offended him to be so presented. 

This is what I had to say. And now, having made these declarations inall frankness, let us return to work with all speed. My preface willseem a little short, and the curious reader will seek in vain thereinthe anticipated piquancy. So much the worse for him. Brief as this pagemay be, it is three times too long for me. Prefaces have thisdisadvantage, that they prevent one from writing books. 

ALPHONSE DAUDET. 

I. 

DOCTOR JENKINS' PATIENTS. 

Standing on the stoop of his little house on Rue de Lisbonne, freshlyshaved, with sparkling eye, lips slightly parted, long hair tinged withgray falling over a broad coat-collar, square-shouldered, robust, andsound as an oak, the illustrious Irish doctor, Robert Jenkins, chevalier of the Medjidie and of the distinguished order of CharlesIII. Of Spain, member of several learned and benevolent societies, founder and president of the Work of Bethlehem, --in a word, Jenkins, the Jenkins of the Jenkins Arsenical Pills, that is to say, thefashionable physician of the year 1864, and the busiest man in Paris, was on the point of entering his carriage, one morning toward the endof November, when a window on the first floor looking on the innercourtyard was thrown open, and a woman's voice timidly inquired:

"Shall you return to breakfast, Robert?"

Oh! what a bright, affectionate smile it was that suddenly illuminedthat handsome, apostle-like face, and how readily one could divine, inthe loving good-morning that his eyes sent up to the warm whitepeignoir visible behind the parted hangings, one of those tranquil, undoubting conjugal passions, which custom binds with its most flexibleand strongest bonds. 

"No, Madame Jenkins"--he loved to give her thus publicly her title oflegitimate wife, as if he felt a secret satisfaction therein, a sort ofsalve to his conscience with respect to the woman who made life soattractive to him--"No, do not expect me this morning. I am tobreakfast on Place Vendôme. "

"Ah! yes, the Nabob, " said the lovely Madame Jenkins, with a verymarked inflection of respect for that personage out of the _Thousandand One Nights_, of whom all Paris had been talking for a month; then, after a moment's hesitation, she whispered between the heavy hangings, very softly, very lovingly, for the doctor's ear alone: "Be sure andnot forget what you promised me. "

It was probably a promise very difficult to keep, for, at the reminder, the apostle's brows contracted, his smile froze upon his lips, hiswhole face assumed an incredibly harsh expression; but it was a matterof a moment. The faces of these fashionable physicians become veryexpert in lying, by the bedsides of their wealthy patients. With hismost affectionate, most cordial manner, and showing a row of dazzlingteeth, he replied:

"What I promised shall be done, Madame Jenkins. Now, go in at once andclose your window. The mist is cold this morning. "

Yes, the mist was cold, but white as snow; and, hovering outside thewindows of the comfortable coupé, it lighted up with soft reflectionsthe newspaper in the doctor's hands. Over yonder in the dark, crowded, populous quarters, in the Paris of tradesmen and workmen, they knownothing of the pretty morning mist that loiters on the broad avenues;the bustle of the waking hours, the passing and repassing ofmarket-gardeners' wagons, omnibuses, drays loaded with old iron, soonchop it and rend it and scatter it. Each passer-by carries away alittle of it on a threadbare coat, a worn muffler, or coarse glovesrubbing against each other. It drenches the shivering blouses, thewaterproofs thrown over working dresses; it blends with all thebreaths, hot with insomnia or alcohol, buries itself in the depths ofempty stomachs, penetrates the shops which are just opening theirdoors, dark courtyards, staircases, where it stands on the balustersand walls, and fireless garrets. That is why so little of it remainsout-of-doors. But in that open, stately portion of Paris where Dr. Jenkins' patients lived, on those broad tree-lined boulevards, thosedeserted quays, the mist soared immaculate, in innumerable waves, aslight and fleecy as down. It was compact, discreet, almost luxurious, because the sun, slothful in his rising, was beginning to diffuse soft, purplish tints, which gave to the mist that enveloped everything, eventhe roofs of the rows of mansions, the aspect of a sheet of whitemuslin spread over scarlet cloth. One would have said that it was agreat curtain sheltering the long, untroubled sleep of wealth, a thickcurtain behind which nothing could be heard save the soft closing of aporte-cochère, the rattling of the milkmen's tin cans, the bells of aherd of asses trotting by, followed by the short, panting breath oftheir conductor, and the rumbling of Jenkins' coupé beginning its dailyround. 

First of all, to the hôtel de Mora. On the Quai d'Orléans, beside theSpanish embassy, stood a superb palace with its principal entrance onRue de Lille, and a door on the riverside, and long terraces whichformed a continuation of those of the embassy. Between two high, ivy-covered walls, connected by imposing stone arches, the coupé flewlike an arrow, announced by two strokes of a clanging bell, whicharoused Jenkins from the trance in which the perusal of his newspaperseemed to have plunged him. Then the wheels rolled less noisily overthe gravel of a vast courtyard and stopped, after a graceful sweep, atthe front steps, above which was spread a circular awning. One couldsee indistinctly through the mist half a score of carriages in a line, and the silhouettes of English grooms leading the duke's saddle-horseup and down an avenue of acacias, all leafless at that season andstanding naked in their bark. Everything revealed well-ordered, pompous, assured luxury. 

"It makes no difference how early I come, others are always here beforeme, " said Jenkins, glancing at the line in which his coupé took itsplace; but, certain of not being compelled to wait, with head erect anda tranquil air of authority, he went up the official steps, over whichso many trembling ambitions, so many stumbling anxieties passed everyday. 

Even in the reception-room, high-studded, and resonant as a church, which two huge fires filled with gleaming life, notwithstanding thegreat stoves burning day and night, the magnificence of theestablishment burst upon one in warm and heady puffs. There was asuggestion of the hot-house and the drying-room as well. Great heat andabundant light; white wainscoting, white marble statues, immensewindows, nothing confined or close, and yet an equable atmosphere wellfitted to encompass the existence of some delicate, over-refined, nervous mortal. Jenkins expanded in that factitious sunlight of wealth;he saluted with a "good-morning, boys, " the powdered Swiss with thebroad gilt baldric and the footmen in short clothes and blue and goldlivery, all of whom had risen in his honor, touched lightly with hisfinger the great cage of monkeys capering about with shrill cries, anddarted whistling up the white marble stairs covered with a carpet softand dense as a lawn, to the duke's apartments. Although he had beencoming to the hôtel de Mora for six months, the good doctor had not yetbecome hardened to the purely physical impression of cheerfulness andlightness of heart caused by the atmosphere of that house. 

Although it was the abode of the highest functionary of the Empire, there was nothing to suggest the departments or their boxes of dustydocuments. The duke had consented to accept the exalted post ofMinister of State and President of the Council only on condition thathe need not leave his house; that he should go to the department onlyan hour or two a day, long enough to affix his signatures to documentsthat required it, and that he should hold his audiences in his bedroom. At that moment, although it was so early, the salon was full. Therewere serious, anxious faces, provincial prefects with shaven lips andadministrative whiskers, something less arrogant in that reception-roomthan in their prefectures; magistrates, stern of manner, dignified ofgesture; deputies full of importance, shining lights of finance, substantial manufacturers from the country; and among them could bedistinguished, here and there, the thin ambitious face of a deputycouncillor to some prefecture, in the garb of a solicitor, black coatand white cravat; and one and all, standing or seated, alone or ingroups, silently forced with a glance the lock of that lofty door, closed upon their destinies, from which they would come forth in amoment, triumphant or crestfallen. Jenkins walked rapidly through thecrowd, and every one followed with an envious eye this new arrival, whom the usher, in his chain of office, frigid and correct in hisbearing, seated at a table beside the door, greeted with a smile thatwas both respectful and familiar. 

"Who is with him?" the doctor inquired, pointing to the duke's room. 

With the end of his lips, and not without a slightly ironical twinkleof the eye, the usher murmured a name, which, if they had heard it, would have angered all those exalted personages who had been waiting anhour for the _costumier_ of the opera to finish his audience. 

A murmur of voices, a flash of light--Jenkins had entered the duke'spresence; _he_ never waited. 

Standing with his back to the fire, dressed in a blue fur-trimmedjacket, which heightened by its soft reflection the strength andhaughtiness of his face, the President of the Council wassuperintending the drawing of a Pierrette's costume for the duchess towear at her next ball, and giving directions with as much gravity as ifhe were dictating the draft of a law. 

"Have very fine pleats on the ruff and none at all on thesleeves. --Good-morning, Jenkins. At your service. "

Jenkins bowed and stepped forward into the enormous room, whosewindows, opening on a garden that extended to the Seine, commanded oneof the loveliest views in all Paris, the bridges, the Tuileries, theLouvre, interlaced with trees as black as if they were drawn in Indiaink on the wavering background of the mist. A broad, very low bed on aplatform a few steps above the floor, two or three small lacquerscreens with vague fanciful decorations in gold, denoting, as did thedouble doors and the heavy woollen carpet, a dread of cold carried toexcess, chairs of various styles, long chairs and low chairs, placed atrandom, all well-stuffed and of lazy or voluptuous shapes, composed thefurniture of that famous room, where the most momentous and the mosttrivial questions were discussed with the same gravity of tone andmanner. There was a beautiful portrait of the duchess on the wall; andon the mantel a bust of the duke, the work of Felicia Ruys, which hadreceived the honor of a medal of the first class at the recent Salon. 

"Well, Jenkins, how goes it this morning?" said His Excellency, walkingto meet the doctor, while the costumer was collecting his fashionplates, which were strewn about over all the chairs. 

"And you, my dear duke? I fancied that you were a little pale lastnight at the Variétés. "

"Nonsense! I was never so well. Your pills have a most amazing effecton me. I feel so lively, so vigorous. When I think how completelyfoundered I was six months ago!"

Jenkins, without speaking, had put his great head against theminister's jacket, at the spot where the heart beats in the majority ofmankind. He listened a moment while His Excellency continued to talk inthe indolent, listless tone which was one of his chief claims todistinction. 

"Whom were you with last night, doctor? That great bronzed Tartar wholaughed so loud at the front of your box?"

"That was the Nabob, Monsieur le Duc. The famous Jansoulet, who is somuch talked about just now. "

"I might have suspected it. The whole audience was looking at him. Theactresses played at him all the time. Do you know him? What sort of aman is he?"

"I know him. That is, I am treating him. Thanks, my dear duke, that'sall. Everything is all right there. When he arrived in Paris a monthago, the change of climate disturbed him a little. He sent for me, andsince then has taken a great fancy to me. All that I know of him isthat he has a colossal fortune, made in Tunis, in the Bey's service, that he has a loyal heart, a generous mind in which ideas ofhumanity--"

"At Tunis?" the duke interposed, being naturally far from sentimentaland humanitarian. "Then, why the name of Nabob?"

"Bah! Parisians don't look so deep as that. In their eyes every richstranger is a nabob, no matter where he comes from. This one, however, has just the physique for the part, coppery complexion, eyes like coalsof fire, and in addition a gigantic fortune, of which he makes, I haveno hesitation in saying, a most noble and most intelligent use. I oweit to him"--here the doctor assumed an air of modesty--"I owe it to himthat I have succeeded at last in inaugurating the Work of Bethlehem fornursing infants, which a morning newspaper that I was looking over justnow--the _Messager_, I think, --calls 'the great philanthropic idea ofthe century. '"

The duke glanced in an absent-minded way at the sheet the doctor handedhim. He was not the man to be taken in by paid puffs. 

"This Monsieur Jansoulet must be very wealthy, " he said coldly. "He isa partner in Cardailhac's theatre. Monpavon persuades him to pay hisdebts, Bois-l'Héry stocks his stable for him and old Schwalbachfurnishes a picture gallery. All that costs money. "

Jenkins began to laugh. 

"What can you expect, my dear duke; you are an object of great interestto the poor Nabob. Coming to Paris with a firm purpose to become aParisian, a man of the world, he has taken you for his model ineverything, and I do not conceal from you that he would be very glad tostudy his model at closer quarters. "

"I know, I know, Monpavon has already asked leave to bring him here. But I prefer to wait and see. One must be on one's guard with thesegreat fortunes that come from such a distance. _Mon Dieu_, I don'tsay, you know, that if I should meet him elsewhere than in my ownhouse, at the theatre, or in somebody's salon--"

"It happens that Madame Jenkins intends to give a little party nextmonth. If you would do us the honor--"

"I shall be very glad to go to your house, my dear doctor, and if theNabob should be there, I should not object to his being presented tome. "

At that moment the usher opened the door. 

"Monsieur le Ministre de l'Intérieur is in the blue salon. He has but aword to say to Your Excellency. Monsieur le Préfet de Police is stillwaiting below, in the gallery. "

"Very good, " said the duke, "I will go to him. But I should like tomake a definite arrangement about this costume first. Let us see, friend What's-your-name, what do we decide about those ruffs? _Aurevoir_, doctor. Nothing to do but keep on with the pearls, is there?"

"Keep on with the pearls, " said Jenkins, bowing; and he took his leave, radiant over the two bits of good fortune that fell to his lot at thesame time--the honor of entertaining the duke, and the pleasure ofgratifying his dear Nabob. The crowd of petitioners through whom hepassed in the ante-chamber was even greater than when he entered; newarrivals had joined the patient waiters of the first hour, others werehurrying upstairs, pale-faced and full of business, and in thecourtyard carriages continued to arrive, to range themselves gravelyand solemnly in a double circle, while the question of ruffed sleeveswas discussed upstairs with no less solemnity. 

"To the club, " said Jenkins to his coachman. 

 * * *

The coupé rolled along the quays, recrossed the bridges, and turnedinto Place de la Concorde, which already wore a different aspect fromthat it had worn a short time before. The mist had lifted in thedirection of the Garde-Meuble and the Greek temple of the Madeleine, revealing here and there the white spray of a fountain, the arcade of apalace, the top of a statue, the shrubbery of the Tuileries, shiveringby the gates. The veil, not raised but rent in spots, discoveredpatches of blue sky: and, on the avenue leading to the Arc de Triomphe, one could see breaks driving swiftly along, filled with coachmen andjockeys, dragoons of the Empress's corps, body-guards in gorgeousfur-lined coats riding two by two in long lines, with a great clankingof bits and spurs and neighing of fresh horses, all in the light of astill invisible sun, emerging from the vague depths of the mist, plunging into it again in masses, like a swiftly-vanishing vision ofthe morning splendor of that quarter. 

Jenkins alighted at the corner of Rue Royale. From roof to cellar ofthe great gambling-house servants were bustling about, shaking rugs, airing the salons where the odor of cigar-smoke still lingered, whereheaps of fine ashes were blowing about in the fireplaces, while on thegreen tables, still quivering with the games of the night, the candleswere still burning in silver candelabra, the flame ascending straightinto the pallid light of day. The uproar and the going and comingceased on the third floor, where several members of the club had theirapartments. Of the number was the Marquis de Monpavon, to whose doorJenkins bent his steps. 

"Ah! is it you, doctor? Deuce take it! What time is it, pray? I'm notat home. "

"Not even to the doctor?"

"Oh! not to anybody. A question of costume, my dear fellow. Never mind, come in all the same. Toast your feet a moment while François finishesmy hair. "

Jenkins entered the bedroom, which was as prosaic a place as allfurnished apartments are, and approached the fire, where curling-tongsof all dimensions were heating, while from the adjoining laboratory, separated from the bedroom by an Algerian curtain, the Marquis deMonpavon submitted to the manipulations of his valet. Odors ofpatchouli, cold cream, burned horn and burned hair escaped from therestricted quarters; and from time to time, when François came out totake a fresh pair of tongs, Jenkins caught a glimpse of an enormousdressing-table laden with innumerable little instruments of ivory, steel, and mother-of-pearl, files, scissors, powder-puffs and brushes, phials, cups, cosmetics, labelled, arranged in lines, and amid all thatrubbish, petty ironmongery and dolls' playthings, a hand, the hand ofan old man, awkward and trembling, dry and long, with nails ascarefully kept as a Japanese painter's. 

While making up his face, the longest and most complicated of hismatutinal occupations, Monpavon chatted with the doctor, told him ofhis aches and pains and of the good effect of the pearls, which weremaking him younger, he said. And listening to him thus, at a littledistance, without seeing him, one would have believed he was the Duc deMora, he had so faithfully copied his way of speaking. There were thesame unfinished sentences, ending in a _ps_--_ps_--_ps_--utteredbetween the teeth. "What's-his-names" and "What-d'ye-call-'ems" atevery turn, a sort of lazy, bored, aristocratic stammer, in which onedivined profound contempt for the vulgar art of speech. In the duke'scircle everybody strove to copy that accent, those disdainfulintonations, in which there was an affectation of simplicity. 

Jenkins, finding the session a little tedious, rose to go. 

"Adieu, I am going. Shall I see you at the Nabob's?"

"Yes, I expect to breakfast there--promised to take What's-his-name, Thingumbob, you know, about our great affair--ps--ps--ps. Weren't forthat, I'd stay away--downright menagerie, that house. "

The Irishman, despite his kindly feeling, agreed that the society athis friend's house was a little mixed. But what of that! they must notblame him for that. He didn't know any better, poor man. 

"Doesn't know and won't learn, " said Monpavon sourly. "Instead ofconsulting men of experience--ps--ps--ps--takes the first sycophantthat comes. Did you see the horses Bois-l'Héry bought for him?Downright swindle, those beasts. And he paid twenty thousand francs forthem. I'll wager Bois-l'Héry got 'em for six thousand. "

"Oh! fie, fie--a gentleman!" said Jenkins, with the indignation of anoble soul refusing to believe in evil. 

Monpavon went on, as if he did not hear:

"And all because the horses came from Mora's stable!"

"To be sure, the dear Nabob's heart is set on the duke. So that I shallmake him very happy when I tell him--"

The doctor stopped, in some embarrassment. 

"When you tell him what, Jenkins?"

Jenkins, looking decidedly sheepish, was forced to admit that he hadobtained permission from His Excellency to present his friendJansoulet. He had hardly finished his sentence when a tall spectre withflabby cheeks and multicolored hair and whiskers darted from thedressing-room into the chamber, holding together with both hands at hisskinny but very straight neck, a dressing-gown of light silk withviolet dots, in which he had enveloped himself like a bonbon in itspaper wrapper. The most salient feature in that heroi-comic countenancewas a great arched nose shining with cold cream, and a keen, piercingeye, too youthful, too clear for the heavy, wrinkled lid that coveredit. All of Jenkins' patients had that same eye. 

Verily Monpavon must have been deeply moved to show himself thus shornof all prestige. In fact it was with white lips and in a changed voicethat he now addressed the doctor, without the affected stammer, speaking rapidly and without stopping to breathe:--

"Come, come, my dear fellow, there's no nonsense between us, is there?We have met in front of the same porringer; but I let you have yourshare and I propose that you shall let me have mine. " Jenkins' air ofamazement did not check him. "Let it be understood once for all. Ipromised the Nabob that I'd present him to the duke as I presented youlong ago. Don't you interfere in what concerns me and me alone. "

Jenkins, with his hand upon his heart, protested his innocence. He hadnever had any such intention. Of course Monpavon was too close a friendof the duke for any one else to--How could he have imagined such athing?

"I imagine nothing, " said the old nobleman, more subdued, but stillvery cold. "I simply wanted to have a perfectly frank explanation withyou on this subject. "

The Irishman held out his broad open palm. 

"My dear marquis, explanations are always frank between men of honor. "

"Honor is a great word, Jenkins. Let us say men of good-breeding. Thatis sufficient. "

And as that same good-breeding, which he put forward as a supreme guideof conduct, suddenly reminded him of his absurd plight, the marquisoffered a finger for his friend's demonstrative grasp and passedhastily behind his curtain, while the other took his leave, in haste tocontinue his round of visits. 

 * * *

What a magnificent practice this Jenkins had, to be sure! Nothing butprincely mansions, halls comfortably heated and filled with flowers onevery floor, downy, silk-lined alcoves, wherein disease became quietand refined, where nothing suggested the brutal hand that tosses upon abed of misery those who cease to work only to die. To tell the truth, these clients of Dr. Jenkins were not patients at all. They would nothave been received at a hospital. As their organs had not even strengthenough to feel a shock, it was impossible to find the seat of theirtrouble, and the physician leaning over them would have listened invain for the palpitation of suffering in those bodies which werealready inhabited by the inertia and silence of death. They wereweakened, exhausted, anæmic, consumed by their absurd mode of life, andyet so attached to it that they strove desperately to prolong it. Andthe Jenkins Pearls became famous just because of the lashing theyadministered to jaded constitutions. 

"Doctor, I implore you, let me go to the ball this evening!" a youngwoman would say, as she lay, utterly prostrated, in her invalid'schair, her voice hardly more than a breath. 

"You shall go, my dear child. "

And go she would, and look lovelier than ever before. 

"Doctor, at any price, even if it's the death of me, I must be at thecouncil of ministers to-morrow morning. "

He would be there and would win new triumphs by his eloquence andambitious diplomacy. And afterward--oh! afterward, indeed. But nomatter! to their last day Jenkins' patients went about, showedthemselves, deceived the consuming selfishness of the multitude. Theydied on their feet, like men and women of the world. 

After innumerable turns on the Chaussée d'Antin and Champs-Élysées, after visiting all the millionaires and titled personages in FaubourgSaint-Honoré, the doctor drew up at the corner of Cours-la-Reine andRue François I. , before a house with a swell front which stood atthe corner of the quay, and entered an apartment on the ground floorwhich in no wise resembled those he had visited since the morning. Immediately upon entering, the tapestries that covered the walls, theold stained glass windows intersecting with their lead sashes the soft, many-hued light, a gigantic saint in carved wood facing a Japanesemonster with bulging eyes and back covered with highly polished scales, indicated the imaginative and eccentric taste of an artist. The smallservant who opened the door held in leash an Arabian greyhound largerthan himself. 

"Madame Constance is at mass, " he said, "and mademoiselle is in thestudio, alone. We have been working since six o'clock this morning, "the child added, with a terrible yawn, which the dog caught on thewing, and which caused him to open wide his red mouth with its rows ofsharp teeth. 

Jenkins, whom we have seen enter the private apartments of the Ministerof State with such perfect tranquillity, trembled slightly as he raisedthe portière that hid the open doorway of the studio. It was amagnificent sculptor's workroom, the rounded front being entirely ofglass, with columns at either side: a large bay-window flooded withlight and at that moment tinged with opal by the mist. More ornate thanthe majority of these workrooms, to which the daubs of plaster, themodelling tools, the clay scattered about and the splashes of watergive something of the appearance of a mason's yard, this one blended alittle coquetry with its artistic equipment. Green plants in everycorner, a few good pictures hanging on the bare wall, and here andthere--on oak pedestals--two or three of the works of Sébastien Ruys, whose very last work, not exhibited until after his death, was coveredwith black gauze. 

The mistress of the establishment, Felicia Ruys, daughter of the famoussculptor, and already known to fame herself by two masterpieces, thebust of her father and that of the Duc de Mora, stood in the centre ofthe studio, at work modelling a figure. Dressed in a blue clothriding-habit with long folds, a scarf of China silk twisted around herneck like a boy's cravat, her fine, black hair, gathered carelessly ontop of her little Grecian head, Felicia was working with extreme zeal, which added to her beauty by the condensation, so to speak, theconcentration of all her features in a scrutinizing and satisfiedexpression. But it changed abruptly on the doctor's arrival. 

"Ah! it's you, is it?" she said brusquely, as if waking from a dream. "Did you ring? I did not hear. "

And in the ennui, the weariness that suddenly overspread that lovelyface, only the eyes retained their expression and brilliancy, eyes inwhich the factitious gleam of the Jenkins Pearls was heightened by anatural fierceness. 

Oh! how humble and condescending the doctor's voice became, as hereplied:

"Your work absorbs you completely, does it not, my dear Felicia? Is itsomething new that you're doing? I should say that it is very pretty. "

He drew near to the still formless sketch in which a group of twoanimals could be vaguely distinguished, one of them, a greyhound, flying over the ground at a truly extraordinary pace. 

"The idea came to me last night. I began to work by lamplight. My poorKadour doesn't find it amusing, " said the girl, looking with acaressing expression of affection at the greyhound, whose paws thesmall servant was trying to separate in order to force him into theproper pose. 

Jenkins observed with a fatherly air that she did wrong to tire herselfso, and added, taking her wrist with ecclesiastical precautions:

"Let us see, I am sure that you are feverish. "

At the touch of that hand Felicia had a feeling of something very likerepulsion. 

"Let me alone--let me alone--your pearls can do nothing for me. When Iam not working, I am bored, bored to death, so bored that I could killmyself; my ideas are of the color of that thick, brackish water flowingyonder. To be just at the beginning of life and to be disgusted withit! It's hard. I am reduced to the point of envying my poor Constance, who passes her days in her chair, never opening her mouth, but smilingall by herself at her memories of the past. I have not even that, noteven any pleasant memories to recall. I have nothing but work--work!"

[Illustration: _In Felicia's Studio_]

As she spoke, she worked fiercely, sometimes with the tool, sometimeswith her fingers, which she wiped from time to time on a little spongekept on the wooden frame on which the group stood; so that hercomplaints, her lamentations, inexplicable in a mouth of twenty yearswhich had in repose the purity of a Grecian smile, seemed to be utteredat random, and addressed to no one in particular. And yet Jenkinsseemed anxious and disturbed, notwithstanding the apparent interest hedisplayed in the artist's work, or rather in the artist herself, in thequeenly grace of that mere girl, whose style of beauty seemed to havepredestined her to the study of the plastic arts. 

Annoyed by that admiring glance, which she felt like a weight, Feliciaresumed:

"By the way, do you know that I saw your Nabob? He was pointed out tome at the Opera, Friday. "

"Were you at the Opera, Friday?"

"Yes. The duke sent me his box. "

Jenkins changed color. 

"I persuaded Constance to go with me. It was the first time in twentyyears, since her farewell performance, that she had entered the Opera. It made a great impression on her. During the ballet especially, shetrembled, she beamed, all her former triumphs sparkled in her eyes. Howfortunate one is to have such emotions. A perfect type of his class, that Nabob. You must bring him to see me. It would amuse me to do hishead. "

"What! why he is frightful! You can't have had a good look at him. "

"Indeed I did, on the contrary. He was opposite us. That whiteEthiopian visage would be superb in marble. And not commonplace, at allevents. Moreover, if he's so ugly as all that, you won't be so unhappyas you were last year when I was doing Mora's bust. What a wicked faceyou had at that time, Jenkins!"

"Not for ten years of life, " muttered Jenkins in a threatening voice, "would I go through those hours again. But it amuses you to see peoplesuffer. "

"You know very well that nothing amuses me, " she said, shrugging hershoulders with supreme impertinence. 

Then, without looking at him, without another word, she plunged intoone of those periods of intense activity by means of which true artistsescape from themselves and all their surroundings. 

Jenkins took a few hurried steps, deeply moved, his lip swollen withavowals that dared not come forth, and began two or three sentencesthat met with no reply; at last, feeling that he was dismissed, he tookhis hat and walked toward the door. 

"It's understood then, is it? I am to bring him here?"

"Who, pray?"

"Why, the Nabob. Only a moment ago you said yourself--"

"Oh! yes, " said the strange creature, whose caprices were not of longduration, "bring him if you choose; I don't care particularly aboutit. "

And her musical, listless voice, in which something seemed to havebroken, the utter indifference of her whole bearing showed that it wastrue, that she cared for nothing on earth. 

Jenkins went away in sore perplexity, with clouded brow. But as soon ashe had passed the door he resumed his smiling, cordial manner, beingone of those men who wear a mask on the street. The mist, still visiblein the neighborhood of the Seine, was reduced to a few floating shreds, which gave an air of vapory unsubstantiality to the houses on the quay, to the steam-boats of which only the paddle-wheels could be seen, andto the distant horizon, where the dome of the Invalides hovered like agilded balloon, whose netting shed rays of light. The increasingwarmth, the activity in the quarter indicated that noon was not faraway and that it would soon be announced by the ringing of all thebells. 

Before calling upon the Nabob, however, Jenkins had another call tomake. But it seemed to be a great nuisance to him. However, as he hadpromised! So he said, with sudden decision, as he jumped into thecarriage:

"68 Rue Saint-Ferdinand, aux Ternes. "

Joe, the coachman, was scandalized and made his master repeat theaddress; even the horse showed some little hesitation, as if thevaluable beast and the spotless new livery were disgusted at having tovisit a faubourg so far away, outside the restricted but brilliantcircle in which their master's patients were grouped together. Theyarrived, however, without hindrance, at the end of an unfinishedprovincial street, and at the last of its houses, a five-storybuilding, which the street seemed to have sent out to reconnoitre andascertain if it could safely continue in that direction, isolated as itwas between desolate tracts of land awaiting prospective buildings orfilled with the materials of demolished structures, with blocks ofstone, old blinds with no rooms to shelter, boards with hanging hinges, a vast boneyard of a whole demolished quarter. 

Innumerable signs swayed in the wind over the door, which was adornedwith a large case of photographs, white with dust, before which Jenkinspaused for a moment. Had the illustrious physician come so far to havehis picture taken? One might have thought so from the interest whichdetained him in front of that case, containing fifteen or twentyphotographs representing the same family in different groups andattitudes and with different expressions: an old gentleman with hischin supported by a high white stock, and a leather satchel under hisarm, surrounded by a bevy of maidens with their hair arranged in braidsor in curls. Sometimes the old gentleman had sat with only two of hisdaughters; or perhaps one of those pretty, graceful figures appearedalone, her elbow resting on a truncated column, her head bending over abook, in a natural and unstudied pose. But it was always the samemotive with variations, and there was no other male figure in the casebut the old gentleman in the white cravat, and no other female figuresthan those of his numerous daughters. 

"Studios on the fifth floor, " said a sign over the case. Jenkinssighed, measured with his eye the distance from the ground to thelittle balcony up among the clouds; then he made up his mind to enter. In the hall he passed a white cravat and a majestic leather satchel, evidently the old gentleman of the showcase. Upon being questioned, hereplied that M. Maranne did in fact live on the fifth floor. "But, " headded with an engaging smile, "the floors are not high. " With thatencouragement the Irishman started up an entirely new and narrowstaircase, with landings no larger than a stair, a single door on eachfloor and windows which afforded glimpses of a melancholy pavedcourtyard and other stairways, all empty: one of those horrible modernhouses, built by the dozen by contractors without a son, their greatestdisadvantage consisting in the thinness of the partitions, which forcesall the lodgers to live together as in a Fourierite community. For themoment that disadvantage was not of serious consequence, only thefourth and fifth floors being occupied, as if the tenants had fallenfrom the sky. 

On the fourth, behind a door bearing a copper plate with the words: M. JOYEUSE, _Expert in Handwriting_, the doctor heard the sound of fresh, young laughter and conversation and active footsteps, which accompaniedhim to the door of the photographic establishment above. 

These little industries, perching in out-of-the-way corners, andseeming to have no communication with the outer world, are one of thesurprises of Paris. We wonder how people live who take to them for aliving. What scrupulous providence, for instance, could send customersto a photographer on a fifth floor among waste lands, at the far end ofRue Ferdinand, or documents for examination to the expert on the floorbelow. Jenkins, as he made that reflection, smiled a pitying smile, then entered without ceremony as he was invited to do by thisinscription: "Walk in without knocking. " Alas! the permission was notabused. --A tall youth in spectacles, who was writing at a small table, his legs wrapped in a traveling shawl, rose hurriedly to greet thevisitor, whom his short-sightedness prevented him from recognizing. 

"Good-morning, André, " said the doctor, extending his hand cordially. 

"Monsieur Jenkins!"

"I am a good fellow as always, you see. Your conduct to us, yourpersistence in living apart from your relatives, commended to mydignity the utmost reserve in dealing with you; but your mother wept. And here I am. "

As he was speaking, he glanced about the poor little studio, where thebare walls, the scanty furniture the brand-new photographic apparatus, the little fireplace _à la prussienne_, also new, which had never seena fire, were disastrously apparent in the bright light that fell fromthe glass roof. The drawn features and straggling beard of the youngman, whose very light eyes, high, narrow forehead, and long fair hairthrown back in disorder gave him the appearance of a visionary, allwere accentuated in the uncompromising light; and so was the doggedwill expressed in that limpid glance which met Jenkins' eye coldly, andoffered in anticipation an unconquerable opposition to all hisarguments, all his protestations. 

But the excellent Jenkins pretended not to notice it. 

"You know how it is, my dear André. From the day that I married yourmother, I have looked upon you as my son. I expected to leave you myoffice, my practice, to place your foot in a golden stirrup, and I wasoverjoyed to see you follow a career devoted to the welfare of mankind. Suddenly, without a word of explanation, without a thought for theeffect such a rupture might produce in the eyes of the world, you cutloose from us, you dropped your studies and renounced your futureprospects, to embark in some degrading mode of life, to adopt an absurdtrade, the refuge and the pretext of all those who are shut out fromthe society to which they belong. "

"I am working at this trade for a living. It's a means of earning mybread while I wait. "

"Wait for what?--literary renown?"

He glanced contemptuously at the papers scattered over the table. 

"But all this does not touch the question; this is what I came here tosay to you: an opportunity is offered you, a door thrown wide open tothe future. The Work of Bethlehem is founded. The noblest of myhumanitarian dreams has taken shape. We have bought a magnificent villaat Nanterre in which to install our first branch. The superintendence, the management of that establishment is what it has occurred to me tooffer to you, as to another myself. A princely house to live in, thesalary of a major-general, and the satisfaction of rendering a serviceto the great human family. Say the word and I will take you to see theNabob, the noble-hearted man who pays the expenses of our undertaking. Do you accept?"

"No, " said the author, so abruptly that Jenkins was disconcerted. 

"That's it. I expected a refusal when I came here, but I came none theless. I took for my motto, 'Do what is right, without hope. ' And I amfaithful to my motto. So, it's understood, is it--that you prefer alife dependent on chance, without prospects and without dignity, to thehonorable, dignified, useful life that I offer you?"

André made no reply; but his silence spoke for him. 

"Beware--you know to what this decision of yours will lead, a finalestrangement; but you have always desired it. I need not tell you, "continued Jenkins, "that to break with me is to break with your motheralso. She and I are one. "

The young man turned pale, hesitated a second, then said with aneffort:

"If my mother cares to come and see me here, I shall certainly be veryhappy--but my determination to remain apart from you, to have nothingin common with you, is irrevocable. "

"At least, you will tell me why?"

He made a gesture signifying, "no, " that he would not tell him. 

For the moment the Irishman was really angry. His whole face assumed asavage, cunning expression which would have greatly surprised those whoknew only the good-humored, open-hearted Jenkins; but he was careful togo no farther in the direction of an explanation, which he dreadedperhaps no less than he desired it. 

"Adieu, " he said from the doorway, half turning his head. "Never applyto us. "

"Never, " replied his stepson in a firm voice. 

This time, when the doctor said to Joe: "Place Vendôme, " the horse, asif he understood that they were going to call on the Nabob, proudlyshook his shining curb, and the coupé drove away at full speed, transforming the hub of each of its wheels into a gleaming sun. "Tocome such a distance to meet with such a reception! One of thecelebrities of the day treated so by that Bohemian! This comes oftrying to do good!" Jenkins vented his wrath in a long monologue inthat vein; then suddenly exclaimed with a shrug: "Oh! pshaw!" And suchtraces of care as remained on his brow soon vanished on the pavement ofPlace Vendôme. On all sides the clocks were striking twelve in thesunshine. Emerging from her curtain of mist, fashionable Paris, awakeand on her feet, was beginning her day of giddy pleasure. Theshop-windows on Rue de la Paix shone resplendent. The mansions on thesquare seemed to be drawn up proudly in line for the afternoonreceptions; and, at the end of Rue Castiglione with its white arcades, the Tuileries, in the glorious sunlight of winter, marshalled itsshivering statues, pink with cold, among the leafless quincunxes. 

II. 

A BREAKFAST ON PLACE VENDÔME. 

There were hardly more than a score of persons that morning in theNabob's dining-room, a dining-room finished in carved oak, suppliedonly the day before from the establishment of some greathouse-furnisher, who furnished at the same time the four salons whichcould be seen, one beyond the other, through an open door: thehangings, the objects of art, the chandeliers, even the plate displayedon the sideboards, even the servants who served the breakfast. It wasthe perfect type of the establishment improvised, immediately uponalighting from the railway train, by a parvenu of colossal wealth, ingreat haste to enjoy himself. Although there was no sign of a woman'sdress about the table, no bit of light and airy material to enliven thescene, it was by no means monotonous, thanks to the incongruity, thenondescript character of the guests, gathered together from all ranksof society, specimens of mankind culled from every race in France, inEurope, in the whole world, from top to bottom of the social scale. First of all, the master of the house, a sort of giant--sunburned, swarthy, with his head between his shoulders--to whom his short nose, lost in the puffiness of the face, his woolly hair massed like anAstrakhan cap over a low, headstrong forehead, his bristling eyebrowswith eyes like a wild cat's in ambush, gave the ferocious aspect of aKalmuk, of a savage on the frontiers of civilization, who lived by warand marauding. Luckily the lower part of the face, the thick, doublelips which parted readily in a fascinating, good-humored smile, tempered with a sort of Saint Vincent de Paul expression that uncouthugliness, that original countenance, so original that it forgot to becommonplace. But his inferior extraction betrayed itself in anotherdirection by his voice, the voice of a Rhone boatman, hoarse andindistinct, in which the southern accent became rather coarse thanharsh, and by two broad, short hands, with hairy fingers, square at theends and with almost no nails, which, as they rested on the white tablecloth, spoke of their past with embarrassing eloquence. Opposite thehost, on the other side of the table, at which he was a regular guest, was the Marquis de Monpavon, but a Monpavon who in no wise resembledthe mottled spectre whom we saw in the last chapter; a man of superbphysique, in the prime of life, with a long, majestic nose, the haughtybearing of a great nobleman, displaying a vast breastplate of spotlesslinen, which cracked under the continuous efforts of the chest to bendforward, and swelled out every time with a noise like that made by aturkey gobbling, or a peacock spreading his tail. His name Monpavon waswell suited to him. [1]

 [1] Paon_, peacock--from Latin pavo, pavonis_. 

Belonging to a great family, with wealthy kindred, the Duc de Mora'sfriendship had procured for him a receiver-generalship of the firstclass. Unfortunately his health had not permitted him to retain thatfine berth--well-informed persons said that his health had nothing todo with it--and he had been living in Paris for a year past, waitinguntil he should be cured, he said, to return to his post. The samepersons asserted that he would never find it again, and that, were itnot for the patronage of certain exalted personages--Be that as it may, he was the important guest at the breakfast; one could see that by theway in which the servants waited upon him, by the way in which theNabob consulted him, calling him "Monsieur le Marquis, " as they do atthe Comédie Française, less from humility than from pride because ofthe honor that was reflected on himself. Filled with disdain for hisfellow-guests, Monsieur le Marquis talked little, but with a very loftymanner, as if he were obliged to stoop to those persons whom he honoredwith his conversation. From time to time he tossed at the Nabob, acrossthe table, sentences that were enigmatical to everybody. 

"I saw the duke yesterday. He talked a good deal about you inconnection with that matter of--you know, What's-his-name, Thingumbob--Who is the man?"

"Really! He talked about me?" And the honest Nabob, swelling withpride, would look about him, nodding his head in a most laughable way, or would assume the meditative air of a pious woman when she hears thename of Our Lord. 

"His Excellency would be pleased to have you go intothe--ps--ps--ps--the thing. "

"Did he tell you so?"

"Ask the governor--he heard it as well as I. "

The person referred to as the governor, Paganetti by name, was anenergetic, gesticulatory little man, tiresome to watch, his faceassumed so many different expressions in a minute. He was manager ofthe _Caisse Territoriale_ of Corsica, a vast financial enterprise, andwas present in that house for the first time, brought by Monpavon; healso occupied a place of honor. On the Nabob's other side was an oldman, buttoned to the chin in a frock-coat without lapels and with astanding collar, like an oriental tunic, with a face marred byinnumerable little gashes, and a white moustache trimmed in militaryfashion. It was Brahim Bey, the most gallant officer of the regency ofTunis, _aide-de-camp_ to the former bey, who made Jansoulet's fortune. This warrior's glorious exploits were written in wrinkles, in the scarsof debauchery, on his lower lip which hung down helplessly as if thespring were broken, and in his inflamed, red eyes, devoid of lashes. His was one of the faces we see in the felon's dock in cases that aretried behind closed doors. The other guests had seated themselvespell-mell, as they arrived, or beside such acquaintances as theychanced to meet, for the house was open to everybody, and covers werelaid for thirty every morning. 

There was the manager of the theatre in which the Nabob was a sleepingpartner, --Cardailhac, almost as renowned for his wit as for hisfailures, that wonderful carver, who would prepare one of his _bonsmots_ as he detached the limbs of a partridge, and deposit it with awing in the plate that was handed him. He was a sculptor rather than an_improvisateur_, and the new way of serving meats, having them carvedbeforehand in the Russian fashion, had been fatal to him by deprivinghim of all excuse for a preparatory silence. So it was generally saidthat he was failing. He was a thorough Parisian, a dandy to hisfingers' ends, and as he himself boasted, "not full to bursting withsuperstition, " which fact enabled him to give some very piquant detailsconcerning the women in his theatrical company to Brahim Bey, wholistened to him as one turns the pages of an obscene book, and to talktheology to his nearest neighbor, a young priest, curé of some littleSouthern village, a thin, gaunt fellow, with a complexion as darkas his cassock, with glowing cheek-bones, pointed nose, all thecharacteristics of an ambitious man, who said to Cardailhac, in a veryloud voice, in a tone of condescension, of priestly authority:

"We are very well satisfied with Monsieur Guizot. He is doing well, very well--it's a victory for the Church. "

Beside that pontiff with the starched band, old Schwalbach, the famousdealer in pictures, displayed his prophet's beard, yellow in spots likea dirty fleece, his three mouldy-looking waistcoats and all theslovenly, careless attire which people forgave him in the name of art, and because he had the good taste to have in his employ, at a time whenthe mania for galleries kept millions of money in circulation, the oneman who was most expert in negotiating those vainglorious transactions. Schwalbach did not talk, contenting himself with staring about throughhis enormous lens-shaped monocle, and smiling in his beard at theextraordinary juxtapositions to be observed at that table, which stoodalone in all the world. For instance Monpavon had very near him--andyou should have seen how the disdainful curve of his nose wasaccentuated at every glance in his direction--Garrigou the singer, acountryman of Jansoulet, distinguished as a ventriloquist, who sang_Figaro_ in the patois of the South and had not his like for imitatinganimals. A little farther on, Cabassu, another fellow-countryman, ashort, thick-set man, with a bull-neck, a biceps worthy of MichelAngelo, who resembled equally a Marseillais hair-dresser and theHercules at a country fair, a _masseur_, pedicurist, manicurist andsomething of a dentist, rested both elbows on the table with theassurance of a quack whom one receives in the morning and who knows thepetty weaknesses, the private miseries of the house in which he happensto be. M. Bompain completed that procession of subalterns, allclassified with reference to some one specialty. Bompain, thesecretary, the steward, the man of confidence, through whose hands allthe business of the establishment passed; and a single glance at thatstupidly solemn face, that vague expression, that Turkish fez poisedawkwardly on that village schoolmaster's head, sufficed to convince onewhat manner of man he was to whom interests like the Nabob's had beenentrusted. 

Lastly, to fill the gaps between the figures we have sketched, Turks ofevery variety! Tunisians, Moors, Egyptians, Levantines; and, mingledwith that exotic element, a whole multicolored Parisian Bohemia ofdecayed gentlemen, squinting tradesmen, penniless journalists, inventors of strange objects, men from the South landed in Pariswithout a sou--all the tempest-tossed vessels to be revictualled, allthe flocks of birds whirling about in the darkness, that were attractedby that great fortune as by the light of a lighthouse. The Nabobreceived that motley crew at his table through kindness of heart, generosity, weakness, and entire lack of dignity, combined withabsolute ignorance, and partly as a result of the same exile'smelancholy, the same need of expansion that led him to receive, in hismagnificent palace on the Bardo in Tunis, everybody who landed fromFrance, from the petty tradesman and exporter of small wares, to thefamous pianist on a tour and the consul-general. 

Listening to those different voices, those foreign accents, incisive orstammering, glancing at those varying types of countenance, someuncivilized, passionate, unrefined, others over-civilized, faded, ofthe type that haunts the boulevards, over-ripe as it were, andobserving the same varieties in the corps of servants, where"flunkeys, " taken the day before from some office, insolent fellows, with the heads of dentists or bath-attendants, bustled about among themotionless Ethiopians, who shone like black marble torch-holders, --itwas impossible to say exactly where you were; at all events, you wouldnever have believed that you were on Place Vendôme, at the very heartand centre of the life of our modern Paris. On the table there was asimilar outlandish collection of foreign dishes, sauces with saffron oranchovies, elaborately spiced Turkish delicacies, chickens with friedalmonds; all this, taken in conjunction with the commonplacedecorations of the room, the gilded wainscotings and the shrill jangleof the new bells, gave one the impression of a table-d'hôte in somegreat hotel in Smyrna or Calcutta, or of the gorgeous saloon of atrans-Atlantic liner, the _Péreire_ or the _Sinai_. 

It would seem that such a variety of guests--I had almost said ofpassengers--would make the repast animated and noisy. Far from it. Theyall ate nervously, in silence, watching one another out of the cornerof the eye; and even the most worldly, those who seemed most at ease, had in their eyes the wandering, distressed expression indicating apersistent thought, a feverish anxiety which caused them to speakwithout answering, to listen without understanding a word of what wassaid. 

Suddenly the door of the dining-room was thrown open. 

"Ah! there's Jenkins, " exclaimed the Nabob, joyfully. "Hail, doctor, hail! How are you, my boy?"

A circular smile, a vigorous handshake for the host, and Jenkins tookhis seat opposite him, beside Monpavon and in front of a plate which aservant brought in hot haste, exactly as at a table-d'hôte. Amid thosepreoccupied, feverish faces, that one presented a striking contrastwith its good-humor, its expansive smile, and the loquacious, flattering affability which makes the Irish to a certain extent theGascons of Great Britain. And what a robust appetite! with what energy, what liberty of conscience, he managed his double row of white teeth, talking all the while. 

"Well, Jansoulet, did you read it?"

"Read what, pray?"

"What! don't you know? Haven't you read what the _Messager_ saidabout you this morning?"

Beneath the thick tan on his cheeks the Nabob blushed like a child, andhis eyes sparkled with delight as he replied:

"Do you mean it? The _Messager_ said something about me?"

"Two whole columns. How is it that Moëssard didn't show it to you?"

"Oh!" said Moëssard modestly, "it wasn't worth the trouble. "

He was a journalist in a small way, fair-haired and spruce, a prettyfellow enough, but with a face marked by the faded look peculiar towaiters at all-night restaurants, actors and prostitutes, made up ofconventional grimaces and the sallow reflection of the gas. He wasreputed to be the plighted lover of an exiled queen of very easyvirtue. That rumor was whispered about wherever he went, and gave himan envied and most contemptible prominence in his circle. 

Jansoulet insisted upon reading the article, being impatient to hearwhat was said of him. Unfortunately Jenkins had left his copy at theduke's. 

"Let some one go at once and get me a _Messager_, " said the Nabobto the servant behind his chair. 

Moëssard interposed:

"That isn't necessary; I must have the thing about me. "

And with the free and easy manner of the tap-room habitué, of thereporter who scrawls his notes as he sits in front of his mug of beer, the journalist produced a pocketbook stuffed with memoranda, stampedpapers, newspaper clippings, notes on glossy paper with crests--whichhe scattered over the table, pushing his plate away, to look for theproof of his article. 

"Here it is. " He passed it to Jansoulet; but Jenkins cried out:

"No, no, read it aloud. "

As the whole party echoed the demand, Moëssard took back his proof andbegan to read aloud the WORK OF BETHLEHEM AND M. BERNARD JANSOULET, along deliverance in favor of artificial nursing, written from Jenkins'notes, which were recognizable by certain grandiloquent phrases of thesort that the Irishman affected: "the long martyrology of infancy--thevenality of the breast--the goat, the beneficent nurse, "--andconcluding, after a turgid description of the magnificent establishmentat Nanterre, with a eulogy of Jenkins and the glorification ofJansoulet: "O Bernard Jansoulet, benefactor of infancy!"

You should have seen the annoyed, scandalized faces of the guests. Whata schemer that Moëssard was! What impudent sycophancy! And the sameenvious, disdainful smile distorted every mouth. The devil of it wasthat they were forced to applaud, to appear enchanted, as their host'ssense of smell was not surfeited by the odor of incense, and as he tookeverything very seriously, both the article and the applause that itcalled forth. His broad face beamed during the reading. Many and many atime, far away in Africa, he had dreamed of being thus belauded in theParisian papers, of becoming a person of some consequence in thatsociety, the first of all societies, upon which the whole world has itseyes fixed as upon a beacon-light. Now that dream was fulfilled. Hegazed at all those men around his table, at that sumptuous dessert, atthat wainscoted dining-room, certainly as high as the church in hisnative village; he listened to the dull roar of Paris, rumbling andtramping beneath his windows, with the unspoken thought that he wasabout to become a great wheel in that ever-active, complicatedmechanism. And thereupon, while he sat, enjoying the sense ofwell-being that follows a substantial meal, between the lines of thattriumphant apology he evoked, by way of contrast, the panorama of hisown life, his wretched childhood, his haphazard youth, no lessdistressing to recall, the days without food, the nights without aplace to lay his head. And suddenly, when the reading was at an end, inthe midst of a veritable overflow of joy, of one of those outbursts ofSouthern effusiveness which compel one to think aloud, he cried, protruding his thick lips toward the guests in his genial smile:

"Ah! my friends, my dear friends, if you knew how happy I am, how proudI feel!"

It was barely six weeks since he landed in France. With the exceptionof two or three compatriots, he had known these men whom he called hisfriends hardly more than a day, and only from having loaned them money. Wherefore that sudden expansiveness seemed decidedly strange; butJansoulet, too deeply moved to notice anything, continued:

"After what I have just heard, when I see myself here in this greatcity of Paris, surrounded by all the illustrious names anddistinguished minds within its limits, and then recall my father'speddler's stall! For I was born in a peddler's stall. My father soldold iron at a street corner in Bourg-Saint-Andéol! It was as much asever if we had bread to eat every day, and stew every Sunday. AskCabassu. He knew me in those days. He can tell you if I am lying. Oh!yes, I have known what poverty is. " He raised his head in an outburstof pride, breathing in the odor of truffles with which the heavyatmosphere was impregnated. "I have known poverty, genuine poverty too, and for a long time. I have been cold, I have been hungry, and horriblyhungry, you know, the kind of hunger that makes you stupid, that twistsyour stomach, makes your head go round, and prevents you from seeing, just as if some one had dug out the inside of your eyes with anoyster-knife. I have passed whole days in bed for lack of a coat towear; lucky when I had a bed, which I sometimes hadn't. I have tried toearn my bread at every trade; and the bread cost me so much suffering, it was so hard and tough that I still have the bitter, mouldy taste ofit in my mouth. And that's the way it was till I was thirty years old. Yes, my friends, at thirty--and I'm not fifty yet--I was still abeggar, without a sou, with no future, with my heart full of remorsefor my poor mother who was dying of hunger in her hovel down in theprovinces, and to whom I could give nothing. "

The faces of the people who surrounded that strange host as he told thestory of his evil days were a curious spectacle. Some seemed disgusted, especially Monpavon. That display of old rags seemed to him inexecrable taste, and to denote utter lack of breeding. Cardailhac, thatsceptic and man of refined taste, a foe to all emotional scenes, satwith staring eyes and as if hypnotized, cutting a piece of fruit withthe end of his fork into strips as thin as cigarette papers. TheGovernor, on the contrary, went through a pantomime expressive ofperfunctory admiration, with exclamations of horror and compassion;while, in striking contrast to him, and not far away, Brahim Bey, thethunderbolt of war, in whom the reading of the article, followed bydiscussion after a substantial repast, had induced a refreshing nap, was sleeping soundly, with his mouth like a round O in his whitemoustache, and with the blood congested in his face as a result of thecreeping up of his gorget. But the general expression was indifferenceand ennui. What interest had they, I ask you, in Jansoulet's childhoodat Bourg-Saint-Andéol, in what he had suffered, and how he had beendriven from pillar to post? They had not come there for such stuff asthat. So it was that expressions of feigned interest, eyes that countedthe eggs in the ceiling or the crumbs of bread on the table-cloth, lipstightly compressed to restrain a yawn, betrayed the general impatiencecaused by that untimely narrative. But he did not grow weary. He tookpleasure in the recital of his past suffering, as the sailor in a safehaven delights in recalling his voyages in distant seas, and thedangers, and the terrible shipwrecks. Next came the tale of his goodluck, the extraordinary accident that suddenly started him on the roadto fortune. "I was wandering about the harbor of Marseille, with acomrade as out-at-elbows as myself, who also made his fortune in theBey's service, and, after being my chum, my partner, became mybitterest enemy. I can safely tell you his name, _pardi_! He is wellenough known, Hemerlingue. Yes, messieurs, the head of the greatbanking-house of Hemerlingue and Son hadn't at that time the money tobuy two sous' worth of crabs on the quay. Intoxicated by the air oftravel that you breathe in those parts, it occurred to us to go andseek a living in some sunny country, as the foggy countries were socruel to us. But where should we go? We did what sailors sometimes doto decide what den they shall squander their wages in. They stick a bitof paper on the rim of a hat. Then they twirl the hat on a cane, andwhen it stops, they go in the direction in which the paper points. Forus the paper needle pointed to Tunis. A week later I landed at Tuniswith half a louis in my pocket, and I return to-day with twenty-fivemillions. "

There was a sort of electric shock around the table, a gleam in everyeye, even in those of the servants. Cardailhac exclaimed: "Mazette!"Monpavon's nose subsided. 

"Yes, my children, twenty-five millions in available funds, to saynothing of all that I've left in Tunis, my two palaces on the Bardo, myvessels in the harbor of La Goulette, my diamonds and my jewels, whichare certainly worth more than twice that. And you know, " he added, withhis genial smile, in his hoarse, unmusical voice, "when it's all gone, there will still be some left. "

The whole table rose, electrified. 

"Bravo! Ah! bravo!"

"Superb. "

"Very _chic_--very _chic_. "

"Well said. "

"A man like that ought to be in the Chamber. "

"He shall be, _per Bacco!_ my word for it, " exclaimed the Governor, ina voice of thunder; and, carried away by admiration, not knowing how tomanifest his enthusiasm, he seized the Nabob's great hairy hand andimpulsively put it to his lips. Everybody was standing; they did notresume their seats. 

Jansoulet, radiant with pleasure, had also risen. 

"Let us have our coffee, " he said, throwing down his napkin. 

Immediately the party circulated noisily through the salons, enormousrooms, in which the light, the decoration, the magnificence consistedof gold alone. It fell from the ceiling in blinding rays, oozed fromthe walls in fillets, window-sashes and frames of all sorts. Oneretained a little of it on one's hands after moving a chair or openinga window; and even the hangings, having been dipped in that Pactolus, preserved upon their stiff folds the rigidity and sheen of metal. Butthere was nothing individual, homelike, dainty. It was the monotonoussplendor of the furnished apartment. And this impression of a flyingcamp, of a temporary establishment, was heightened by the idea oftravelling that hovered about that fortune drawn from distant sources, like a cloud of uncertainty or a threat. 

The coffee was served in the Oriental fashion, with all the grounds, insmall filigreed silver cups, and the guests stood around in groups, drinking hastily, burning their tongues, watching one anotherfurtively, and keeping especially close watch on the Nabob, in order tograsp the favorable moment to jump upon him, drag him into a corner ofone of those huge rooms, and arrange their loan at last. For it wasthat for which they had been waiting for two hours, that was the objectof their visit, and the fixed idea that gave them that distraught, falsely attentive air, during the breakfast. But now there was no moreembarrassment, no more grimacing. Everybody in that strange companyknew that, in the Nabob's crowded existence, the coffee hour alone wasleft free for confidential audiences, and as every one wished to takeadvantage of it, as they had all come for the purpose of tearing ahandful of wool from that golden fleece which offered itself to them sogood-naturedly, they no longer talked or listened, they attendedstrictly to business. 

Honest Jenkins is the one who begins. He has led his friend Jansouletinto a window-recess and is submitting to him the drawings for thehouse at Nanterre. A pretty outlay, by heaven! One hundred and fiftythousand francs for the property, and, in addition, the veryconsiderable expense of installation, the staff, the bedding, the goatsfor nurses, the manager's carriage, the omnibuses to meet the childrenat every train. A great deal of money--But how comfortable the dearlittle creatures will be there! what a service to Paris, to mankind!The Government cannot fail to reward with a bit of red ribbon suchunselfish philanthropy. "The Cross, the 15th of August. " With thosemagic words Jenkins can obtain whatever he wants. With his hoarse, cheerful voice, which seems to be hailing a vessel in the fog, theNabob calls, "Bompain. " The man in the fez, tearing himself away fromthe cellaret, crosses the salon majestically, whispers, goes away andreturns with an inkstand and a check-book, the leaves of which come outand fly away of themselves. What a fine thing is wealth! To sign acheck for two hundred thousand francs on his knee costs Jansoulet nomore than to take a louis from his pocket. 

The others, with their noses in their cups and rage in their hearts, watch this little scene from afar. And when Jenkins takes his leave, bright and smiling, and waving his hand to the different groups, Monpavon seizes the Governor: "Now, it's our turn. " And they pouncetogether upon the Nabob, lead him to a divan, force him to sit down, and squeeze him between them with a savage little laugh that seems tomean: "What are we going to do to him?" Extract money from him, as muchof it as possible. It must be had in order to float the _CaisseTerritorial_, which has been aground for years, buried in sand to hermasthead. A magnificent operation, this of floating her again, if weare to believe these two gentlemen; for the buried craft is full ofingots, of valuable merchandise, of the thousand varied treasures of anew country of which every one is talking and of which no one knowsanything. The aim of Paganetti of Porto-Vecchio in founding thatunrivalled establishment was to monopolize the exploitation of Corsica:iron mines, sulphur mines, copper mines, marble quarries, chalybeateand sulphur springs, vast forests of lignum vitæ and oak; and tofacilitate that exploitation by building a network of railroadsthroughout the island, and establishing a line of steamboats. Such wasthe gigantic enterprise to which he has harnessed himself. He has sunka large amount of money in it, and the new-comer, the laborer of theeleventh hour, will reap the whole profit. 

While the Corsican with his Italian accent, his frantic gestures, enumerates the _splendores_ of the affair, Monpavon, dignified andhaughty, nods his head with an air of conviction, and from time totime, when he deems the moment propitious, tosses into the conversationthe name of the Duc de Mora, which always produces its effect on theNabob. 

"Well, what is it that you need?"

"Millions, " says Monpavon superbly, in the tone of a man who is notembarrassed by any lack of persons to whom to apply. "Yes, millions. But it's a magnificent opening. And, as His Excellency said, it wouldafford a capitalist an opportunity to attain a lofty position, even apolitical position. Just consider a moment! in that penniless country. One might become a member of the General Council, a Deputy--" The Nabobstarts. And little Paganetti, feeling the bait tremble on his hook, continues: "Yes, a Deputy; you shall be one when I choose. At a wordfrom me all Corsica is at your service. " Thereupon he launches out on abewildering extemporization, counting up the votes at his disposal, thecantons which will rise at his summons. "You bring me your funds--Igive you a whole people. " The affair is carried by storm. 

"Bompain! Bompain!" calls the Nabob in his enthusiasm. He has but onefear, that the thing will escape him; and to bind Paganetti, who doesnot conceal his need of money, he hastens to pour a first instalmentinto the _Caisse Territoriale_. Second appearance of the man in the redcap with the check-book, which he holds solemnly against his breast, like a choir-boy carrying the Gospel. Second affixture of Jansoulet'ssignature to a check, which the Governor stows away with a negligentair, and which effects a sudden transformation of his whole person. Paganetti, but now so humble and unobtrusive, walks away with theself-assurance of a man held in equilibrium by four hundred thousandfrancs, while Monpavon, carrying his head even higher than usual, follows close upon his heels and watches over him with a more thanpaternal solicitude. 

"There's a good stroke of business well done, " says the Nabob tohimself, "and I'll go and drink my coffee. " But ten borrowers are lyingin wait for him. The quickest, the most adroit, is Cardailhac, themanager, who hooks him and carries him off into an empty salon. "Let ustalk a bit, my good friend. I must set before you the condition of ourtheatre. " A very complicated condition, no doubt; for here comesMonsieur Bompain again, and more sky-blue leaves fly away from thecheck-book. Now, whose turn is it? The journalist Moëssard comes to gethis pay for the article in the _Messager_; the Nabob will learn what itcosts to be called "the benefactor of infancy" in the morning papers. The provincial curé asks for funds to rebuild his church, and takeshis check by assault with the brutality of a Peter the Hermit. And nowold Schwalbach approaches, with his nose in his beard, winkingmysteriously. "Sh! he has vound ein bearl, " for monsieur's gallery, anHobbema from the Duc de Mora's collection. But several people havetheir eye on it. It will be difficult to obtain. "I must have it at anyprice, " says the Nabob, allured by the name of Mora. "You understand, Schwalbach, I must have that _Nobbema_. Twenty thousand francs for youif you hit it off. "

"I vill do mein best, Monsieur Jansoulet. "

And the old knave, as he turns away, calculates that the Nabob's twentythousand, added to the ten thousand the duke has promised him if hegets rid of his picture, will make a very pretty little profit for him. 

While these fortunate ones succeed one another, others prowl aboutfrantic with impatience, biting their nails to the quick; for one andall have come with the same object. From honest Jenkins, who headed theprocession, down to Cabassu, the _masseur_, who closes it, one andall lead the Nabob aside. But however far away they take him in thatlong file of salons, there is always some indiscreet mirror to reflectthe figure of the master of the house, and the pantomime of his broadback. That back is so eloquent! At times it straightens up indignantly. "Oh! no, that is too much!" Or else it collapses with comicalresignation. "Very well, if you will have it so. " And Bompain's fezalways lurking in some corner of the landscape. 

When these have finished, others arrive; they are the small fish thatfollow in the wake of the great sharks in the savage hunting in thesea. There is constant going and coming through those superb white andgold salons, a slamming of doors, an unbroken current of insolentextortion of the most hackneyed type, attracted from the four cornersof Paris and the suburbs by that enormous fortune and that incrediblegullibility. 

For these small sums, this incessant doling out of cash, he did nothave recourse to the checkbook. In one of his salons the Nabob kept acommode, an ugly little piece of furniture representing the savings ofsome concierge; it was the first article Jansoulet bought when he wasin a position to renounce furnished apartments, and he had kept it eversince like a gambler's fetish; its three drawers always contained twohundred thousand francs in current funds. He resorted to thatnever-failing supply on the days of his great audiences, ostentatiouslyplunging his hands in the gold and silver, stuffing it into his pocketsto produce it later with the gesture of a cattle-dealer, a certainvulgar way of raising the skirts of his coat and sending his hand "downto the bottom of the pile. " A tremendous inroad must have been madeupon the little drawers to-day. 

 * * *

After so many whispered conferences, requests more or less clearlystated, anxious entrances and triumphant exits, the last clientdismissed, the commode drawers locked, the apartment on Place Vendômewas left in solitude in the fading light of four o'clock, the close ofthe November days which are prolonged so far beyond that hour by theaid of artificial light. The servants removed the coffee cups, the_raki_ and the open, half-emptied boxes of cigars. The Nabob, thinkingthat he was alone, drew a long breath of relief: "Ouf! that's allover. " But no. A figure emerges from a corner already in shadow, andapproaches with a letter in his hand. 

"Another!"

Thereupon the poor man instinctively repeated his eloquenthorse-dealer's gesture. At that the visitor, also instinctively, recoiled so quickly and with such an insulted air that the Nabobrealized that he was in error and took the trouble to observe the youngman who stood before him, simply but correctly dressed, with a sallowcomplexion, absolutely no beard, regular features, perhaps a little tooserious and determined for his years, which fact, with his extremelylight hair, curling tightly all over his head like a powdered wig, gavehim the aspect of a young deputy of the Tiers État under Louis XVI. , the face of a Barnave at twenty. That face, although the Nabob then sawit for the first time, was not altogether unfamiliar to him. 

"What do you wish, monsieur?"

Taking the letter the young man handed him, he walked to a window toread it. 

"Ah!--it's from mamma. "

He said it with such a joyous inflection, the word "mamma" lighted hiswhole face with such a youthful, attractive smile, that the visitor, repelled at first by the parvenu's vulgar appearance, felt in fullsympathy with him. 

The Nabob read in an undertone these few lines written in a coarse, incorrect, trembling hand, in striking contrast to the fine laid paperwith the words "Château de Saint-Romans" at the top. 

 "MY DEAR SON, --This letter will be handed to you by the oldest of Monsieur de Géry's children, the former justice of the peace at Bourg-Saint-Andéol, who was so kind to us--"

The Nabob interrupted himself to say:

"I ought to have known you, Monsieur de Géry. You look like yourfather. Take a seat, I beg you. "

Then he finished running through the letter. His mother made no preciserequest, but, in the name of the services the de Géry family hadformerly rendered them, she commended Monsieur Paul to him. An orphan, with his two young brothers to support, he had been admitted topractice as an advocate in the South and was starting for Paris to seekhis fortune. She implored Jansoulet to assist him, "for he sorelyneeded it, poor fellow. " And she signed: "Your mother, who is dyingfor a sight of you, FRANÇOISE. "

That letter from his mother, whom he had not seen for six years, theSouthern forms of expression in which he recognized familiarintonations, the coarse handwriting which drew for him a beloved face, all wrinkled and sunburned and furrowed, but smiling still beneath apeasant's cap, made a profound impression upon the Nabob. During thesix weeks he had been in France, immersed in the eddying whirl ofParis, of his installation, he had not once thought of the dear oldsoul; and now he saw her in every line. He stood for a moment gazing atthe letter, which shook in his fat fingers. 

Then, his emotion having subsided, "Monsieur de Géry, " he said, "I amhappy to have the opportunity to repay a little of the kindness yourfamily has showered upon mine. This very day, if you agree, I take youinto my service. You are well educated, you seem intelligent, you canbe of very great service to me. I have innumerable plans, innumerablematters in hand. I have been drawn into a multitude of large industrialundertakings. I need some one to assist me, to take my place at need. To be sure, I have a secretary, a steward, that excellent Bompain; butthe poor fellow knows nothing of Paris. You will say that you are freshfrom the provinces. But that's of no consequence. Well educated as youare, a Southerner, open-eyed and adaptable, you will soon get the hangof the boulevard. At all events, I'll undertake your education in thatdirection myself. In a few weeks you shall have a foot as thoroughlyParisian as mine, I promise you. "

Poor man! It was touching to hear him talk about his _Parisian foot_and his experience, when he was fated never to be more than a beginner. 

"Well, it's a bargain, eh? I take you for my secretary. You shall havea fixed salary which we will agree upon directly; and I will give you achance to make your fortune quickly. "

And as de Géry, suddenly relieved of all his anxieties as a new-comer, a petitioner, a neophyte, did not stir for fear of waking from a dream, the Nabob added in a softer tone:

"Now come and sit here by me, and let us talk a little about mamma. "

III. 

MEMOIRS OF A CLERK. --A CASUAL GLANCE AT THE "CAISSE TERRITORIALE. "

I had just finished my humble morning meal, and, as my custom is, hadbestowed the balance of my provisions in the safe in the directors'room, a magnificent safe with a secret lock, which has served as mypantry during the four years, or nearly that, of my employment in the_Territoriale_; suddenly the Governor enters the office, red as aturkey-cock, his eyes inflamed as if he were fresh from a feast, breathing noisily, and says to me in vulgar phrase, with his Italianaccent:

"There's a horrible smell here, _Moussiou_ Passajon. "

There was not a horrible smell, if you please. But--shall I say it?--Ihad sent out for a few onions to put around a bit of knuckle of veal, brought down to me by Mademoiselle Séraphine, the cook on the secondfloor, whose accounts I write up every evening. I tried to explain tothe Governor; but he worked himself into a rage, saying that in hisopinion there was no sense in poisoning offices in that way, and thatit wasn't worth while to pay twelve thousand francs a year for a suiteof rooms with eight windows on the front, in the best part of BoulevardMalesherbes, to cook onions in. I don't know what he didn't say to mein his effervescent state. For my part, I was naturally vexed to bespoken to in that insolent tone. The least one can do is to be politeto people whom one neglects to pay, deuce take it! So I retorted thatit was too bad, really; but, if the _Caisse Territoriale_ would paywhat they owe me, to wit my arrears of salary for four years, plusseven thousand francs advanced by me to the Governor to pay forcarriages, newspapers, cigars and American drinks on the days thecouncil met, I would go and eat like a Christian at the nearest cheapalehouse, and should not be reduced to cooking for myself, in thedirectors' room, a wretched stew which I owed to the public compassionof cooks. And there you are!

In speaking thus I gave way to an indignant impulse very excusable inthe eyes of anybody who is acquainted with my position here. However, Ihad said nothing unseemly, but had kept within the limits of languagesuited to my age and education. (I must have stated somewhere in thesememoirs that I passed more than thirty of my sixty-five years asapparitor to the Faculty of Letters at Dijon. Hence my taste forreports and memoirs, and those notions of academic style of whichtraces will be found in many passages of this lucubration. ) I had, Irepeat, expressed myself to the Governor with the greatest reserve, refraining from employing any of those insulting words with which everyone here regales him during the day, from our two censors, M. DeMonpavon, who laughingly calls him _Fleur-de-Mazas_, whenever he comeshere, and M. De Bois-l'Héry of the Trompettes Club, who is as vulgar inhis language as a groom, and always says to him by way of adieu: "Toyour wooden bed, flea!" From those two down to our cashier, whom I haveheard say to him a hundred times, tapping his ledger: "There's enoughin here to send you to the galleys whenever I choose. " And yet, for allthat, my simple observation produced a most extraordinary effect uponhim. The circles around his eyes turned bright yellow, and he said, trembling with anger, the wicked anger of his country: "Passajon, you're a blackguard! One word more and I discharge you. " I was struckdumb with amazement. Discharge me--me! And what about my four years'arrears, and my seven thousand francs of advances! As if he read mythoughts as they entered my head, the Governor replied that all theaccounts were to be settled, including mine. "By the way, " he added, "just call all the clerks to my office. I have some great news to tellthem. " With that he entered his office and slammed the door behind him. 

That devil of a man! No matter how well you may know him, know what aliar he is and what an actor, he always finds a way to put you off withhis palaver. My account! Why, I was so excited that my legs ran awaywith me while I was going about to notify the staff. 

Theoretically there are twelve of us at the _Caisse Territoriale_, including the Governor and the dandy Moëssard, manager of the _VéritéFinancière_; but really there are less than half that number. In thefirst place, since the _Vérité_ ceased to appear--that was two yearsago--M. Moëssard hasn't once set foot inside our doors. It seems thathe is swimming in honors and wealth, that he has for a dear friend aqueen, a real queen, who gives him all the money he wants. Oh! what aBabylon this Paris is! The others look in occasionally to see if bychance there is anything new at the _Caisse_; and, as there never is, weeks pass without our seeing them. Four or five faithful ones, poorold fellows all, like myself, persist in appearing regularly everymorning, at the same hour, as a matter of habit, because they havenothing else to do, and are at a loss to know what to turn their handto; but they all busy themselves with matters that have no connectionwhatever with the office. One must live, there's no doubt of that! Andthen a man cannot pass his day lounging from chair to chair, fromwindow to window, to look out (eight front windows on the boulevard). So we try to get such work as we can. For my part, I write forMademoiselle Séraphine and another cook in the house. Then I writeup my memoirs, which takes no small amount of time. Our receivingteller--there's a fellow who hasn't a very laborious task withus--makes netting for a house that deals in fishermen's supplies. Oneof our two copyists, who writes a beautiful hand, copies plays for adramatic agency; the other makes little toys worth a sou, which aresold by hucksters at the street corners toward New Year's Day, and inthat way succeeds in keeping himself from starving to death the rest ofthe year. Our cashier is the only one who does no outside work. Hewould think that he had forfeited his honor. He is a very proud man, who never complains, and whose only fear is that he may seem to beshort of linen. Locked into his office, he employs his time frommorning till night, making shirt-fronts, collars and cuffs out ofpaper. He has attained very great skill, and his linen, alwaysdazzlingly white, would deceive any one, were it not that, at theslightest movement, when he walks, when he sits down, it cracks as ifhe had a pasteboard box in his stomach. Unluckily all that paper doesnot feed him; and he is so thin, he has such a gaunt look, that onewonders what he can live on. Between ourselves, I suspect him ofsometimes paying a visit to my pantry. That's an easy matter for him;for, in his capacity of cashier, he has the "word" that opens thesecret lock, and I fancy that, when my back is turned, he does a littleforaging among my supplies. 

Surely this is a most extraordinary, incredible banking-house. And yetwhat I am writing is the solemn truth, and Paris is full of financialestablishments of the same sort as ours. Ah! if I ever publish mymemoirs. But let me take up the interrupted thread of my narrative. 

When we were all assembled in his office, the manager said to us withgreat solemnity:

"Messieurs and dear comrades, the time of our trials is at an end. The_Caisse Territoriale_ is entering upon a new phase of its existence. "

With that he began to tell us about a superb _combinazione_--that ishis favorite word, and he says it in such an insinuating tone!--a_combinazione_ in which the famous Nabob of whom all the papers aretalking is to have a part. Thus the _Caisse Territoriale_ would be ableto discharge its obligation to its loyal servants, to reward those whohad shown devotion to its service and lop off those who were useless. This last for me, I imagine. And finally: "Make up your accounts. Theywill all be settled to-morrow. " Unfortunately he has so often soothedour feelings with lying words that his discourse produced no effect. Formerly those fine promises of his always succeeded. On theannouncement of a new _combinazione_, we used to caper about and weepwith joy in the offices, and embrace one another like shipwreckedsailors at sight of a sail. 

Everyone prepared his account for the next day, as he had told us. Butthe next day, no Governor. The next day but one, still no Governor. Hehad gone on a little journey. 

At last, when we were all together, exasperated beyond measure, puttingout our tongues, crazy for the water that he had held to our mouths, the Governor arrived, dropped into a chair, hid his face in his hands, and, before we had time to speak to him, exclaimed: "Kill me, kill me!I am a miserable impostor. The _combinazione_ has fallen through. _Pechero!_ the _combinazione_ has fallen through!" And he cried andsobbed, threw himself on his knees, tore out his hair by handfuls androlled on the carpet; he called us all by our nicknames, begged us totake his life, spoke of his wife and children, whom he had utterlyruined. And not one of us had the courage to complain in the face ofsuch despair. What do I say? We ended by sharing it. No, never sincetheatres existed, has there been such an actor. But to-day, it is allover, our confidence has departed. When he had gone everybody gave ashrug. I must confess, however, that for a moment I was shaken. Theassurance with which he talked about discharging me, and the name ofthe Nabob, who was so wealthy--

"Do you believe that?" said the cashier. "Why, you'll always be aninnocent, my poor Passajon. Never you fear! The Nabob's in it justabout as much as Moëssard's queen was. "

And he went back to his shirt-fronts. 

His last remark referred back to the time when Moëssard was payingcourt to his queen and had promised the Governor that, in case he wassuccessful, he would induce Her Majesty to invest some funds in ourenterprise. All of us in the office were informed of that new prospectand deeply interested, as you may imagine, in its speedy realization, since our money depended on it. For two months that fable kept us inbreathless suspense. We were consumed with anxiety, we scrutinizedMoëssard's face; we thought that the effects of his association withthe lady were very visible there; and our old cashier, with his proud, serious air, would reply gravely from behind his grating, when wequestioned him on the subject: "There's nothing new, " or: "The affair'sin good shape. " With that everybody was content and we said to eachother: "It's coming along, it's coming along, " as if it were a matterin the ordinary course of business. No, upon my word, Paris is theonly place in the world where such things can be seen. It positivelymakes one's head spin sometimes. The upshot of it was that, one finemorning, Moëssard stopped coming to the office. He had succeeded, itseems; but the _Caisse Territoriale_ did not seem to him a sufficientlyadvantageous investment for his dear friend's funds. That washonorable, wasn't it?

However, the sentiment of honor is so easily lost that one can scarcelybelieve it. When I think that I, Passajon, with my white hair, myvenerable appearance, my spotless past--thirty years of academicservice--have accustomed myself to living amid these infamies and baseintrigues like a fish in water! One may well ask what I am doing here, why I remain here, how I happened to come here. 

How did I happen to come here? Oh! bless your soul, in the simplest wayyou can imagine. Nearly four years ago, my wife being dead and mychildren married, I had just accepted my retiring pension as apparitorto the Faculty, when an advertisement in the newspaper happened tocome to my notice. "WANTED, a clerk of mature age at the _CaisseTerritoriale_, 56 Boulevard Malesherbes. Good references. " Let me makea confession at once. The modern Babylon had always tempted me. Andthen I felt that I was still vigorous, I could see ten active yearsbefore me, during which I might earn a little money, much perhaps, byinvesting my savings in the banking-house I was about to enter. So Iwrote, inclosing my photograph by Crespon, Place De Marché, in which Iam represented with a clean-shaven chin, a bright eye under my heavywhite eyebrows, wearing my steel chain around my neck, my insignia asan academic official, "with the air of a conscript father on his curulechair!" as our dean, M. Chalmette, used to say. (Indeed he declaredthat I looked very much like the late Louis XVIII. , only not so heavy. )

So I furnished the best of references, the most flatteringrecommendations from the gentlemen of the Faculty. By return mail theGovernor answered my letter to the effect that my face pleased him--Ishould think so, _parbleu!_ a reception room guarded by an imposingcountenance like mine is a tempting bait to the investor, --and that Imight come when I chose. I ought, you will tell me, to have madeinquiries on my own account. Oh! of course I ought. But I had so muchinformation to furnish about myself that it never occurred to me to askthem for any about themselves. Moreover, how could one have a feelingof distrust after seeing these superb quarters, these lofty ceilings, these strong-boxes, as large as wardrobes, and these mirrors in whichyou can see yourself from head to foot? And then the sonorousprospectuses, the millions that I heard flying through the air, thecolossal enterprises with fabulous profits. I was dazzled, fascinated. I must say, also, that at that time the establishment had a verydifferent look from that it has to-day. Certainly affairs were goingbadly--they have always gone badly, have our affairs--and the journalappeared only at irregular intervals. But one of the Governor's little_combinazioni_ enabled him to save appearances. 

He had conceived the idea, if you please, of opening a patrioticsubscription to erect a statue to General Paolo Paoli, a great man ofhis country. The Corsicans are not rich, but they are as vain asturkeys. So money poured into the _Territoriale_. But unfortunately itdid not last. In two months the statue was devoured, before it waserected, and the succession of protests and summonses began again. To-day I am used to it. But when I first came from my province, thenotices posted by order of the court, the bailiffs at the door, made apainful impression upon me. Inside, no attention was paid to them. Theyknew that at the last moment a Monpavon or a Bois-l'Héry was certain toturn up to appease the bailiffs; for all those gentlemen, being deeplyinvolved in the affair, are interested to avoid a failure. That is justwhat saves our evil-minded little Governor. The others run after theirmoney--everyone knows what that means in gambling--and they would notbe pleased to know that all the shares they have in their hands areworth nothing more than their weight as old paper. 

From the smallest to the greatest, all of us in the house are in thatplight. From the landlord, to whom we owe two years' rent and who keepsus on for nothing for fear of losing it all, down to us poor clerks, tomyself, who am in for seven thousand francs of savings and my fouryears' back pay, we are all running after our money. That is why Ipersist in remaining here. 

Doubtless, notwithstanding my advanced age, I might have succeeded, byfavor of my education, my general appearance and the care I have alwaystaken of my clothes, in getting a place in some other office. There isa very honorable person of my acquaintance, M. Joyeuse, bookkeeper forHemerlingue and Son, the great bankers on Rue Saint-Honoré, who neverfails to say to me whenever he meets me:

"Passajon, my boy, don't stay in that den of thieves. You make amistake in staying on there; you'll never get a sou out of it. Come toHemerlingue's. I'll undertake to find some little corner for you. Youwill earn less, but you'll receive very much more. "

I feel that he is right, the honest fellow. But it's stronger than Iam, I cannot make up my mind to go. And yet this is not a cheerful lifethat I lead here in these great cold rooms where no one ever comes, where every one slinks into a corner without speaking. What would youhave? We know one another too well, that's the whole of it. Up to lastyear we had meetings of the council of supervision, meetings ofstockholders, stormy, uproarious meetings, genuine battles of savages, whose yells could be heard at the Madeleine. And subscribers used tocome too, several times a week, indignant because they had never heardanything from their money. Those were the times when our Governor cameout strong. I have seen people go into his office, monsieur, as fierceas wolves thirsty for blood, and come out, after a quarter of an hour, milder than sheep, satisfied, reassured, and their pockets comfortedwith a few bank-notes. For there was the cunning of the thing: to ruinwith money the poor wretches who came to demand it. To-day theshareholders of the _Caisse Territoriale_ never stir. I think that theyare all dead or resigned to their fate. The council never meets. Wehave sessions only on paper; it is my duty to make up a so-calledbalance-sheet--always the same--of which I make a fresh copy everythree months. We never see a living soul, except that at rare intervalssome subscriber to the Paoli statue drops down on us from the wilds ofCorsica, anxious to know if the monument is progressing; or perhapssome devout reader of the _Vérité Financière_, which disappeared morethan two years ago, comes with an air of timidity to renew hissubscription, and requests that it be forwarded a little moreregularly, if possible. There is a confidence which nothing weakens. When one of those innocent creatures falls in the midst of ourhalf-starved band, it is something terrible. We surround him, weembrace him, we try to get his name on one of our lists, and, in casehe resists, if he will subscribe neither to the Paoli monument nor tothe Corsican railways, then those gentry perform what they call--my penblushes to write it--what they call "the drayman trick. "

This is how it is done: we always have in the office a package preparedbeforehand, a box tied with stout string which arrives, presumably fromsome railway station, while the visitor is there. "Twenty francs cartage, "says the one of us who brings in the package. (Twenty francs, or sometimes thirty, according to the victim's appearance. ) Every one at oncebegins to fumble in his pocket. "Twenty francs cartage! I haven'tit. "--"Nor I--What luck!" Some one runs to the counting-room. --Closed!They look for the cashier. Gone out. And the hoarse voice of thedrayman waxing impatient in the ante-room: "Come, come, make haste. " (Iam generally selected for the drayman's part, because of my voice. )What is to be done? Send back the package? the Governor won't likethat. "Messieurs, I beg you to allow me, " the innocent victim venturesto observe, opening his purse. --"Ah! monsieur, if you would. "--He payshis twenty francs, we escort him to the door, and as soon as his backis turned we divide the fruit of the crime, laughing like brigands. 

Fie! Monsieur Passajon. Such performances at your time of life! Oh!_Mon Dieu_! I know all about it. I know that I should honor myselfmuch more if I left this vile place. But, what then? why, I mustabandon all that I have at stake here. No, it is not possible. It isurgently necessary that I remain, that I keep a close watch, that I amalways on hand to have the advantage of a windfall, if one should come. Oh! I swear by my ribbon, by my thirty years of academic service, ifever an affair like this of the Nabob makes it possible for me torecoup my losses, I will not wait a moment, I will take myself off inhot haste to look after my little vineyard near Monbars, cured foreverof my speculative ideas. But alas! that is a very chimericalhope, --played out, discredited, well known as we are on 'Change, withour shares no longer quoted at the Bourse, our obligations fastbecoming waste paper, such a wilderness of falsehood and debts, and thehole that is being dug deeper and deeper. (We owe at this moment threemillion five hundred thousand francs. And yet that three millions isnot what embarrasses us. On the other hand it is what keeps us up; butwe owe the concierge a little bill of a hundred and twenty five francsfor postage stamps, gas and the like. That's the dangerous thing. ) Andthey would have us believe that a man, a great financier like thisNabob, even though he was just from the Congo or had come from the moonthis very day, is fool enough to put his money in such a trap. Nonsense! Is it possible? Tell that story elsewhere, my dear Governor. 

IV. 

A DÉBUT IN SOCIETY. 

"Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet!"

That plebeian name, proudly announced by the liveried footman in aresounding voice, rang through Jenkins's salons like the clash ofcymbals, like one of the gongs that announce fantastic apparitions in afairy play. The candles paled, flames flashed from every eye, at thedazzling prospect of Oriental treasures, of showers of pearls andsequins let fall by the magic syllables of that name, but yesterdayunknown. 

Yes, it was he, the Nabob, the richest of the rich, the great Parisiancuriosity, flavored with that spice of adventure that is so alluring tosurfeited multitudes. All heads were turned, all conversation wasinterrupted; there was a grand rush for the door, a pushing andjostling like that of the crowds on the quay at a seaport, to watch thearrival of a felucca with a cargo of gold. 

Even the hospitable Jenkins, who was standing in the first salon toreceive his guests, despite his usual self-possession abruptly left thegroup of men with whom he was talking and bore away to meet thegalleons. 

"A thousand times, a thousand times too kind. Madame Jenkins will bevery happy, very proud. Come and let me take you to her. "

And in his haste, in his vainglorious delight, he dragged Jansouletaway so quickly that the latter had no time to present his companion, Paul de Géry, whom he was introducing into society. The young man waswell pleased to be overlooked. He glided into the mass of black coatswhich was forced farther and farther back by every new arrival, and wasswallowed up in it, a prey to the foolish terror that every youngprovincial feels on his first appearance in a Parisian salon, especially when he is shrewd and intelligent and does not wear theimperturbable self-assurance of the bumpkin like a coat of mail beneathhis linen buckler. 

You, Parisians of Paris, who, ever since you were sixteen haveexhibited your youth at the receptions of all classes of society, inyour first black coat with your crush-hat on your hip, --you, I say, have no conception of that anguish, compounded of vanity, timidity andrecollections of romantic books, which screws our teeth together, embarrasses our movements, makes us for a whole evening a statuebetween two doors, a fixture in a window-recess, a poor, pitiful, wandering creature, incapable of making his existence manifestotherwise than by changing his position from time to time, preferringto die of thirst rather than go near the sideboard, and going awaywithout having said a word, unless we may have stammered one of thoseincoherent absurdities which we remember for months, and which makesus, when we think of it at night, utter an _ah!_ of frantic shame andbury our face in the pillow. 

Paul de Géry was a martyr of that type. In his province he had alwayslived a very retired life, with a pious, melancholy old aunt, until thetime when, as a student of law, originally destined for a profession inwhich his father had left an excellent reputation, he had been inducedto frequent the salons of some of the counsellors of the court, old-fashioned, gloomy dwellings, with dingy hangings, where he made afourth hand at whist with venerable ghosts. Jenkins' evening party wastherefore a début in society for that provincial, whose very ignoranceand Southern adaptability made him first of all a keen observer. 

From the place where he stood he watched the interesting procession, still in progress at midnight, of Jenkins' guests, the whole body ofthe fashionable physician's patients; the very flower of society, alarge sprinkling of politics and finance, bankers, deputies, a fewartists, all the jaded ones of Parisian high life, pale and wan, withgleaming eyes, saturated with arsenic like gluttonous mice, butinsatiably greedy of poison and of life. Through the open salon and thegreat reception-room, the doors of which had been removed, he could seethe stairway and landing, profusely decorated with flowers along thesides, where the long trains were duly spread, their silky weightseeming to force back the décolleté busts of their wearers in thatgraceful ascending motion which caused them to appear, little bylittle, until they burst upon one in the full bloom of their splendor. As the couples reached the top of the stairs they seemed to make theirentrance on the stage; and that was doubly true, for every one left onthe last step the frowns, the wrinkles of deep thought the air ofweariness and all traces of anger or depression, to display a tranquilcountenance, a smile playing over the placid features. The menexchanged hearty grasps of the hand, warm fraternal greetings; thewomen, thinking only of themselves, with little affected shrugs, with acharming simper and abundant play of the eyes and shoulders, murmured afew meaningless words of greeting:

"Thanks! Oh! thanks--how kind you are. "

Then the couples separated, for an evening party is no longer, as itused to be, an assemblage of congenial persons, in which the wit of thewomen compelled the force of character, the superior knowledge, thevery genius of the men to bow gracefully before it, but a too numerousmob in which the women, who alone are seated, whisper together likecaptives in the harem, and have no other enjoyment than that of beingbeautiful or of seeming to be. De Géry, after wandering through thedoctor's library, the conservatory and the billiard room, where therewas smoking, tired of dull, serious conversation, which seemed to himto be out of keeping in such a festal scene and in the brief hour ofpleasure--some one had asked him carelessly and without looking at him, what was doing at the Bourse that day--approached the door of the mainsalon, which was blockaded by a dense mass of black coats, a surgingsea of heads packed closely together and gazing. 

An enormous room, handsomely furnished, with the artistic tastecharacteristic of the master and mistress of the house. A few oldpictures against the light background of the draperies. A monumentalchimney-piece, decorated with a fine marble group, "The Seasons" bySébastien Ruys, about which long green stalks, with lacelike edges, orof the stiffness of carved bronze, bent toward the mirror as toward astream of limpid water. On the low chairs groups of women crowdedtogether, blending the vaporous hues of their dresses, forming animmense nosegay of living flowers, above which gleamed bare whiteshoulders, hair studded with diamonds, drops of water on the brunettes, glistening reflections on the blondes, and the same intoxicatingperfume, the same confused, pleasant buzzing, made by waves of heat andintangible wings, that caresses all the flowers in the garden insummer. At times a little laugh, ascending in that luminous atmosphere, a quicker breath, made plumes and curls tremble, and attractedattention to a lovely profile. Such was the aspect of the salon. 

A few men were there, very few, all persons of distinction, laden withyears and decorations, talking on the arm of a divan or leaning overthe back of a chair with the condescending air we assume in conversingwith children. But amid the placid murmur of the private conversations, one voice rang out, loud and discordant, the voice of the Nabob, whowas threading his way through that social conservatory with theself-assurance due to his immense fortune and a certain contempt forwoman which he had brought with him from the Orient. 

At that moment, sprawling upon a chair, with his great yellow-glovedhands awkwardly clasped, he was talking with a very beautiful woman, whose unusual face--much animation upon features of a severe cast--wasnoticeable by reason of its pallor among the surrounding pretty faces, just as her dress, all white, classic in its draping and moulded to hergraceful, willowy figure, contrasted with much richer costumes, not oneof which had its character of bold simplicity. De Géry, from hiscorner, gazed at that smooth, narrow forehead beneath the fringe ofhair brushed low, those long, wide-open eyes of a deep blue, an abysmalblue, that mouth which ceased to smile only to relax its classicoutline in a weary, spiritless expression. All in all, the somewhathaughty aspect of an exceptional being. 

Some one near him mentioned her name--Felicia Ruys. Thereupon heunderstood the rare attraction of that girl, inheritress of herfather's genius, whose new-born celebrity had reached as far as hisprovince, with the halo of a reputation for great beauty. While he wasgazing at her, admiring her slightest movement, a little puzzled by theenigma presented by that beautiful face, he heard a whisperedconversation behind him. 

"Just see how affable she is with the Nabob! Suppose the duke shouldcome!"

"Is the Duc de Mora expected?"

"To be sure. The party is given for him; to have him meet Jansoulet. "

"And you think that the duke and Mademoiselle Ruys--"

"Where have you come from? It's a liaison known to all Paris. It datesfrom the last Salon, for which she did his bust. "

"And what about the duchess?"

"Pshaw! she has seen many others. Ah! Madame Jenkins is going to sing. "

There was a commotion in the salon, a stronger pressure in the crowdtoward the door, and conversation ceased for a moment. Paul de Gérydrew a long breath. The words he had just overheard had oppressed hisheart. He felt as if he himself were spattered, sullied by the mudunsparingly thrown upon the ideal he had formed for himself of thatglorious youth, ripened in the sun of art and endowed with suchpenetrating charm. He moved away a little, changed his position. Hedreaded to hear some other calumny. Madame Jenkins' voice did him good, a voice famous in Parisian salons, a voice that, with all itsbrilliancy, was in no sense theatrical, but seemed like speech, thrilling with emotion, striking resonant, unfamiliar chords. Thesinger, a woman of from forty to forty-five years of age, hadmagnificent hair of the color of ashes, refined, somewhat weakfeatures, and an expression of great amiability. Still beautiful, shewas dressed with the costly taste of a woman who has not abandoned theidea of pleasing. Nor had she abandoned it; she and the doctor--she wasthen a widow--had been married some ten years, and they seemed still tobe enjoying the first months of their joint happiness. While she sang aRussian folk-song, as wild and sweet as the smile of a Slav, Jenkinsartlessly manifested his pride without attempt at concealment, hisbroad face beamed expansively; and she, every time that she leanedforward to take breath, turned in his direction a timid, loving glancewhich sought him out over the music she held in her hand. And when shehad finished, amid a murmur of delight and admiration, it was touchingto see her secretly press her husband's hand, as if to reserve forherself a little corner of private happiness amid that great triumph. Young de Géry was taking comfort in the sight of that happy couple, when suddenly a voice murmured by his side--it was not the same voicethat had spoken just before:

"You know what people say--that the Jenkinses are not married. "

"What nonsense!"

"True, I assure you--it seems that there's a genuine Madame Jenkinssomewhere, but not this one who has been exhibited to us. By the way, have you noticed--"

The conversation continued in an undertone. Madame Jenkins approached, bowing and smiling, while the doctor, stopping a salver as it passed, brought her a glass of bordeaux with the zeal of a mother, animpresario, a lover. Slander, slander, ineffaceable stain! Now Jenkins'attentions seemed overdone to the provincial. He thought that there wassomething affected, studied in them, and at the same time he fanciedthat he noticed in the thanks she expressed to her husband in a lowtone a dread, a submissiveness derogatory to the dignity of a lawfulwife, happy and proud in an unassailable position. "Why, society is ahideous thing!" said de Géry to himself in dismay, his hands as cold asice. The smiles that encompassed him seemed to him like mere grimacing. He was ashamed and disgusted. Then suddenly his soul rose in revolt:"Nonsense! it isn't possible!" And, as if in answer to thatexclamation, the voice of slander behind him continued carelessly:"After all, you know, I am not sure. I simply repeat what I hear. Look, there's Baronne Hemerlingue. He has all Paris here, this Jenkins. "

The baroness came forward on the doctor's arm; he had rushed forward tomeet her, and, despite his perfect control over his features, he seemeda little perturbed and disconcerted. It had occurred to the excellentJenkins to take advantage of his party to make peace between his friendHemerlingue and his friend Jansoulet, his two wealthiest patients, whoembarrassed him seriously with their internecine warfare. The Nabobasked nothing better. He bore his former chum no malice. Their rupturehad come about as a result of Hemerlingue's marriage with one of thefavorites of the former bey. "A woman's row, in fact, " said Jansoulet;and he would be very glad to see the end of it, for any sort ofill-feeling was burdensome to that exuberant nature. But it seemed thatthe baron was not anxious for a reconciliation; for, notwithstandingthe promise he had given Jenkins, his wife appeared alone, to theIrishman's great chagrin. 

She was a tall, thin, fragile personage, with eyebrows like a bird'sfeathers, a youthful, frightened manner, thirty years striving to seemtwenty, with a head-dress of grasses and grain drooping over jet blackhair thickly strewn with diamonds. With her long lashes falling overwhite cheeks of the wax-like tint of women who have lived long in theseclusion of a cloister, a little embarrassed in her Parisian garb, shebore less resemblance to a former occupant of a harem than to a nun whohad renounced her vows and returned to the world. A touch of devotion, of sanctity in her carriage, a certain ecclesiastical trick of walkingwith downcast eyes, elbows close to the sides and hands folded, mannerswhich she had acquired in the ultra-religious environment in which shehad lived since her conversion and her recent baptism, completed theresemblance. And you can imagine whether worldly curiosity was rampantaround that ex-odalisque turned fervent Catholic, as she entered theroom, escorted by a sacristan-like figure with a livid face andspectacles, Maître Le Merquier, Deputy for Lyon, Hemerlingue's man ofbusiness, who attended the baroness when the baron was "slightlyindisposed, " as upon this occasion. 

When they entered the second salon, the Nabob walked forward to meether, expecting to descry in her wake the bloated face of his oldcomrade, to whom it was agreed that he should offer his hand. Thebaroness saw him coming and became whiter than ever. A steely gleamshot from under her long lashes. Her nostrils dilated, rose and fell, and as Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her pace, holding her head erectand rigid, letting fall from her thin lips a word in Arabic which noone else could understand, but in which the poor Nabob, for his part, understood the bitter insult; for when he raised his head his swarthyface was of the color of terra-cotta when it comes from the oven. Hestood for a moment speechless, his great fists clenched, his lipsswollen with anger. Jenkins joined him, and de Géry, who had watchedthe whole scene from a distance, saw them talking earnestly togetherwith a preoccupied air. 

The attempt had miscarried. The reconciliation, so cleverly planned, would not take place. Hemerlingue did not want it. If only the duke didnot break his word! It was getting late. La Wauters, who was to singthe "Night" aria from the _Magic Flute_, after the performance ather theatre, had just arrived all muffled up in her lace hood. 

And the minister did not come. 

But it was a promise and everything was understood. Monpavon was totake him up at the club. From time to time honest Jenkins drew hiswatch, as he tossed an absent-minded _bravo_ to the bouquet of limpidnotes that gushed from La Wauters' fairy lips, a bouquet worth threethousand francs, and absolutely wasted, in common with the otherexpenses of the festivity, if the duke did not come. 

Suddenly both wings of the folding-doors were thrown open:

"His Excellency the Duc de Mora!"

A prolonged thrill of excitement greeted him, respectful curiositydrawn up in a double row, instead of the brutal crowding that hadimpeded the passage of the Nabob. 

No one could be more skilled than he in the art of making hisappearance in society, of walking gravely across a salon, ascending thetribune with smiling face, imparting solemnity to trifles and treatingserious matters lightly; it was a résumé of his attitude in life, aparadoxical distinction. Still handsome, despite his fifty-sixyears, --a beauty attributable to refined taste and perfect proportion, in which the grace of the dandy was intensified by something of asoldierly character in the figure and the haughty expression of theface, --he appeared to admirable advantage in the black coat, whereon, in Jenkins' honor, he had placed a few of his decorations, which henever displayed except on days of official functions. The sheen of thelinen and the white cravat, the unpolished silver of the decorations, the softness of the thin, grayish hair, gave added pallor to the face, the most bloodless of all the bloodless faces assembled that eveningunder the Irishman's roof. 

He led such a terrible life! Politics, gambling in every form, on theBourse and at baccarat, and the reputation of a lady-killer which hemust maintain at any price. Oh! he was a typical patient of Jenkins, and he certainly owed that visit in princely state to the inventor ofthe mysterious Pearls, which gave to his eyes that glance of flame, tohis whole being that extraordinary pulsing vivacity. 

[Illustration: "'_His Excellency, the Due de Mora!_'"]

"My dear duke, allow me to present to you--"

Monpavon, solemn of face, with padded calves, attempted to make theintroduction so anxiously expected; but His Excellency, in hispreoccupation, did not hear and kept on toward the large salon, borneonward by one of those electric currents that break the monotony ofsocial life. As he passed, and while he paid his respects to the fairMadame Jenkins, the women leaned forward with alluring glances, softlaughter, intent upon making a favorable impression. But he saw onlyone, Felicia, who stood in the centre of a group of men, holding forthas if in her own studio, and tranquilly sipping a sherbet as shewatched the duke's approach. She welcomed him with perfect naturalness. Those who stood by discreetly withdrew. But, in spite of what de Géryhad overheard concerning their alleged relations, there seemed to beonly a good-fellowship entirely of the mind between them, a playfulfamiliarity. 

"I called at your house, Mademoiselle, on my way to the Bois. "

"So I understood. You even went into the studio. "

"And I saw the famous group--my group. "

"Well?"

"It is very fine. The greyhound runs like a mad dog. The fox isadmirably done. But I didn't quite understand. You told me that it wasthe story of us two. "

"And so it is! Look carefully. It's a fable that I read in--You don'tread Rabelais, Monsieur le Duc?"

"Faith, no. He is too vulgar. "

"Well, I have learned to read him. Very ill-bred, you know! Oh! very. My fable, then, is taken from Rabelais. This is it: Bacchus has made awonderful fox that cannot possibly be overtaken. Vulcan, for his part, has given a dog of his making the power to overtake any animal that hepursues. 'Now, ' as my author says, 'suppose that they meet. ' You seewhat a wild and interminable race will result. It seems to me, my dearduke, that destiny has brought us face to face in like manner, endowedwith contrary qualities, you, who have received from the gods the giftof reaching all hearts, and I, whose heart will never be taken. "

She said this, looking him fairly in the face, almost laughing, butslim and erect in her white tunic, which seemed to protect her personagainst the liberties of his wit. He, the conqueror, the irresistible, had never met one of that audacious, self-willed race. So he envelopedher in all the magnetic currents of his seductive charm, while aroundthem the murmur of the fête, the flute-like laughter, the rustling ofsatins and strings of pearls played an accompaniment to that duet ofworldly passion and juvenile irony. 

In a moment he rejoined:

"But how did the gods extricate themselves from that scrape?"

"By changing the two coursers to stone. "

"By heaven, " said he, "that is a result which I refuse to accept. Idefy the gods to turn my heart to stone. "

A flame darted from his eyes, extinguished instantly at the thoughtthat people were looking at them. 

In truth many people were looking at them, but no one with such deepinterest as Jenkins, who prowled around them, impatient and chafing, asif he were angry with Felicia for monopolizing the important guest ofthe evening. The girl laughingly remarked upon the fact to the duke:

"They will say that I am appropriating you. "

She pointed to Monpavon standing expectantly by the Nabob, who, fromafar, bestowed upon His Excellency the submissive, imploring gaze of agreat faithful dog. Thereupon the Minister of State remembered what hadbrought him there. He bowed to Felicia and returned to Monpavon, whowas able at last to present "his honorable friend, Monsieur BernardJansoulet. " His Excellency bowed; the parvenu humbled himself lowerthan the earth; then they conversed for a moment. 

It was an interesting group to watch. Jansoulet, tall and stronglybuilt, with his vulgar manners, his tanned skin, his broad back, bentas if it had become rounded for good and all in the salaams of Orientalsycophancy, his short fat hands bursting through his yellow gloves, hisabundant pantomime, his Southern exuberance causing him to cut off hiswords as if with a machine. The other, of noble birth, a thorough manof the world, elegance itself, graceful in the least of his gestures, which were very rare by the way, negligently letting fall incompletesentences, lighting up his grave face with a half smile, concealingbeneath the most perfect courtesy his boundless contempt for men andwomen; and that contempt was the main element of his strength. In anAmerican parlor the antithesis would have been less offensive. TheNabob's millions would have established equilibrium and even turned thescale in his favor. But Paris does not as yet place money above all theother powers, and, to be convinced of that fact, one had only to seethat stout merchant frisking about with an amiable smile before thegreat nobleman, and spreading beneath his feet, like the courtier'sermine cloak, his dense parvenu's pride. 

From the corner in which he had taken refuge, de Géry was watching thescene with interest, knowing what importance his friend attached tothis presentation, when chance, which had so cruelly given the lie allthe evening to his artless neophyte's ideas, brought to his ears thisbrief dialogue, in that sea of private conversations in which every onehears just the words that are of interest to him:

"The least that Monpavon can do is to introduce him to some decentpeople. He has introduced him to so many bad ones. You know that he'sjust tossed Paganetti and his whole crew into his arms. "

"The poor devil! Why, they'll devour him. "

"Pshaw! it's only fair to make him disgorge a little. He stole so muchdown there among the Turks. "

"Really, do you think so?"

"Do I think so! I have some very precise information on that subjectfrom Baron Hemerlingue, the banker who negotiated the last Tunisianloan. He knows some fine stories about this Nabob. Just fancy--"

And the stream of calumny began to flow. For fifteen years Jansoulethad plundered the late bey shamefully. They mentioned the names ofcontractors and cited divers swindles characterized by admirablecoolness and effrontery; for instance, the story of a musicalfrigate--yes, it really played tunes--intended as a dining-roomornament, which he bought for two hundred thousand francs and soldagain for ten millions; a throne sold to the bey for three millions, whereas the bill could be seen on the books of a house furnisher ofFaubourg Saint-Honoré, and amounted to less than a hundred thousandfrancs; and the most comical part of it was that the bey's fancychanged and the royal seat, having fallen into disgrace before it hadeven been unpacked, was still in its packing-case at the custom-housein Tripoli. 

Furthermore, aside from these outrageous commissions on the sale of themost trivial playthings, there were other far more serious accusations, but equally authentic, as they all came from the same source. Inaddition to the seraglio there was a harem of European women, admirablyequipped for His Highness by the Nabob, who should be a connoisseur insuch matters, as he had been engaged in the most extraordinaryoccupations in Paris before his departure for the Orient: ticketspeculator, manager of a public ball at the barrier, and of a house ofmuch lower reputation. And the whispering terminated in a stifledlaugh, --the coarse laugh of two men in private conversation. 

The young provincial's first impulse, on hearing those infamousslanders, was to turn and cry out:

"You lie!"

A few hours earlier he would have done it without hesitation, but sincehe had been there he had learned to be suspicious, sceptical. Herestrained himself therefore and listened to the end, standing in thesame spot, having in his heart an unconfessed desire to know more ofthe man in whose service he was. As for the Nabob, the perfectlyunconscious subject of that ghastly chronicle, he was quietly playing agame of écarté with the Due de Mora in a small salon to which the bluehangings and two shaded lamps imparted a meditative air. 

O wonderful magic of the galleon! The son of the dealer in old ironalone at a card-table with the first personage of the Empire! Jansouletcould hardly believe the Venetian mirror in which were reflected hisresplendent, beaming face and that august cranium, divided by a longbald streak. So it was that, in order to show his appreciation of thatgreat honor, he strove to lose as many thousand-franc notes as hedecently could, feeling that he was the winner none the less, and proudas Lucifer to see his money pass into those aristocratic hands, whoseevery movement he studied while they were cutting, dealing, or holdingthe cards. 

A circle formed around them, but at a respectful distance, the tenpaces required for saluting a prince; that was the audience of thetriumph at which the Nabob was present as if in a dream, intoxicated bythe fairy-like strains slightly muffled in the distance, the songs thatreached his ears in detached phrases, as if they passed over a resonantsheet of water, the perfume of the flowers that bloom so strangelytoward the close of Parisian balls, when the late hour, confusing allnotions of time, and the weariness of the sleepless night communicateto brains which have become more buoyant in a more nervous atmosphere asort of youthful giddiness. The robust nature of Jansoulet, thatcivilized savage, was more susceptible than another to these strangerefinements; and he had to exert all his strength to refrain frominaugurating with a joyful hurrah an unseasonable out-pouring of wordsand gestures, from giving way to the impulse of physical buoyancy whichstirred his whole being; like the great mountain dogs which are throwninto convulsions of epileptic frenzy by inhaling a single drop of acertain essence. 

 * * *

"It is a fine night and the sidewalks are dry. If you like, my dearboy, we will send away the carriage and go home on foot, " saidJansoulet to his companion as they left Jenkins' house. 

De Géry eagerly assented. He needed to walk, to shake off in the sharpair the infamies and lies of that society comedy which left his heartcold and oppressed, while all his life-blood had taken refuge in histemples, of whose swollen veins he could hear the beating. He walkedunsteadily, like a poor creature who has been operated on for cataractand in the first terror of recovered vision dares not put one footbefore the other. But with what a brutal hand the operation had beenperformed! And so that great artist with the glorious name, that pure, wild beauty, the mere sight of whom had agitated him like asupernatural apparition, was simply a courtesan. Madame Jenkins, thatimposing creature, whose manner was at once so proud and so sweet, wasnot really Madame Jenkins. That illustrious scientist, so frank offeature and so hospitable, had the impudence to live publicly inshameless concubinage. And Paris suspected it, yet that did not preventParis from attending their parties. Last of all, this Jansoulet, sokind-hearted and generous, for whom he felt such a burden of gratitudein his heart, had to his knowledge fallen into the hands of a crew ofbandits, being himself a bandit, and quite worthy of the scheme devisedto make him disgorge his millions. 

Was it possible; must he believe it?

A sidelong glance at the Nabob, whose huge frame filled the wholesidewalk, suddenly revealed to him something low and common that he hadnot before noticed in that gait to which the weight of the money in hispockets gave a decided lurch. Yes, he was the typical adventurer fromthe South, moulded of the slime that covers the quays of Marseille, trodden hard by all the vagabonds who wander from seaport to seaport. Kind-hearted, generous, forsooth! as prostitutes are, and thieves. Andthe gold that flowed into that luxurious and vicious receptacle, spattering everything, even the walls, seemed to him now to bring withit all the dregs, all the filth of its impure and slimy source. Thatbeing so, there was but one thing for him, de Géry, to do, and that wasto go, to leave as soon as possible the place where he ran the risk ofcompromising his name, all that there was of his patrimony. Of course. But there were the two little brothers down yonder in theprovinces, --who would pay for their schooling? Who would keep up themodest home miraculously restored by the handsome salary of the oldestson, the head of the family? The words "head of the family" cast him atonce into one of those inward combats in which self-interest andconscience are the contending parties--the one strong, brutal, attacking fiercely with straight blows, the other retreating, breakingthe measure by suddenly withdrawing its weapon--while honest Jansoulet, the unconscious cause of the conflict, strode along beside his youngfriend, inhaling the fresh air delightedly with the lighted end of hiscigar. 

He had never been so happy that he was alive. And that evening atJenkins', his own début in society as well as Paul's, had left upon himan impression of arches erected as if for a triumph, of a curiouscrowd, of flowers thrown in his path. So true is it that things existonly through the eyes that see them. What a success! The duke, just asthey parted, urging him to come and see his gallery; which meant thatthe doors of the hôtel de Mora would be open to him within a week. Felicia Ruys consenting to make a bust of him, so that at the nextexposition the junk-dealer's son would have his portrait in marble bythe same great artist whose name was appended to that of the Ministerof State. Was not this the gratification of all his childish vanities?

Revolving thus their thoughts, cheerful or sinister, they walked onside by side, preoccupied, distraught, so that Place Vendôme, silentand flooded by a cold, blue light, rang beneath their feet before theyhad spoken a word. 

"Already!" said the Nabob. "I would have liked to walk a littlefarther. What do you say?" And as they walked around the square two orthree times, he emitted in puffs the exuberant joy with which he wasfull to overflowing. 

"How fine it is! What pleasure to breathe! God's thunder! I wouldn'tgive up my evening for a hundred thousand francs. What a fine fellowthat Jenkins is! Do you like Felicia Ruys' type of beauty? For my part, I dote on it. And the duke, what a perfect great nobleman! so simple, so amiable. That is fashionable Paris, eh, my son?"

"It's too complicated for me--it frightens me, " said Paul de Géry in alow voice. 

"Yes, yes, I understand, " rejoined the other, with adorable conceit. "You aren't used to it yet, but one soon gets into it, you know! Seehow perfectly at my ease I am after only a month. "

"That's because you had been in Paris before. You used to live here. "

"I? Never in my life. Who told you that?"

"Why, I thought so, " replied the young man, and added, as a multitudeof thoughts came crowding into his mind:

"What have you ever done to this Baron Hemerlingue? There seems to be adeadly hatred between you. "

The Nabob was taken aback for a moment. That name Hemerlingue, suddenlyobtruded upon his joy, reminded him of the only unpleasant episode ofthe evening. 

"To him, as to everybody else, " he said in a sad voice, "I never didanything but good. We began life together in a miserable way. We grewand prospered side by side. When he attempted to fly with his own wingsI always assisted him, supported him as best I could. It was through methat he had the contract for supplying the fleet and army for tenyears; almost the whole of his fortune comes from that. And then onefine morning that idiot of a cold-blooded Bearnese must go and fall inlove with an odalisque whom the bey's mother had turned out of theharem! She was a handsome, ambitious hussy; she made him marry her, andnaturally, after that excellent marriage, Hemerlingue had to leaveTunis. They had made him believe that I egged the bey on to forbid himthe country. That is not true. On the contrary, I persuaded HisHighness to allow the younger Hemerlingue--his first wife's child--toremain at Tunis to look after their interests there, while the fathercame to Paris to establish his banking-house. But I was well repaid formy kindness. When my poor Ahmed died and the _mouchir_, his brother, ascended the throne, the Hemerlingues, being restored to favor, neverceased to try to injure me in the eyes of the new master. The bey wasalways pleasant with me, but my influence was impaired. Ah well! inspite of all that, in spite of all the tricks Hemerlingue has played onme and is playing on me still, I was ready to offer him my handto-night. Not only did the villain refuse it, but he sent his wife toinsult me, --an uncivilized, vicious beast, who can never forgive me forrefusing to receive her at Tunis. Do you know what she called me thereto-night when she passed me? 'Robber and son of a dog. ' The harlot hadthe face to call me that. As if I didn't know my Hemerlingue, who's ascowardly as he is fat. But, after all, let them say what they choose. Isnap my fingers at 'em. What can they do against me? Destroy my creditwith the bey? That makes no difference to me. I have no more businessin Tunis, and I shall get away from there altogether as soon aspossible. There's only one city, one country in the world, and that isParis, hospitable, open-hearted Paris, with no false modesty, where anyintelligent man finds room to do great things. And, you see, de Géry, Ipropose to do great things. I've had enough of business life. I haveworked twenty years for money; now I am greedy for respect, glory, renown. I mean to be a personage of some consequence in the history ofmy country, and that will be an easy matter for me. With my greatfortune, my knowledge of men and of affairs, with what I feel here inmy head, I can aspire to anything and reach any eminence. So take myadvice, my dear boy, don't leave me, "--one would have said he wasanswering his young companion's secret thought, --"stick loyally to myship. The spars are stanch and the hold is full of coal. I swear to youthat we will sail far and fast, damme!"

The artless Southerner thus discharged his plans into the darkness withan abundance of expressive gestures, and from time to time, as theypaced the vast, deserted square, majestically surrounded by itstightly-closed silent palaces, he looked up toward the bronze man onthe column, as if calling to witness that great upstart, whose presencein the heart of Paris justifies the most extravagant ambitions andrenders all chimeras probable. 

There is in youth a warmth of heart, a craving for enthusiasm which arearoused by the slightest breath. As the Nabob spoke, de Géry felt hissuspicions vanishing and all his sympathy reviving with an infusion ofpity. No, surely that man was no vile knave, but a poor deluded mortalwhose fortune had gone to his head, like a wine too powerful for astomach that has long slaked its thirst with water. Alone in the midstof Paris, surrounded by enemies and sharpers, Jansoulet reminded him ofa pedestrian laden with gold passing through a wood haunted by thieves, in the dark and unarmed. And he thought that it would be well for theprotégé to watch over the patron without seeming to do so, to be theclear-sighted Telemachus of that blind Mentor, to point out thepitfalls to him, to defend him against the brigands, in short to assisthim to fight in that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he felt to belurking savagely about the Nabob and his millions. 

V. 

THE JOYEUSE FAMILY. 

Every morning in the year, at precisely eight o'clock, a new and almostuninhabited house in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris was filled withshouts and cries and happy laughter that rang clear as crystal in thedesert of the hall. 

"Father, don't forget my music. "

"Father, my embroidery cotton. "

"Father, bring us some rolls. "

And the father's voice calling from below:

"Yaia, throw down my bag. "

"Well, upon my word! he's forgotten his bag. "

Thereupon there was joyous haste from top to bottom of the house, arunning to and fro of all those pretty faces, heavy-eyed with sleep, ofall those touzled locks which they put in order as they ran, up to thevery moment when a half-dozen of young girls, leaning over the rail, bade an echoing farewell to a little old gentleman neatly dressed andwell brushed, whose florid face and slight figure disappeared at lastin the convolutions of the staircase. M. Joyeuse had gone to hisoffice. Thereupon the whole flock of fugitives from the bird-cage ranquickly up to the fourth floor, and, after locking the door, gatheredat an open window to catch another glimpse of the father. The littleman turned, kisses were exchanged at a distance, then the windows wereclosed; the new, deserted house became quiet once more except for thesigns dancing their wild saraband in the wind on the unfinished street, as if they too were stirred to gayety by all that manoeuvring. A momentlater the photographer on the fifth floor came down to hang hisshow-case at the door, always the same, with the old gentleman in thewhite cravat surrounded by his daughters in varied groups; then he wentupstairs again in his turn, and the perfect calm succeeding that littlematutinal tumult suggested the thought that "the father" and his youngladies had returned to the show-case, where they would remainmotionless and smiling, until evening. 

From Rue Saint-Ferdinand to Messieurs Hemerlingue and Son's, hisemployers, M. Joyeuse had a walk of three-quarters of an hour. He heldhis head erect and stiff, as if he were afraid of disarranging thelovely bow of his cravat, tied by his daughters, or his hat, put on bythem; and when the oldest, always anxious and prudent, turned up thecollar of his overcoat just as he was going out, to protect him againstthe vicious gust of wind at the street corner, M. Joyeuse, even whenthe temperature was that of a hothouse, never turned it down until hereached the office, like the lover fresh from his mistress's embrace, who dares not stir for fear of losing the intoxicating perfume. 

The excellent man, a widower for some years, lived for his childrenalone, thought only of them, went out into the world surrounded bythose little blond heads, which fluttered confusedly around him as in apainting of the Assumption. All his desires, all his plans related to"the young ladies" and constantly returned to them, sometimes afterlong detours; for M. Joyeuse--doubtless because of his very short neckand his short figure, in which his bubbling blood had but a shortcircuit to make--possessed an astonishingly fertile imagination. Ideasformed in his mind as rapidly as threshed straw collects around thehopper. At the office the figures kept his mind fixed by theirunromantic rigidity; but once outside, it took its revenge for thatinexorable profession. The exercise of walking and familiarity with aroute of which he knew by heart the most trivial details, gave entireliberty to his imaginative faculties, and he invented extraordinaryadventures, ample material for twenty newspaper novels. 

Suppose, for example, that M. Joyeuse were walking through FaubourgSaint-Honoré, on the right hand sidewalk--he always chose thatside--and espied a heavy laundress's cart going along at a smart trot, driven by a countrywoman whose child, perched on a bundle of linen, wasleaning over the side. 

"The child!" the good man would exclaim in dismay, "look out for thechild!"

His voice would be lost in the clatter of the wheels and his warning inthe secret design of Providence. The cart would pass on. He would lookafter it for a moment, then go his way; but the drama begun in his mindwould go on unfolding itself there with numberless sudden changes. Thechild had fallen. The wheels were just about to pass over him. M. Joyeuse would dart forward, save the little creature on the very brinkof death, but the shaft would strike himself full in the breast, and hewould fall, bathed in his blood. Thereupon he would see himself carriedto the druggist's amid the crowd that had collected. They would placehim on a litter and carry him home, then suddenly he would hear theheart-rending cry of his daughters, his beloved daughters, upon seeinghim in that condition. And that cry would go so straight to his heart, he would hear it so distinctly, so vividly: "Papa, dear papa!" that hewould repeat it himself in the street, to the great surprise of thepassers-by, in a hoarse voice which would wake him from hismanufactured nightmare. 

Would you like another instance of the vagaries of that prodigiousimagination? It rains, it hails; beastly weather. M. Joyeuse has takenthe omnibus to go to his office. As he takes his seat opposite aspecies of giant, with brutish face and formidable biceps, M. Joyeuse, an insignificant little creature, with his bag on his knees, draws inhis legs to make room for the enormous pillars that support hisneighbor's monumental trunk. In the jolting of the vehicle and thepattering of the rain on the windows, M. Joyeuse begins to dream. Andsuddenly the colossus opposite, who has a good-natured face enough, isamazed to see the little man change color and glare at him with fierce, murderous eyes, gnashing his teeth. Yes, murderous eyes in truth, forat that moment M. Joyeuse is dreaming a terrible dream. One of hisdaughters is sitting there, opposite him, beside that annoying brute, and the villain is putting his arm around her waist under her cloak. 

"Take your hand away, monsieur, " M. Joyeuse has already said twice. Theother simply laughs contemptuously. Now he attempts to embrace Élise. 

"Ah! villain!"

Lacking strength to defend his daughter, M. Joyeuse, foaming with rage, feels in his pocket for his knife, stabs the insolent knave in thebreast, and goes away with head erect, strong in the consciousness ofhis rights as an outraged father, to make his statement at the nearestpolice-station. 

"I have just killed a man in an omnibus!"

The poor fellow wakes at the sound of his own voice actually utteringthose sinister words, but not at the police-station; he realizesfrom the horrified faces of the passengers that he must have spokenaloud, and speedily avails himself of the conductor's call:"Saint-Philippe--Panthéon--Bastille, " to alight, in dire confusion andamid general stupefaction. 

That imagination, always on the alert, gave to M. Joyeuse's face astrangely feverish, haggard expression, in striking contrast to thefaultlessly correct dress and bearing of the petty clerk. He livedthrough so many passionate existences in a single day. Such wakingdreamers as he, in whom a too restricted destiny holds in checkunemployed forces, heroic faculties, are more numerous than isgenerally supposed. Dreaming is the safety valve through which it allescapes, with a terrible spluttering, an intensely hot vapor andfloating images which instantly disappear. Some come forth from thesevisions radiant, others downcast and abashed, finding themselves oncemore on the commonplace level of everyday life. M. Joyeuse was of theformer class, constantly soaring aloft to heights from which one cannotdescend without being a little shaken by the rapidity of the journey. 

Now, one morning when our _Imaginaire_ had left his house at the usualhour and under the usual circumstances, he started upon one of hislittle private romances as he turned out of Rue Saint-Ferdinand. Theend of the year was close at hand, and, perhaps it was the sight of aboard shanty under construction in the neighboring woodyard that madehim think of "New Year's gifts. " And thereupon the word _bonus_planted itself in his mind, as the first landmark in an exciting story. In the month of December all Hemerlingue's clerks received double pay, and in small households, you know, a thousand ambitious or generousprojects are based upon such windfalls, --presents to be given, a pieceof furniture to be replaced, a small sum tucked away in a drawer forunforeseen emergencies. 

The fact is that M. Joyeuse was not rich. His wife, a Mademoiselle deSaint-Amand, being tormented with aspirations for worldly grandeur, hadestablished the little household on a ruinous footing, and in the threeyears since her death, although _Grandmamma_ had managed affairs soprudently, they had not been able as yet to save anything, the burdenof the past was so heavy. Suddenly the excellent man fancied that thehonorarium would be larger than usual that year on account of theincreased work necessitated by the Tunisian loan. That loan was a veryhandsome thing for his employers, too handsome indeed, for M. Joyeusehad taken the liberty to say at the office that on that occasion"Hemerlingue and Son had shaved the Turk a little too close. "

"Yes, the bonus will certainly be doubled, " thought the visionary as hewalked along; and already he saw himself, a month hence, ascending thestaircase leading to Hemerlingue's private office, with hisfellow-clerks, for their New Year's call. The banker announced the goodnews; then he detained M. Joyeuse for a private interview. And lo! thatemployer, usually so cold, and encased in his yellow fat as in a baleof raw silk, became affectionate, fatherly, communicative. He wished toknow how many daughters Joyeuse had. 

"I have three--that is to say, four, Monsieur le Baron. I always getconfused about them. The oldest one is such a little woman. "

How old were they?

"Aline is twenty, Monsieur le Baron. She's the oldest. Then we haveÉlise who is eighteen and preparing for her examination, Henriette whois fourteen, and Zaza or Yaia who is only twelve. "

The pet name Yaia amused Monsieur le Baron immensely; he also inquiredas to the resources of the family. 

"My salary, Monsieur le Baron, nothing but that. I had a little moneylaid by, but my poor wife's sickness and the girls' education--"

"What you earn is not enough, my dear Joyeuse. I raise you to athousand francs a month. "

"Oh! Monsieur le Baron, that is too much!"

But, although he had uttered this last phrase aloud, in the face of apoliceman who watched with a suspicious eye the little man whogesticulated and shook his head so earnestly, the poor visionary didnot awake. He joyously imagined himself returning home, telling thenews to his daughters, and taking them to the theatre in the evening tocelebrate that happy day. God! how pretty the Joyeuse girls were, sitting in the front of their box! what a nosegay of rosy cheeks! Andthen, on the next day, lo and behold the two oldest are sought inmarriage by--Impossible to say by whom, for M. Joyeuse suddenly foundhimself under the porch of the Hemerlingue establishment, in front of aswing-door surmounted by the words, "Counting Room" in gold letters. 

"I shall always be the same, " he said to himself with a little laugh, wiping his forehead, on which the perspiration stood in beads. 

Put in good humor by his fancy, by the blazing fires in the long lineof offices, with inlaid floors and wire gratings, keeping the secretsconfided to them in the subdued light of the ground floor, where onecould count gold pieces without being dazzled by them, M. Joyeuse badethe other clerks a cheery good-morning, and donned his working-coat andblack velvet cap. Suddenly there was a whistle from above; and thecashier, putting his ear to the tube, heard the coarse, gelatinousvoice of Hemerlingue, the only, the genuine Hemerlingue--the other, theson, was always absent--asking for M. Joyeuse. What! was he stilldreaming? He was greatly excited as he took the little inner stairway, which he had ascended so jauntily just before, and found himself in thebanker's office, a narrow room with a very high ceiling, and with noother furniture than green curtains and enormous leather arm-chairs, proportioned to the formidable bulk of the head of the house. He wassitting there at his desk, which his paunch prevented him fromapproaching, corpulent, puffing, and so yellow that his round face withits hooked nose, the face of a fat, diseased owl, shone like a beaconlight in that solemn, gloomy office. A coarse, Moorish merchantmouldering in the dampness of his little courtyard. His eyes gleamed aninstant beneath his heavy slow-moving eyelids when the clerk entered;he motioned to him to approach, and slowly, coldly, with frequentbreaks in his breathless sentences, instead of: "M. Joyeuse, how manydaughters have you?" he said this:

"Joyeuse, you have assumed to criticize in our offices our recentoperations on the market in Tunis. No use to deny it. What you said hasbeen repeated to me word for word. And as I can't allow such thingsfrom one of my clerks, I notify you that with the end of this month youwill cease to be in my employ. "

The blood rushed to the clerk's face, receded, returned, causing eachtime a confused buzzing in his ears, a tumult of thoughts and images inhis brain. 

His daughters!

What would become of them?

Places are so scarce at that time of year!

Want stared him in the face, and also the vision of a poor devilfalling at Hemerlingue's feet, imploring him, threatening him, leapingat his throat in an outburst of desperate frenzy. All this agitationpassed across his face like a gust of wind which wrinkles the surfaceof a lake, hollowing out shifting caverns of all shapes therein; but hestood mute on the same spot, and at a hint from his employer that hemight withdraw, went unsteadily down to resume his task in thecounting-room. 

That evening, on returning to Rue Saint-Ferdinand, M. Joyeuse saidnothing to his daughters. He dared not. The thought of casting a shadowupon that radiant gayety, which was the whole life of the house, ofdimming with great tears those sparkling eyes, seemed to himunendurable. Moreover he was timid and weak, one of those who alwayssay: "Let us wait till to-morrow. " So he waited before speaking, in thefirst place until the month of November should be at an end, comfortinghimself with the vague hope that Hemerlingue might change his mind, asif he did not know that unyielding will, like the flabby, tenaciousgrasp of a mollusk clinging to its gold ingot. Secondly, when hisaccounts were settled and another clerk had taken his place at the talldesk at which he had stood so long, he hoped speedily to find somethingelse and to repair the disaster before he was obliged to avow it. 

Every morning he pretended to start for the office, allowed himself tobe equipped and escorted to the door as usual, his great leather bagall ready for the numerous parcels he was to bring home at night. Although he purposely forgot some of them because of the approach ofthe perplexing close of the month, he no longer lacked time in which todo his daughters' errands. He had his day to himself, an interminableday, which he passed in running about Paris in search of a place. Theygave him addresses and excellent recommendations. But in that month ofDecember, when the air is so cold and the days are so short, a monthoverburdened with expenses and anxieties, clerks suffer in patience andemployers too. Every one tries to end the year in tranquillity, postponing to the month of January, when time takes a great leap onwardtoward another station, all changes, ameliorations, attempts to lead anew life. 

Wherever M. Joyeuse called, he saw faces suddenly turn cold as soon ashe explained the purpose of his visit. "What! you are no longer withHemerlingue and Son? How does that happen?" He would explain thecondition of affairs as best he could, attributing it to a caprice ofhis employer, that violent-tempered Hemerlingue whom all Paris knew;but he was conscious of a cold, suspicious accent in the uniform reply:"Come and see us after the holidays. " And, timid as he was at best, hereached a point at which he hardly dared apply anywhere, but would walkback and forth twenty times in front of the same door, nor would heever have crossed the threshold but for the thought of his daughters. That thought alone would grasp his shoulder, put heart into his legsand send him to opposite ends of Paris in the same day, to exceedinglyvague addresses given him by comrades, to a great bone-black factory atAubervilliers, for instance, where they made him call three days insuccession, and all for nothing. 

Oh! the long walks in the rain and frost, the closed doors, theemployer who has gone out or has visitors, the promises given andsuddenly retracted, the disappointed hopes, the enervating effect oflong suspense, the humiliation in store for every man who asks forwork, as if it were a shameful thing to be without it. M. Joyeuseexperienced all those heartsickening details, and he learned too howthe will becomes weary and discouraged in the face of persistentill-luck. And you can imagine whether the bitter martyrdom of "the manin search of a place" was intensified by the fantasies of hisimagination, by the chimeras which rose before him from the pavementsof Paris, while he pursued his quest in every direction. 

For a whole month he was like one of those pitiful marionettes whosoliloquize and gesticulate on the sidewalks, and from whom theslightest jostling on the part of the crowd extorts a somnambulisticejaculation: "I said as much, " or "Don't you doubt it, monsieur. " Youpass on, you almost laugh, but you are moved to pity at theunconsciousness of those poor devils, possessed by a fixed idea, blindmen led by dreams, drawn on by an invisible leash. The terrible featureof it all was this, that when M. Joyeuse returned home, after thoselong, cruel days of inaction and fatigue, he must enact the comedy ofthe man returning from work, must describe the events of the day, tellwhat he had heard, the gossip of the office, with which he was alwaysaccustomed to entertain the young ladies. 

In humble households there is always one name that comes to the lipsmore frequently than others, a name that is invoked on days ofdisaster, that plays a part in every wish, in every hope, even in theplay of the children, who are permeated with the idea of itsimportance, a name that fills the rôle of a sub-providence in thefamily, or rather of a supernatural household god. It is the name ofthe employer, the manager of the factory, the landlord, the minister, the man, in short, who holds in his powerful hand the welfare, the veryexistence of the family. In the Joyeuse household it was Hemerlingue, always Hemerlingue; ten, twenty times a day the name was mentioned inthe conversation of the girls, who associated it with all their plans, with the most trivial details of their girlish ambitions: "IfHemerlingue would consent. It all depends on Hemerlingue. " And nothingcould be more delightful than the familiar way in which those childrenspoke of the wealthy boor whom they had never seen. 

They asked questions about him. Had their father spoken to him? Was hein good humor? To think that all of us, however humble we may be, however cruelly enslaved by destiny, have always below us some poorcreature more humble, more enslaved than ourselves, in whose eyes weare great, in whose eyes we are gods, and, as gods, indifferent, scornful or cruel. 

We can fancy M. Joyeuse's torture when he was compelled to inventincidents, to manufacture anecdotes concerning the villain who haddismissed him so heartlessly after ten years of faithful service. However, he played his little comedy in such way as to deceive them allcompletely. They had noticed only one thing, and that was that theirfather, on returning home at night, always had a hearty appetite forthe evening meal. I should say as much! Since he had lost his place, the poor man had ceased to eat any luncheon. 

The days passed. M. Joyeuse found nothing. Yes, he was offered aclerkship at the _Caisse Territoriale_, which he declined, being toowell acquainted with the banking operations, with all the nooks andcorners of financial Bohemia in general and the _Caisse Territoriale_in particular, to step foot in that den. 

"But, " said Passajon--for it was Passajon, who, happening to meet thegood man and finding that he was unemployed, had spoken to him oftaking service with Paganetti--"but I tell you again that it's allright. We have plenty of money. We pay our debts. I have been paid;just see what a dandy I am. "

In truth, the old clerk had a new livery, and his paunch protrudedmajestically beneath his tunic with silver buttons. For all that, M. Joyeuse had withstood the temptation, even after Passajon, opening widehis bulging eyes, had whispered with emphasis in his ear these wordsbig with promise:

"The Nabob is in it. "

Even after that, M. Joyeuse had had the courage to say no. Was it notbetter to die of hunger than to enter the service of an unsubstantialhouse whose books he might some day be called upon to examine as anexpert before a court of justice?

So he continued to wander about; but he was discouraged and hadabandoned his search for employment. As it was necessary for him toremain away from home, he loitered in front of the shop-windows on thequays, leaned for hours on the parapets, watching the river and theboats discharging their cargoes. He became one of those idlers whom wesee in the front rank of all street crowds, taking refuge from a showerunder porches, drawing near the stoves on which the asphalters boiltheir tar in the open air, to warm themselves, and sinking on benchesalong the boulevard when their feet can no longer carry them. 

What an excellent way of lengthening one's days, to do nothing!

On certain days, however, when M. Joyeuse was too tired or the weathertoo inclement, he waited at the end of the street until the youngladies had closed their window, then went back to the house, huggingthe walls, hurried upstairs, holding his breath as he passed his owndoor, and took refuge with the photographer, André Maranne, who, beingaware of his catastrophe, offered him the compassionate welcome whichpoor devils extend to one another. Customers are rare so near thebarriers. He would sit for many hours in the studio, talking in anundertone, reading by his friend's side, listening to the rain on thewindow-panes or the wind whistling as in mid-ocean, rattling the olddoors and window-frames in the graveyard of demolished buildings below. On the next floor he heard familiar sounds, full of charm for him, snatches of song accompanying the work of willing hands, a chorus oflaughter, the piano lesson given by _Grandmamma_, the tic-tac of themetronome, a delicious domestic hurly-burly that warmed his heart. Helived with his darlings, who certainly had no idea that they had him sonear at hand. 

Once, while Maranne was out, M. Joyeuse, acting as a faithful custodianof the studio and its brand-new equipment, heard two little taps on theceiling of the fourth floor, two separate, very distinct taps, then acautious rumbling like the scampering of a mouse. The intimacy betweenthe photographer and his neighbors justified this prisoner-like methodof communication, but what did that mean? How should he answer whatseemed like a call? At all hazards he repeated the two taps, the softdrumming sound, and the interview stopped there. When André Marannereturned, he explained it. It was very simple: sometimes, during theday, the young ladies, who never saw their neighbor except in theevening, took that means of inquiring for his health and whetherbusiness was improving. The signal he had heard signified: "Is businessgood to-day?" and M. Joyeuse had instinctively but unwittingly replied:"Not bad for the season. " Although young Maranne blushed hotly as hesaid it, M. Joyeuse believed him. But the idea of frequentcommunication between the two households made him fear lest his secretshould be divulged, and thereafter he abstained from what he called his"artistic days. " However, the time was drawing near when he could nolonger conceal his plight, for the end of the month was at hand, complicated by the end of the year. 

Paris was already assuming the usual festal aspect of the last weeks ofDecember. That is about all that is left in the way of national orpopular merrymaking. The revels of the carnival died with Gavarni, thereligious festivals, the music of which we scarcely hear above the dinof the streets, seclude themselves behind the heavy church doors, theFifteenth of August has never been aught but the Saint-Charlemagne ofthe barracks; but Paris has retained its respect for the first day ofthe year. 

Early in December a violent epidemic of childishness is apparent in thestreets. Wagons pass, laden with gilded drums, wooden horses, playthings by the score. In the manufacturing districts, from top tobottom of the five-story buildings, former palaces of the Marais, wherethe shops have such lofty ceilings and stately double doors, peoplework all night, handling gauze, flowers and straw, fastening labels onsatin-covered boxes, sorting out, marking and packing; the innumerabledetails of the toy trade, that great industry upon which Paris placesthe sign-manual of its refined taste. There is a smell of green wood, of fresh paint, of glistening varnish, and in the dust of the garrets, on the rickety stairways where the common people deposit all the mudthrough which they have tramped, chips of rosewood are strewn about, clippings of satin and velvet, bits of tinsel, all the débris of thetreasures employed to dazzle childish eyes. Then the shop-windows arraythemselves. Behind the transparent glass the gilt binding of gift-booksascends like a gleaming wave under the gas-lights, rich stuffs ofkaleidoscopic, tempting hues display their heavy, graceful folds, whilethe shop-girls, with their hair piled high upon their heads and ribbonsaround their necks, puff their wares with the little finger in the air, or fill silk bags, into which the bonbons fall like a shower of pearls. 

But face to face with this bourgeois industry, firmly established andintrenched behind its gorgeous shop fronts, is the ephemeral industrycarried on in the stalls built of plain boards, open to the wind fromthe street, standing in a double row which gives the boulevard theaspect of a foreign market place. There are to be found the realinterest, the poetry of New Year's gifts. Luxurious in the Madeleinequarter, less ostentatious toward Boulevard Saint-Denis, cheaper andmore tawdry as you approach the Bastille, these little booths changetheir character to suit their customers, estimate their chances ofsuccess according to the condition of the purses of the passers-by. Between them stand tables covered with trifles, miracles of the pettyParisian trades, made of nothing, fragile and insignificant, butsometimes whirled away by fashion in one of its fierce gusts, becauseof their very lightness. And lastly, along the sidewalks, lost in theline of vehicles which brush against them as they stroll along, theorange-women put the final touch to this ambulatory commerce, heapingup the sun-colored fruit under their red lanterns, and crying: "LaValence!" in the fog, the uproar, the excessive haste with which Parisrushes to meet the close of the year. 

Ordinarily M. Joyeuse made a part of the happy crowd that throngs thestreets with a jingling of money in the pockets and packages in everyhand. He would run about with _Grandmamma_ in quest of presents for theyoung ladies, stopping in front of the booths of the small shopkeeperswhom the slightest indication of a customer excites beyond measure, forthey are unfamiliar with the art of selling and have based upon thatbrief season visions of extraordinary profits. And there would beconsultations and meditations, a never-ending perplexity as to thefinal selection in that busy little brain, always in advance of thepresent and of the occupation of the moment. 

But that year, alas! there was nothing of the sort. He wandered sadlythrough the joyous city, sadder and more discouraged by reason of allthe activity around him, jostled and bumped like all those who impedethe circulation of the industrious, his heart beating with constantdread, for _Grandmamma_, for several days past, had been makingsignificant, prophetic remarks at table on the subject of New Year'sgifts. For that reason he avoided being left alone with her and hadforbidden her coming to meet him at the office. But, struggle as hewould, the time was drawing near, he felt it in his bones, when furthermystery would be impossible and his secret would be divulged. Was this_Grandmamma_ of whom M. Joyeuse stood in such fear such a terriblecreature, pray? _Mon Dieu_, no! A little stern, that was all, with asweet smile which promised instant pardon to every culprit. But M. Joyeuse was naturally cowardly and timid; twenty years of housekeepingwith a masterful woman, "a person of gentle birth, " had enslaved himforever, like those convicts who are subjected to surveillance for acertain period after their sentences have expired. And he was subjectedto it for life. 

One evening the Joyeuse family was assembled in the small salon, thelast relic of its splendor, where there still were two stuffedarm-chairs, an abundance of crochet-work, a piano, two Carcel lampswith little green caps, and a small table covered with trivialornaments. 

The true family exists only among the lowly. 

For economy's sake only one fire was lighted for the whole house, andonly one lamp around which all their occupations, all their diversionswere grouped; an honest family lamp, whose old-fashioned shade--withnight scenes, studded with brilliant points--had been the wonder andthe delight of all the girls in their infancy. Emerging gracefully fromthe shadow of the rest of the room, four youthful faces, fair or dark, smiling or engrossed, bent forward in the warm, cheerful rays, whichillumined them to the level of the eyes and seemed to feed the fire oftheir glances, the radiant youth beneath their transparent brows, towatch over them, to shelter them, to protect them from the black coldwind without, from ghosts, pitfalls, misery and terror, from all thesinister things that lurk in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris on awinter's night. 

Thus assembled in a small room near the top of the deserted house, inthe warmth and security of its neatly kept and comfortable home, theJoyeuse family resembles a family of birds in a nest at the top of atall tree. They sew and read and talk a little. A burst of flame, thecrackling of the fire, are the only sounds to be heard, save for anoccasional exclamation from M. Joyeuse, who sits just outside of hislittle circle, hiding in the shadow his anxious brow and all thevagaries of his imagination. Now he fancies that, in the midst of thedistress by which he is overwhelmed, the absolute necessity ofconfessing everything to his children to-night, to-morrow at latest, unforeseen succor comes to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sendsto him, to all the others who worked on the Tunisian loan, theaccustomed December bonus. It is brought by a tall footman: "FromMonsieur le Baron. " The _Imaginaire_ says this aloud. The pretty facesturn to look at him; they laugh and move about, and the poor wretchwakes with a start. 

Oh! how he reviles himself now for his delay in confessing everything, for the fallacious security which he has encouraged in his home andwhich he will have to destroy at one blow. Why need he have criticisedthat Tunisian loan? He even blames himself now for having declined aposition at the _Caisse Territoriale_. Had he the right to decline it?Ah! what a pitiful head of a family, who lacked strength to maintainor to defend the welfare of his dear ones. And, in presence of thecharming group sitting within the rays of the lamp, whose tranquilaspect is in such glaring contrast to his inward agitation, he isseized with remorse, which assails his feeble mind so fiercely thathis secret comes to his lips, is on the point of escaping him inan outburst of sobs, when a ring at the bell--not an imaginaryring--startles them all and checks him as he is about to speak. 

Who could have come at that hour? They had lived in seclusion since themother's death, receiving almost no visitors. André Maranne, when hecame down to pass a few moments with them, knocked familiarly after themanner of those to whom a door is always open. Profound silence in thesalon, a long colloquy on the landing. At last the old servant--she hadbeen in the family as long as the lamp--introduced a young man, aperfect stranger, who stopped suddenly, spellbound, at sight of thecharming picture presented by the four darlings grouped about thetable. He entered with an abashed, somewhat awkward air. However, heset forth very clearly the purpose of his call. He was recommended toapply to M. Joyeuse by a worthy man of his acquaintance, old Passajon, to give him lessons in book-keeping. A friend of his was involved insome large financial enterprises, a stock company of some size. He wasanxious to be of service to him by keeping an eye upon the employmentof his funds and the rectitude of his associates' operations; but hewas a lawyer, with a very imperfect knowledge of financial matters andthe vernacular of the banking business. Could not M. Joyeuse, in a fewmonths, with three or four lessons a week--"

"Why, yes indeed, monsieur, yes indeed, " stammered the father, dazed bythis unhoped-for chance; "I will willingly undertake to fit you in amonth or two for this work of examining accounts. Where shall we havethe lessons?"

"Here, if you please, " said the young man, "for I am anxious thatnobody should know that I am working at it. But I shall be very sorryif I am to put everybody to flight every time I appear, as I seem tohave done this evening. "

It was a fact that, as soon as the visitor opened his mouth, the fourcurly heads had disappeared, with much whispering and rustling ofskirts, and the salon appeared very bare now that the great circle ofwhite light was empty. 

Always quick to take alarm where his daughters were concerned, M. Joyeuse replied that "the young ladies always retired early, " in ashort, sharp tone which said as plainly as could be: "Let us confineour conversation to our lessons, young man, I beg. "

Thereupon they agreed upon the days and the hours in the evening. 

As for the terms, that would be for monsieur to determine. 

Monsieur named a figure. 

The clerk turned scarlet; it was what he earned at Hemerlingue's. 

"Oh! no, that is too much. "

But the other would not listen; he hemmed and hawed and rolled histongue around as if he were trying to say something that it was verydifficult to say; then with sudden resolution:

"Here is your first month's pay. "

"But, monsieur--"

The young man insisted. He was a stranger. It was fair that he shouldpay in advance. Evidently Passajon had told him. M. Joyeuse understoodand said, beneath his breath: "Thanks, oh! thanks!" so deeply movedthat words failed him. Life, it meant life for a few months, time toturn around, to find a situation. His darlings would be deprived ofnothing. They would have their New Year's gifts. O Providence!

"Until Wednesday, then, Monsieur Joyeuse. "

"Until Wednesday, Monsieur--?"

"De Géry--Paul de Géry. "

They parted, equally dazzled, enchanted, one by the appearance of thatunexpected saviour, the other by the lovely tableau of which he hadcaught a glimpse, all those maidens grouped around the table coveredwith books and papers and skeins, with an air of purity, ofhard-working probity. That sight opened up to de Géry a whole newParis, brave, domestic, very different from that with which he wasalready familiar, a Paris of which the writers of feuilletons and thereporters never speak, and which reminded him of his province, with anadditional element, namely, the charm which the surrounding hurly-burlyand turmoil impart to the peaceful shelter that they do not reach. 

VI. 

FELICIA RUYS. 

"By the way, what have you done with your son, Jenkins? Why do we neversee him at your house now? He was an attractive boy. "

As she said this in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she alwaysaddressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabobwhich she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and puttingdown the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on thelittle sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday afternoonflooded the circular glass-walled studio. Felicia "received" everySunday, if receiving consisted in leaving her door open and allowingpeople to come and go and sit down a moment, without stirring from herwork for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun, to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads andbright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man, sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs, men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who camerather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that theywould have the right to say that evening at the club: "I was atFelicia's to-day. " Among them Paul de Géry, silent, engrossed by anadmiration which sank a little deeper in his heart day by day, stroveto comprehend the beautiful sphinx, arrayed in purple cashmere andunbleached lace, who worked bravely away in the midst of her clay, aburnisher's apron--reaching nearly to the neck--leaving naught visiblesave the proud little face with those transparent tones, those gleamsas of veiled rays with which intellect and inspiration give animationto the features. Paul never forgot what had been said of her in hispresence, he tried to form an opinion for himself, was beset by doubtand perplexity, yet fascinated; vowed every time that he would nevercome again, yet never missed a Sunday. There was another fixture, always in the same spot, a little woman with gray, powdered hair and alace handkerchief around her pink face; a pastel somewhat worn byyears, who smiled sweetly in the discreet light of a window recess, herhands lying idly upon her lap, in fakir-like immobility. Jenkins, always in good humor, with his beaming face, his black eyes, and hisapostolic air, went about from one to another, known and loved by all. He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth hedisplayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and ofthe pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seemingto notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued tocourt the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom hehad been so fond and whom he had attended until his last breath. 

On this occasion, however, the question that Felicia propounded to himon the subject of his son seemed to him extremely disagreeable; andthere was a frown upon his face, a genuine expression of ill-humor, ashe replied:

"Faith, I know no more than you as to what has become of him. He hasturned his back upon us altogether. He was bored with us. He cares fornothing but his Bohemia--"

Felicia gave a bound which made them all start, and with flashing eyeand quivering nostril retorted:

"That is too much. Look you, Jenkins, what do you call Bohemia? Acharming word, by the way, which should evoke visions of long wanderingjaunts in the sunlight, halting in shady nooks, the first taste ofluscious fruits and sparkling fountains, taken at random on thehighroads. But since you have made of the word with all the charmattaching to it a stigma and an insult, to whom do you apply it? Tocertain poor long-haired devils, in love with freedom in rags andtatters, who starve to death on fifth floors, looking at the sky at tooclose quarters, or seeking rhymes under tiles through which the raindrips; to those idiots, fewer and fewer in number, who in their horrorof the conventional, the traditional, of the dense stupidity of life, have taken a standing jump over the edge. But that's the way it used tobe, I tell you. That's the Bohemia of Murger, with the hospital at theend, the terror of children, the comfort of kindred, Little Red RidingHood eaten by the wolf. That state of things came to an end a longwhile ago. To-day you know perfectly well that artists are the mostwell-behaved people on earth, that they earn money, pay their debts anddo their best to resemble the ordinary man. There is no lack of genuineBohemians, however; our society is made up of them, but they are foundmore particularly in your circle. _Parbleu!_ they are not labelledon the outside, and no one distrusts them; but so far as theuncertainty of existence and lack of order are concerned, they have noreason to envy those whom they so disdainfully call 'irregulars. ' Ah!if one knew all the baseness, all the unheard-of, monstrous experiencesthat may be masked by a black coat, the most correct of your horriblemodern garments! Jenkins, at your house the other evening, I amusedmyself counting all those adventurers of high--"

The little old lady, pink-cheeked and powdered, said to her softly fromher seat:

"Felicia--take care--"

But she went on without listening to her:

"Who is this Monpavon, Doctor? And Bois-l'Héry? And Mora himself?And--"

She was on the point of saying, "And the Nabob?" but checked herself. 

"And how many others! Oh! really, I advise you to speak contemptuouslyof Bohemia. Why, your clientage as a fashionable physician, O sublimeJenkins, is made up of nothing else. Bohemia of manufacturing, offinance, of politics; fallen stars, the tainted of all castes, and thehigher you go the more of them there are, because high rank givesimpunity and wealth closes many mouths. "

She spoke with great animation, harshly, her lip curling in fiercedisdain. The other laughed a false laugh and assumed an airy, condescending tone. "Ah! madcap! madcap!" And his glance, anxious andimploring, rested upon the Nabob, as if to beseech his forgiveness forthat flood of impertinent paradoxes. 

But Jansoulet, far from appearing to be vexed, --he who was so proud topose for that lovely artist, so puffed up by the honor conferred uponhim--nodded his head approvingly. 

"She is right, Jenkins, " he said, "she is right. We are the realBohemia. Look at me, for instance, and Hemerlingue, two of the greatesthandlers of money in Paris. When I think where we started from, all thetrades that we tried our hands at! Hemerlingue, an old regimentalsutler; and myself, who carried bags of grain on the wharves atMarseille for a living. And then the strokes of luck by which ourfortunes were made, as indeed all fortunes are made nowadays. Bless mysoul! Just look under the peristyle at the Bourse from three to five. But I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, with my mania for gesticulatingwhen I talk, I've spoiled my pose--let's see, will this do?"

"It's of no use, " said Felicia, throwing down her modelling-tool withthe gesture of a spoiled child. "I can do nothing more to-day. "

She was a strange girl, this Felicia. A true child of an artist, agenial and dissipated artist, according to the romantic tradition, suchas Sébastien Ruys was. She had never known her mother, being the fruitof one of those ephemeral passions which suddenly enter a sculptor'sbachelor life, as swallows enter a house of which the door is alwaysopen, and go out again at once, because they cannot build nests there. 

On that occasion the lady, on taking flight, had left with the greatartist, then in the neighborhood of forty, a beautiful child whom hehad acknowledged and reared, and who became the joy and passion of hislife. Felicia had remained with her father until she was thirteen, importing a childish, refining element into that studio crowded withidlers, models, and huge greyhounds lying at full length on divans. There was a corner set aside for her, for her attempts at sculpture, acomplete equipment on a microscopic scale, a tripod and wax; and oldRuys would say to all who came in:

"Don't go over there. Don't disturb anything. That's the little one'scorner. "

The result was that at ten years of age she hardly knew how to read andhandled the modelling-tool with marvellous skill. Ruys would have likedto keep the child, who never annoyed him in any way, with himpermanently, a tiny member of the great brotherhood. But it was apitiful thing to see the little maid exposed to the free and easymanners of the habitués of the house, the incessant going and coming ofmodels, the discussions concerning an art that is purely physical, soto speak; and at the uproarious Sunday dinner-table, too, sitting inthe midst of five or six women, with all of whom her father was on themost intimate terms, actresses, dancers, singers, who, when dinner wasat an end, smoked with the rest, their elbows on the table, revellingin the salacious anecdotes so relished by the master of the house. Luckily, childhood is protected by the resistant power of innocence, apolished surface over which all forms of pollution glide harmlessly. Felicia was noisy, uproarious, badly brought up, but was untainted byall that passed over her little mind because it was so near the ground. 

Every summer she went to pass a few days with her godmother, ConstanceCrenmitz, the elder Crenmitz, who was for so long a time called by allEurope the "illustrious dancer, " and who was living quietly inseclusion at Fontainebleau. 

The arrival of the "little devil" introduced into the old lady's life, for a time, an element of excitement from which she had the whole yearto recover. The frights that the child caused her with her audaciousexploits in leaping and riding, the passionate outbreaks of thatuntamed nature, made the visit both a delight and a terrible trial toher, --a delight, because she worshipped Felicia, the only domestic tieleft the poor old salamander, retired after thirty years of _battus_ inthe glare of the footlights; a trial, because the demon pitilesslypillaged the ex-dancer's apartments, which were as dainty and neat andsweet-smelling as her dressing-room at the Opéra, and embellished witha museum of souvenirs dated from all the theatres in the world. 

Constance Crenmitz was the sole feminine element in Felicia'schildhood. Frivolous, shallow, having all her life kept her mindenveloped in pink swaddling-clothes, she had at all events a daintyknack at housekeeping, and agile fingers clever at sewing, embroidering, arranging furniture, and leaving the trace of their deft, painstaking touch in every corner of a room. She alone undertook totrain that wild young plant, and to awaken with care the womanlyinstincts in that strange creature, on whose figure cloaks and furs, all the elegant inventions of fashion, fell in folds too stiff, orperformed other strange antics. 

It was the dancer again--surely the little Ruys must not beabandoned--who, triumphing over the paternal selfishness, compelled thesculptor to assent to a necessary separation, when Felicia was twelveor thirteen years old; furthermore, she assumed the responsibility offinding a suitable boarding school, and purposely selected a very richbut very bourgeois establishment, pleasantly situated in asparsely-settled faubourg, in a huge old-fashioned mansion, surroundedby high walls and tall trees, --a sort of convent, minus the restraintand contempt for serious studies. 

Indeed, a great deal of hard work was done at Madame Belin'sestablishment, with no opportunities to go out except on greatfestivals, and no communication with the outside world except a visitfrom one's relatives on Thursday, in a little garden of floweringshrubs, or in the vast parlor with the carved and gilded panels abovethe doors. Felicia's first appearance in that almost monasticinstitution caused considerable commotion; her costume, selected by theAustrian ballet-dancer, her curly hair falling to the waist, herungainly, boyish bearing, gave rise to some ill-natured remarks; butshe was a Parisian and readily adapted herself to all situations, toall localities. In a few days she wore more gracefully than any of theothers the little black apron, to which the most coquettish attachedtheir watches, the straight skirt--a stern and cruel requirement atthat period, when the prevailing fashion enlarged the circumference ofwoman with an infinite number of ruffles and flounces--and theprescribed arrangement of the hair, in two braids fastened togetherwell down on the neck, after the fashion of Roman peasants. 

Strangely enough, the assiduous work of the classes, their tranquilregularity, suited Felicia's nature, all intelligence and animation, inwhich a taste for study was enlivened by an overflow of childishspirits in the hours of recreation. Every one loved her. Among thosechildren of great manufacturers, Parisian notaries and gentleman-farmers, a substantial little world by themselves, somewhat inclined tostiffness and formality, the well-known name of old Ruys, and therespect which is universally manifested in Paris for a high reputationas an artist, gave to Felicia a position apart from the rest andgreatly envied; a position made even more brilliant by her success inher studies, by a genuine talent for drawing, and by her beauty, thatelement of superiority which produces its effect even upon very younggirls. 

In the purer atmosphere of the boarding-school, she felt the keenestpleasure in making herself womanly, in resuming her true sex, inlearning order, regularity, in a different sense from that inculcatedby the amiable dancer, whose kisses always retained a taste of rouge, and whose embraces always left an impression of unnaturally round arms. Père Ruys was enchanted, every time that he went to see his daughter, to find her more of a young lady, able to enter and walk about andleave a room with the pretty courtesy that made all of Madame Belin'sboarders long for the _frou-frou_ of a long train. 

At first he came often, then, as he lacked time for all the commissionsaccepted and undertaken, the advances upon which helped to pay for thedisorder and heedlessness of his life, he was seen less frequently inthe parlor. At last disease took a hand. Brought to earth by hopelessanæmia, for weeks he did not leave the house, nor work. He insistedupon seeing his daughter; and from the peaceful, health-giving shadowof the boarding-school Felicia returned to her father's studio, stillhaunted by the same cronies, the parasites that cling to everycelebrity, among whom sickness had introduced a new figure in theperson of Dr. Jenkins. 

That handsome, open face, the air of frankness and serenity diffusedover the whole person of that already well known physician, who talkedof his art so freely, yet performed miraculous cures, and his assiduousattentions to her father, made a deep impression on the girl. Jenkinssoon became the friend, the confidant, a vigilant and gentle guardian. Sometimes in the studio, when some one--the father himself mostfrequently--made a too equivocal remark or a ribald jest, the Irishmanwould frown and make a little noise with his lips, or else would divertFelicia's attention. He often took her to pass the day with MadameJenkins, exerting himself to prevent her from becoming once more thewild creature of the ante-boarding school days, or indeed the somethingworse than that which she threatened to become, in the moralabandonment, the saddest of all forms of abandonment, in which she wasleft. 

But the girl had a more powerful protector than the irreproachable butworldly example of the fair Madame Jenkins: the art which she adored, the enthusiasm it aroused in her essentially open nature, the sentimentof beauty, of truth, which passed from her thoughtful brain, teemingwith ideas, into her fingers with a little quiver of the nerves, alonging to see the thing done, the image realized. All day she workedat her sculpture, gave shape to her reveries, with the happy tact ofinstinct-guided youth, which imparts so much charm to first works; thatprevented her from regretting too keenly the austere régime of theBelin institution, which was as perfect a safeguard and as light as theveil of a novice who has not taken her vows; and it also shielded herfrom perilous conversations to which in her one absorbing preoccupationshe paid no heed. 

Ruys was proud of the talent springing up by his side. As he grewweaker from day to day, having already reached the stage at which theartist regrets his vanishing powers, he followed Felicia's progress asa consolation for the close of his own career. The modelling-tool, which trembled in his hand, was seized at his side with virile firmnessand self-assurance, tempered by all of the innate refinement of herbeing that a woman can apply to the realization of her ideal of an art. A curious sensation is that twofold paternity, that survival of genius, which abandons the one who is going away to pass into the one who iscoming, like the lovely domestic birds which, on the eve of a death, desert the threatened roof for a more cheerful dwelling. 

In the last days of her father's life, Felicia--a great artist, andstill a child--did half of her father's work for him, and nothing couldbe more touching than that collaboration of the father and daughter, inthe same studio, sculptors of the same group. Things did not always runsmoothly. Although she was her father's pupil, Felicia's individualitywas already inclined to rebel against any arbitrary guidance. She hadthe audacity of beginners, the presentiment of a great future felt onlyby youthful geniuses, and, in opposition to the romantic traditions ofSébastien Ruys, a tendency toward modern realism, a feeling that shemust plant that glorious old flag upon some new monument. 

Then there would be terrible scenes, disputes from which the fatherwould come forth vanquished, annihilated by his daughter's logic, amazed at the rapid progress children make on the highroads, whiletheir elders, who have opened the gates for them, remain stationary atthe point of departure. When she was working for him Felicia yieldedmore readily; but concerning her own work she was intractable. Forinstance, the _Joueur de Boules_, her first exhibited work, whichmade such a tremendous hit at the Salon of 1862, was the occasion ofviolent disputes between the two artists, of such fierce controversythat Jenkins had to intervene and to superintend the removal of thefigure, which Ruys had threatened to break. 

Aside from these little dramas, which had no effect upon the love oftheir hearts, those two worshipped each other, with the presentimentand, as the days passed, the cruel certainty of an impendingseparation; when suddenly there came a horrible episode in Felicia'slife. One day Jenkins took her home to dinner with him, as he oftendid. Madame Jenkins and her son were away for two days; but thedoctor's years, his semi-paternal intimacy, justified him in invitingto his house, even in his wife's absence, a girl whose fifteen years, the fifteen years of an Eastern Jewess resplendent with prematurebeauty, left her still almost a child. 

The dinner was very lively, Jenkins cordial and agreeable as always. Then they went into the doctor's office; and suddenly, as they sat onthe divan, talking in the most intimate and friendly way concerning herfather, his health and their joint work, Felicia had a feeling as ofthe cold blast from an abyss between herself and that man, followed bythe brutal embrace of a satyr's claw. She saw a Jenkins totally unknownto her, wild-eyed, stammering, with brutish laugh and insulting hands. In the surprise, the unexpectedness of that outbreak of the animalinstinct, any other than Felicia, any child of her years, but genuinelyinnocent, would have been lost. The thing that saved her, poor child, was her knowledge. She had heard so many stories at her father's table!And then her art, her life at the studio. She was no _ingénue_. She atonce understood what that embrace meant, she squirmed and struggled, then, finding that she was not strong enough, screamed. He wasfrightened, released her, and suddenly she found herself on her feet, free, with the man at her knees, weeping and imploring forgiveness. Hehad yielded to an attack of frenzy. She was so lovely, he loved her sodearly. He had struggled for months. But now it was all over--neveragain, oh! never again. He would not even touch the hem of her dress. She did not reply, but tremblingly rearranged her hair and her clotheswith frenzied fingers. Go, she must go at once, alone. He sent aservant with her, and whispered, as she entered the carriage: "Aboveall things, not a word of this at home. It would kill your father. " Heknew her so well, he was so sure of closing her mouth by that thought, the villain, that he came the next day as if nothing had happened, effusive as always and with the same ingenuous face. She never didmention the incident to her father or to anybody else. But from thatday a change took place in her, as if the springs of her pride wererelaxed. She became capricious, had fits of lassitude, a curl ofdisgust in her smile, and sometimes she yielded to sudden outbursts ofwrath against her father, and cast scornful glances upon him, rebukinghim for his failure to watch over her. 

"What is the matter with her?" Père Ruys would ask; and Jenkins, withthe authority of a physician, would attribute it to her age and aphysical trouble. He himself avoided speaking to the girl, relying upontime to efface the sinister impression, and not despairing of obtainingwhat he desired, for he desired more eagerly than ever, being in thegrasp of the insane passion of a man of forty-seven, the incurablepassion of maturity; and that was the hypocrite's punishment. Hisdaughter's strange state caused the sculptor genuine distress; but itwas of brief duration. Ruys suddenly expired, fell to pieces all atonce, like all those whom Jenkins attended. His last words were:

"Jenkins, I place my daughter in your care. "

The words were so ironical in all their mournfulness that Jenkins, whowas present at the last, could not avoid turning pale. 

Felicia was even more stupefied than sorrowful. To the feeling ofamazement at death, which she had never seen before, and which appearedin a guise so dear to her, was added the feeling of a terribleloneliness surrounded by darkness and perils. 

Several friends of the sculptor assembled in a family council todeliberate concerning the future of the unfortunate, penniless orphan. They had found fifty francs in the catch-all in which Sébastien kepthis money on a little commode in the studio, well known to his needyfriends, who had recourse to it without scruple. No other patrimony, incash at all events; only a most superb collection of artistic objectsand curios, a few valuable pictures and some scattered outstandingclaims hardly sufficient to cover his innumerable debts. They talked ofa sale at auction. Felicia, on being consulted, replied that it was amatter of indifference to her whether they sold all or none, but thatshe begged them, for God's sake, to leave her in peace. 

The sale did not take place, however, thanks to the godmother, theexcellent Crenmitz, who suddenly made her appearance, as tranquil andgentle as always:

"Don't listen to them, my child, sell nothing. Your old Constance hasfifteen thousand francs a year which were intended for you. You shallhave the benefit of them now, that's all. We will live together here. Iwill not be in the way, you will see. You can work at your sculpture, while I keep the house. Does that suit you?"

It was said so affectionately, in the childish accent of foreignersexpressing themselves in French, that the girl was deeply moved. Herstony heart opened, a burning flood poured from her eyes and she threwherself, buried herself in the ex-dancer's arms: "Oh! godmother, howgood you are! Yes, yes; don't leave me again--stay with me always. Lifefrightens and disgusts me. I see so much hypocrisy and lying!" And whenthe old woman had made herself a silky, embroidered nest in the house, which resembled a traveller's camp filled with the treasures of alllands, those two widely different natures took up their life together. 

It was no small sacrifice that Constance had made to the little demon, to leave her retreat at Fontainebleau for Paris, which she held inhorror. From the day when the ballet-dancer, once famous for herextravagant caprices, who squandered princely fortunes between her fiveparted fingers, had descended from the realm of apotheoses with a lastremnant of their dazzling glare still lingering in her eyes, and hadtried to resume the life of ordinary mortals, to administer her littleincome and her modest household, she had been subjected to a multitudeof unblushing attempts at extortion and schemes which were readilysuccessful in view of the ignorance of that poor butterfly, who wasafraid of reality and constantly coming in contact with all its unknowndifficulties. In Felicia's house the responsibility became far moreserious, because of the extravagant methods long ago inaugurated by thefather and continued by the daughter, both artists having the utmostcontempt for economy. She had other difficulties, too, to overcome. Shecould not endure the studio, with its permanent odor of tobacco smoke, with the cloud, impenetrable to her, in which artistic discussions andideas, expressed in their baldest form, were confounded in vague eddiesof glowing vapor which invariably gave her the sick headache. The_blague_ was especially terrifying to her. Being a foreigner, a formerdivinity of the ballet greenroom, fed upon superannuated compliments, gallantries _à la Dorat_ she was unable to understand it, and wasdismayed at the wild exaggerations, the paradoxes of those Parisianswhose wits were sharpened by the liberty of the studio. 

She whose wit had consisted entirely in the agility of her feet wasawed by her new surroundings and relegated to the position of a simplecompanion; and to see that amiable old creature, silent and smiling, sitting in the bright light of the rounded window, her knitting on herknees, like one of Chardin's bourgeoises, or walking quickly up thelong Rue de Chaillot where the nearest market was situated, with hercook at her side, one would never have dreamed that the worthy womanhad once held kings, princes, all the susceptible portion of thenobility and the world of finance, subject to the whim of her toes andher gauze skirts. 

Paris is full of these extinct stars which have fallen back into thecrowd. 

Some of these celebrities, these conquerors of a former time, retain agnawing rage in their hearts; others, on the contrary, dwell blissfullyupon the past, ruminate in ineffable content all their glorious, bygonejoys, seeking only repose, silence and obscurity, wherein they mayremember and meditate, so that, when they die, we are amazed to learnthat they were still living. 

Constance Crenmitz was one of those happy mortals. But what a strangeartists' household was that of those two women, equally childlike, contributing to the common stock inexperience and ambition, thetranquillity of an accomplished destiny and the feverish activity of alife in its prime, all the differences indeed that were indicated bythe contrast between that blonde, white as a withered rose, who seemedto be dressed, beneath her fair complexion, in a remnant of Bengalfire, and that brunette, with the regular features, who almostinvariably enveloped her beauty in dark stuffs, simply made, as if witha semblance of masculinity. 

Unforeseen emergencies, caprice, ignorance of even the most trivialthings, led to extreme confusion in the management of the household, from which they were sometimes unable to extricate themselves except byenforced privations, by dismissing servants, by reforms laughable intheir exaggeration. During one of those crises Jenkins made delicate, carefully veiled offers of assistance which were repelled with scorn byFelicia. 

"It isn't right, " said Constance, "to be so rude to that poor doctor. After all, there was nothing insulting in what he said. An old friendof your father's. "

"That man, anybody's friend! Oh! what a superb Tartuffe!"

And Felicia, hardly able to contain herself, twisted her wrath intoirony, mimicked Jenkins, the affected gestures, the hand on the heart;then, puffing out her cheeks, said in a hoarse, whistling voice, fullof false effusiveness:

"We must be kind, we must be humane. To do good without hope ofreward!--that is the secret. "

Constance laughed, in spite of herself, till the tears ran down hercheeks, the resemblance was so perfect. 

"Never mind, you were too harsh--you will end by driving him away. "

"Oh! indeed!" said a shake of the girl's head. 

In truth, he continued to come to the house, always affable and sweet, dissembling his passion, which was visible only when he became jealousof new-comers, overwhelming with attentions the ex-ballet-dancer, towhom his pleasant manners were gratifying in spite of everything, andwho recognized in him a man of her own time, of the time when men paidtheir respects to women by kissing their hand, with a complimentaryremark as to their appearance. 

 * * *

One morning, Jenkins, having looked in during his round of visits, found Constance alone and unoccupied in the reception room. 

"I am mounting guard, Doctor, as you see, " she said calmly. 

"How does that happen?"

"Why, Felicia's at work. She doesn't want to be disturbed and theservants are so stupid. I am carrying out her orders myself. "

Then, as she saw the Irishman walk toward the studio, she added:

"No, no, don't go there. She gave me strict orders not to let any onego in. "

"Very good, but I--"

"I beg you not--you will get me a scolding. "

Jenkins was about to withdraw, when a peal of laughter from Feliciareached their ears through the portière and made him raise his head. 

"So she isn't alone?"

"No. The Nabob is with her. They are having a sitting--for the bust. "

"But why this mystery? It's very strange. "

He strode back and forth, raging inwardly, but holding himself back. 

At last he broke out. 

It was improper beyond expression to allow a girl to be closeted inthat way with a man. 

He was astonished that so serious-minded, so devout a person asConstance--What did it look like?

The old lady gazed at him in stupefaction. As if Felicia were likeother girls! And then, what danger could there be with the Nabob, sucha serious man and so ugly? Moreover, Jenkins ought to know well enoughthat Felicia never consulted anybody, that she did only what she chose. 

"No, no, it's impossible; I cannot allow this, " exclaimed the Irishman. 

And, paying no further heed to the dancer, who threw up her arms tocall heaven to witness what was taking place, he walked toward thestudio; but, instead of entering at once, he opened the door gently andraised a corner of the hanging, so that a part of the room, just thatpart where the Nabob was posing, was visible to him, although at aconsiderable distance. 

Jansoulet was seated, without a cravat, with his waistcoat thrown open, talking excitedly, in an undertone. Felicia answered in laughingwhispers. The sitting was very animated. Then there was a pause, arustling of skirts, and the artist, going up to her model, turned hislinen collar back all the way around, with a familiar gesture, lettingher hand run lightly over the tanned skin. 

That Ethiopian face, in which the muscles quivered with theintoxication of supreme content, with its great eyelids lowered likethose of a sleeping beast being tickled with a straw, the bold outlineof the girl as she leaned over that outlandish face to verify itsproportions, and then a violent, irresistible gesture, seizing theslender hand as it passed and pressing it to two thick, tremblinglips, --Jenkins saw all this in a red glare. 

The noise that he made in entering caused the two to resume theirrespective positions, and in the bright light which dazzled his prying, catlike eyes, he saw the girl standing before him, indignant, dumfounded: "What is this? Who has dared?" and the Nabob on hisplatform, with his collar turned back, petrified, monumental. 

Jenkins, somewhat abashed, dismayed by his own audacity, stammered somewords of apology. He had something very urgent to say to M. Jansoulet, very important information which could not be delayed. He knew from areliable source that there would be a distribution of crosses on March16th. The Nabob's face, momentarily contracted, at once relaxed. 

"Ah! really?"

He abandoned his pose. The matter was well worth considering, deucetake it! M. De La Perrière, one of the Empress's secretaries, had beendirected by her to visit the shelter of Bethlehem. Jenkins had come totake the Nabob to the secretary's office at the Tuileries and makeinquiries. That visit to Bethlehem meant a cross for him. 

"Come, let us be off; I am with you, my dear doctor. "

He bore Jenkins no ill-will for disturbing him, and he feverishly tiedhis cravat, forgetting under the stress of his new emotion theagitation of a moment before, for with him ambition took precedence ofeverything. 

While the two men talked together in undertones, Felicia, standingbefore them, with quivering nostrils and lip curling in scorn, watchedthem as if to say: "Well! I am waiting. "

Jansoulet apologized for being obliged to interrupt the sitting; but avisit of the utmost importance--She smiled pityingly. 

"Go, go. At the point where we are now, I can work without you. "

"Oh! yes, " said the doctor, "the bust is almost finished. It's a finepiece of work, " he added, with the air of a connoisseur. 

And, relying on the compliment to cover his retreat, he was slinkingaway, crestfallen; but Felicia fiercely called him back:

"Stay, you. I have something to say to you. "

He saw by her expression that he must comply, under pain of anoutbreak. 

"With your permission, my friend? Mademoiselle has a word to say to me. My coupé is at the door. Get in, I will be with you in a moment. "

When the studio door closed upon those heavy departing footsteps, theylooked each other in the face. 

"You must be either drunk or mad to venture to do such a thing. What!you presume to enter my studio when I do not choose to receive? Whythis violence? By what right?"

"By the right that desperate, unconquerable passion gives. "

"Be quiet, Jenkins; those are words that I do not wish to hear. I letyou come here through pity, through habit, because my father was fondof you. But never speak to me again of your--love"--she said the wordvery low, as if it were a disgrace--"or you will see me no more, eventhough I should be driven to die in order to escape you for good andall. "

A child taken in fault does not bend his head more humbly than Jenkinsas he replied:

"True--I was wrong. A moment of madness, of blindness. But why do youtake pleasure in tearing my heart as you do?"

"As if I were thinking of you!"

"Whether you are thinking of me or not, I am here, I see what is goingon, and your coquetry pains me terribly. "

A slight flush rose in her cheeks at that reproach. 

"I, a coquette! With whom?"

"With him, " said the Irishman, pointing to the superb apelike bust. 

She tried to laugh. 

"The Nabob. What nonsense!"

"Do not lie. Do you think I am blind, that I don't understand all yourmanoeuvres? You stay alone with him a long while. I was at the doorjust now. I saw you. " He lowered his voice as if his breath had failedhim. "What are you after, in heaven's name, you strange, heartlesschild? I have seen you repel the handsomest, the noblest, the greatest. That little de Géry devours you with his eyes, but you pay no heed tohim. Even the Duc de Mora has not succeeded in reaching your heart. Andthis man, a shocking, vulgar creature, who isn't thinking of you, whohas something very different from love in his head--you saw how he wentaway just now! What are you aiming at? What do you expect from him?"

"I intend--I intend that he shall marry me. There. "

Coolly, in a softer tone, as if the confession had drawn her nearer tothe man she despised so bitterly, she set forth her reasons. She hadluxurious, extravagant tastes, unmethodical habits which nothing couldovercome and which would infallibly lead her to poverty anddestitution, and good Crenmitz too, who allowed herself to be ruinedwithout a word. In three years, four years at most, it would be allover. And then would come debts and desperate expedients, the raggedgowns and old shoes of poor artists' households. Or else the lover, thekeeper, that is to say slavery and degradation. 

"Nonsense, " said Jenkins. "What of me, am I not here?"

"Anything rather than you, " she said, drawing herself up. "No, what Imust have, what I will have, is a husband to protect me from others andfrom myself, to keep me from a mass of black things of which I amafraid when life becomes a bore to me, from abysses into which I feelthat I may plunge, --some one who will love me while I work, and willrelieve my poor old exhausted fairy from doing sentry duty. That mansuits me and I have had my eye on him ever since I first saw him. He isugly to look at, but he seems kind; and then he is absurdly rich, andwealth, in that degree, must be amusing. Oh! I know all about it. Thereprobably is some black spot in his life which has brought him goodluck. All that gold can't have been honestly come by. But tell metruly, Jenkins, with your hand on that heart which you invoke so often, do you think that I am a very tempting wife for an honest man?Consider: of all these young men who ask as a favor to be allowed tocome here, what one has ever thought of asking for my hand? Never asingle one. De Géry no more than the rest. I charm, but I terrify. Thatis easily understood. What can anyone expect of a girl brought up as Iwas, with no mother or family, tossed in a heap with my father's modelsand mistresses? Such mistresses, great God! And Jenkins for my onlyprotector. Oh! when I think of it! When I think of it!"

And, with the memory of that already distant episode, thoughts came toher mind which inflamed her wrath. "Oh! yes, I am a child of chance, and this adventurer is just the husband for me. "[2]

 [2] Je suis une fille _d'aventure_, et cet _aventurier_ est bien le mari qu'il me faut. 

"At least you will wait until he's a widower, " retorted Jenkinstranquilly. "And in that case you may have to wait a long while, forhis Levantine looks to be in excellent health. "

Felicia Ruys became livid. 

"He is married?"

"Married, why, to be sure, and father of a lot of children. The wholeoutfit landed here two days ago. "

She stood for a moment, speechless, her cheeks quivering. 

In front of her the Nabob's broad visage, in shining clay, with itsflat nose, its sensual good-humored mouth, seemed to cry aloud in itsfidelity to life. She gazed at it a moment, then stepped toward it, andwith a gesture of disgust overturned the high, wooden stand and thegleaming, greasy block itself, which fell to the floor a shapeless massof mud. 

VII. 

JANSOULET AT HOME. 

Married he had been for twelve years, but had never mentioned the factto any one of his Parisian acquaintances, by virtue of an acquiredOriental habit, the habit that Oriental peoples have of maintainingsilence concerning their female relations. Suddenly it was learned thatMadame was coming, that apartments must be made ready for her, herchildren and her women. The Nabob hired the whole second floor of thehouse on Place Vendôme, the previous tenant being sacrificed to Nabobprices. The stables were increased in size, the staff of servants wasdoubled; and then, one day, coachmen and carriages went to the Lyonstation to fetch Madame, who arrived with a retinue of negresses, little negroes and gazelles, completely filling a long train that hadbeen heated expressly for her all the way from Marseille. 

She alighted in a terrible state of prostration, exhausted andbewildered by her long railroad journey, the first in her life, for shehad been taken to Tunis as a child and had never left it. Two negroescarried her from the carriage to her apartments in an armchair, whichwas always kept in the vestibule thereafter, ready for that difficulttransportation. Madame Jansoulet could not walk upstairs, for it madeher dizzy; she would not have an elevator because her weight made itsqueak; besides, she never walked. An enormous creature, so bloatedthat it was impossible to assign her an age, but somewhere betweentwenty-five and forty, with rather a pretty face, but features alldeformed by fat, lifeless eyes beneath drooping lids grooved likeshells, trussed up in exported gowns, loaded with diamonds and jewelslike a Hindoo idol, she was a most perfect specimen of the transplantedEuropeans who are called Levantines. A strange race of obese Creoles, connected with our society by naught save language and dress, butenveloped by the Orient in its stupefying atmosphere, the subtlepoisons of its opium-laden air, in which everything becomes limp andnerveless, from the tissues of the skin to the girdle around the waist, ay, even to the mind itself and the thought. 

She was the daughter of an enormously wealthy Belgian, a dealer incoral at Tunis, in whose establishment Jansoulet had been employed forseveral months on his first arrival in the country. MademoiselleAfchin, at that time a fascinating doll, with dazzling complexion andhair, and perfect health, came often to the counting-room for herfather, in the great chariot drawn by mules which conveyed them totheir beautiful villa of La Marse in the outskirts of Tunis. The child, always _décolleté_, with gleaming white shoulders seen for a moment ina luxurious frame, dazzled the adventurer; and years after, when he hadbecome rich, the favorite of the bey, and thought of settling down, hismind reverted to her. The child had changed into a stout, heavy, sallowgirl. Her intellect, never of a high order, had become still moreobtuse in the torpor of such a life as dormice lead, in the neglect ofa father whose whole time and thought were given to business, and inthe use of tobacco saturated with opium and of sweetmeats, --the torporof her Flemish blood conjoined with Oriental indolence; and with allthe rest, ill-bred, gluttonous, sensual, arrogant, a Levantine trinketbrought to perfection. 

But Jansoulet saw nothing of all that. 

In his eyes she was then, she was always, down to the time of herarrival in Paris, a superior being, a person of the highest refinement, a Demoiselle Afchin; he spoke to her with respect, maintained aslightly humble and timid attitude toward her, gave her money withoutcounting it, indulged her most extravagant caprices, her wildest whims, all the strange conceits of a Levantine's brain distracted by ennui andidleness. A single word justified everything; she was a DemoiselleAfchin. And yet they had nothing in common; he was always at the Kasbahor the Bardo, in attendance on the bey, paying his court to him, orelse in his counting-room; she passed her day in bed, on her head adiadem of pearls worth three hundred thousand francs, which she neverlaid aside, brutalizing herself by smoking, living as in a harem, admiring herself in the mirror, arraying herself in fine clothes, incompany with several other Levantines, whose greatest joy consisted inmeasuring with their necklaces the girth of arms and legs whichrivalled one another in corpulency, bringing forth children with whomshe never concerned herself, whom she never saw, who had never evencaused her suffering, for she was delivered under the influence ofchloroform. A "bale" of white flesh perfumed with musk. And Jansouletwould say with pride: "I married a Demoiselle Afchin!"

Under Parisian skies and in the cold light of the capital, hisdisillusionment began. Having determined to set up a regularestablishment, to receive, to give entertainments, the Nabob had sentfor his wife, in order to place her at the head of his house. But whenhe saw that mass of stiff, crackling dry-goods, of Palais-Royal finery, alight at his door, and all the extraordinary outfit that followed her, he had a vague impression of a Queen Pomare in exile. The difficultywas that he had seen some genuine women of fashion and he madecomparisons. He had planned a grand ball to celebrate her arrival, buthe prudently abstained. Indeed Madame Jansoulet refused to receive anyone. Her natural indolence was augmented by the homesickness which thecold yellow fog and the pouring rain had brought upon her as soon asshe landed. She passed several days in bed, crying aloud like a child, declaring that they had brought her to Paris to kill her, and evenrejecting the slightest attentions from her women. She lay thereroaring among her lace pillows, her hair in a tangled mass around herdiadem, the windows closed and curtains tightly drawn, lamps lightedday and night, crying out that she wanted to go away--ay, to goaway--ay; and it was a pitiful thing to see, in that tomb-likedarkness, the half-filled trunks scattered over the carpet, thefrightened gazelles, the negresses crouching around their hystericalmistress, groaning in unison, with haggard eyes, like the dogs oftravellers in polar countries which go mad when they cannot see thesun. 

The Irish doctor, upon being admitted to that distressing scene, had nosuccess with his fatherly ways, his fine superficial phrases. Not atany price would the Levantine take the pearls with arsenical base, togive tone to her system. The Nabob was horrified. What was he to do?Send her back to Tunis with the children? That was hardly possible. Hewas definitively in disgrace there. The Hemerlingues had triumphed. Alast insult had filled the measure to overflowing: on Jansoulet'sdeparture the bey had commissioned him to have several millions of goldcoined after a new pattern at the Paris Mint; then the commission hadbeen abruptly withdrawn and given to Hemerlingue. Jansoulet, beingpublicly insulted, retorted with a public manifesto, offering all hisproperty for sale, his palace on the Bardo presented to him by theformer bey, his villas at La Marse, all of white marble, surrounded bymagnificent gardens, his counting rooms, the most commodious and mostsumptuously furnished in the city, and instructing the intelligentBompain to bring his wife and children to Paris in order to put theseal of finality to his departure. After such a display, it would behard to return; that is what he tried to make Mademoiselle Afchinunderstand, but she replied only by prolonged groans. He strove tocomfort her, to amuse her, but what form of distraction could be madeto appeal to that abnormally apathetic nature? And then, could hechange the skies of Paris, give back to the wretched Levantine hermarble-tiled _patio_, where she used to pass long hours in a cool, delicious state of drowsiness, listening to the plashing of the waterin the great alabaster fountain with three basins one above the other, and her gilded boat, covered with a purple awning and rowed by eightsupple, muscular Tripolitan oarsmen over the lovely lake of El-Baheira, when the sun was setting? Sumptuous as were the apartments on PlaceVendôme, they could not supply the place of those lost treasures. Andshe plunged deeper than ever in her despair. One habitué of the housesucceeded, however, in drawing her out of it, Cabassu, who styledhimself on his cards "professor of massage;" a stout dark thick-setman, redolent of garlic and hair-oil, square-shouldered, covered withhair to his eyes, who knew stories of Parisian seraglios, trivialanecdotes within the limited range of Madame's intellect. He came onceto rub her, and she wished to see him again, detained him. He wasobliged to abandon all his other customers and to become the _masseur_of that able-bodied creature, at a salary equal to that of a senator, her page, her reader, her body-guard. Jansoulet, overjoyed to see thathis wife was contented, was not conscious of the disgusting absurdityof the intimacy. 

Cabassu was seen in the Bois, in the enormous and sumptuous calèchebeside the favorite gazelle, at the back of the theatre boxes which theLevantine hired, for she went abroad now, revivified by her masseur'streatment and determined to be amused. She liked the theatre, especially farces or melodramas. The apathy of her unwieldy body wasminimized in the false glare of the footlights. But she enjoyedCardailhac's theatre most of all. There the Nabob was at home. From thefirst manager down to the last box-opener, the whole staff belonged tohim. He had a key to the door leading from the corridor to the stage;and the salon attached to his box, decorated in Oriental fashion, withthe ceiling hollowed out like a bee-hive, divans upholstered in camel'shair, the gas-jet enclosed in a little Moorish lantern, was admirablyadapted for a nap during the tedious _entr'actes_: a delicatecompliment from the manager to his partner's wife. Nor had that monkeyof a Cardailhac stopped at that: detecting Mademoiselle Afchin's likingfor the stage, he had succeeded in persuading her that she possessed anintuitive knowledge of all things pertaining to it, and had ended byasking her to cast a glance in her leisure moments, the glance of anexpert, upon such pieces as he sent to her. An excellent way of bindingthe partnership more firmly. 

Poor manuscripts in blue or yellow covers, which hope has tied withslender ribbons, ye who take flight swelling with ambition and withdreams, who knows what hands will open you, turn your leaves, whatprying fingers will deflower your unknown charm, that shining duststored up by every new idea? Who passes judgment on you, and whocondemns you? Sometimes, before going out to dinner, Jansoulet, ongoing up to his wife's room, would find her smoking in her easy-chair, with her head thrown back and piles of manuscript by her side, andCabassu, armed with a blue pencil, reading in his hoarse voice and withhis Bourg-Saint-Andéol intonation some dramatic lucubration which hecut and slashed remorselessly at the slightest word of criticism fromthe lady. "Don't disturb yourselves, " the good Nabob's wave of the handwould say, as he entered the room on tiptoe. He would listen and nodhis head admiringly as he looked at his wife. "She's an astonishingcreature, " he would say to himself, for he knew nothing of literature, and in that direction at all events he recognized Mademoiselle Afchin'ssuperiority. 

"She had the theatrical instinct, " as Cardailhac said; but as anoffset, the maternal instinct was entirely lacking. She never gave athought to her children, abandoning them to the hands of strangers, and, when they were brought to her once a month, contenting herselfwith giving them the flabby, lifeless flesh of her cheeks to kiss, between two puffs of a cigarette, and never making inquiries concerningthe details of care and health which perpetuate the physical bond ofmotherhood, and make the true mother's heart bleed in sympathy with herchild's slightest suffering. 

They were three stout, heavy, apathetic boys, of eleven, nine, andseven years, with the Levantine's sallow complexion and prematurebloated appearance, and their father's velvety, kindly eyes. They wereas ignorant as young noblemen of the Middle Ages; in Tunis M. Bompainhad charge of their studies, but in Paris the Nabob, intent upon givingthem the benefit of a Parisian education, had placed them in the moststylish and most expensive boarding school, the Collège Bourdaloue, conducted by excellent Fathers, who aimed less at teaching their pupilsthan at moulding them into well-bred, reflecting men of the world, andwho succeeded in producing little monstrosities, affected andridiculous, scornful of play, absolutely ignorant, with no trace ofspontaneity or childishness, and despairingly pert and forward. Thelittle Jansoulets did not enjoy themselves overmuch in that hothousefor early fruits, notwithstanding the special privileges accorded totheir immense wealth; they were really too neglected. Even the Creolesin the institution had correspondents and visitors; but they were nevercalled to the parlor, nor was any relative of theirs known to theschool authorities; from time to time they received baskets ofsweetmeats or windfalls of cake, and that was all. The Nabob, as hedrove through Paris, would strip a confectioner's shop-window for theirbenefit and send the contents to the college with that affectionateimpulsiveness blended with negro-like ostentation which characterizedall his acts. It was the same with their toys, always too fine, tooelaborate, of no earthly use, the toys which are made only for show andwhich the Parisian never buys. But the thing to which above all othersthe little Jansoulets owed the respectful consideration of pupils andmasters was their well-filled purse, always ready for collections, forprofessorial entertainments, and for the charitable visits, the famousvisits inaugurated by the Collège Bourdaloue, one of the tempting itemson the programme of the institution, the admiration of impressionableminds. 

Twice a month, turn and turn about, the pupils belonging to the littleSociety of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, established at the college on themodel of the great society of that name, went in small detachments, unattended, like grown men, to carry succor and consolation to thefarthest corners of the thickly-peopled faubourgs. In that way it wassought to teach them charity by experience, the art of finding out thewretchedness, the necessities of the people and of dressing theirsores, always more or less repulsive, with a balsam of kind words andecclesiastical maxims. To console, to convert the masses by the aid ofchildhood, to disarm religious incredulity by the youth and innocenceof the apostles; such was the purpose of that little society, a purposethat failed absolutely of realization, by the way. The children, well-dressed, well-fed, in excellent health, went only to addressesdesignated beforehand and found respectable poor people, sometimes alittle ailing, but far too clean, already enrolled and relieved by therich charitable organizations of the Church. They never happened uponone of those loathsome homes, where hunger, mourning, abject poverty, all forms of misery, physical and moral, are written in filth on thewalls, in indelible wrinkles on the faces. Their visit was arranged inadvance like that of the sovereign to the guard-house to taste thesoldier's soup; the guard-house is notified and the soup seasoned forthe royal palate. Have you seen those pictures in religious books, where a little communicant, with his bow on his arm and his taper inhis hand, all combed and curled, goes to assist a poor old man lying onhis wretched pallet with the whites of his eyes turned up to the sky?These charitable visits had the same conventional stage-setting andaccent. The machine-like gestures of the little preachers with arms tooshort for the work, were answered by words learned by rote, so false asto set one's teeth on edge. The comical words of encouragement, the"consolation lavishly poured forth" in prize-book phrases by voicessuggestive of young roosters with the influenza, called forth emotionalblessings, the whining, sickening mummery of a church porch aftervespers. And as soon as the young visitors' backs were turned, what anexplosion of laughter and shouting in the garret, what a dancing aroundthe offerings brought, what an overturning of armchairs in which theyhave been feigning illness, what a pouring of boluses into the fire, afire of ashes, very artistically arranged! When the little Jansouletswent to visit their parents, they were placed in charge of the man withthe red fez, Bompain the indispensable. It was Bompain who took them tothe Champs-Élysées, arrayed in English jackets, silk hats of the lateststyle--at seven years!--and with little canes dangling from the ends oftheir dogskin gloves. It was Bompain who superintended the victuallingof the break on which he went with the children to the races, race-cards stuck in their hats around which green veils were twisted, wonderfully like the characters in lilliputian pantomimes whosecomicality consists solely in the size of their heads compared withtheir short legs and dwarfish movements. They smoked and drankoutrageously. Sometimes the man in the fez, himself hardly able tostand, brought them home horribly ill. And yet Jansoulet loved hislittle ones, especially the youngest, who, with his long hair and hisdoll-like aspect, reminded him of little Afchin in her carriage. Butthey were still at the age when children belong to the mother, whenneither a stylish tailor nor accomplished masters nor a fashionableboarding-school nor the ponies saddled for the little men in thestable, when nothing in short takes the place of the watchful andattentive hand, the warmth and gayety of the nest. The father wasunable to give them that in any event; and then he was so busy!

A thousand matters, the _Caisse Territoriale_, the arrangement ofthe picture gallery, races at Tattersall's with Bois-l'Héry, somegimcrack to go and see, here or there, at the houses of collectors towhom Schwalbach recommended him, hours passed with trainers, jockeys, dealers in curiosities, the occupied, varied existence of a bourgeoisgentleman in modern Paris. In all this going and coming he succeeded inParisianizing himself a little more each day, was admitted toMonpavon's club, made welcome in the green-room at the ballet, behindthe scenes at the theatre, and continued to preside at his famousbachelor breakfasts, the only entertainments possible in hisestablishment. His existence was really very full, and yet de Géryrelieved him from the most difficult part of it, the complicateddepartment of solicitations and contributions. 

The young man was now a witness, as he sat at his desk, of all theaudacious and burlesque inventions, all the heroi-comic schemes of thatmendicancy of a great city, organized like a ministerial department andin numbers like an army, which subscribes to the newspapers and knowsits _Bottin_ by heart. It was his business to receive the fair-hairedlady, young, brazen-faced and already faded, who asks for only ahundred louis, threatening to throw herself into the water immediatelyupon leaving the house if they are not forthcoming, and the stoutmatron, with affable, unceremonious manners, who says on entering theroom: "Monsieur, you do not know me. Nor have I the honor of knowingyou; but we shall soon know each other. Be kind enough to sit down andlet us talk. " The tradesman in difficulties, on the brink ofinsolvency--it is sometimes true--who comes to entreat you to save hishonor, with a pistol all ready for suicide bulging out the pocket ofhis coat--sometimes it is only the bowl of his pipe. And oftentimescases of genuine distress, prolix and tiresome, of people who do noteven know how to tell how unfitted they are to earn their living. Besides such instances of avowed mendicancy, there were others indisguise: charity, philanthropy, good works, encouragement of artists, house-to-house collections for children's hospitals, parish churches, penitentiaries, benevolent societies or district libraries. And lastlythose that array themselves in a worldly mask: tickets to concerts, benefit performances, tickets of all colors, "platform, front row, reserved sections. " The Nabob's orders were that no one should berefused, and it was a decided gain that he no longer attended to suchmatters in person. For a long time he had deluged all this hypocriticalscheming with gold, with lordly indifference, paying five hundredfrancs for a ticket to a concert by some Wurtemberg zither-player, orLanguedocian flutist, which would have been quoted at ten francs at theTuileries or the Due de Mora's. On some days young de Géry went outfrom these sessions actually nauseated. All his youthful honesty rosein revolt; he attempted to induce the Nabob to institute some reforms;but he, at the first word, assumed the bored expression characteristicof weak natures when called upon to give an opinion, or else repliedwith a shrug of his great shoulders: "Why this is Paris, my dear child. Don't you be alarmed, but just let me alone. I know where I'm going andwhat I want. "

He wanted two things at that time, --a seat in the Chamber of Deputiesand the cross of the Legion of Honor. In his view those were the firsttwo stages of the long ascent which his ambition impelled him toundertake. He certainly would be chosen a deputy through the _CaisseTerritoriale_, at the head of which he was. Paganetti fromPorto-Vecchio often said to him:

"When the day comes, the island will rise as one man and vote for you. "

But electors were not the only thing it was necessary to have; theremust be a vacant seat in the Chamber, and the delegation from Corsicawas full. One member, however, old Popolasca, being infirm and in nocondition to perform his duties, might be willing to resign on certainconditions. It was a delicate matter to negotiate, but quitepracticable, for the good man had a large family, estates whichproduced almost nothing, a ruined palace at Bastia, where his childrenlived on _polenta_, and an apartment at Paris, in a furnishedlodging-house of the eighteenth order. By not haggling over one or twohundred thousand francs, they might come to terms with that famishedlegislator who, when sounded by Paganetti, did not say yes or no, beingallured by the magnitude of the sum but held back by the vainglory ofhis office. The affair was in that condition and might be decided anyday. 

With regard to the Cross, the prospect was even brighter. The Work ofBethlehem had certainly created a great sensation at the Tuileries. Nothing was now wanting but M. De La Perrière's visit and his report, which could not fail to be favorable, to ensure the appearance on thelist of March 16th, the date of an imperial anniversary, of theglorious name of Jansoulet. The 16th of March, that is to say, within amonth. What would old Hemerlingue say to that signal distinction?--oldHemerlingue, who had had to be content with the Nisham for so long. Andthe bey, who had been made to believe that Jansoulet was under the banof Parisian society, and the old mother, down at Saint-Romans, who wasalways so happy over her son's successes! Was not all that worth a fewmillions judiciously distributed and strewn by that road leading torenown, along which the Nabob walked like a child, with no fear ofbeing devoured at the end? And was there not in these external joys, these honors, this dearly bought consideration, a measure ofcompensation for all the chagrins of that Oriental won back to Europeanlife, who longed for a home and had naught but a caravansary, whosought a wife and found naught but a Levantine?

VIII. 

THE WORK OF BETHLEHEM. 

Bethlehem! Why did that legendary name, sweet to the ear, warm as thestraw in the miraculous stable, give you such a cold shudder when yousaw it in gilt letters over that iron gateway? The feeling was dueperhaps to the melancholy landscape, the vast, desolate plain thatstretches from Nanterre to Saint-Cloud, broken only by an occasionalclump of trees or the smoke from some factory chimney. Perhaps, too, ina measure, to the disproportion between the humble hamlet of Judæa andthat grandiose structure, that villa in the style of Louis XIII. , builtof small stones and mortar, and showing pink through the leaflessbranches of the park, where there were several large ponds with acoating of green slime. Certain it is that on passing the place one'sheart contracted. When one entered the grounds it was much worse. Anoppressive, inexplicable silence hovered about the house, where thefaces at the windows had a depressing aspect behind the smallold-fashioned, greenish panes. The she-goats, straying along the paths, languidly cropped the first shoots of grass, with occasional "baas" inthe direction of their keeper, who seemed as bored as they, andfollowed visitors with a listless eye. There was an air of mourning, the deserted, terrified aspect of a plague-stricken spot. Yet that hadonce been an attractive, cheerful property, and there had been muchfeasting and revelry there not long before. It had been laid out forthe famous singer who had sold it to Jenkins, and it exhibited tracesof the imaginative genius peculiar to the operatic stage, in the bridgeacross the pond, where there was a sunken wherry filled withwater-soaked leaves, and in its summer-house, all of rockwork, coveredwith climbing ivy. It had seen some droll sights, had thatsummer-house, in the singer's time, and now it saw some sad ones, forthe infirmary was located there. 

To tell the truth, the whole establishment was simply one hugeinfirmary. The children fell sick as soon as they arrived, languishedand finally died unless their parents speedily removed them to the safeshelter of their homes. The curé of Nanterre went so often to Bethlehemwith his black vestments and his silver crucifix, the undertaker had somany orders for coffins for the house, that it was talked about in theneighborhood, and indignant mothers shook their fists at the modelnursery, but only at a safe distance if they happened to have in theirarms a little pink and white morsel of humanity to shelter from all thecontagions of that spot. That was what gave the miserable place such aheart-rending look. A house where children die cannot be cheerful; itis impossible for the trees to bloom there, or the birds to nest, orthe water to flow in laughing ripples of foam. 

The institution seemed to be fairly inaugurated. Jenkins' idea, excellent in theory, was extremely difficult, almost impracticable, inpractice. And yet God knows that the affair had been carried throughwith an excess of zeal as to every detail, even the most trifling, andthat all the money and attendants necessary were forthcoming. At thehead of the establishment was one of the most skilful men in theprofession, M. Pondevèz, a graduate of the Paris hospitals; andassociated with him, to take more direct charge of the children, atrustworthy woman, Madame Polge. Then there were maids and seamstressesand nurses. And how perfectly everything was arranged and systematized, from the distribution of the water through fifty faucets, to theomnibus with its driver in the Bethlehem livery, going to the stationat Rueil to meet every train, with a great jingling of bells. And themagnificent goats, goats from Thibet, with long silky coats andbursting udders. Everything was beyond praise in the organization ofthe establishment; but there was one point at which everything went topieces. This artificial nursing, so belauded in the prospectus, did notagree with the children. It was a strange obstinacy, as if theyconspired together with a glance, the poor little creatures, for theywere too young to speak--most of them were destined never to speak--"Ifyou say so, we won't suck the goats. " And they did not, they preferredto die one after another rather than to suck them. Was Jesus ofBethlehem nursed by a goat in his stable? Did he not, on the contrary, nestle against a woman's breast, soft and full, on which he fell asleepwhen his thirst was satisfied? Who ever saw a goat among the legendaryoxen and asses on that night when the beasts spoke? In that case, whylie, why call it Bethlehem?

The manager was touched at first by so many deaths. This Pondevèz, awaif and estray of the life of the Quarter, a twentieth year studentwell known in all the fruit-shops of Boulevard Saint-Michel under thename of Pompon, was not a bad man. When he realized the failure ofartificial nursing, he simply hired four or five buxom nurses in theneighborhood, and nothing more was needed to revive the children'sappetites. That humane impulse was near costing him his place. 

"Nurses at Bethlehem, " said Jenkins in a rage, when he came to pay hisweekly visit. "Are you mad? Upon my word! why the goats then, and thelawns to feed them, and my idea, and the pamphlets about my idea? Whatbecomes of all these? Why, you're going against my system, you'restealing the founder's money. "

"But, my dear master, " the student tried to reply, passing his handsthrough his long red beard, "but--as they don't like that food--"

"Very well! let them go hungry, but let the principle of artificialnursing be respected. Everything depends on that. I don't wish to haveto tell you so again. Send away those horrible nurses. For bringing upour children we have goat's milk and cow's milk in a great emergency;but I can't concede anything beyond that. "

He added, with his apostolic air:

"We are here to demonstrate a grand philanthropic idea. It musttriumph, even at the cost of some sacrifices. Look to it. "

Pondevèz did not insist. After all, it was a good place, near enough toParis to permit descents upon Nanterre from the Quarter on Sunday, or avisit by the manager to his favorite breweries. Madame Polge--whomJenkins always called "our intelligent overseer, " and whom he had infact placed there to oversee everything, the manager first of all--wasnot so austere as her duties would lead one to believe, and readilyyielded to the charm of a _petit verre_ or two of "right cognac, " orto a game of bezique for fifteen hundred points. So he dismissed thenurses and tried to harden himself against whatever might happen. Whatdid happen? A genuine Massacre of the Innocents. So that the fewparents who were possessed of any means at all, mechanics or tradesmenof the faubourgs, who had been tempted by the advertisements to partwith their children, speedily took them away, and there remained in theestablishment only the wretched little creatures picked up underporches or in the fields, or sent by the hospitals, and doomed fromtheir birth to all manner of ills. As the mortality constantlyincreased, even that source of supply failed, and the omnibus that haddeparted at full speed for the railway station returned as light andspringy as an empty hearse. How could that state of affairs last? Howlong would it take to kill off the twenty-five or thirty little oneswho were left? That is what the manager, or, as he had christenedhimself, the register of deaths, Pondevèz, was wondering one morningafter breakfast, as he sat opposite Madame Polge's venerable curls, taking a hand at that lady's favorite game. 

"Yes, my dear Madame Polge, what is to become of us? Things cannot goon long like this. Jenkins won't give in, the children are as obstinateas mules. There's no gainsaying it, they'll all pass out of our hands. There's that little Wallachian--I mark the king, Madame Polge--who maydie any minute. Poor little brat, just think, it's three days sinceanything went into his stomach. I don't care what Jenkins says; youcan't improve children, like snails, by starving them. It's adistressing thing not to be able to save a single one. The infirmaryhasn't unlimited capacity. In all earnestness this is a pitifulbusiness. Bezique, forty. "

Two strokes of the bell at the main entrance interrupted his monologue. The omnibus was returning from the station and its wheels ground intothe gravel in unaccustomed fashion. 

"What an astonishing thing!" said Pondevèz, "the carriage isn't empty. "

In truth the vehicle drew up at the steps with a certain pride, and theman who alighted crossed the threshold at a bound. It was an expressfrom Jenkins with important news; the doctor would be there in twohours to inspect the asylum, with the Nabob and a gentleman from theTuileries. He gave strict injunctions that everything should be readyfor their reception. The plan was formed so suddenly that he had nothad time to write; but he relied on M. Pondevèz to make the necessaryarrangements. 

"Deuce take him and his necessary arrangements! muttered Pondevèz indismay. It was a critical situation. That momentous visit came at theworst possible moment, when the system was rapidly going to pieces. Poor Pompon, in dire perplexity, tugged at his beard and gnawed theends of it. 

"Come, come, " he said abruptly to Madame Polge, whose long face hadgrown still longer between her false curls. "There is only one thingfor us to do. We must clear out the infirmary, carry all the sick onesinto the dormitory. They'll be no better nor worse for spending half aday there. As for the scrofulous ones, we'll just put them out ofsight. They're too ugly, we won't show them. Come, off we go! all handson deck!"

The dinner-bell rang the alarm and everybody hurried to the spot. Seamstresses, nurses, maid-servants, came running from every side, jostling one another in the corridors, hurrying across the yards. Orders flew hither and thither, and there was a great calling andshouting; but above all the other noises soared the noise of a grandscrubbing, of rushing water, as if Bethlehem had been surprised by aconflagration. And the wailing of sick children torn from their warmbeds, all the whimpering little bundles carried through the damp park, with a fluttering of bedclothes among the branches, strengthened theimpression of a fire. In two hours, thanks to the prodigious activitydisplayed, the whole house from top to bottom was ready for theimpending visit, all the members of the staff at their posts, the firelighted in the stove, the goats scattered picturesquely through thepark. Madame Polge had put on her green dress, the manager's attire wasa little less slovenly than usual, but so simple as to exclude any ideaof premeditation. Let the Empress's secretary come!

And here he is. 

He alights with Jenkins and Jansoulet from a magnificent carriage withthe Nabob's red and gold livery. Feigning the utmost astonishment, Pondevèz rushes forward to meet his visitors. 

"Ah! Monsieur Jenkins, what an honor! What a surprise!"

Salutations are exchanged on the stoop, reverences, handshakings, introductions. Jenkins, his coat thrown back from his loyal breast, indulges in his heartiest, most engaging smile; but a meaning furrowlies across his brow. He is anxious concerning the surprises that theestablishment may have in store, for he knows its demoralizedcondition. If only Pondevèz has taken proper precautions! It beginswell, however. The somewhat theatrical aspect of the approach to thehouse, the white fleeces gambolling among the shrubbery, have enchantedM. De La Perrière, who, with his innocent eyes, his straggling whitebeard and the constant nodding of his head, is not himself unlike agoat escaped from its tether. 

"First of all, messieurs, the most important room in the house, theNursery, " says the manager, opening a massive door at the end of thereception-room. The gentlemen follow him, descend a few steps and findthemselves in an enormous basement room, with tiled floor, formerly thekitchen of the château. The thing that impresses one on entering is ahuge, high fireplace of the old pattern, in red brick, with two stonebenches facing each other under the mantel, and the singer's crest--animmense lyre with a roll of music--carved on the monumental pediment. The effect was striking; but there came from it a terrible blast ofair, which, added to the cold of the floor, to the pale light fallingthrough the windows on a level with the ground, made one shudder forthe well-being of the children. What would you have? They were obligedto use that unhealthy apartment for the Nursery because of thecapricious, country-bred nurses who were accustomed to theunconstrained manners of the stable; one had only to see the pools ofmilk, the great reddish spots drying on the floor, to inhale the acridodor that assailed your nostrils as you entered, mingled with whey andmoist hair and many other things, to be convinced of that absolutenecessity. 

The dark walls of the room were so high that at first the visitorsthought that the Nursery was deserted. They distinguished, however, atthe farther end, a bleating, whining, restless group. Two countrywomen, with surly, brutish, dirty faces, two "dry-nurses, " who well deservedtheir name, were sitting on mats with their nurslings in their arms, each having a large goat before her, with legs apart and distendedudders. The manager seemed to be agreeably surprised:

"On my word, messieurs, this is a lucky chance. Two of our children arehaving a little lunch. We will see how nurses and nurslings agree. "

"What's the matter with the man? He is mad, " said Jenkins to himself, in dire dismay. 

But the manager was very clear-headed, on the contrary, and had himselfshrewdly arranged the scene, selecting two patient, good-naturedbeasts, and two exceptional subjects, two little idiots who weredetermined to live at any price, and opened their mouths to nourishmentof any sort, like little birds still in the nest. 

"Come, messieurs, and see for yourselves. "

The cherubs were really nursing. One of them, cuddled under the goat'sbelly, went at it so heartily that you could hear the _glou-glou_ ofthe warm milk as it went down, down into his little legs, whichquivered with satisfaction. The other, more calm, lay indolently in hisAuvergnat nurse's lap, and required some little encouragement from her. 

"Come, suck, I tell you, suck, _bougri_!"

At last, as if he had formed a sudden resolution, he began to drink sogreedily that the woman, surprised by his abnormal appetite, leanedover him and exclaimed, with a laugh;

"Ah! the scamp, what a mischievous trick! it's his thumb he's suckinginstead of the goat. "

He had thought of that expedient, the angel, to induce them to leavehim in peace. The incident produced no ill effect; on the contrary, M. De La Perrière was much amused at the nurse's idea that the child hadtried to play a trick on them. He left the Nursery highly delighted. "Positively de-de-delighted, " he repeated as they ascended the grandechoing staircase, decorated with stags' antlers, which led to thedormitory. 

Very light and airy was that great room, occupying the whole of oneside of the house, with numerous windows, cradles at equal intervals, with curtains as white and fleecy as clouds. Women were passing to andfro in the broad passage-way in the centre, with piles of linen intheir arms, keys in their hands, overseers or "movers. " Here they hadtried to do too much, and the first impression of the visitors wasunfavorable. All that white muslin, that waxed floor, in which thelight shone without blending, the clean window-panes reflecting thesky, which wore a gloomy look at sight of such things, brought out moredistinctly the thinness, the sickly pallor of those littleshroud-colored, moribund creatures. Alas! the oldest were but sixmonths, the youngest barely a fortnight, and already, upon all thosefaces, those embryotic faces, there was an expression of disgust, anoldish, dogged look, a precocity born of suffering, visible in thenumberless wrinkles on those little bald heads, confined in linen capsedged with tawdry hospital lace. From what did they suffer? Whatdisease had they? They had everything, everything that one can have;diseases of children and diseases of adults. Offspring of poverty andvice, they brought into the world when they were born ghastly phenomenaof heredity. One had a cleft palate, another great copper-coloredblotches on his forehead, and all were covered with humor. And thenthey were starving to death. Notwithstanding the spoonfuls of milk andsugared water that were forced into their mouths, and thesucking-bottle that was used more or less in spite of the prohibition, they were dying of inanition. Those poor creatures, exhausted beforethey were born, needed the freshest, the most strengthening food; thegoats might perhaps have supplied it, but they had sworn not to suckthe goats. And that was what made the dormitory lugubrious and silent, without any of the little outbursts of anger emphasized by clenchedfists, without any of the shrieks that show the even red gums, wherebythe child makes trial of his strength and of his lungs; only anoccasional plaintive groan, as if the soul were tossing and turningrestlessly in a little diseased body, unable to find a place to rest. 

Jenkins and the manager, noticing the unfavorable impression producedupon their guests by the visit to the dormitory, tried to enliven thesituation by talking very loud, with a good-humored, frank, well-satisfied manner. Jenkins shook hands warmly with the overseer. 

"Well, Madame Polge, are our little pupils getting on?"

"As you see, Monsieur le Docteur, " she replied, pointing to the beds. 

Very funereal in her green dress was tall Madame Polge, the ideal ofdry nurses; she completed the picture. 

But where had the Empress's secretary gone? He was standing by acradle, which he was scrutinizing sadly, shaking his head. 

"_Bigre de Bigre!_" whispered Pompon to Madame Polge. "It's theWallachian. "

The little blue card, hanging above the cradle as in hospitals, setforth the nationality of the child within: "Moldo-Wallachian. " Whatcursed luck that Monsieur le Secrétaire's eye should happen to lightupon him! Oh! the poor little head lying on the pillow, with cap allawry, nostrils contracted, lips parted by a short, panting breath, thebreath of those who are just born and of those who are about to die. 

"Is he ill?" the secretary softly asked the manager, who had drawnnear. 

"Not in the least, " replied the audacious Pompon, and he walked to thecradle, poked the little one playfully with his finger, rearranged thepillow, and said in a hearty, affectionate voice, albeit a littleroughly: "Well, old fellow?" Roused from his stupor, emerging from thetorpor which already enveloped him, the little fellow opened his eyesand looked at the faces bending over him, with sullen indifference, then, returning to his dream which he deemed more attractive, clenchedhis little wrinkled hands and heaved an inaudible sigh. Oh! mystery!Who can say for what purpose that child was born? To suffer two monthsand to go away without seeing or understanding anything, before anyonehad heard the sound of his voice!

"How pale he is!" muttered M. De La Perrière, himself as pale as death. The Nabob, too, was as white as a sheet. A cold breath had passed overthem. The manager assumed an indifferent air. 

"It's the reflection. We all look green. "

"To be sure--to be sure, " said Jenkins, "it's the reflection of thepond. Just come and look, Monsieur le Secrétaire. " And he led him tothe window to point out the great sheet of water in which the willowsdipped their branches, while Madame Polge hastily closed the curtainsof his cradle upon the little Wallachian's never-ending dream. 

They must proceed quickly to inspect other portions of theestablishment in order to do away with that unfortunate impression. 

First they show M. De La Perrière the magnificent laundry, withpresses, drying machines, thermometers, huge closets of polished walnutfull of caps and nightgowns, tied together and labelled by dozens. Whenthe linen was well warmed the laundress passed it out through a littlewicket in exchange for the number passed in by the nurse. As you see, the system was perfect, and everything, even to the strong smell oflye, combined to give the room a healthy, country-like aspect. Therewere garments enough there to clothe five hundred children. That wasthe capacity of Bethlehem, and everything was provided on that basis:the vast dispensary, gleaming with glass jars and Latin inscriptions, with marble pestles in every corner; the hydropathic arrangements withthe great stone tanks, the shining tubs, the immense apparatustraversed by pipes of all lengths for the ascending and descending_douches_, in showers, in jets, and in whip-like streams; and thekitchens fitted out with superb graduated copper kettles, witheconomical coal and gas ovens. Jenkins had determined to make it amodel establishment; and it was an easy matter for him, for he hadworked on a grand scale, as one works when funds are abundant. Onecould feel everywhere, too, the experience and the iron hand of "ourintelligent overseer, " to whom the manager could not forbear to dopublic homage. That was the signal for general congratulations. M. DeLa Perrière, delighted with the equipment of the establishment, congratulated Dr. Jenkins upon his noble creation, Jenkinscongratulated his friend Pondevèz, who in his turn thanked thesecretary for having condescended to honor Bethlehem with a visit. Thegood Nabob chimed in with that concert of laudation and had a pleasantword for every one, but was somewhat astonished all the same that noone congratulated him too, while they were about it. To be sure, thebest of all congratulations awaited him on the 16th of March at thehead of the _Journal Officiel_, in a decree which gleamed before hiseyes in anticipation and made him squint in the direction of hisbuttonhole. 

These pleasant words were exchanged as they walked through a longcorridor where their sententious phrases were repeated by the echoes;but suddenly a horrible uproar arrested their conversation and theirfootsteps. It was like the miaouwing of frantic cats, the bellowing ofwild bulls, the howling of savages dancing the war-dance--a frightfultempest of human yells, repeated and increased in volume and prolongedby the high, resonant arches. It rose and fell, stopped suddenly, thenbegan again with extraordinary intensity. The manager was disturbed, and started to make inquiries. Jenkins' eyes were inflamed with rage. 

"Let us go on, " said the manager, really alarmed this time; "I knowwhat it is. "

He did know what it was; but M. De La Perrière proposed to know, too, and before Pondevèz could raise his hand, he pushed open the heavy doorof the room whence that fearful concert proceeded. 

In a vile kennel which the grand scouring had passed by, for they hadno idea of exhibiting it, some half score little monstrosities laystretched on mattresses laid side by side on the floor, under theguardianship of a chair unoccupied save by an unfinished piece ofknitting, and a little cracked kettle, full of hot wine, boiling over asmoking wood fire. They were the leprous, the scrofulous, the outcastsof Bethlehem, who had been hidden away in that retired corner--withinjunctions to their dry nurse to amuse them, to pacify them, to sit onthem if necessary, so that they should not cry--but whom that stupid, inquisitive countrywoman had left to themselves while she went to lookat the fine carriage standing in the courtyard. When her back wasturned the urchins soon wearied of their horizontal position; and allthe little, red-faced, blotched _croûte-levés_ lifted up their robustvoices in concert, for they, by some miracle, were in good health, their very disease saved and nourished them. As wild and squirming ascockchafers thrown on their backs, struggling to rise with the aid ofknees and elbows, --some unable to recover their equilibrium afterfalling on their sides, others sitting erect, bewildered, their littlelegs wrapped in swaddling-clothes, they spontaneously ceased theirwrithings and their cries when they saw the door open; but M. De LaPerrière's shaking beard reassured them, encouraged them to freshefforts, and in the renewed uproar the manager's explanation was almostinaudible: "Children that are kept secluded--contagion--skin diseases. "Monsieur le Secrétaire inquired no farther; less heroic than Bonapartewhen he visited the plague-stricken wretches at Jaffa, he rushed to thedoor, and in his confusion and alarm, anxious to say something andunable to think of anything appropriate, he murmured, with an ineffablesmile: "They are cha-arming. "

The inspection concluded, they all assembled in the salon on the groundfloor, where Madame Polge had prepared a little collation. The cellarsof Bethlehem were well stocked. The sharp air of the high land, thegoing upstairs and downstairs had given the old gentleman from theTuileries such an appetite as he had not had for many a day, so that hetalked and laughed with true rustic good-fellowship, and when they wereall standing, the visitors being about to depart, he raised his glass, shaking his head the while, to drink this toast: "To Be-Be-Bethlehem!"

The others were much affected, there was a clinking of glasses, andthen the carriage bore the party swiftly along the avenue of lindens, where a cold, red, rayless sun was setting. Behind them the parkrelapsed into its gloomy silence. Great dark shadows gathered at thefoot of the hedges, invaded the house, crept stealthily along the pathsand across their intersections. Soon everything was in darkness savethe ironical letters over the entrance gate, and, at a window on theground-floor, a flickering red glimmer, the flame of a taper burning bythe pillow of the dead child. 

 "_By decree of March 12, 1865, promulgated at the recommendation of the Minister of the Interior, Monsieur le Docteur Jenkins, founder and president of the Work of Bethlehem, is appointed chevalier of the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honor. Exemplary devotion to the cause of humanity. _"

When he read these lines on the first page of the _Journal Officiel_, on the morning of the 16th, the poor Nabob had an attack of vertigo. 

Was it possible?

Jenkins decorated and not he!

He read the announcement twice, thinking that his eyes must havedeceived him. There was a buzzing in his ears. The letters, two ofeach, danced before his eyes with the red circles caused by looking atthe sun. He had been so certain of seeing his name in that place; andJenkins--only the day before--had said to him so confidently: "It isall settled!" that it still seemed to him that he must be mistaken. Butno, it was really Jenkins. It was a deep, heart-sickening, propheticblow, like a first warning from destiny, and was the more keenly feltbecause, for years past, the man had been unaccustomed todisappointments, had lived above humanity. All the good that there wasin him learned at that moment to be distrustful. 

"Well, " he said to de Géry, entering his room, as he did every morning, and surprising him with the paper in his hand and evidently deeplymoved, "I suppose you have seen, --my name is not in the _Officiel_?"

He tried to smile, his features distorted like those of a childstruggling to restrain his tears. Then, suddenly, with the franknessthat was so attractive in him, he added: "This makes me feel verybadly, --I expected too much. "

As he spoke, the door opened and Jenkins rushed into the room, breathless, panting, intensely agitated. 

"It's an outrage--a horrible outrage. It cannot, shall not be. "

The words rushed tumultuously to his lips, all trying to come out atonce; then he seemed to abandon the attempt to express his thoughts andthrew upon the table a little shagreen box and a large envelope, bothbearing the stamp of the chancellor's office. 

"There are my cross and my letters patent, " he said. "They are yours, my friend, I cannot keep them. "

In reality that did not mean much. Jansoulet arraying himself inJenkins' ribbon would speedily be punished for unlawfully wearing adecoration. But a _coup de théâtre_ is not necessarily logical; thisparticular one led to an effusion of sentiment, embraces, a generouscombat between the two men, the result being that Jenkins restored theobjects to his pocket, talking about protests, letters to thenewspapers. The Nabob was obliged to stop him again. 

"Do nothing of the kind, you rascal. In the first place, it wouldstand in my way another time. Who knows? perhaps on the 15th of nextAugust--"

"Oh! I never thought of that, " cried Jenkins, jumping at the idea. Heput forth his arm, as in David's _Serment_: "I swear it by my sacredhonor!"

The subject dropped there. At breakfast the Nabob did not refer to itand was as cheerful as usual. His good humor lasted through the day;and de Géry, to whom that scene had been a revelation of the realJenkins, an explanation of the satirical remarks and restrained wrathof Felicia Ruys when she spoke of the doctor, asked himself to nopurpose how he could open his dear master's eyes concerning thatscheming hypocrite. He should have known, however, that the men of theSouth, all effusiveness on the surface, are never so utterly blind, sodeluded as to resist the wise results of reflection. That evening theNabob opened a shabby little portfolio, badly worn at the corners, inwhich for ten years past he had manoeuvred his millions, minuting hisprofits and his expenses in hieroglyphics comprehensible to himselfalone. He calculated for a moment, then turned to de Géry. 

"Do you know what I am doing, my dear Paul?" he asked. 

"No, monsieur. "

"I have just been reckoning"--and his mocking glance, eloquent of hisSouthern origin, belied his good-humored smile--"I have just beenreckoning that I have spent four hundred and thirty thousand francs toobtain that decoration for Jenkins. "

Four hundred and thirty thousand francs! And the end was not yet. 

IX. 

GRANDMAMMA. 

Three times a week, in the evening, Paul de Géry appeared to take hislesson in bookkeeping in the Joyeuse dining-room, not far from thesmall salon where the little family had burst upon him at his firstvisit; so that, while he was being initiated into all the mysteries of"debit and credit, " with his eyes fixed on his white-cravatedinstructor, he listened in spite of himself to the faint sounds of thetoilsome evening on the other side of the door, longing for the visionof all those pretty heads bending over around the lamp. M. Joyeusenever mentioned his daughters. As jealous of their charms as a dragonstanding guard over lovely princesses in a tower, aroused to vigilanceby the fanciful imaginings of his doting affection, he replied drylyenough to his pupil's questions concerning "the young ladies, " so thatthe young man ceased to mention them to him. He was surprised, however, that he never happened to see this "Grandmamma" whose name recurredconstantly in M. Joyeuse's conversation upon every subject, in the mosttrivial details of his existence, hovering over the house like thesymbol of its perfect orderliness and tranquillity. 

Such extreme reserve, on the part of a venerable lady, who in allprobability had passed the age at which the adventurous spirit of ayoung man is to be feared, seemed to him exaggerated. But the lessonswere very practical, given in very clear language, and the professorhad an excellent method of demonstration, marred by a single fault, ahabit of relapsing into fits of silence, broken by starts andinterjections that went off like bombs. Outside of that he was the bestof masters, intelligent, patient and faithful. Paul learned to find hisway through the complicated labyrinth of books of account and resignedhimself to the necessity of asking nothing further. 

One evening, about nine o'clock, as the young man rose to go, M. Joyeuse asked him if he would do him the honor to take a cup of tea_en famille_, a custom of the time of Madame Joyeuse, born Saint-Amand, who used to receive her friends on Thursdays. Since her death, and thechange in their financial position, their friends had scattered; butthey had retained that little "weekly extra. " Paul having accepted, thegood man opened the door and called:

"Grandmamma. "

A light step in the hall and a face of twenty years, surrounded by animbus of abundant, fluffy brown hair, abruptly made its appearance. DeGéry looked at M. Joyeuse with an air of stupefaction:

"Grandmamma?"

"Yes, it's a name we gave her when she was a little girl. With herfrilled cap, and her authoritative older-sister expression, she had afunny little face, so wise-looking. We thought that she looked like hergrandmother. The name has clung to her. "

From the worthy man's tone, it was evident that to him it was the mostnatural thing in the world, that grandmotherly title bestowed upon suchattractive youth. Every one in the household thought as he did, and theother Joyeuse girls, who ran to their father and grouped themselvesabout him somewhat as in the show-case on the ground-floor, and the oldservant, who brought and placed upon the table in the salon, whitherthey had adjourned, a magnificent tea-service, a relic of the formersplendor of the establishment, all called the girl "Grandmamma, " nordid she once seem to be annoyed by it, for the influence of thatblessed name imparted to the affection of them all a touch of deferencethat flattered her and gave to her imaginary authority a singularattractiveness, as of a protecting hand. 

It may have been because of that title, which he had learned to cherishin his infancy, but de Géry found an indescribable fascination in thegirl. It did not resemble the sudden blow he had received from another, full in the heart, the perturbation mingled with a longing to fly, toescape an obsession, and the persistent melancholy peculiar to the dayafter a fête, extinguished candles, refrains that have died away, perfumes vanished in the darkness. No, in the presence of that younggirl, as she stood looking over the family table, making sure thatnothing was lacking, letting her loving, sparkling eyes rest upon herchildren, her little children, he was assailed by a temptation to knowher, to be to her as an old friend, to confide to her things that heconfessed to none but himself; and when she offered him his cup, withno worldly airs, no society affectations, he would have liked to saylike the others a "Thanks, Grandmamma, " in which he might put his wholeheart. 

Suddenly a cheery, vigorous knock made everybody jump. 

"Ah! there's Monsieur André. Quick, Élise, a cup. Yaia, the littlecakes. " Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Henriette, the third of the Joyeusegirls, --who had inherited from her mother, born Saint-Amand, a certainworldly side, --in view of the crowded condition of the salons thatevening, rushed to light the two candles on the piano. 

"My fifth act is done, " cried the newcomer, as he entered the room; thenhe stopped short. "Ah! excuse me, " and his face took on a discomfitedexpression at sight of the stranger. M. Joyeuse introduced them toeach other: "Monsieur Paul de Géry--Monsieur André Maranne, "--notwithout a certain solemnity of manner. He remembered his wife'sreceptions long ago; and the vases on the mantel, the two great lamps, the work-table, the armchairs arranged in a circle, seemed to sharethe illusion, to shine brighter as if rejuvenated by that unusualthrong. 

"So your play is finished?"

"Finished, Monsieur Joyeuse, and I mean to read it to you one of thesedays. "

"Oh! yes, Monsieur André. Oh! yes, " said all the girls in chorus. 

Their neighbor wrote for the stage and no one of them entertained adoubt of his success. Photography held out less promise of profit, youknow. Customers were very rare, the passers-by disinclined to patronizehim. To keep his hand in and get his new apparatus into working order, Monsieur André was taking his friends again every Sunday, the familylending themselves for his experiments with unequalled good-humor, forthe prosperity of that inchoate, suburban industry was a matter ofpride to them all, arousing, even in the girls, that touching sentimentof fraternity which presses the humblest destinies together as closelyas sparrows on the edge of a roof. But André Maranne, with theinexhaustible resources of his high forehead, stored with illusions, explained without bitterness the indifference of the public. Either theweather was unfavorable or else every one complained of the wretchedcondition of business, and he ended always with the same consolingrefrain: "Wait until _Révolte_ has been acted!" _Révolte_ was the titleof his play. 

"It's a surprising thing, " said the fourth of the Joyeuse girls, achild of twelve with her hair in a pigtail, "it's a surprising thingthat you do so little business with such a splendid balcony!"

"And then there's a great deal of passing through the quarter, " addedÉlise confidently. Grandmamma smilingly reminded her that there waseven more on Boulevard des Italiens. 

"Ah! if it were Boulevard des Italiens--" said M. Joyeuse dreamily, and away he went on his chimera, which was suddenly brought to astand-still by a gesture and these words, uttered in a piteous tone:"closed because of failure. " In an instant the terrible _Imaginaire_had installed his friend in a splendid apartment on the boulevard, where he earned an enormous amount of money, increasing his expensesat the same time so disproportionately, that a loud "_pouf_" swallowedup photographer and photography in a few months. They laughed heartilywhen he gave that explanation; but they all agreed that RueSaint-Ferdinand, although less showy, was much more reliable thanBoulevard des Italiens. Moreover, it was very near the Bois deBoulogne, and if the fashionable world should once begin to pass thatway--That fashionable society which her mother so affected wasMademoiselle Henriette's fixed idea; and she was amazed that thethought of receiving _high-life_ in his little fifth-floor studio, about as large as a diving-bell, should make their neighbor laugh. Why, only a week or two before, a carriage came there with servants inlivery. Sometimes, too, he had had a "very swell" visitor. 

"Oh! a real great lady, " Grandmamma chimed in. "We were at the windowwaiting for father. We saw her leave the carriage and look at theframe; we thought surely she came to see you. "

"She did come to see me, " said André, a little embarrassed. 

"For a moment we were afraid she would go on as so many others do, onaccount of your five flights. So we all four did our best to stop her, to magnetize her with our four pairs of wide-open eyes. We pulled hervery gently by the feathers in her hat and the lace on her cape. 'Comeupstairs, pray, madame, pray come upstairs, ' and finally she came. There is so much magnetism in eyes that want a thing very much!"

Surely she had magnetism enough, the dear creature, not only in hereyes, which were of uncertain hue, veiled or laughing like the sky ofher Paris, but in her voice, in the folds of her dress, in everything, even to the long curl that shaded her straight, graceful statue-likeneck and attracted you by its tapering shaded point, deftly curled overa supple finger. 

The tea being duly served, while the gentlemen continued their talkingand drinking--Père Joyeuse was always very slow in everything that hedid, because of his abrupt excursions into the moon--the girls resumedtheir work, the table was covered with wicker baskets, embroidery, pretty wools whose brilliant coloring brightened the faded flowers inthe old carpet, and the group of the other evening was formed anew inthe luminous circle of the lamp shade, to the great satisfaction ofPaul de Géry. It was the first evening of that sort he had passed inParis; it reminded him of other far-away evenings, cradled by the sameinnocent mirth, the pleasant sound of scissors laid upon the table, ofthe needle piercing the cotton, or the rustling of the leaves of a bookas they are turned, and dear faces, vanished forever, clustered in thesame way around the family lamp, alas! so suddenly extinguished. 

Once admitted into that charming domestic circle, he was not excludedfrom it again, but took his lessons among the girls, and made bold totalk with them when the good man closed his ledger. There everythingtended to give him grateful repose from the seething life in which theNabob's luxurious worldliness involved him; he bathed in thatatmosphere of honesty and simplicity, and strove to cure there thewounds with which a hand more indifferent than cruel was mercilesslyriddling his heart. 

 * * *

"Women have hated me, other women have loved me. She who did me themost harm never had either love or hate for me. " Paul had fallen in, with the woman of whom Heinrich Heine speaks. Felicia was veryhospitable and cordial to him. There was no one whom she welcomed moregraciously. She reserved for him a special smile, in which there wasthe pleased expression of an artist's eye resting upon a type whichattracts it, and the satisfaction of a _blasé_ mind which is amused byanything new, however simple it may seem to be. She liked that reserve, most alluring in a Southerner, the straightforwardness of thatjudgment, entirely free from artistic or worldly formulas and enlivenedby a touch of local accent. It was a change for her from the zigzagmovement of the thumb, drawing flattery in outline with the gestures ofa studio fag, from the congratulations of comrades on the way in whichshe silenced some poor fellow, and from the affected admiration, the"chawming--veay pretty, " with which the young dandies honored her asthey sucked the handles of their canes. He, at all events, said nothingof that sort to her. She had nicknamed him Minerva, because of hisapparent tranquillity and the regularity of his profile; and as soon ashe appeared, she would say: "Ah! there's Minerva. Hail, lovely Minerva. Take off your helmet and let us have a talk. "

But that familiar, almost fraternal, tone convinced the young man ofthe hopelessness of his love. He realized that he could not hope tomake any further progress in that feminine good-fellowship in whichaffection was lacking, and that he should lose something every day ofhis charm as an unfamiliar type in the eyes of that creature who wasborn bored, and who seemed to have lived her life already and to findthe insipidity of repetition in everything that she heard or saw. Felicia was suffering from ennui. Only her art had the power to diverther, to take her out of herself, to transport her to a fairyland ofdazzling beauty from which she returned all bruised and sore, alwayssurprised at the awakening, which resembled a fall. She comparedherself to the jelly-fish, whose transparent brilliancy in the coolnessand constant movement of the waves, vanishes on the shore in littlegelatinous pools. During those intervals of idleness, when the absenceof thought leaves the hand inert upon the modelling tool, Felicia, deprived of the sole moral nerve of her intellect, became savage, unapproachable, sullen beyond endurance, --the revenge of paltry humanqualities upon great tired brains. After she had brought tears to theeyes of all those whom she loved, had striven to evoke painful memoriesor paralyzing anxieties, and had reached the brutal, murderous climaxof her fatigue, --as it was always necessary, where she was concerned, that something ridiculous should be mingled even with the saddestthings, she would blow away the remains of her ennui with a cry likethat of a dazed wild beast, a sort of yawning roar which she called"the cry of the jackal in the desert, " and which would drive the bloodfrom the excellent Crenmitz's cheeks, taking her by surprise in hertorpid placidity. 

Poor Felicia! Her life was in very truth a ghastly desert when her artdid not enliven it with its visions, a dismal, unrelieved desert, whereeverything was crushed and flattened beneath the same monotonousimmensity, the ingenuous love of a boy of twenty and the caprice of anamorous duke, where everything was covered with dry sand blown about bythe scorching winds of destiny. Paul was conscious of that void, hetried to escape from it; but something detained him, like a weightwhich unwinds a chain, and, notwithstanding the evil things he heard, notwithstanding the strange creature's peculiarities, he hovered abouther with a delicious sense of enjoyment, under pain of carrying naughtaway from that long amorous contemplation save the despair of abeliever reduced to the adoration of images. 

The place of refuge was in yonder out-of-the-way quarter, where thewind blew so hard without preventing the flame from burning white andstraight, --it was in the domestic circle presided over by Grandmamma. Oh! she did not suffer from ennui, she never uttered "the cry of thejackal in the desert. " Her life was too well filled: the father tocomfort and encourage, the children to teach, all the material cares ofa household in which the mother was lacking, the engrossing thoughtswhich wake with the dawn and which the night puts to sleep, unless itrenews them in dreams--one of those instances of indefatigable butapparently effortless devotion, very convenient for poor humanselfishness, because it dispenses with all gratitude and hardly makesitself felt, its touch is so light. She was not one of the courageousgirls who work to support their parents, give lessons from morning tonight and forget the annoyances of the household in the excitement ofan engrossing occupation. No, she had formed a different conception ofher duty, she was a sedentary bee confining her labors to the hive, with no buzzing around outside in the fresh air and among the flowers. A thousand and one functions to perform: tailor, milliner, mender, keeper of accounts as well, --for M. Joyeuse, being incapable of anysort of responsibility, left the disposition of the family fundsabsolutely in her hands, --teacher and music mistress. 

As is often the case in families which were originally in comfortablecircumstances, Aline, being the eldest, had been educated in one of thebest boarding-schools in Paris, Élise had remained there two years withher; but the two younger ones, having come too late, had been sent tolittle day-schools in the quarter and had all their studies tocomplete; and it was no easy matter, for the youngest laughed on everypretext, an exuberant, healthy, youthful laugh, like the warbling of alark drunken on green wheat, and flew away out of sight of desk andsymbols, while Mademoiselle Henriette, always haunted by her ideas ofgrandeur, her love of "the substantial, " was none too eager for study. That young person of fifteen, to whom her father had bequeathedsomething of his imaginative faculty, was already arranging her life inanticipation, and declared formally that she should marry some one ofbirth and should never have more than three children: "A boy for thename, and two little girls--so that I can dress them alike. "

"Yes, that's right, " Grandmamma would say, "you shall dress them alike. Meanwhile, let us see about our participles. "

But the most troublesome of all was Élise with her thrice unsuccessfulexamination in history, always rejected and preparing herself anew, subject to attacks of profound terror and self-distrust which led herto carry that unfortunate handbook of French history with her wherevershe went, and to open it at every instant, in the omnibus, in thestreet, even at the breakfast table; but, being already a young womanand very pretty, she no longer had the mechanical memory of childhoodin which dates and events are incrusted forever. Amid her otherpreoccupations the lesson would fly away in a moment, despite thepupil's apparent application, her long lashes concealing her eyes, hercurls sweeping the page, and her rosy mouth twitching slightly at thecorners as she repeated again and again: "Louis le Hutin, 1314-1316. Philippe V, le Long, 1316-1322--1322. --Oh! Grandmamma, I am lost. Ishall never learn them. " Thereupon Grandmamma would take a hand, helpher to fix her attention, to store away some of those barbarous datesin the Middle Ages, as sharp-pointed as the helmets of the warriors ofthose days. And in the intervals of those manifold tasks, of thatgeneral and constant superintendence, she found time to make prettythings, to take from her work-basket some piece of knitting orembroidery, which clung to her as steadfastly as young Élise to herhistory of France. Even when she was talking, her fingers were neverunemployed for one moment. 

"Do you never rest?" de Géry asked her while she counted in a whisperthe stitches of her embroidery, "three, four, five, " in order to varythe shades. 

"Why, this work is rest, " she replied. "You men have no idea how usefulneedlework is to a woman's mind. It regularizes the thought, fixes witha stitch the passing moment and what it carries with it. And think ofthe sorrows that are soothed, the anxieties forgotten by the help ofthis purely physical attention, this constant repetition of the samemovement, in which you find--and find very quickly, whether you will orno--that your equilibrium is entirely restored. It does not prevent mefrom hearing all that is said in my neighborhood, from listening to youeven more attentively than I should if I were idle--three, four, five. "

Oh! yes, she listened. That was plain from the animation of her face, from the way in which she would suddenly straighten herself up, withher needle in the air and the thread stretched over her raised littlefinger. Then she would suddenly resume her work, sometimes interjectinga shrewd, thoughtful word, which as a general rule agreed with whatfriend Paul thought. A similarity in their natures and in theirresponsibilities and duties brought those two young people together, made them mutually interested each in those things that the other hadmost at heart. She knew the names of his two brothers, Pierre andLouis, and his plans for their future when they should leave school. Pierre wanted to be a sailor. "Oh! no, not a sailor, " said Grandmamma, "it would be much better for him to come to Paris with you. " And whenhe admitted that he was afraid of Paris for them, she laughed at hisfears, called him a provincial, for she was full of affection for thecity where she was born, where she had grown chastely to womanhood, andwhich gave her in return the vivacity, the natural refinement, thesprightly good-humor which make one think that Paris, with its rains, its fogs, its sky which is no sky, is the true fatherland of woman, whose nerves it spares and whose patient and intelligent qualities itdevelops. 

Each day Paul de Géry appreciated Mademoiselle Aline morethoroughly--he was the only one in the house who called her by thatname--and, strangely enough, it was Felicia who finally cemented theirintimacy. What connection could there be between that artist'sdaughter, fairly launched in the most exalted spheres, and thatbourgeois maiden lost to sight in the depths of a suburb? Connectionsof childhood and friendship, common memories, the great courtyard ofthe Belin establishment, where they had played together for threeyears. Such meetings are very common in Paris. A name mentioned atrandom in conversation suddenly calls forth the amazed question:

"What! do you know her?"

"Do I know Felicia? Why we sat at adjoining desks in the first class. We had the same garden. Such a dear, lovely, clever girl!"

And, noticing how pleased he was to listen to her, Aline recalled thedays, still so near, which already formed part of the past to her, fascinating and melancholy like all pasts. She was quite alone in life, was little Felicia. On Thursday, when they called out the names in theparlor, there was never any one for her; except now and then an oldwoman, a nice old woman, if she was a little ridiculous, a formerballet-dancer it was said, whom Felicia called the Fairy. She had petnames like that for everybody of whom she was fond, and she transformedthem all in her imagination. They used to see each other during thevacations. Madame Joyeuse, although she refused to send Aline to M. Ruys's studio, invited Felicia for whole days, --very short days, madeup of work and music, of joint dreams and unrestrained youthfulchatter. "Oh! when she talked to me about her art, with the ardor whichshe put into everything, how delighted I was to hear her! How manythings she enabled me to understand of which I never should have hadthe slightest idea! Even now, when we go to the Louvre with papa, or tothe Exhibition of the first of May, the peculiar emotion that one feelsat the sight of a beautiful bit of sculpture or a fine painting, makesme think instantly of Felicia. In my young days she represented art, and it went well with her beauty, her somewhat reckless but so kindlynature, in which I was conscious of something superior to myself, whichcarried me away to a great height without frightening me. Suddenly weceased to see each other. I wrote to her--no reply. Then fame came toher, great sorrow and engrossing duties to me. And of all thatfriendship, and very deep-rooted it must have been, for I cannot speakof it without--three, four, five--nothing is left but old memories tobe poked over like dead ashes. "

Leaning over her work, the brave girl hastily counted her stitches, concealing her grief in the fanciful designs of her embroidery, whilede Géry, deeply moved to hear the testimony of those pure lips incontradiction of the calumnies of a few disappointed dandies or jealousrivals, felt relieved of a weight and once more proud of his love. Thesensation was so sweet to him that he came very often to seek to renewit, not only on lesson evenings, but on other evenings as well, andalmost forgot to go and see Felicia for the pleasure of hearing Alinespeak of her. 

One evening, when he left the Joyeuse apartment, he found waiting forhim on the landing M. André, the neighbor, who took his arm feverishly. 

"Monsieur de Géry, " he said, in a trembling voice, his eyes flashingfire behind their spectacles, the only part of his face one could seeat night, "I have an explanation to demand at your hands. Will you comeup to my room a moment?"

Between that young man and himself there had been only the usualrelations of two frequent visitors at the same house, who are attachedby no bond, who seem indeed to be separated by a certain antipathybetween their natures and their modes of life. What could there be forthem to explain? Sorely puzzled, he followed André. 

The sight of the little studio, cold and cheerless under its glassceiling, the empty fireplace, the wind blowing as it blows outside, andmaking the candle flicker, the only light that shone upon that vigil ofa penniless recluse, reflected upon scattered sheets all covered withwriting, --in a word, that atmosphere of inhabited cells wherein thevery soul of the inhabitants exhales, --enabled de Géry to comprehend atonce the impassioned André Maranne, his long hair thrown back andflying in the wind, his somewhat eccentric appearance, very excusablewhen one pays for it with a life of suffering and privations; and hissympathy instantly went out to the courageous youth, whose militantpride he fully divined at a single glance. But the other was tooexcited to notice this transition. As soon as the door was closed, hesaid, with the accent of a stage hero addressing the perjured seducer:

"Monsieur de Géry, I am not a Cassandra yet. " And, as he observed hisinterlocutor's unbounded amazement, he added: "Yes, yes, we understandeach other. I see perfectly clearly what attracts you to M. Joyeuse's, nor has the warm welcome you receive there escaped me. You are rich, you are of noble birth, no one can hesitate between you and the poorpoet who carries on an absurd trade in order to gain time to attainsuccess, which will never come perhaps. But I won't allow my happinessto be stolen from me. We will fight, monsieur, we will fight, " herepeated, excited by his rival's unruffled tranquillity. "I have lovedMademoiselle Joyeuse a long while. That love is the aim, the joy, andthe strength of a very hard life, painful in many respects. I havenothing but that in the world, and I should prefer to die rather thanto renounce it. "

What a strange combination is the human heart! Paul was not in lovewith the charming Aline. His whole heart belonged to another. Hethought of her simply as a friend, the most adorable of friends. Andyet the idea that Maranne was thinking of her, that she undoubtedlyresponded to his lover-like attentions, caused him a thrill of jealousanger, and his tone was very sharp when he asked if MademoiselleJoyeuse were aware of this feeling of André's and had in any wayauthorized him to proclaim his rights. 

"Yes, monsieur, Mademoiselle Élise knows that I love her, and beforeyour frequent visits--"

"Élise--is it Élise you're talking about?"

"Why, who should it be, pray? The other two are too young. "

He entered thoroughly into the traditions of the family. In his eyesGrandmamma's twenty years, her triumphant charm, were concealed by arespectful _sobriquet_ and by her providential qualities. 

A very brief explanation having allayed André Maranne's excitement, heoffered his apologies to de Géry, invited him to take a seat in thecarved wooden armchair in which his customers posed, and theirconversation speedily assumed an intimate and confidential character, attributable to the earnest avowal with which it began. Paul confessedthat he too was in love, and that his only purpose in coming so oftento M. Joyeuse's was to talk about his beloved with Grandmamma, who hadknown her long before. 

"It's the same with me, " said André. "Grandmamma knows all my secrets;but we have not dared say anything to her father yet. My position istoo uncertain. Ah! when _Révolte_ has been brought out!"

Thereupon they talked about _Révolte_! the famous drama on which he hadbeen at work day and night for six months, which had kept him warm allthrough the winter, a very hard winter, whose rigor was tempered, however, by the magic power of composition in the little garret, whichit completely transformed. There, in that confined space, all theheroes of his play had appeared to the poet, like familiar spritesfalling through the roof or riding on the moonbeams, and with them thehigh-warp tapestries, the gleaming chandeliers, the vast parks withgateways flooded with light, all the usual magnificence of stage-setting, as well as the glorious uproar of the first performance, the applausebeing represented by the rain beating on the windows and the signsflapping against the door, while the wind, whistling through themelancholy lumber-yard below with a vague murmur of voices brought fromafar and carried far, resembled the murmur from the boxes opening intothe lobby, allowing his triumph to circulate amid the chattering andconfusion of the audience. It was not simply the renown and the moneythat that blessed play were to bring to him, but something far moreprecious. How carefully, therefore, did he turn the pages of themanuscript contained in five great books in blue covers, such books asthe Levantine spread out upon the divan on which she took her siestas, and marked with her managerial pencil. 

Paul having drawn near the table in his turn, in order to examine themasterpiece, his eyes were attracted by a portrait of a woman in ahandsome frame, which seemed, being so near the artist's work, to havebeen stationed there to stand guard over it. Élise, of course? Oh! no, André had no right as yet to take his young friend's photograph awayfrom its protecting environment. It was a woman of about forty, fair, with a sweet expression, and dressed in the height of fashion. When hesaw the face, de Géry could not restrain an exclamation. 

"Do you know her?" said André Maranne. 

"Why, yes--Madame Jenkins, the Irish doctor's wife. I took supper withthem last winter. "

"She is my mother. " And the young man added in a lower tone:

"Madame Maranne married Dr. Jenkins for her second husband. You aresurprised, are you not, to find me in such destitution when my parentsare living in luxury? But, as you know, chance sometimes brings veryantipathetic natures together in the same family. My father-in-law andI could not agree. He wanted to make a doctor of me, whereas I had notaste for anything but writing. At last, in order to avoid the constantdisputes, which were a source of pain to my mother, I preferred toleave the house and dig my furrow all alone, without assistance fromany one. It was a hard task! money was lacking. All the property is inthe hands of that--of M. Jenkins. It was a question of earning myliving, and you know what a difficult matter that is for persons likeourselves, well brought up as it is termed. To think that, with all theknowledge included in what it is fashionable to call a thorougheducation, I could find nothing but this child's play which gave me anyhope of being able to earn my bread! Some little savings from myallowance as a young man sufficed to buy my first outfit, and I openeda studio far away, at the very end of Paris, in order not to annoy myparents. Between ourselves, I fancy that I shall never make my fortunein photography. The first weeks especially were very hard. No one came, or if by any chance some poor devil did toil up the stairs, I missedhim, I spread him out on my plate in a faint, blurred mixture like aghost. One day, very early in my experience, there came a weddingparty, the bride all in white, the husband with a waistcoat--oh! such awaistcoat! And all the guests in white gloves which they insisted uponhaving included in the photograph, because of the rarity of thesensation. Really, I thought I should go mad. Those black faces, thegreat white daubs for the dress, the gloves and the orange flowers, theunfortunate bride in the guise of a Zulu queen, under her wreath whichmelted into her hair! And all so overflowing with good-nature, withencouragement for the artist. I tried them at least twenty times, keptthem until five o'clock at night. They left me only when it was dark, to go and dine! Fancy that wedding-day passed in a photograph gallery!"

While André thus jocosely narrated the melancholy incidents of hislife, Paul recalled Felicia's outburst on the subject of Bohemians, andall that she said to Jenkins concerning their exalted courage, theirthirst for privations and trials. He thought also of Aline's passionatefondness for her dear Paris, of which he knew nothing but the unhealthyeccentricities, whereas the great city concealed so much unknownheroism, so many noble illusions in its folds. The sensation he hadpreviously felt in the circle of the Joyeuses' great lamp, he was evenmore keenly conscious of in that less warm, less peaceful spot, whitherart brought its desperate or glorious uncertainty; and it was with amelting heart that he listened while André Maranne talked to him ofÉlise, of the examination she was so long in passing, of the difficulttrade of photography, of all the unforeseen hardships of his life, which would surely come to an end "when _Révolte_ should have beenbrought out, " a fascinating smile playing about the poet's lips as theygave utterance to that hope, so often expressed, which he made haste toridicule himself, as if to deprive others of the right to ridicule it. 

X. 

MEMOIRS OF A CLERK. --THE SERVANTS. 

Really the wheel of fortune in Paris revolves in a way to make one'shead swim!

To have seen the _Caisse Territoriale_ as I have seen it, firelessrooms, never swept, covered with the dust of the desert, notices ofprotest piled high on the desks, a notice of sale on execution at thedoor every week, and my ragout diffusing the odor of a poor man'skitchen over it all; and to witness now the rehabilitation of ourSociety in its newly-furnished salons, where it is my duty to lightministerial fires, in the midst of a busy throng, with whistles, electric bells, piles of gold pieces so high that they topple over--itborders on the miraculous. To convince myself that it is all true, Ihave to look at myself in the glass, to gaze at my iron-gray coattrimmed with silver, my white cravat, my usher's chain such as I usedto wear at the Faculty on council days. And to think that, to effectthis transformation, to bring back to our brows the gayety that is themother of concord, to restore to our paper its value ten times over andto our dear Governor the esteem and confidence of which he was sounjustly deprived, it only needed one man, that supernatural Croesuswhom the hundred voices of fame designate by the name of the Nabob. 

Oh! the first time that he came into the offices, with his finepresence, his face, a little wrinkled perhaps but so distinguished, themanners of an habitué of courts, on familiar terms with all the princesof the Orient, in a word with the indescribable touch ofself-confidence and grandeur that great fortune gives, I felt my heartswell in my waistcoat with its double row of buttons. They may say allthey choose about their equality and fraternity, there are some men whoare so much above others, that you feel like falling on your facebefore them and inventing new formulæ of adoration to compel them topay some attention to you. Let me hasten to add that I had no need ofanything of the sort to attract the attention of the Nabob. When I roseas he passed--deeply moved but dignified: you can always trustPassajon--he looked at me with a smile and said in an undertone to theyoung man who accompanied him: "What a fine head, like--" then a wordthat I did not hear, a word ending in _ard_, like leopard. But no, it could not be that, for I am not conscious of having a head like aleopard. Perhaps he said like Jean-Bart, although I do not see theconnection. However, he said: "What a fine head, like--" and hiscondescension made me proud. By the way, all the gentlemen are verykind, very polite to me. It seems that there has been a discussion inregard to me, whether they should keep me or send me away like ourcashier, that crabbed creature who was always talking about sendingeverybody to the galleys, and whom they requested to go and make hiseconomical shirt-fronts somewhere else. Well done! That will teach himto use vulgar language to people. 

When it came to me, the Governor was kind enough to forget my ratherhasty words in consideration of my certificates of service at the_Territoriale_ and elsewhere; and after the council meeting he said tome with his musical accent: "Passajon, you are to stay on with us. " Youcan imagine whether I was happy, whether I lost myself in expressionsof gratitude. Just consider! I should have gone away with my few sous, with no hope of ever earning any more, obliged to go and cultivate mylittle vineyard at Montbars, a very narrow field for a man who haslived among all the financial aristocracy of Paris and the bold strokesof financiering that make fortunes. Instead of that, here I amestablished all anew in a superb position, my wardrobe replenished, andmy savings, which I actually held in my hand for a whole day, intrustedto the fostering care of the Governor, who has undertaken to make themyield a handsome return. I rather think that he is the man who knowshow to do it. And not the slightest occasion for anxiety. Allapprehensions vanish before the word that is all the fashion at thismoment in all administrative councils, at all meetings of theshareholders, on the Bourse, on the boulevards, everywhere: "The Nabobis in the thing. " That is to say, we are running over with cash, theworst _combinazioni_ are in excellent shape. 

That man is so rich!

Rich to such a degree that one cannot believe it. Why, he has justloaned fifteen millions off-hand to the Bey of Tunis. Fifteen millions, I say! That was rather a neat trick on Hemerlingue, who tried to maketrouble between him and that monarch and to cut the grass from underhis feet in those lovely Oriental countries, where it grows tall andthick and golden-colored. It was an old Turk of my acquaintance, Colonel Brahim, one of our council at the _Territoriale_, who arrangedthe loan. Naturally the bey, who was very short of pocket money, itseems, was greatly touched by the Nabob's zeal to accommodate him, andhe sent him by Brahim a letter of acknowledgment in which he told himthat on his next trip to Vichy he would pass two days with him at themagnificent Château de Saint-Romans, which the former bey, this one'sbrother, once honored with a visit. Just think what an honor! Toreceive a reigning prince! The Hemerlingues are in a frenzy. They hadmanoeuvred so skilfully, the son in Tunis, the father in Paris, tobring the Nabob into disfavor. To be sure, fifteen millions is a largesum of money. But do not say: "Passajon is gulling us. " The person whotold me the story had in his hands the paper sent by the bey in a greensilk envelope stamped with the royal seal. His only reason for notreading it was that it was written in Arabic; otherwise he would havetaken cognizance of it as he does of all the Nabob's correspondence. That person is his valet de chambre, M. Noël, to whom I had the honorto be presented last Friday at a small party of persons in service, which he gave to some of his friends. I insert a description of thatfestivity in my memoirs, as one of the most interesting things I haveseen during my four years' residence in Paris. 

I supposed at first, when M. Francis, Monpavon's valet de chambre, mentioned the affair to me, that it was to be one of the littleclandestine junkets such as they sometimes have in the attic rooms onour boulevard, with the leavings sent up by Mademoiselle Séraphine andthe other cooks in the house, where they drink stolen wine and stuffthemselves, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light of twocandles which they put out at the slightest noise in the corridors. Such underhand performances are repugnant to my character. But when Ireceived an invitation on pink paper, written in a very fine hand, asif for a ball given by the people of the house:

 _M. Noël pri M. --de se randre à sa soire du 25 couran. _

 _On soupra. _[3]

 [3] M. Noël requests the pleasure of M. ----'s company on the evening of the 25th instant. Supper. 

I saw, notwithstanding the defective orthography, that it was aserious, authoritative function; so I arrayed myself in my newest frockcoat and my finest linen, and betook myself to Place Vendôme, to theaddress indicated by the invitation. 

M. Noël had selected for his party the evening of a first performanceat the Opéra, which society attended _en masse_, so that the wholehousehold had the bit in their teeth until midnight, and the entirehouse at their disposal. Nevertheless, our host had preferred toreceive us in his room in the upper part of the house, and I stronglyapproved his judgment, being therein of the opinion of the good man whosaid:

 Fi du plaisir Que la crainte peut corrompre![4]

 [4]

 A fig for the pleasure Which fear can destroy!

But talk to me about the attics on Place Vendôme! A thick carpet on thefloor, the bed out of sight in an alcove, Algerian curtains with redstripes, a green marble clock, the whole lighted by patentself-regulating lamps. Our dean, M. Chalmette, at Dijon had no betterquarters than that. I arrived about nine o'clock with Monpavon's oldFrancis, and I must confess that my appearance created a sensation, preceded as I was by the fame of my academic past, by my reputation forrefined manners and great learning. My fine bearing did the rest, for Imust say that I know how to carry myself. M. Noël, very dark skinned, with mutton-chop whiskers, and dressed in a black coat, came forward tomeet us. 

"Welcome, Monsieur Passajon, " he said; and taking my cap with silverornaments, which, as I entered the room, I held in my right handaccording to custom, he handed it to an enormous negro in red and goldlivery. 

"Here, Lakdar, take this--and this, " he said, by way of jest, givinghim a kick in a certain portion of the back. 

There was much laughter at that sally, and we began to converse mostamicably. An excellent fellow, that M. Noël, with his Southern accent, his determined bearing, the frankness and simplicity of his manners. Hereminded me of the Nabob, minus his master's distinguished mien, however. Indeed, I noticed that evening that such resemblances are ofcommon occurrence in valets de chambre, who, as they live on intimateterms with their masters, by whom they are always a little dazzled, endby adopting their peculiarities and their mannerisms. For instance, M. Francis has a certain habit of drawing himself up and displaying hislinen shirtfront, a mania for raising his arms to pull down his cuffs, which is Monpavon to the life. But there is one who does not resemblehis master in the least, that is Joe, Dr. Jenkins' coachman. I call himJoe, but at the party everybody called him Jenkins; for in that circlethe stable folk among themselves call one another by their employers'names, plain Bois-l'Héry, Monpavon and Jenkins. Is it to debase thesuperiors, to exalt the servant class? Every country has its customs;nobody but a fool ought to be astonished by them. To return to JoeJenkins--how can the doctor, who is such an amiable man, so perfect inevery respect, keep in his service that _gin_ and _porter_-soakedbrute, who sits silent for hours at a time, and then, the instant thatthe liquor goes to his head, begins to roar and wants to boxeverybody--witness the scandalous scene that had just taken place whenwe arrived. 

The marquis's little tiger, Tom Bois-l'Héry, as they call him here, undertook to joke with that Irish beast, who--at some Parisian gamin'sjest--retorted by a terrible Belfast knock-down blow in the middle ofthe face. 

"Come on, Humpty-Dumpty! Come on, Humpty-Dumpty!" roared the coachman, choking with rage, while they carried his innocent victim into theadjoining room, where the ladies, young and old, were engaged inbandaging his nose. The excitement was soon allayed, thanks to ourarrival, thanks also to the judicious words of M. Barreau, a man ofmature years, sedate and majestic, of my own type. He is the Nabob'scook, formerly _chef_ at the Café Anglais, and M. Cardailhac, managerof the Nouveautés, secured him for his friend. To see him in his blackcoat and white cravat, with his handsome, full, clean-shaven face, youwould take him for one of the great functionaries of the Empire. To besure, a cook in a house where the table is set for thirty people everymorning, in addition to Madame's table, and where everyone is fed onthe best and the extra best, is no ordinary cook-shop artist. Hereceives a colonel's salary, with board and lodging, and then theperquisites! No one has any idea of what the perquisites amount to in aplace like that. So every one addressed him with great respect, withthe consideration due to a man of his importance: "Monsieur Barreau"here, "my dear Monsieur Barreau" there. You must not imagine that theservants in a house are all chums and social equals. Nowhere is thehierarchy more strictly observed than among them. For instance, Inoticed at M. Noël's party that the coachmen did not fraternize withtheir grooms, nor the valets de chambre with the footmen andout-riders, any more than the steward and butler mingled with thescullions; and when M. Barreau cracked a little joke, no matter what itwas, it was a pleasure to see how amused his underlings seemed to be. Ihave no fault to find with these things. Quite the contrary. As ourdean used to say: "A society without a hierarchy is a house without astairway. " But the fact seemed to me worth noting in these memoirs. 

The party, I need not say, lacked something of its brilliancy until thereturn of its fairest ornaments, the ladies who had gone to look afterlittle Tom; ladies' maids with glossy, well-oiled hair, housekeepers inberibboned caps, negresses, governesses, among whom I at once acquiredmuch prestige, thanks to my respectable appearance and the nickname "myuncle" which the youngest of those attractive females were pleased tobestow upon me. I tell you there was no lack of second-hand finery, silk and lace, even much faded velvet, eight-button gloves cleanedseveral times and perfumery picked up on Madame's toilet-table; buttheir faces were happy, their minds given over to gayety, and I had nodifficulty in forming a very lively little party in one corner--alwaysperfectly proper, of course--that goes without saying--and entirelybefitting a person in my position. But that was the general tone of theoccasion. Not until toward the close of the collation did I hear any ofthe unseemly remarks, any of the scandalous anecdotes that amuse thegentlemen of our council so highly; and it gives me pleasure to statethat Bois-l'Héry the coachman, to cite no other instance, is verydifferently brought up from Bois-l'Héry the master. 

M. Noël alone, by his familiar tone and the freedom of his repartees, overstepped the limit. There's a man who does not scruple to callthings by their names. For instance, he said to M. Francis, so loudthat he could be heard from one end of the salon to the other: "I say, Francis, your old sharper played still another trick on us last week. "And as the other threw out his chest with a dignified air, M. Noëlbegan to laugh. "No offence, old girl. The strong box is full. You'llnever get to the bottom of it. " And it was then that he told us aboutthe loan of fifteen millions I mentioned above. 

Meanwhile I was surprised to see no signs of preparation for the suppermentioned on the invitations, and I expressed my anxiety in anundertone to one of my lovely nieces, who replied:

"We are waiting for M. Louis. "

"M. Louis?"

"What! Don't you know M. Louis, the Duc de Mora's valet de chambre?"

Thereupon I was enlightened on the subject of that influentialpersonage, whose good offices are sought by prefects, senators, even byministers, and who evidently makes them pay roundly for them, for, withhis salary of twelve hundred francs from the duke, he has saved enoughto have an income of twenty-five thousand francs, has his daughters atthe boarding-school of the Sacred Heart, his son at Bourdaloue College, and a châlet in Switzerland to which the whole family go for thevacation. 

At that juncture the personage in question arrived; but there wasnothing in his appearance that would have led me to guess his position, which has not its like in Paris. No majesty in his bearing, a waistcoatbuttoned to the chin, a mean, insolent manner, and a fashion ofspeaking without opening his lips, very unpleasant to those who arelistening to him. 

He saluted the company with a slight nod, offered a finger to M. Noël, and there we sat, staring at each other, congealed by his grandmanners, when a door was thrown open at the end of the room and thesupper made its appearance--all kinds of cold meats, pyramids of fruit, bottles of every shape, beneath the glare of two candelabra. 

"Now, messieurs, escort the ladies. "

In a moment we were in our places, the ladies seated, with the oldestor most important of us men, the others standing, passing dishes, chattering, drinking out of all the glasses, picking a mouthful fromevery plate. I had M. Francis for my neighbor, and I was obliged tolisten to his spiteful remarks against M. Louis, of whom he is jealousbecause he has such a fine situation in comparison with that he himselfholds in his played-out nobleman's household. 

"He's a parvenu, " he said to me in an undertone. "He owes his fortuneto his wife, to Madame Paul. "

It seems that this Madame Paul is a housekeeper who has been twentyyears in the duke's service, and who understands, as no one else does, how to make a certain pomade for certain infirmities that he has. Moracannot do without her. Remarking that fact, M. Louis paid his court tothe old woman, married her, although he is much younger than she; and, in order not to lose his nurse _aux pommades_, His Excellency tookthe husband for his valet de chambre. In my heart, notwithstanding whatI may have said to M. Francis, I considered that marriage perfectlyproper and in conformity with the healthiest morality, as both themayor and the curé had a hand in it. Moreover, that excellent repast, consisting of choice and very expensive dishes which I did not evenknow by name, had disposed my mind to indulgence and good humor. Buteverybody was not in the same mood, for I heard M. Barreau's baritonevoice on the other side of the table, grumbling:

"Why does he meddle? Do I stick my nose into his business? In the firstplace, it's a matter that concerns Bompain, not him. And what does itamount to? What is it that he finds fault with me for? The butchersends me five baskets of meat every morning. I use only two and sellthe other three. Where's the chef who doesn't do that? As if hewouldn't do better to keep an eye on the big leakage above stairs, instead of coming and spying about my basement. When I think that thefirst-floor clique has smoked twenty-eight thousand francs' worth ofcigars in three months! Twenty-eight thousand francs! Ask Noël if Ilie. And on the second floor, in Madame's apartments, there's a finemess of linen, dresses thrown aside after one wearing, jewels by thehandful, and pearls so thick that you crush 'em as you walk. Oh! youjust wait a bit, and I'll take a twist on that little fellow. "

I understood that he was talking about M. De Géry, the Nabob's youngsecretary, who often comes to the _Territoriale_, where he doesnothing but rummage among the books. Very polite certainly, but a veryproud youngster who does not know how to make the most of himself. There was nothing but a chorus of maledictions against him around thetable. Even M. Louis delivered himself on that subject, with his highand mighty air:

"Our cook, my dear Monsieur Barreau, has recently had an experiencesimilar to yours with His Excellency's chief secretary, who presumed toindulge in some observations concerning the household expenses. Thecook ran up to the duke's study post-haste, in his professionalcostume, and said, with his hand on his apron string: 'Your Excellencymay choose between Monsieur and me. ' The duke did not hesitate. One canfind as many secretaries as one wants; whereas the good cooks are allknown. There are just four in Paris. I include you, my dear Barreau. Wedismissed our chief secretary, giving him a prefecture of the firstclass as a consolation; but we kept our chief cook. "

"Ah! that's the talk, " said M. Barreau, who was delighted to hear thatanecdote. "That's what it is to be in a great nobleman's service. Butparvenus are parvenus, what do you expect?"

"And Jansoulet is nothing more than that, " added M. Francis, pullingdown his cuffs. "A man who was once a porter at Marseille. "

At that M. Noël bristled up. 

"I say there, old Francis, you're glad enough to have the porter of LaCannebière pay for your roastings at _bouillotte_ all the same. Youwon't find many parvenus like us, who loan millions to kings, and whomgreat noblemen like Mora don't blush to receive at their table. "

"Oh! in the country, " sneered M. Francis, showing his old fangs. 

The other rose, red as fire, on the point of losing his temper, butM. Louis made a sign with his hand that he had something to say, andM. Noël at once sat down, putting his hand to his ear, like the restof us, in order to lose none of the august words. 

"It is true, " said the great personage, speaking with the ends ofhis lips and sipping his wine slowly; "it is true that we receivedthe Nabob at Grandbois some weeks ago. Indeed, a very amusingthing happened there. We have a great many mushrooms in thesecond park, and His Excellency sometimes amuses himself by pickingthem. At dinner a great dish of mushrooms was served. There wasWhat-d'ye-call-him--Thingamy--What's-his-name--Marigny, the Ministerof the Interior, Monpavon, and your master, my dear Noël. Themushrooms made the round of the table, --they looked very inviting, and the gentlemen filled their plates, all except Monsieur le Duc, who can't digest them and thought that politeness required him to sayto his guests: 'Oh! it isn't that I am afraid of them, you know. Theyare all right, --I picked them with my own hand. '

"'_Sapristi!_' said Monpavon, laughingly, 'in that case, my dearAuguste, excuse me if I don't taste them, ' Marigny, being less at home, looked askance at his plate. 

"'Why, Monpavon, upon my word, these mushrooms look very healthy. I amreally sorry that I am no longer hungry. '

"The duke remained perfectly serious. 

"'Come, Monsieur Jansoulet, I trust that you won't insult me as theyhave done. Mush-rooms selected by myself!'

"'Oh! your Excellency, the idea! Why, I would eat them with my eyesclosed. '

"I leave it to you, if that wasn't great luck for the poor Nabob, thefirst time that he ate a meal with us. Duperron, who was waitingopposite him, told us about it in the butler's pantry. It seems that itwas the most comical thing in the world to see Jansoulet stuff himselfwith mushrooms, rolling his eyes in terror, while the others watchedhim curiously without touching their plates. It made him sweat, poordevil! And the best part of it was that he took a second portion; hehad the courage to take more. But he poured down bumpers of winebetween every two mouthfuls. Well! shall I tell you what I think? Thatwas a very shrewd move on his part, and I am no longer surprised thatthat fat ox-driver has been the favorite of sovereigns. He knows how toflatter them, in the little things that they don't talk about. In fact, the duke has doted on him since that day. "

That little story caused much hilarity, and scattered the cloudscollected by a few imprudent words. And thereupon, as the wine hadloosened all our tongues, and as we all knew one another better, werested our elbows on the table and began to talk about masters andplaces where we had worked, and the amusing things we had seen. Ah! Iheard some fine stories and had a glimpse at some domestic scenes!Naturally, I produced my little effect with the story of my pantry atthe _Territoriale_, of the time when I used to put my ragout in theempty safe, which did not prevent our cashier, a great stickler forroutine, from changing the combination every two days, as if itcontained all the treasures of the Bank of France. M. Louis seemed toenjoy my story. But the most astonishing thing was what littleBois-l'Héry, with his Parisian street-arab's accent, told us of thehome life of his employers. 

Marquis and Marquise de Bois-l'Héry, second floor, Boulevard Haussmann. Furniture like the Tuileries, blue satin on all the walls, pictures, mantel ornaments, curiosities, a genuine museum, I tell you!overflowing on to the landings. Service very stylish: six servants, chestnut-colored livery in winter, nankeen livery in summer. You seethose people everywhere, --at the small Monday parties, at the races, atfirst nights, at ambassadors' balls, and their names always in thenewspapers, with remarks as to Madame's fine toilets and Monsieur'samazing _chic_. Well! all that is nothing but flim-flam, veneer, outside show, and if the marquis needed a hundred sous, no one wouldloan them to him on his worldly possessions. The furniture is hired bythe fortnight from Fitily, the cocottes' upholsterer. The curiosities, the pictures, belong to old Schwalbach, who sends his customers thereand makes them pay double price, because a man doesn't haggle whenhe thinks he is buying from a marquis, an amateur. As for themarchioness's dresses, the milliner and dress-maker furnish her withthem for exhibition every season, make her wear the new styles, alittle ridiculous sometimes, but instantly adopted by society, becauseMadame is still a very beautiful woman, and of high repute in thematter of fashion; she is what is called a _lanceuse_. And theservants! Provisional like all the rest, changed every week at thepleasure of the intelligence office, which sends them there to givethem practice before taking serious positions. They may have neithersponsors nor certificates; they may have just come from prison orelsewhere. Glanard, the great place-broker on Rue de la Paix, suppliesBoulevard Haussmann. The servants stay there one week, two weeks, longenough to purchase recommendations from the marquis, who, mark you, pays nothing and barely feeds them; for in that house the kitchen ovensare cold most of the time, as Monsieur and Madame dine out almost everyevening, or attend balls at which supper is served. It is a positivefact that there are people in Paris who take the buffet seriously, andeat their first meal of the day after midnight. The Bois-l'Hérys arewell posted as to houses where there is a buffet. They will tell youthat you get a very good supper at the Austrian embassy, that theSpanish embassy is a little careless in the matter of wines, and thatthe Minister of Foreign Affairs gives you the best _chaud-froid devolailles_. Such is the life of that curious household. Nothing of allthey have is sewn on; everything is basted or pinned. A gust of wind, and away it all goes. But at all events they are sure of losingnothing. That is what gives the marquis that _blagueur_, PèreTranquille air, as he looks you in the face with both hands in hispockets, as much as to say: "Well, what then? What can you do to me?"

And the little tiger, in the aforesaid attitude, with his prematurelyold, vicious child's face, copied his master so perfectly that itseemed to me as if I were looking at the man himself sitting in ouradministrative council, facing the Governor, and overwhelming him withhis cynical jests. After all, we must agree that Paris is a wonderfulgreat city, for any one to be able to live here in that way for fifteenyears, twenty years of tricks and dodges and throwing dust in people'seyes, without everybody finding him out, and to go on making atriumphant entry into salons in the wake of a footman shouting his nameat the top of his voice: "Monsieur le Marquis de Bois-l'Héry. "

You see, you must have been to a servants' party before you can believeall that one learns there, and what a curious thing Parisian society iswhen you look at it thus from below, from the basement. For instance, happening to be between M. Francis and M. Louis, I caught this scrap ofconfidential conversation concerning Sire de Monpavon. M. Louis said:

"You are doing wrong, Francis, you are in funds just now. You ought totake advantage of it to return that money to the Treasury. "

"What can you expect?" replied M. Francis, disconsolately. "Play isconsuming us. "

"Yes, I know. But beware. We shall not always be at hand. We may die orgo out of the government. In that case you will be called to accountover yonder. It will be a terrible time. "

I had often heard a whisper of the marquis's forced loan of two hundredthousand francs from the State, at the time when he wasreceiver-general; but the testimony of his valet de chambre was theworst of all. Ah! if the masters suspected what the servants know, allthat they tell in their quarters, if they could hear their namesdragged about in the sweepings of the salons and the kitchen refuse, they would never again dare to say so much as: "Close the door, " or"Order the carriage. " There's Dr. Jenkins, for example, with therichest practice in Paris, has lived ten years with a magnificent wife, who is eagerly welcomed everywhere; he has done everything he could toconceal his real position, announced his marriage in the newspapers inthe English style, and hired only foreign servants who know barelythree words of French, but all to no purpose. With these few words, seasoned with faubourg oaths and blows on the table, his coachman Joe, who detests him, told us his whole history while we were at supper. 

"She's going to croak, his Irishwoman, his real wife. Now we'll see ifhe'll marry the other one. Forty-five years old Mistress Maranne is, and not a shilling. You ought to see how afraid she is that he'll turnher out. Marry her, not marry her--_kss-kss_--what a laugh we'll have. "And the more they gave him to drink, the more he told, speaking of hisunfortunate mistress as the lowest of the low. For my part, I confessthat she excited my interest, that false Madame Jenkins, who weeps inevery corner, implores her husband as if he were the headsman, and isin danger of being sent about her business when all society believesher to be married, respectable, established for life. The others didnothing but laugh, especially the women. _Dame!_ it is amusing when oneis in service to see that these ladies of the upper ten have theiraffronts too, and tormenting cares which keep them awake. 

At that moment our party presented a most animated aspect, a circle ofmerry faces turned toward the Irishman, who carried off the palm by hisanecdote. That aroused envy; every one rummaged his memory and draggedout whatever he could find there of old scandals, adventures ofbetrayed husbands, all the domestic secrets that are poured out on thekitchen table with the remains of dishes and the dregs of bottles. Thechampagne was beginning to lay hold of its victims among the guests. Joe insisted on dancing a jig on the cloth. The ladies, at theslightest suggestion that was a trifle broad, threw themselves backwith the piercing laughter of a person who is being tickled, lettingtheir embroidered skirts drag under the table, which was piled withbroken victuals, and covered with grease. M. Louis had prudentlywithdrawn. The glasses were filled before they were emptied; achambermaid dipped a handkerchief in hers, which was full of water, andbathed her forehead with it because her head was going round, she said. It was time that it should end; in fact, an electric bell, ringingloudly in the hall, warned us that the footman on duty at the theatrehad called the coachmen. Thereupon Monpavon proposed a toast to themaster of the house, thanking him for his little party. M. Noëlannounced that he would repeat it at Saint-Romans, during thefestivities in honor of the bey, to which most of those present wouldprobably be invited. And I was about to rise in my turn, beingsufficiently familiar with banquets to know that on such occasions theoldest of the party is expected to propose a toast to the ladies, whenthe door was suddenly thrown open and a tall footman, all muddy, breathless and perspiring, with a dripping umbrella in his hand, roaredat us, with no respect for the guests:

"Come, get out of here, you pack of cads; what are you doing here?Don't I tell you it's done!"

XI. 

THE FÊTES IN HONOR OF THE BEY. 

In the regions of the South, of the civilization of long ago, thehistoric châteaux still standing are very few. At rare intervals someold abbey rears its tottering and dismantled façade on a hillside, pierced with holes which once were windows, which see naught now butthe sky, --monuments of dust, baked by the sun, dating from the days ofthe Crusades or of Courts of Love, without a trace of man among theirstones, where even the ivy has ceased to climb, and the acanthus, butwhere the dried lavender and the _férigoule_ perfume the air. Amidall these ruins the château de Saint-Romans stands forth a gloriousexception. If you have travelled in the South you have seen it, and youshall see it again in a moment. It is between Valence and Montélimart, in a neighborhood where the railroad runs straight along the Rhone, atthe base of the hills of Beaume, Rancoule and Mercurol, the wholeglowing vintage of the Hermitage, spread out over five leagues of vinesgrowing in close, straight lines in the vineyards, which seem to theeye like fields of fleece, and extend to the very brink of the river, as green and full of islands at that spot as the Rhine near Bâle, butwith such a flood of sunshine as the Rhine never had. Saint-Romans isopposite, on the other bank; and, notwithstanding the swiftness of thevision, the headlong rush of the railway carriages, which seemdetermined at every curve to plunge madly into the Rhone, the châteauis so huge, extends so far along the neighboring slope, that it seemsto follow the wild race of the train and fixes in your eyes forever thememory of its flights of steps, its balcony-rails, its Italianarchitecture, two rather low stones surmounted by a terrace with littlepillars, flanked by two wings with slated roofs, and overlooking thesloping banks, where the water from the cascades rushes down to theriver, the network of gravelled paths, the vista formed by hedges ofgreat height with a white statue at the end sharply outlined againstthe blue sky as against the luminous background of a stained-glasswindow. Far up, among the vast lawns whose brilliant verdure defies theblazing climate, a gigantic cedar rears, terrace-like, its masses ofgreen foliage, with its swaying dark shadows, --an exotic figure, whichmakes one think, as he stands before that sometime abode of afarmer-general of the epoch of Louis XIV. , of a tall negro carrying acourtier's umbrella. 

From Valence to Marseille, throughout the valley of the Rhone, Saint-Romans de Bellaigue is as famous as a fairy palace; and a genuinefairyland in those regions, scorched by the mistral, is that oasis ofverdure and of lovely, gushing water. 

"When I am rich, mamma, " Jansoulet, when he was a mere urchin, used tosay to his mother whom he adored, "I'll give you Saint-Romans deBellaigue. "

And as that man's life seemed the realization of a tale of the_Thousand and One Nights_, as all his wishes were gratified, eventhe most unconscionable, as his wildest chimeras took definite shapebefore him, and licked his hands like docile pet spaniels, he hadpurchased Saint-Romans in order to present it to his mother, newlyfurnished and gorgeously restored. Although ten years had passed sincethen, the good woman was not yet accustomed to that magnificentestablishment. "Why, you have given me Queen Jeanne's palace, my dearBernard, " she wrote to her son; "I shall never dare to live in it. " Asa matter of fact she never had lived in it, having installed herself inthe steward's house, a wing of modern construction at the end of themain buildings, conveniently situated for overlooking the servants'quarters and the farm, the sheepfolds and the oil-presses, with theirrustic outlook of grain in stacks, of olive-trees and vines stretchingout over the fields as far as the eye could see. In the great châteaushe would have fancied herself a prisoner in one of those enchanteddwellings where sleep seizes you in the fulness of your joy and doesnot leave you for a hundred years. Here at all events the peasantwoman, who had never been able to accustom herself to that colossalfortune, which had come too late, from too great a distance and like athunderbolt, felt in touch with real life by virtue of the going andcoming of the laborers, the departure and return of the cattle, theirvisits to the watering-place, all the details of pastoral life, whichawakened her with the familiar crowing of the roosters, the shrillcries of the peacocks, and sent her down the winding staircase beforedaybreak. She deemed herself simply a trustee of that magnificentproperty, of which she had charge for her son's benefit, and which sheproposed to turn over to him in good condition on the day when, considering himself wealthy enough and weary of living among the_Turs_, he should come, as he had promised, and live with herbeneath the shade of Saint-Romans. 

Imagine then her untiring, all-pervading watchfulness. 

In the twilight of early dawn, the farm servants heard her hoarse, husky voice:

"Olivier--Peyrol--Audibert--Come! It's four o'clock. " Then a dive intothe huge kitchen, where the maids, heavy with sleep, were warming thesoup over the bright, crackling peat fire. They gave her her littleplate of red Marseille earthenware, filled with boiled chestnuts, thefrugal breakfast of an earlier time which nothing could induce her tochange. Off she went at once with long strides, the keys jingling onthe great silver key-ring fastened to her belt, her plate in her hand, held in equilibrium by the distaff which she held under her arm as ifready for battle, for she spun all day long, and did not stop even toeat her chestnuts. A glance, as she passed, at the stable, still dark, where the horses were sluggishly moving about, at the stiflingcow-shed, filled with heads impatiently stretched toward the door; andthe first rays of dawn, stealing over the courses of stone thatsupported the embankment of the park, fell upon the old woman runningthrough the dew with the agility of a girl, despite her seventy years, verifying exactly each morning all the treasures of the estate, anxiousto ascertain whether the night had stolen the statues and urns, uprooted the centenary trees, dried up the sparkling fountains thatplashed noisily in their bowls. Then the bright southern sun, hummingand vibrating, outlined upon the gravel of a path, or against the whitesupporting wall of a terrace, that tall old woman's figure, slender andstraight as her distaff, picking up pieces of dead wood, breaking off abranch from a shrub that was out of line, heedless of the scorchingreflection which affected her tough skin no more than an old stonebench. About that hour another promenader appeared in the park, lessactive, less bustling, dragging himself along rather than walking, leaning on the walls and railings, a poor bent, palsied creature, witha lifeless face to which one could assign no age, who, when he wastired, uttered a faint, plaintive cry to call the servant, who wasalways at hand to assist him to sit down, to huddle himself up on somestep, where he would remain for hours, motionless and silent, his mouthhalf-open, blinking his eyes, soothed by the strident monotony of thelocusts, a human blot on the face of the superb landscape. 

He was the _oldest_, Bernard's brother, the cherished darling of theJansoulets, father and mother, the hope and the glory of the family ofthe junk-dealer, who, faithful like so many more in the South to thesuperstition concerning the right of primogeniture, had made everyconceivable sacrifice to send that handsome, ambitious youth to Paris;and he had started with four or five marshals' batons in his trunk, theadmiration of all the girls in the village; but Paris--after it hadbeaten and twisted and squeezed that brilliant Southern rag in itsgreat vat for ten years, burned him in all its acids, rolled him in allits mire--relegated him at last to the state of battered flotsam andjetsam, embruted, paralyzed, which had killed his father with grief andcompelled his mother to sell everything in her house and to live bydomestic service in the well-to-do families of the neighborhood. Luckily, just about the time that that relic of Parisian hospitals, sent back to his home by public charity, appeared in Bourg-Saint-Andéol, Bernard, --who was called Cadet, as in all the half-Arab Southernfamilies, where the eldest son always takes the family name and thelast comer the name of Cadet, --Bernard was already in Tunis, in processof making his fortune, and sending money home regularly. But whatremorse it caused the poor mother to owe everything, even life itself, and the comfort of the wretched invalid, to the brave, energetic lad, of whom his father and she had always been fond, but without genuinetenderness, and whom, from the time he was five years old, they hadbeen accustomed to treat as a day-laborer, because he was very strongand hairy and ugly, and was already shrewder than any one else in thehouse in the matter of dealing in old iron. Ah! how she would haveliked to have her Cadet with her, to repay him a little of all he wasdoing for her, to pay in one sum all the arrears of affection, ofmotherly cosseting that she owed him. 

But, you see, these kingly fortunes have the burdens, the vexations ofkingly existences. Poor Mother Jansoulet, in her dazzling surroundings, was much like a genuine queen, having undergone the long banishments, the cruel separations and trials which atone for earthly grandeur; oneof her sons in a state of stupid lethargy for all time, the other faraway, writing little, engrossed by his great interests, always saying, "I will come, " and never coming. In twelve years she had seen him butonce, in the confusion of the bey's visit at Saint-Romans: a bewilderingsuccession of horses, carriages, fireworks, and festivities. Then hehad whirled away again behind his sovereign, having had hardly time toembrace his old mother, who had retained naught of that great joy, soimpatiently awaited, save a few newspaper pictures, in which BernardJansoulet was exhibited arriving at the château with Ahmed andpresenting his aged mother to him, --is not that the way in which kingsand queens have their family reunions illustrated in the journals?--plusa cedar of Lebanon, brought from the end of the world, --a great_caramantran_ of a tree, which was as costly to move and as much in theway as the obelisk--being hoisted and planted by force of men and moneyand horses; a tree which had wrought confusion among the shrubbery asthe price of setting up a souvenir commemorative of the royal visit. Onhis present trip to France, at least, knowing that he had come forseveral months, perhaps forever, she hoped to have her Bernard all toherself. And lo! he swooped down upon her one fine evening, envelopedin the same triumphant splendor, in the same official pomp, surroundedby a multitude of counts, marquises, fine gentlemen from Paris, whowith their servants filled the two great breaks she had sent to meetthem at the little station of Giffas, on the other side of the Rhone. 

"Come, come, embrace me, my dear mamma. There's no shame in huggingyour boy, whom you haven't seen for years, close to your heart. Besides, all these gentlemen are friends of ours. This is Monsieur leMarquis de Monpavon, and Monsieur le Marquis de Bois-l'Héry. Ah! thetime has gone by when I used to bring you to eat bean soup with us, little Cabassu and Bompain Jean-Baptiste. You know Monsieur deGéry--he, with my old friend Cardailhac, whom I introduce to you, makeup the first batch. But others are coming. Prepare for a terriblehow-d'ye-do. We receive the bey in four days. "

"The bey again!" said the good woman in dismay. "I thought he wasdead. "

Jansoulet and his guests could but laugh at her comical alarm, heightened by her Southern accent. 

"But there's another, mamma. There are always beys--luckily for me, _sapristi_! But don't you be afraid. You won't have so much trouble onyour hands. Friend Cardailhac has undertaken to look after things. We're going to have some superb fêtes. Meanwhile give us some dinnerquick, and show us our rooms. Our Parisian friends are tired out. "

"Everything is ready, my son, " said the old woman simply, standingstiffly erect in her cap of Cambrai linen, with points yellowed by age, which she never laid aside even on great occasions. Wealth had notchanged _her_. She was the typical peasant of the Rhone valley, independent and proud, with none of the cunning humility of the rusticsdescribed by Balzac, too simple, too, to be puffed up by wealth. Heronly pride was to show her son with what painstaking zeal she hadacquitted herself of her duties as care-taker. Not an atom of dust, nota trace of dampness on the walls. The whole magnificent ground-floor, the salons with the silk draperies and upholstery of changing hue, taken at the last moment from their coverings; the long summergalleries, with cool, resonant inlaid floors, which the Louis XV. Couches, with cane seats and backs upholstered with flowered stuffs, furnished with summer-like coquetry; the enormous dining-hall, decorated with flowers and branches; even the billiard-room, with itsrows of gleaming balls, its chandeliers and cue-racks, --the whole vastextent of the château, seen through the long door-windows, wide openupon the broad seignorial porch, displayed its splendor to theadmiration of the visitors, and reflected the beauty of that marvellouslandscape, lying serene and peaceful in the setting sun, in themirrors, the waxed or varnished wainscoting, with the same fidelitywith which the poplars bowing gracefully to each other, and the swans, placidly swimming, were reproduced on the mirror-like surface of theponds. The frame was so beautiful, the general outlook so superb, thatthe obtrusive, tasteless luxury melted away, disappeared even to themost sensitive eye. 

"There's something to work with, " said Cardailhac the manager, with hismonocle at his eye, his hat on one side, already planning hisstage-setting. 

And the haughty mien of Monpavon, who had been somewhat offended atfirst by the old lady's head-dress when she received them on the porch, gave place to a condescending smile. Certainly there was something towork with, and their friend Jansoulet, under the guidance of men oftaste, could give his Maugrabin Highness a very handsome reception. They talked about nothing else all the evening. Sitting in thesumptuous dining-room, with their elbows on the table, warmed by wineand with full stomachs, they planned and discussed. Cardailhac, whoseviews were broad, had his plan all formed. 

"Carte blanche, of course, eh, Nabob?"

"Carte blanche, old fellow. And let old Hemerlingue burst with rage. "

Thereupon the manager detailed his plans, the festivities to be dividedby days, as at Vaux when Fouquet entertained Louis XIV. ; one day aplay, another day Provençal fêtes, _farandoles_, bull-fights, localmusic; the third day--And, in his mania for management, he was alreadyoutlining programmes, posters, while Bois-l'Héry, with both hands inhis pockets, lying back in his chair, slept peacefully with his cigarstuck in the corner of his sneering mouth, and the Marquis de Monpavon, always on parade, drew up his breastplate every moment, to keep himselfawake. 

De Géry had left them early. He had gone to take refuge with the oldlady--who had known him, and his brothers, too, when they werechildren--in the modest parlor in the wing, with the white curtains andlight wall-paper covered with figures, where the Nabob's mother triedto revive her past as an artisan, with the aid of some relics savedfrom the wreck. 

Paul talked softly, sitting opposite the handsome old woman with thesevere and regular features, the white hair piled on top of her headlike the flax on her distaff, who sat erect upon her chair, her flatbust wrapped in a little green shawl;--never in her life had she restedher back against the back of a chair or sat in an armchair. He calledher Françoise and she called him Monsieur Paul. They were old friends. And what do you suppose they were talking about? Of her grandchildren, _pardi!_ of Bernard's three boys whom she did not know, whom she wouldhave loved so dearly to know. 

"Ah! Monsieur Paul, if you knew how I long for them! I should have beenso happy if he had brought me my three little ones instead of all thesefine gentlemen. Just think, I have never seen them, except in thosepictures yonder. Their mother frightens me a bit, she's a great ladyout-and-out, a Demoiselle Afchin. But the children, I'm sure they'renot little coxcombs, but would be very fond of their old _granny_. It would seem to me as if it was their father a little boy again, andI'd give them what I didn't give the father--for, you see, MonsieurPaul, parents aren't always just. They have favorites. But God is just. You ought to see how He deals with the faces that you paint and fix upthe best, to the injury of the others. And the favoritism of the oldpeople often does harm to the young. "

She sighed as she glanced in the direction of the great alcove, fromwhich, through the high lambrequins and falling draperies, issued atintervals a long, shuddering breath like the moan of a sleeping childwho has been whipped and has cried bitterly. 

A heavy step on the stairs, an unmelodious but gentle voice, saying ina low tone: "It's I--don't move, "--and Jansoulet appeared. As everybodyhad gone to bed at the château, he, knowing his mother's habits andthat hers was always the last light to be extinguished in the house, had come to see her, to talk with her a little, to exchange the realgreeting of the heart which they had been unable to exchange in thepresence of others. "Oh! stay, my dear Paul; we don't mind you. " And, becoming a child once more in his mother's presence, he threw his wholelong body on the floor at her feet, with cajoling words and gesturesreally touching to behold. She was very happy too to have him by herside, but she was a little embarrassed none the less, looking upon himas an all-powerful, strange being, exalting him in her artlessinnocence to the level of an Olympian encompassed by thunder-bolts andlightning-flashes, possessing the gift of omnipotence. She talked tohim, inquired if he was still satisfied with his friends, with thecondition of his affairs, but did not dare to ask the question she hadasked de Géry: "Why didn't you bring me my little grandsons?"--But hebroached the subject himself. 

"They're at boarding-school, mamma; as soon as the vacation comes, I'llsend them to you with Bompain. You remember him, don't you, BompainJean-Baptiste? And you shall keep them two whole months. They'll cometo you to have you tell them fine stories, they'll go to sleep withtheir heads on your apron, like this--"

And he himself, placing his curly head, heavy as lead, on the oldwoman's knees, recalling the happy evenings of his childhood when hewent to sleep that way if he were allowed to do so, if his olderbrother's head did not take up all the room--he enjoyed, for the firsttime since his return to France, a few moments of blissful repose, outside of his tumultuous artificial life, pressed against that oldmotherly heart which he could hear beating regularly, like the pendulumof the century-old clock standing in a corner of the room, in theprofound silence of the night, which one can feel in the country, hovering over the boundless expanse. Suddenly the same long sigh, as ofa child who has fallen asleep sobbing, was repeated at the farther endof the room. 

"Is that--?"

"Yes, " she said, "I have him sleep here. He might need me in thenight. "

"I should like to see him, to embrace him. "

"Come. "

The old woman rose, took her lamp, led the way gravely to the alcove, where she softly drew aside the long curtain and motioned to her son tocome, without making a noise. 

He was asleep. And it was certain that something lived in him that wasnot there the day before, for, instead of the flaccid immobility inwhich he was mired all day, he was shaken at that moment by violenttremors, and on his expressionless, dead face there was a wrinkle ofsuffering life, a contraction as of pain. Jansoulet, profoundly moved, gazed at that thin, wasted, earth-colored face, on which the beard, having appropriated all the vitality of the body, grew with surprisingvigor; then he stooped, placed his lips on the forehead moist withperspiration, and, feeling that he started, he said in a low tone, gravely, respectfully, as one addresses the head of the family:

"Good-evening, Aîné. "

Perhaps the imprisoned mind heard him in the depths of its dark, degrading purgatory. But the lips moved and a long groan made answer; afar-off wail, a despairing appeal caused the glance Françoise and herson exchanged to overflow with impotent tears, and drew from them botha simultaneous cry in which their sorrows met: _Pécaïré!_ the localword expressive of all pity, all affection. 

 * * *

Early the next morning the uproar began with the arrival of the actorsand actresses, an avalanche of caps, chignons, high boots, shortpetticoats, affected screams, veils floating over the fresh coats ofrouge; the women were in a large majority, Cardailhac having reflectedthat, where a bey was concerned, the performance was of littleconsequence, that one need only emit false notes from pretty lips, showlovely arms and well-turned legs in the free-and-easy négligé of theoperetta. All the plastic celebrities of his theatre were on hand, therefore, Amy Férat at their head, a hussy who had already tried hereye-teeth on the gold of several crowns; also two or three famous comicactors, whose pallid faces produced the same effect of chalky, spectralblotches amid the bright green of the hedgerows as was produced by theplaster statuettes. All that motley crew, enlivened by the journey, theunfamiliar fresh air, and the copious hospitality, as well as by thehope of hooking something in that procession of beys, nabobs, and otherpurse-bearers, asked nothing better than to caper and sing and makemerry, with the vulgar enthusiasm of a crowd of Seine boatmen ashore ona lark. But Cardailhac did not propose to have it so. As soon as theyhad arrived, made their toilets and eaten their first breakfast, outcame the books; we must rehearse!--There was no time to lose. Therehearsals took place in the small salon near the summer gallery, wherethey were already beginning to build the stage; and the noise of thehammers, the humming of the refrains, the thin voices supported by thesqueaking of the orchestra leader's violin, mingled with the loudtrumpet-calls of the peacocks on their perches, were blown to shreds inthe mistral, which, failing to recognize the frantic chirping of itsgrasshoppers, contemptuously whisked it all away on the whirling tipsof its wings. 

Sitting in the centre of the porch, as if it were the proscenium of histheatre, Cardailhac, while superintending the rehearsals, issued hiscommands to a multitude of workmen and gardeners, ordered trees to befelled which obstructed the view, drew sketches of the triumphalarches, sent despatches and messengers to mayors, to sub-prefects, toArles to procure a deputation of girls of the province in the nationalcostume, to Barbantane, where the most skilful dancers of the_farandole_ are to be found, to Faraman renowned for its herds of wildbulls and Camarguese horses; and as Jansoulet's name blazed forth atthe foot of all these despatches, as the name of the Bey of Tunis alsofigured in them, everybody acquiesced with the utmost eagerness, thetelegraphic messages arrived in an endless stream, and that littleSardanapalus from Porte-Saint-Martin, who was called Cardailhac, wasforever repeating: "There is something to work with;" delighted tothrow gold about like handfuls of seed, to have a stage fifty leaguesin circumference to arrange, all Provence, of which country thatfanatical Parisian was a native, and thoroughly familiar with itsresources in the direction of the picturesque. 

Dispossessed of her functions, the old lady seldom appeared, gave herattention solely to the farm and her invalid, terrified by that crowdof visitors, those insolent servants whom one could not distinguishfrom their masters, those women with brazen, coquettish manners, thoseclosely-shaven old villains who resembled wicked priests, all those madcreatures who chased one another through the halls at night with muchthrowing of pillows, wet sponges, and curtain tassels which they toreoff to use as projectiles. She no longer had her son in the evening, for he was obliged to remain with his guests, whose number increased asthe time for the fêtes drew near; nor had she even the resource oftalking about her grandsons with "Monsieur Paul, " whom Jansoulet, always the kindest of men, being a little awed by his friend'sseriousness of manner, had sent away to pass a few days with hisbrothers. And the careful housekeeper, to whom some one came everymoment and seized her keys to get spare linen or silverware, to openanother room, thinking of the throwing open of her stores of treasures, of the plundering of her wardrobes and her sideboards, remembering thecondition in which the visit of the former bey had left the château, devastated as by a cyclone, said in her patois, feverishly moisteningthe thread of her distaff:

"May God's fire devour all beys and all future beys!"

At last the day arrived, the famous day of which people still talkthroughout the whole province. Oh! about three o'clock in theafternoon, after a sumptuous breakfast presided over by the old motherwith a new Cambrai cap on her head, --a breakfast at which, side by sidewith Parisian celebrities, prefects were present and deputies, all infull dress, with swords at their sides, mayors in their scarfs ofoffice, honest curés cleanly shaven, --when Jansoulet, in black coat andwhite cravat, surrounded by his guests, went out upon the stoop andsaw, framed in that magnificent landscape, amid flags and arches andensigns, that swarm of heads, that sea of brilliant costumes risingtier above tier on the slopes and thronging the paths; here, groupedin a nosegay on the lawn, the prettiest girls of Arles, whose littlewhite faces peeped sweetly forth from lace neckerchiefs; below, the_farandole_ from Barbantane, its eight tambourines in a line, ready forthe word, hand in hand, ribbons fluttering in the wind, hats over oneear, the red _taillote_ about the loins; still lower, in the successionof terraces, the choral societies drawn up in line, all black beneaththeir bright-hued caps, the banner-bearer in advance, serious andresolved, with clenched teeth, holding aloft his carved staff; lowerstill, on an immense _rond-point_, black bulls in shackles, andCamargue gauchos on their little horses with long white manes, theirleggings above their knees, brandishing their spears; and after themmore flags and helmets and bayonets, reaching to the triumphal arch atthe entrance; then, as far as the eye could see on the other side ofthe Rhone, --over which two gangs of workmen had just thrown a bridge ofboats, so that they could drive from the station to Saint-Romans in astraight line, --was an immense crowd, whole villages pouring down fromall the hills, overflowing on the Giffas road in a wilderness of noiseand dust, seated on the edge of the ditches, swarming among the elms, piled upon wagons, a formidable living lane for the procession to passthrough; and over it all a huge white sun whose arrows a capriciousbreeze sent in every direction, from the copper of a tambourine to thepoint of a spear and the fringe of a banner, while the mighty Rhone, high-spirited and free, bore away to the ocean the shifting tableaux ofthat royal fête. In presence of those marvels, in which all the gold inhis coffers shone resplendent, the Nabob felt a thrill of admirationand pride. 

"It is fine, " he said, turning pale, and his mother, standing behindhim, as pale as he, but from indescribable terror, murmured:

"It is too fine for any man. One would think that God was coming. "

The feeling of the devout old peasant woman was much the same as thatvaguely experienced by all those people who had assembled on the roadsas if to watch the passage of a colossal procession on Corpus Christi, and who were reminded by that visit of an Oriental prince to a child ofthe province, of the legends of the Magian kings, the arrival ofGaspard the Moor bringing to the carpenter's son the myrrh and thecrown. 

Amid the heartfelt congratulations that were showered on Jansoulet, Cardailhac, who had not been seen since morning, suddenly appeared, triumphant and perspiring. 

"Didn't I tell you that there was something to work with! Eh? Isn'tthis _chic_? There's a grouping for you! I fancy our Parisians wouldpay something handsome to attend a first performance like this. "

He lowered his voice because the mother was close by:

"Have you seen our Arles girls? No, look at them more carefully--thefirst one, the one standing in front to offer the bouquet. "

"Why, that's Amy Férat!"

"_Parbleu!_ you can see yourself, my dear fellow, that if the beythrows his handkerchief into that bevy of pretty girls, there must beat least one who knows enough to pick it up. Those innocent creatureswouldn't know what it meant! Oh! I have thought of everything, you'llsee. It's all mounted and arranged as if it were on the stage. Farmside, garden side. "

At that point, to give an idea of the perfectness of his organization, the manager raised his cane; his gesture was instantly repeated fromend to end of the park, with the result that all the musical societies, all the trumpets, all the tambourines burst forth in unison in themajestic strains of the familiar song of the South: _Grand Soleil dela Provence_. The voices, the brazen notes ascended into the light, swelling the folds of the banners, giving the signal to the dancers ofthe _farandole_, who began to sway back and forth, to go through theirfirst antics where they stood, while, on the other side of the river, amurmur ran through the crowd like a breeze, caused doubtless by thefear that the bey had arrived unexpectedly from another direction. Asecond gesture from the manager and the great orchestra subsided, moregradually, with _rallentando_ passages and meteoric showers of notesscattered among the foliage; but nothing better could be expected froma company of three thousand persons. 

Just then the carriages appeared, the state carriages which had figuredin the festivities in honor of the former bey, two great pink and goldchariots _à la mode de Tunis_, which Mother Jansoulet had taken care ofas precious relics, and which came forth from the carriage-house withtheir varnished panels, their hangings and gold fringe as bright andfresh as when they were new. There again Cardailhac's ingenuity hadexerted itself freely, and instead of horses, which were a little heavyfor those fragile-looking, daintily decorated vehicles, the white reinsguided eight mules with ribbons, plumes, and silver bells upon theirheads, and caparisoned from head to foot with those marvellous_sparteries_, of which Provence seems to have borrowed the secretfrom the Moors and to have perfected the cunning art of manufacturing. If the bey were not satisfied with that!

The Nabob, Monpavon, the prefect and one of their generals entered thefirst carriage, the others took their places in the second andfollowing ones. The curés and mayors, all excited by the wine they haddrunk, ran to place themselves at the head of the singing societies oftheir respective parishes, which were to go to meet the procession; andthe whole multitude set forth on the Giffas road. 

It was a superbly clear day, but warm and oppressive, three months inadvance of the season, as often happens in those impetuous regionswhere everything is in a hurry, where everything arrives before itstime. Although there was not a cloud to be seen, the deathlikestillness of the atmosphere, the wind having fallen suddenly as onelowers a veil, the dazzling expanse, heated white-hot, a solemn silencehovering over the landscape, all indicated that a storm was brewing insome corner of the horizon. The extraordinary torpidity of thesurrounding objects gradually affected the persons. Naught could beheard save the tinkling bells of the mules as they ambled slowly along, the measured, heavy tread, through the burning dust, of the bands ofsingers whom Cardailhac stationed at intervals in the procession, andfrom time to time, in the double, swarming line of human beings thatbordered the road as far as the eye could see, a call, the voices ofchildren, the cry of a peddler of fresh water, the inevitableaccompaniment of all open-air fêtes in the South. 

"For heaven's sake, open the window on your side, General, it'sstifling, " said Monpavon, with crimson face, fearing for his paint; andthe lowered sashes afforded the worthy populace a view of those exaltedfunctionaries mopping their august faces, which were terribly flushedand wore the same agonized expression of anticipation, --anticipation ofthe bey's arrival, of the storm, of something. 

Another triumphal arch. Giffas and its long stony street strewn withgreen palm leaves, its old, dirty houses covered with flowers anddecorations. Outside of the village the station, a square whitestructure, planted like a die at the side of the track, a genuine typeof the little country station lost among vineyards, its only roomalways empty, except for an occasional old woman with a quantity ofparcels, waiting in a corner, three hours too early for her train. 

In the bey's honor the little building was decked with flags andbanners, furnished with rugs and divans and a splendid buffet, on whichwas a light lunch and water ices all ready for his Highness. When hehad arrived and alighted from his carriage, the Nabob shook off thespecies of haunting disquiet which had oppressed him for a moment past, without his knowing why. Prefects, generals, deputies, black coats andembroidered military coats stood on the broad inner platform, inimpressive, solemn groups, with the pursed lips, the shifting from onefoot to the other, the self-conscious starts of a public functionarywho feels that he is being stared at. And you can imagine whether noseswere flattened against window-panes in order to obtain a glimpse ofthose hierarchic embroideries, of Monpavon's breastplate, whichexpanded and rose like an omelette soufflée, of Cardailhac gasping forbreath as he issued his final orders, and of the beaming face ofJansoulet, their Jansoulet, whose eyes, sparkling between the bloated, sunburned cheeks, resembled two great gilt nails in a piece of Cordovaleather. Suddenly the electric bells began to ring. The station-agentrushed frantically out to the track: "The train is signalled, messieurs. It will be here in eight minutes. " Everybody started. Then ageneral instinctive impulse caused every watch to be drawn from itsfob. Only six minutes more. Thereupon, in the profound silence, someone exclaimed: "Look there!" On the right, in the direction from whichthe train was to come, two high vine-covered hills formed a tunnel intowhich the track plunged and disappeared, as if swallowed up. At thatmoment the whole sky in that direction was as black as ink, obscured byan enormous cloud, a threatening wall cutting the blue as with a knife, rearing palisades, lofty cliffs of basalt on which the light broke likewhite foam with the pallid gleam of moonlight. In the solemn silence ofthe deserted track, along that line of rails where one felt thateverything, so far as the eye could see, stood aside for the passage ofhis Highness, that aërial cliff was a terrifying spectacle as itadvanced, casting its shadow before it with that illusion ofperspective which gave to the cloud a slow, majestic movement and toits shadow the rapid pace of a galloping horse. "What a storm we aregoing to have directly!" That was the thought that came to them all;but they had not time to express it, for an ear-piercing whistle washeard and the train appeared in the depths of the dark tunnel. Atypical royal train, short and travelling fast, decorated with Frenchand Tunisian flags, its groaning, puffing locomotive, with an enormousbouquet of roses on its breast, representing the maid of honor at awedding of Leviathans. 

It came rushing on at full speed, but slackened its pace as it drewnear. The functionaries formed a group, drawing themselves up, arranging their swords, adjusting their false collars, while Jansouletwalked along the track toward the train, the obsequious smile on hislips and his back already bent for the "Salem alek!" The traincontinued to move, very slowly. Jansoulet thought that it had stopped, and placed his hand on the door of the royal carriage glittering withgold under the black sky; but the headway was too great, doubtless, forthe train still went forward, the Nabob walking beside it, trying toopen that infernal door which resisted all his efforts, and with theother hand making a sign of command to the machine. But the machine didnot obey. "Stop, I tell you!" It did not stop. Impatient at the delay, he sprang upon the velvet-covered step, and with the somewhatpresumptuous impetuosity, which used to please the former bey so much, he cried out, thrusting his great curly head in at the window:

"Station for Saint-Romans, your Highness!"

You know that sort of vague light peculiar to dreams, that colorless, empty atmosphere, in which everything assumes a ghostly aspect? well, Jansoulet was suddenly enveloped, made prisoner, paralyzed by it. Hetried to speak, but the words would not come; his nerveless fingersclung so feebly to their support that he nearly fell backward. Inheaven's name, what had he seen? Half reclining on a divan whichextended across one end of the car, his fine head with its dead-whitecomplexion and its long, silky black beard resting on his hand, thebey, buttoned to the chin in his Oriental frock-coat, without otherornament than the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honor across his breastand the diamond clasp in his cap, was fanning himself impassively witha little fan of _spartum_, embroidered with gold. Two aides-de-campwere standing near him and an engineer of the French company. Oppositehim, upon another divan, in a respectful attitude, but one indicatinghigh favor, as they alone remained seated in presence of the bey, bothas yellow as saffron, their long whiskers falling over their whitecravats, sat two owls, one fat, the other thin. They were theHemerlingues, father and son, who had reconquered his Highness and werecarrying him in triumph to Paris. A ghastly dream! All those people, although they knew Jansoulet well, stared coolly at him as if his faceconveyed no idea to them. Pitiably pale, with the perspiration standingon his brow, he stammered: "But, your Highness, do you not mean toleave--" A livid flash, like that of a sabre stroke, followed by afrightful peal of thunder, cut him short. But the flash that shot fromthe monarch's eyes seemed far more terrible to him. Rising to his feetand stretching out his arm, the bey crushed him with these words, prepared in advance and uttered slowly in a rather guttural voiceaccustomed to the harsh Arabic syllables, but in very pure French:

"You may return home, Mercanti. The foot goes where the heart leads it, mine shall never enter the door of the man who has robbed my country. "

Jansoulet tried to say a word. The bey waved his hand: "Begone!" Andthe engineer having pressed the button of an electric bell, to which awhistle replied, the train, which had not come to a full stop, stretched and strained its iron muscles and started ahead under fullsteam, waving its flags in the wind of the storm amid whirling cloudsof dense smoke and sinister flashes. 

He stood by the track, dazed, staggering, crushed, watching his fortunerecede and disappear, heedless of the great drops of rain that began tofall upon his bare head. Then, when the others rushed toward him, surrounded him and overwhelmed him with questions: "Isn't the Bey goingto stop?" he stammered a few incoherent words: "Court intrigues--infamousmachinations. " And suddenly, shaking his fist at the train which hadalready disappeared, with bloodshot eyes and the foam of fierce wrathon his lips, he cried with the roar of a wild beast:

"Vile curs!"

"Courage, Jansoulet, courage. "

You can guess who said that, and who, passing his arm through theNabob's, tried to straighten him up, to make him throw out his breastas he did, led him to the carriages amid the stupefied silence of thebraided coats, and helped him to enter, crushed and bewildered, as arelative of the deceased is hoisted into a mourning carriage at theclose of the lugubrious ceremony. The rain was beginning to fall, thepeals of thunder followed one another rapidly. They crowded into thecarriages, which started hurriedly homeward. Thereupon a heart-rending, yet comical thing took place, one of those cruel tricks which cowardlydestiny plays upon its victims when they are down. In the fading light, the increasing obscurity caused by the squall, the crowd that filledall the approaches to the station believed that it could distinguish aRoyal Highness amid such a profusion of gold lace, and as soon as thewheels began to revolve, a tremendous uproar, an appalling outcry whichhad been brewing in all those throats for an hour past, arose andfilled the air, rebounded from hill to hill and echoed through thevalley: "Vive le Bey!" Warned by that signal, the first flourishes rangout, the singing societies struck up in their turn, and as the noiseincreased from point to point, the road from Giffas to Saint-Romans wasnaught but one long, unbroken wave of sound. In vain did Cardailhac, all the gentlemen, Jansoulet himself, lean out of the windows and makedesperate signs: "Enough! enough!" Their gestures were lost in theconfusion, in the darkness; what was seen of them seemed anencouragement to shout louder. And I give you my word that it was in nowise needed. All those Southerners, whose enthusiasm had been kept atfever heat since morning, excited still more by the tedium of the longwait and by the storm, gave all that they had of voice, of breath, ofnoisy energy, blending with the national hymn of Provence thatoft-repeated cry, which broke in upon it like a refrain: "Vive le Bey!"The majority had no sort of idea what a bey might be, did not evenpicture him to themselves, and gave a most extraordinary pronunciationto the unfamiliar title, as if it had three _b's_ and ten _y's_. But nomatter, they worked themselves into a frenzy over it, threw up theirhands, waved their hats, and waxed excited over their own antics. Women, deeply affected, wiped their eyes; and suddenly the piercing cryof a child came from the topmost branches of an elm: "Mamma, mamma, Isee him!" He saw him! They all saw him for that matter; to this daythey would all take their oath that they saw him. 

Confronted with such delirious excitement, finding it impossible toimpose silence and tranquillity upon that mob, there was but one coursefor the people in the carriages to pursue: to let them alone, raise thewindows and drive at full speed in order to abridge that unpleasantmartyrdom as much as possible. Then it was terrible. Seeing the cortègequicken its pace, the whole road began to run with it. The _farandoleurs_of Barbantane, hand-in-hand, bounded from side to side, to the muffledwheezing of their tambourines, forming a human garland around thecarriage doors. The singing societies, unable to sing at that breathlesspace, but howling none the less, dragged their banner-bearers along, the banners thrown over their shoulders; and the stout, red-facedcurés, panting, pushing their huge overburdened paunches before them, still found strength to shout in the mules' ears, in sympathetic, effusive tones: "Vive notre bon Bey!" And with it all, the rain, therain falling in bucketfuls, in sheets, soiling the pink carriages, increasing the confusion, giving to that triumphal return the aspect ofa rout, but a laughable rout, compounded of songs, laughter, blasphemy, frantic embraces and infernal oaths, something like the return from aCorpus Christi procession in the storm, with cassocks tucked up, surplices thrown over the head, and the good Lord hastily housed undera porch. 

A dull rumbling announced to the poor Nabob, sitting silent andmotionless in a corner of his carriage, that they were crossing thebridge of boats. They had arrived. 

"At last!" he said, looking out through the dripping windows at thefoam-tipped waves of the Rhone, where the storm seemed to him likerepose after that through which he had passed. But, when the firstcarriage reached the triumphal arch at the end of the bridge, bombswere exploded, the drums beat, saluting the monarch's arrival upon hisfaithful subject's domain, and the climax of irony was reached when, inthe half light, a blaze of gas suddenly illuminated the roof of thechâteau with letters of fire, over which the rain and wind caused greatshadows to run to and fro, but which still displayed very legibly thelegend: "Viv' L' B'Y M'H'MED. "

"That's the bouquet, " said the unhappy Nabob, unable to restrain asmile, a very pitiful, very bitter smile. But no, he was mistaken. Thebouquet awaited him at the door of the chateâu; and it was Amy Fératwho came forward to present it to him, stepping out of the group ofmaidens from Arles, who were sheltering their watered silk skirts andfigured velvet caps under the marquée, awaiting the first carriage. Herbunch of flowers in her hand, modestly, with downcast eyes and roguishankle, the pretty actress darted to the door and stood almost kneelingin an attitude of salutation, which she had been rehearsing for a week. Instead of the bey, Jansoulet stepped out, excited, stiffly erect, andpassed her by without even looking at her. And as she stood there, hernosegay in her hand, with the stupid expression of a balked fairy, Cardailhac said to her with the _blague_ of a Parisian who speedilymakes the best of things:

"Take away your flowers, my dear, your affair has fallen through. TheBey isn't coming--he forgot his handkerchief, and as that's what heuses to talk to ladies, why, you understand--"

 * * *

Now, it is night. Everybody is asleep at Saint-Romans after thetremendous hurly-burly of the day. The rain is still falling intorrents, the banners feebly wave their drenched carcasses, one canhear the water rushing down the stone steps, transformed into cascades. Everything is streaming and dripping. A sound of water, a deafeningsound of water. Alone in his magnificently furnished chamber with itsseignorial bed and its curtains of Chinese silk with purple stripes, the Nabob is still stirring, striding back and forth, revolving bitterthoughts. His mind is no longer intent upon the affront to himself, thepublic affront in the presence of thirty thousand persons, nor upon themurderous insult that the Bey addressed to him in presence of hismortal enemies. No, that Southerner with his wholly physicalsensations, swift as the action of new weapons, has already cast awayall the venom of his spleen. Moreover court favorites are alwaysprepared, by many celebrated precedents, for such overwhelming fallsfrom grace. What terrifies him is what he can see behind that insult. He reflects that all his property is over yonder, houses, counting-rooms, vessels, at the mercy of the bey, in that lawlessOrient, the land of arbitrary power. And, pressing his burning browagainst the streaming glass, with the perspiration standing on hisback, and hands cold as ice, he stares vacantly out into the night, nodarker, no more impenetrable than his own destiny. 

Suddenly he hears footsteps, hurried footsteps, at his door. 

"Who's there?"

"Monsieur, " says Noël, entering the room half-dressed, "a very urgentdespatch sent from the telegraph office by special messenger. "

"A despatch!--What is the next thing?"

He takes the blue paper and opens it with trembling hand. The god, having already been wounded twice, is beginning to feel that he isvulnerable, to lose his assurance; he experiences the apprehensions, the nervous tremors of other men. The signature first. _Mora!_ Is itpossible? The duke, the duke telegraph to him! Yes, there is no doubtabout it. _M-o-r-a. _

And above:

 _Popolasca is dead. Election in Corsica soon. You are official candidate. _

A deputy! That means salvation. With that he has nothing to fear. Arepresentative of the great French nation is not to be treated like asimple _mercanti_. Down with the Hemerlingues!

"O my duke, my noble duke!"

He was so excited that he could not sign the receipt. 

"Where's the man who brought this despatch?" he asked abruptly. 

"Here, Monsieur Jansoulet, " replied a hearty voice from the hall, inthe familiar Southern dialect. 

He was a lucky dog, that messenger. 

"Come in, " said the Nabob. 

And, after handing him his receipt, he plunged his hands into hispockets, which were always full, grasped as many gold pieces as hecould hold and threw them into the poor devil's cap as he stood therestammering, bewildered, dazzled by the fortune that had befallen him inthe darkness of that enchanted palace. 

XII. 

A CORSICAN ELECTION. 

 "POZZONEGRO, near Sartène. 

 "I am able at last to write you of my movements, my dear Monsieur Joyeuse. In the five days that we have been in Corsica we have travelled about so much, talked so much, changed carriages and steeds so often, riding sometimes on mules, sometimes on asses, and sometimes even on men's backs to cross streams, have written so many letters, made notes on so many petitions, given away so many chasubles and altar-cloths, propped up so many tottering church steeples, founded so many asylums, proposed and drunk so many toasts, absorbed so much talk and Talano wine and white cheese, that I have found no time to send an affectionate word to the little family circle around the big table, from which I have been missing for two weeks. Luckily my absence will not last much longer, for we expect to leave day after to-morrow and travel straight through to Paris. So far as the election is concerned, I fancy that our trip has been successful. Corsica is a wonderful country, indolent and poor, a mixture of poverty and of pride which makes both the noble and bourgeois families keep up a certain appearance of opulence even at the price of the most painful privations. They talk here in all seriousness of the great wealth of Popolasca, the indigent deputy whom death robbed of the hundred thousand francs his resignation in the Nabob's favor would have brought him. All these people have, moreover, a frenzied longing for offices, an administrative mania, a craving to wear a uniform of some sort and a flat cap on which they can write: "Government clerk. " If you should give a Corsican peasant his choice between the richest farm in Beauce and the baldric of the humblest forest-warden, he would not hesitate a moment, he would choose the baldric. Under such circumstances you can judge whether a candidate with a large fortune and governmental favors at his disposal has a good chance of being elected. Elected M. Jansoulet will be, therefore, especially if he succeeds in the move which he is making at this moment and which has brought us to the only inn of a small village called Pozzonegro (Black Well), a genuine well, all black with verdure, fifty cottages built of red stone clustered around a church of the Italian type, in the bottom of a ravine surrounded by steep hills, by cliffs of bright-colored sandstone, scaled by vast forests of larches and junipers. Through my open window, at which I am writing, I can see a bit of blue sky overhead, the orifice of the black well; below, on the little square, shaded by an enormous walnut tree, as if the shadows were not dense enough already, two shepherds dressed in skins are playing cards on the stone curb of a fountain. Gambling is the disease of this country of sloth, where the crops are harvested by men from Lucca. The two poor devils before me could not find a sou in their pockets; one stakes his knife, the other a cheese wrapped in vine leaves, the two stakes being placed beside them on the stone. A little curé is watching them, smoking his cigar, and apparently taking the liveliest interest in their game. 

 "And that is all--not a sound anywhere except the regular dropping of the water on the stone, the exclamations of one of the gamblers, who swears by the _sango del seminario_; and in the common-room of the inn, under my chamber, our friend's earnest voice, mingled with the buzzing of the illustrious Paganetti, who acts as interpreter in his conversation with the no less illustrious Piedigriggio. 

 "M. Piedigriggio (Grayfoot) is a local celebrity. He is a tall old man of seventy-five, still very erect in his short cloak over which his long white beard falls, his brown woollen Catalan cap on his hair, which is also white, a pair of scissors in his belt, which he uses to cut the great leaves of green tobacco in the hollow of his hand; a venerable old fellow in fact, and when he crossed the square and shook hands with the curé, with a patronizing smile at the two gamblers, I never would have believed that I had before me the famous brigand Piedigriggio, who, from 1840 to 1860, _held the thickets_ in Monte-Rotondo, tired out gendarmes and troops of the line, and who to-day, his seven or eight murders with the rifle or the knife being outlawed by lapse of time, goes his way in peace throughout the region that saw his crimes, and is a man of considerable importance. This is the explanation: Piedigriggio has two sons, who, following nobly in his footsteps, have toyed with the rifle and now hold the thickets in their turn. Impossible to lay hands upon or to find, as their father was for twenty years, informed by the shepherds of the movements of the gendarmerie, as soon as the gendarmes leave a village, the brigands appear there. The older of the two, Scipion, came last Sunday to Pozzonegro to hear mass. To say that people are fond of them, and that the grasp of the bloodstained hand of these villains is agreeable to all those who receive it, would be to calumniate the pacific inhabitants of this commune; but they fear them, and their will is law. 

 "Now it appears that the Piedigriggios have taken it into their heads to espouse the cause of our rival in the election, a formidable alliance, which may cause two whole cantons to vote against us, for the knaves have legs as long, in proportion, as the range of their guns. Naturally we have the gendarmes with us, but the brigands are much more powerful. As our host said to us this morning: 'The gendarmes, they go, but the banditti, they stay. ' In the face of that very logical reasoning, we realized that there was but one thing to do, to treat with the Piedigriggios, and make a bargain with them. The mayor said a word to the old man, who consulted his sons, and they are discussing the terms of the treaty downstairs. I can hear the Governor's voice from here: 'Nonsense, my dear fellow, I'm an old Corsican myself, you know. ' And then the other's tranquil reply, cut simultaneously with his tobacco by the grating noise of the great scissors. The 'dear fellow' does not seem to have faith; and I am inclined to think that matters will not progress until the gold pieces ring on the table. 

 "The trouble is that Paganetti is well known in his native country. The value of his word is written on the public square at Corte which still awaits the monument to Paoli, in the vast crop of humbuggery that he has succeeded in planting in this sterile Ithacan island, and in the flabby, empty pocket-books of all the wretched village curés, petty bourgeois, petty noblemen, whose slender savings he has filched by dangling chimerical _combinazioni_ before their eyes. Upon my word, he needed all his phenomenal assurance, together with the financial resources he now has at his command to satisfy all demands, to venture to show his face here again. 

 "After all, how much truth is there in these fabulous works undertaken by the _Caisse Territoriale_?

 "None at all. 

 "Mines which do not yield, which will never yield, as they exist only on paper; quarries which as yet know not pickaxe or powder; untilled, sandy moors, which they survey with a gesture, saying, 'We begin here, and we go way over yonder, to the devil. ' It's the same with the forests, --one whole densely wooded slope of Monte-Rotondo, which belongs to us, it seems, but which it is not practicable to cut unless aeronauts should do duty as woodcutters. So as to the mineral baths, of which this wretched hamlet of Pozzonegro is one of the most important, with its fountain, whose amazing ferruginous properties Paganetti is constantly vaunting. Of packet-boats, not a trace. Yes, there is an old, half-ruined Genoese tower, on the shore of the Bay of Ajaccio, with this inscription on a tarnished panel over its hermetically closed door: 'Paganetti Agency, Maritime Company, Bureau of Information. ' The bureau is kept by fat gray lizards in company with a screech-owl. As for the railroads, I noticed that all the excellent Corsicans to whom I mentioned them, replied with cunning smiles, disconnected phrases, full of mystery; and not until this morning did I obtain the exceedingly farcical explanation of all this reticence. 

 "I had read among the documents which the Governor waves before our eyes from time to time, like a fan to inflate his _blague_, a deed of a marble quarry at a place called Taverna, two hours from Pozzonegro. Availing myself of our visit to this place, I jumped on a mule this morning, without a word to any one, and, guided by a tall rascal, with the legs of a deer, --a perfect specimen of the Corsican poacher or smuggler, with his great red pipe between his teeth, --I betook myself to Taverna. After a horrible journey among cliffs intersected by crevasses, bogs, and abysses of immeasurable depth, where my mule maliciously amused himself by walking close to the edge, as if he were measuring it with his shoes, we descended an almost perpendicular surface to our destination, --a vast desert of rocks, absolutely bare, all white with the droppings of gulls and mews; for the sea is just below, very near, and the silence of the place was broken only by the beating of the waves and the shrill cries of flocks of birds flying in circles. My guide, who has a holy horror of customs officers and gendarmes, remained at the top of the cliff, because of a small custom-house station on the shore, while I bent my steps toward a tall red building which reared its three stories aloft in that blazing solitude, the windows broken, the roof-tiles in confusion, and over the rotting door an immense sign: '_Caisse Territoriale. Carr--bre--54. _' The wind and sun and rain have destroyed the rest. 

 "Certainly there has been at some time an attempt made to work the mine, for there is a large, square, yawning hole, with cleanly-cut edges and patches of red streaked with brown, like leprous spots, along its sterile walls; and among the nettles at the bottom enormous blocks of marble of the variety known in commerce as _griotte_, condemned blocks of which no use can be made for lack of a proper road leading to the quarry, or a harbor which would enable boats to approach the hill; and, more than all else, for lack of sufficient funds to supply either of those needs. So the quarry, although within a few cable-lengths of the shore, is abandoned, useless, and a nuisance, like Robinson Crusoe's boat, with the same drawbacks as to availability. These details of the distressing history of our only territorial possession were furnished me by an unhappy survivor, shivering with fever, whom I found in the basement of the yellow house trying to cook a piece of kid over the acrid smoke of a fire of mastic branches. 

 "That man, who comprises the whole staff of the _Caisse Territoriale_ in Corsica, is Paganetti's foster-father, an ex-lighthouse-keeper who does not mind loneliness. The Governor leaves him there partly from charity, and also because an occasional letter from the Taverna quarry produces a good effect at meetings of shareholders. I had great difficulty in extorting any information from that three-fourths wild man, who gazed at me suspiciously, in ambush behind his goat-skin _pelone_; he did tell me, however, unintentionally, what the Corsicans understand by the term railroad, and why they assume this mysterious manner when they mention it. While I was trying to find out whether he knew anything of the scheme for an iron road in the island, the old fellow did not put on the cunning smile I had observed in his compatriots, but said to me quite naturally, in very good French, but in a voice as rusty and stiff as an old lock that is seldom used:

 "'Oh! moussiou, no need of railroads here--'

 "'But they are very valuable, very useful to make communication easier. '

 "'I don't say that ain't true; but with the gendarmes we don't need anything more. '

 "'The gendarmes?'

 "'To be sure. '

 "The misunderstanding lasted fully five minutes, before I finally comprehended that the secret police are known here as the 'railroads. ' As there are many Corsican police officials on the Continent, they make use of an honest euphemism to describe their degrading occupation in their family circle. You ask the kinsmen of one of them, 'Where's your brother Ambrosini?' 'What is your Uncle Barbicaglia doing?' They will answer, with a little wink: 'He has a place on the railroad;' and everybody knows what that means. Among the lower classes, the peasants, who have never seen a railroad and have no idea what it is, there is a perfectly serious belief that the great department of the secret imperial police has no other name than that. Our principal agent in the island shares that touching innocence; this will give you an idea of the condition of the _Line from Ajaccio to Bastia via Bonifacio, Porto Vecchio, etc. _, which figures on the great books with green backs in the Paganetti establishment. In a word, all the assets of the territorial bank are comprised in a few desks and two old hovels--the whole hardly worthy of a place in the rubbish-yard on Rue Saint-Ferdinand, where I hear the weathercocks creaking and the old doors slamming every night as I fall asleep. 

 "But in that case what has been done, what is being done with the enormous sums that M. Jansoulet has poured into the treasury in the last five months, to say nothing of what has come from other sources attracted by that magic name? I fully agreed with you that all these soundings and borings and purchases of land, which appear on the books in a fine round hand, were immeasurably exaggerated. But how could any one suspect such infernal impudence? That is why M. Le Gouverneur was so disgusted at the idea of taking me on this electoral trip. I have not thought it best to have an explanation on the spot. My poor Nabob has enough on his mind with his election. But, as soon as we have returned, I shall place all the details of my long investigation before his eyes; and I will extricate him from this den of thieves by persuasion or by force. They have finished their negotiations downstairs. Old Piedigriggio is crossing the square, playing with his long peasant's purse, which looks to me to be well-filled. The bargain is concluded, I suppose. A hasty adieu, my dear Monsieur Joyeuse; remember me to the young ladies, and bid them keep a tiny place for me at the work-table. 

 "PAUL DE GÉRY. "

The electoral cyclone in which they had been enveloped in Corsicacrossed the sea in their wake like the blast of a sirocco, followedthem to Paris and blew madly through the apartments on Place Vendôme, which were thronged from morning till night by the usual crowd, increased by the constant arrival of little men as dark as carob-beans, with regular, bearded faces, some noisy, buzzing and chattering, otherssilent, self-contained and dogmatic, the two types of the race in whichthe same climate produces different results. All those famishedislanders made appointments, in the wilds of their uncivilizedfatherland, to meet one another at the Nabob's table, and his house hadbecome a tavern, a restaurant, a market-place. In the dining-room, where the table was always set, there was always some Corsican, newlyarrived, in the act of taking a bite, with the bewildered and greedyexpression of a relation from the country. 

The noisy, blatant breed of election agents is the same everywhere; butthese men were distinguished by something more of ardor, a moreimpassioned zeal, a turkey-cock vanity heated white-hot. The mostinsignificant clerk, inspector, mayor's secretary, or villageschoolmaster talked as if he had a whole canton behind him and thepockets of his threadbare coat stuffed full of ballots. And it is afact, which Jansoulet had had abundant opportunity to verify, that inthe Corsican villages the families are so ancient, of such humbleorigin, with so many ramifications, that a poor devil who breaks stoneson the high road finds some way to work out his relationship to thegreatest personages on the island, and in that way wields a seriousinfluence. As the national temperament, proud, cunning, intriguing, revengeful, intensifies these complications, the result is that greatcare must be taken as to where one puts his foot among the snares thatare spread from one end of the island to the other. 

The most dangerous part of it was that all those people were jealous ofone another, detested one another, quarrelled openly at the table onthe subject of the election, exchanging black glances, grasping thehilts of their knives at the slightest dispute, talking very loud andall together, some in the harsh, resonant Genoese patois, others in themost comical French, choking with restrained insults, throwing at oneanother's heads the names of unknown villages, dates of local historywhich suddenly placed two centuries of family feuds upon the tablebetween two covers. The Nabob was afraid that his breakfasts would endtragically, and tried to calm all those violent natures with hiskindly, conciliatory smile. But Paganetti reassured him. According tohim, the vendetta, although still kept alive in Corsica, very rarelyemploys the stiletto and the firearm in these days. The anonymousletter has taken their place. Indeed, unsigned letters were receivedevery day at Place Vendôme, after the style of this one:--

 "You are so generous, Monsieur Jansoulet, that I can do no less than point out to you Sieur Bornalinco (Ange-Marie) as a traitor who has gone over to your enemies; I have a very different story to tell of his cousin Bornalinco (Louis-Thomas), who is devoted to the good cause, " etc. 

Or else:

 "Monsieur Jansoulet, I fear that your election will be badly managed and will come to nothing if you continue to employ Castirla (Josué) of the canton of Odessa, while his kinsman, Luciani, is the very man you need. "

Although he finally gave up reading such missives, the poor candidatewas shaken by all those doubts, by all those passions, being caught ina network of petty intrigues, his mind full of terror and distrust, anxious, excited, nervous, feeling keenly the truth of the Corsicanproverb:

"If you are very ill-disposed to your enemy, pray that he may have anelection in his family. "

We can imagine that the check-book and the three great drawers in themahogany commode were not spared by that cloud of devouring locuststhat swooped down upon "Moussiou Jansoulet's" salons. Nothing could bemore comical than the overbearing way in which those worthy islandersnegotiated their loans, abruptly and with an air of defiance. And yetthey were not the most terrible, except in the matter of boxes ofcigars, which vanished in their pockets so rapidly as to make one thinkthey proposed to open a _Civette_ on their return to the island. Butjust as wounds grow red and inflamed on very hot days, so the electionhad caused an amazing recrudescence in the systematic pillage thatreigned in the house. The expenses of advertising were considerable:Moëssard's articles, sent to Corsica in packages of twenty thousand, thirty thousand copies, with portraits, biographies, pamphlets, all theprinted clamor that it is possible to raise around a name. And thenthere was no diminution in the ordinary consumption of the pantingpumps established around the reservoir of millions. On one side theWork of Bethlehem, a powerful machine, pumping at regular intervals, with tremendous energy; the _Caisse Territoriale_, with marvellouspower of suction, indefatigable in its operation, with triple andquadruple action, of several thousand horse-power; and the Schwalbachpump, and the Bois-l'Héry pump, and how many more; some of enormoussize, making a great noise, with audacious pistons, others more quietand reserved, with tiny valves, bearings skilfully oiled--toy-pumps asdelicately constructed as the probosces of insects whose thirst causesstings, and which deposit poison on the spot from which they suck theirlife; but all working with the same unanimity, and fatally certain tocause, if not an absolute drought, at all events a serious lowering ofthe level. 

Already unfavorable reports, vague as yet, were in circulation on theBourse. Was it a manoeuvre of the enemy, of that Hemerlingue againstwhom Jansoulet was waging ruthless financial war, trying to defeat allhis operations, and losing very considerable sums at the game, becausehe had against him his own excitable nature, his adversary'scool-headedness and the bungling of Paganetti, whom he used as a man ofstraw? In any event, the star of gold had turned pale. Paul de Gérylearned as much from Père Joyeuse, who had entered the employ of abroker as book-keeper, and was thoroughly posted on matters connectedwith the Bourse; but what alarmed him more than all else was theNabob's strange agitation, the craving for excitement which hadsucceeded the admirable calmness of conscious strength, of serenity, the disappearance of his Southern sobriety, the way in which hestimulated himself before eating by great draughts of _raki_, talkingloud and laughing uproariously like a common sailor during his watch ondeck. One felt that the man was tiring himself out to escape someabsorbing thought, which was visible nevertheless in the suddencontraction of all the muscles of his face when it passed through hismind, or when he was feverishly turning over the pages of his tarnishedlittle memorandum-book. The serious interview, the decisive explanationthat Paul was so desirous to have with him, Jansoulet would not have atany price. He passed his evenings at the club, his mornings in bed, andas soon as he was awake had his bedroom full of people, who talked tohim while he was dressing, and to whom he replied with his face in hiswash-bowl. If, by any miracle, de Géry caught him for a second, hewould run away or cut him short with a: "Not now, I beg you. " At lastthe young man resorted to heroic measures. 

One morning about five o'clock, Jansoulet, on returning from his club, found on the table beside his bed a little note which he took at firstfor one of the anonymous denunciations which he received every day. Itwas a denunciation, in very truth, but signed, written with the utmostfrankness, breathing the loyalty and youthful seriousness of the manwho wrote it. De Géry set before him very clearly all the infamousschemes, all the speculations by which he was surrounded. He called therascals by their names, without circumlocution. There was not one amongthe ordinary habitués of the house who was not a suspicious character, not one who came there for any other purpose than to steal or lie. Fromattic to cellar, pillage and waste. Bois-l'Héry's horses were unsound, the Schwalbach gallery a fraud, Moëssard's articles notoriousblackmail. De Géry had drawn up a long detailed list of those impudentfrauds, with proofs in support of his allegations; but he commendedespecially to Jansoulet's attention the matter of the _CaisseTerritoriale_, as the really dangerous element in his situation. In theother matters money alone was at risk; in this, honor was involved. Attracted by the Nabob's name, by his title of president of thecouncil, hundreds of stockholders had walked into that infamous trap, seeking gold in the footsteps of that lucky miner. That fact imposed aterrible responsibility upon him which he would understand by readingthe memorandum relating to the concern, which was falsehood and fraud, pure and simple, from beginning to end. 

"You will find the memorandum to which I refer, " said Paul de Géry inconclusion, "in the first drawer in my desk. Various receipts areaffixed to it. I have not put it in your room, because I am distrustfulof Noël as of all the rest. To-night, when I go away, I will hand youthe key. For I am going away, my dear friend and benefactor, I am goingaway, overflowing with gratitude for the benefits you have conferred onme, and in despair because your blind confidence has prevented me fromrepaying them in part. My conscience as a man of honor would reproachme were I to remain longer useless at my post. I am looking on at aterrible disaster, the pillage of a Summer Palace, which I am powerlessto check; but my heart rises in revolt at all that I see. I exchangegrasps of the hand which dishonor me. I am your friend, and I seem tobe their confederate. And who knows whether, by living on in such anatmosphere, I might not become so?"

This letter, which he read slowly, thoroughly, even to the spacesbetween the words and the lines, made such a keen impression on theNabob that, instead of going to bed, he went at once to his youngsecretary. Paul occupied a study at the end of the suite of salons, where he slept on a couch, a provisional arrangement which he had nevercared to change. The whole house was still asleep. As he walked throughthe long line of great salons, which were not used for eveningreceptions, so that the curtains were always open and at that momentadmitted the uncertain light of a Parisian dawn, the Nabob paused, impressed by the melancholy aspect that his magnificent surroundingspresented. In the heavy odor of tobacco and various liquors that filledthe rooms, the furniture, the wainscotings, the decorations seemedfaded yet still new. Stains on the crumpled satin, ashes soiling thebeautiful marbles, marks of boots on the carpet reminded him of a hugefirst-class railway carriage, bearing the marks of the indolence, impatience and ennui of a long journey, with the destructive contemptof the public for a luxury for which it has paid. Amid that stagescenery, all in position and still warm from the ghastly comedy thatwas played there every day, his own image, reflected in twenty cold, pale mirrors, rose before him, at once ominous and comical, ill-at-easein his fashionable clothes, with bloated cheeks and face inflamed anddirty. 

What an inevitable and disenchanting morrow to the insane life he wasleading!

He lost himself for a moment in gloomy thoughts; then, with thevigorous shrug of the shoulders which was so familiar in him, thatpackman's gesture with which he threw off any too painfulpreoccupation, he resumed the burden which every man carries with him, and which causes the back to bend more or less, according to hiscourage or his strength, and entered de Géry's room, where he found himalready dressed and standing in front of his open desk, arrangingpapers. 

"First of all, my boy, " said Jansoulet, closing the door softly ontheir interview, "answer me this question frankly. Are the motives setforth in your letter your real motives for resolving to leave me? Isn'tthere underneath it all one of these infamous stories that I know arebeing circulated against me in Paris? I am sure you would be frankenough to tell me, and to give me a chance to--to set myself right inyour eyes. "

Paul assured him that he had no other reasons for going, but that thosehe had mentioned were surely sufficient, as it was a matter ofconscience. 

"Listen to me then, my child, and I am sure that I shall be able tokeep you. Your letter, eloquent as it was with honesty and sincerity, told me nothing new, nothing that I had not been convinced of for threemonths. Yes, my dear Paul, you were right; Paris is more complicatedthan I thought. What I lacked when I arrived here was an honest, disinterested cicerone to put me on my guard against persons andthings. I found none but people who wanted to make money out of me. Allthe degraded scoundrels in the city have left the mud from their bootson my carpets. I was looking at those poor salons of mine just now. They need a good thorough sweeping; and I promise you that they shallhave, _jour de Dieu!_ and from no light hand. But I am waiting until Iam a deputy. All these rascals are of service to me in my election; andthe election is too necessary to me for me to throw away the slightestchance. This is the situation in two words. Not only does the bey notintend to repay the money I loaned him a month ago; he has met my claimwith a counter-claim for twenty-four millions, the figure at which heestimates the sums I obtained from his brother. That is infernalrobbery, an impudent slander. My fortune is my own, honestly my own. Imade it in my dealings as a contractor. I enjoyed Ahmed's favor; hehimself furnished me with opportunities for making money. It is verypossible that I have screwed the vise a little hard sometimes. But thematter must not be judged with the eyes of a European. The enormousprofits that the Levantines make are a well-known and recognized thingover yonder; they are the ransom of the savages whom we introduce towestern comforts. This wretched Hemerlingue, who is suggesting all thispersecution of me to the bey, has done very much worse things. Butwhat's the use of arguing? I am in the wolf's jaws. Pending myappearance to justify myself before his courts--I know all aboutjustice in the Orient--the bey has begun by putting an embargo on allmy property, ships, palaces and their contents. The affair has beencarried on quite regularly, in pursuance of a decree of the SupremeCouncil. I can feel the claw of Hemerlingue Junior under it all. If Iam chosen deputy, it is all a jest. The Council revokes its decree andmy treasures are returned with all sorts of excuses. If I am notelected, I lose everything, sixty, eighty millions, even the possibleopportunity of making another fortune; it means ruin, disgrace, thebottomless pit. And now, my son, do you propose to abandon me at such acrisis? Remember that I have nobody in the world but you. My wife? youhave seen her, you know how much support, how much good advice shegives her husband. My children? It's as if I had none. I never seethem, they would hardly know me in the street. My ghastly magnificencehas made an empty void around me, so far as affections are concerned, has replaced them by shameless selfish interests. I have no one to lovebut my mother, who is far away, and you, who come to me from my mother. No, you shall not leave me alone among all the slanders that arecrawling around me. It is horrible--if you only knew! At the club, atthe theatre, wherever I go, I see Baroness Hemerlingue's little snake'shead, I hear the echo of her hissing, I feel the venom of her hatred. Everywhere I am conscious of mocking glances, conversations broken offwhen I appear, smiles that lie, or kindness in which there is amingling of pity. And then the defections, the people who move away asif a catastrophe were coming. For instance, here is Felicia Ruys, withmy bust just finished, alleging some accident or other as an excuse fornot sending it to the Salon. I said nothing, I pretended to believe it. But I understood that there was some infamy on foot in that quarter, too, --and it's a great disappointment to me. In emergencies as grave asthat I am passing through, everything has its importance. My bust atthe Exhibition, signed by that famous name, would have been of greatbenefit to me in Paris. But no, everything is breaking, everything isfailing me. Surely you see that you must not fail me. "

END OF VOL. I.