Z. MARCAS

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated by Clara Bell and others

 DEDICATION

 To His Highness Count William of Wurtemberg, as a token of the Author's respectful gratitude. 

 DE BALZAC. 

 Z. MARCAS

I never saw anybody, not even among the most remarkable men of theday, whose appearance was so striking as this man's; the study of hiscountenance at first gave me a feeling of great melancholy, and atlast produced an almost painful impression. 

There was a certain harmony between the man and his name. The Z. Preceding Marcas, which was seen on the addresses of his letters, andwhich he never omitted from his signature, as the last letter of thealphabet, suggested some mysterious fatality. 

MARCAS! say this two-syllabled name again and again; do you not feelas if it had some sinister meaning? Does it not seem to you that itsowner must be doomed to martyrdom? Though foreign, savage, the namehas a right to be handed down to posterity; it is well constructed, easily pronounced, and has the brevity that beseems a famous name. Isit not pleasant as well as odd? But does it not sound unfinished?

I will not take it upon myself to assert that names have no influenceon the destiny of men. There is a certain secret and inexplicableconcord or a visible discord between the events of a man's life andhis name which is truly surprising; often some remote but very realcorrelation is revealed. Our globe is round; everything is linked toeverything else. Some day perhaps we shall revert to the occultsciences. 

Do you not discern in that letter Z an adverse influence? Does it notprefigure the wayward and fantastic progress of a storm-tossed life?What wind blew on that letter, which, whatever language we find it in, begins scarcely fifty words? Marcas' name was Zephirin; Saint Zephirinis highly venerated in Brittany, and Marcas was a Breton. 

Study the name once more: Z Marcas! The man's whole life lies in thisfantastic juxtaposition of seven letters; seven! the most significantof all the cabalistic numbers. And he died at five-and-thirty, so hislife extended over seven lustres. 

Marcas! Does it not hint of some precious object that is broken with afall, with or without a crash?

I had finished studying the law in Paris in 1836. I lived at that timein the Rue Corneille in a house where none but students came to lodge, one of those large houses where there is a winding staircase quite atthe back lighted below from the street, higher up by borrowed lights, and at the top by a skylight. There were forty furnished rooms--furnished as students' rooms are! What does youth demand more thanwas here supplied? A bed, a few chairs, a chest of drawers, alooking-glass, and a table. As soon as the sky is blue the studentopens his window. 

But in this street there are no fair neighbors to flirt with. In frontis the Odeon, long since closed, presenting a wall that is beginningto go black, its tiny gallery windows and its vast expanse of slateroof. I was not rich enough to have a good room; I was not even richenough to have a room to myself. Juste and I shared a double-beddedroom on the fifth floor. 

On our side of the landing there were but two rooms--ours and asmaller one, occupied by Z. Marcas, our neighbor. For six months Justeand I remained in perfect ignorance of the fact. The old woman whomanaged the house had indeed told us that the room was inhabited, butshe had added that we should not be disturbed, that the occupant wasexceedingly quiet. In fact, for those six months, we never met ourfellow-lodger, and we never heard a sound in his room, in spite of thethinness of the partition that divided us--one of those walls of lathand plaster which are common in Paris houses. 

Our room, a little over seven feet high, was hung with a vile cheappaper sprigged with blue. The floor was painted, and knew nothing ofthe polish given by the _frotteur's_ brush. By our beds there was onlya scrap of thin carpet. The chimney opened immediately to the roof, and smoked so abominably that we were obliged to provide a stove atour own expense. Our beds were mere painted wooden cribs like those inschools; on the chimney shelf there were but two brass candlesticks, with or without tallow candles in them, and our two pipes with sometobacco in a pouch or strewn abroad, also the little piles ofcigar-ash left there by our visitors or ourselves. 

A pair of calico curtains hung from the brass window rods, and on eachside of the window was a small bookcase in cherry-wood, such as everyone knows who has stared into the shop windows of the Quartier Latin, and in which we kept the few books necessary for our studies. 

The ink in the inkstand was always in the state of lava congealed inthe crater of a volcano. May not any inkstand nowadays become aVesuvius? The pens, all twisted, served to clean the stems of ourpipes; and, in opposition to all the laws of credit, paper was evenscarcer than coin. 

How can young men be expected to stay at home in such furnishedlodgings? The students studied in the cafes, the theatre, theLuxembourg gardens, in _grisettes'_ rooms, even in the law schools--anywhere rather than in their horrible rooms--horrible for purposesof study, delightful as soon as they were used for gossiping andsmoking in. Put a cloth on the table, and the impromptu dinner sentin from the best eating-house in the neighborhood--places for four--two of them in petticoats--show a lithograph of this "Interior"to the veriest bigot, and she will be bound to smile. 

We thought only of amusing ourselves. The reason for our dissipationlay in the most serious facts of the politics of the time. Juste and Icould not see any room for us in the two professions our parentswished us to take up. There are a hundred doctors, a hundred lawyers, for one that is wanted. The crowd is choking these two paths which aresupposed to lead to fortune, but which are merely two arenas; men killeach other there, fighting, not indeed with swords or fire-arms, butwith intrigue and calumny, with tremendous toil, campaigns in thesphere of the intellect as murderous as those in Italy were to thesoldiers of the Republic. In these days, when everything is anintellectual competition, a man must be able to sit forty-eight hourson end in his chair before a table, as a General could remain for twodays on horseback and in his saddle. 

The throng of aspirants has necessitated a division of the Faculty ofMedicine into categories. There is the physician who writes and thephysician who practises, the political physician, and the physicianmilitant--four different ways of being a physician, four classesalready filled up. As to the fifth class, that of physicians who sellremedies, there is such a competition that they fight each other withdisgusting advertisements on the walls of Paris. 

In all the law courts there are almost as many lawyers as there arecases. The pleader is thrown back on journalism, on politics, onliterature. In fact, the State, besieged for the smallest appointmentsunder the law, has ended by requiring that the applicants should havesome little fortune. The pear-shaped head of the grocer's son isselected in preference to the square skull of a man of talent who hasnot a sou. Work as he will, with all his energy, a young man, startingfrom zero, may at the end of ten years find himself below the point heset out from. In these days, talent must have the good luck whichsecures success to the most incapable; nay, more, if it scorns thebase compromises which insure advancement to crawling mediocrity, itwill never get on. 

If we thoroughly knew our time, we also knew ourselves, and wepreferred the indolence of dreamers to aimless stir, easy-goingpleasure to the useless toil which would have exhausted our courageand worn out the edge of our intelligence. We had analyzed social lifewhile smoking, laughing, and loafing. But, though elaborated by suchmeans as these, our reflections were none the less judicious andprofound. 

While we were fully conscious of the slavery to which youth iscondemned, we were amazed at the brutal indifference of theauthorities to everything connected with intellect, thought, andpoetry. How often have Juste and I exchanged glances when reading thepapers as we studied political events, or the debates in the Chamber, and discussed the proceedings of a Court whose wilful ignorance couldfind no parallel but in the platitude of the courtiers, the mediocrityof the men forming the hedge round the newly-restored throne, allalike devoid of talent or breadth of view, of distinction or learning, of influence or dignity!

Could there be a higher tribute to the Court of Charles X. Than thepresent Court, if Court it may be called? What a hatred of the countrymay be seen in the naturalization of vulgar foreigners, devoid oftalent, who are enthroned in the Chamber of Peers! What a perversionof justice! What an insult to the distinguished youth, the ambitionsnative to the soil of France! We looked upon these things as upon aspectacle, and groaned over them, without taking upon ourselves toact. 

Juste, whom no one ever sought, and who never sought any one, was, atfive-and-twenty, a great politician, a man with a wonderful aptitudefor apprehending the correlation between remote history and the factsof the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly whatwould and did happen--the murders, the conspiracies, the ascendency ofthe Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity oftalent in the higher circles, and the abundance of intellect in thelowest ranks, where the finest courage is smothered under cigar ashes. 

What was to become of him? His parents wished him to be a doctor. Butif he were a doctor, must he not wait twenty years for a practice? Youknow what he did? No? Well, he is a doctor; but he left France, he isin Asia. At this moment he is perhaps sinking under fatigue in adesert, or dying of the lashes of a barbarous horde--or perhaps he issome Indian prince's prime minister. 

Action is my vocation. Leaving a civil college at the age of twenty, the only way for me to enter the army was by enlisting as a commonsoldier; so, weary of the dismal outlook that lay before a lawyer, Iacquired the knowledge needed for a sailor. I imitate Juste, and keepout of France, where men waste, in the struggle to make way, theenergy needed for the noblest works. Follow my example, friends; I amgoing where a man steers his destiny as he pleases. 

These great resolutions were formed in the little room in thelodging-house in the Rue Corneille, in spite of our haunting the BalMusard, flirting with girls of the town, and leading a careless andapparently reckless life. Our plans and arguments long floated in theair. 

Marcas, our neighbor, was in some degree the guide who led us to themargin of the precipice or the torrent, who made us sound it, andshowed us beforehand what our fate would be if we let ourselves fallinto it. It was he who put us on our guard against the time-bargains aman makes with poverty under the sanction of hope, by acceptingprecarious situations whence he fights the battle, carried along bythe devious tide of Paris--that great harlot who takes you up orleaves you stranded, smiles or turns her back on you with equalreadiness, wears out the strongest will in vexatious waiting, andmakes misfortune wait on chance. 

At our first meeting, Marcas, as it were, dazzled us. On our returnfrom the schools, a little before the dinner-hour, we were accustomedto go up to our room and remain there a while, either waiting for theother, to learn whether there were any change in our plans for theevening. One day, at four o'clock, Juste met Marcas on the stairs, andI saw him in the street. It was in the month of November, and Marcashad no cloak; he wore shoes with heavy soles, corduroy trousers, and ablue double-breasted coat buttoned to the throat, which gave amilitary air to his broad chest, all the more so because he wore ablack stock. The costume was not in itself extraordinary, but itagreed well with the man's mien and countenance. 

My first impression on seeing him was neither surprise, nor distress, nor interest, nor pity, but curiosity mingled with all these feelings. He walked slowly, with a step that betrayed deep melancholy, his headforward with a stoop, but not bent like that of a conscience-strickenman. That head, large and powerful, which might contain the treasuresnecessary for a man of the highest ambition, looked as if it wereloaded with thought; it was weighted with grief of mind, but there wasno touch of remorse in his expression. As to his face, it may besummed up in a word. A common superstition has it that every humancountenance resembles some animal. The animal for Marcas was the lion. His hair was like a mane, his nose was sort and flat; broad and dentedat the tip like a lion's; his brow, like a lion's, was strongly markedwith a deep median furrow, dividing two powerful bosses. His high, hairy cheek-bones, all the more prominent because his cheeks were sothin, his enormous mouth and hollow jaws, were accentuated by lines oftawny shadows. This almost terrible countenance seemed illuminated bytwo lamps--two eyes, black indeed, but infinitely sweet, calm anddeep, full of thought. If I may say so, those eyes had a humiliatedexpression. 

Marcas was afraid of looking directly at others, not for himself, butfor those on whom his fascinating gaze might rest; he had a power, andhe shunned using it; he would spare those he met, and he fearednotice. This was not from modesty, but from resignation founded onreason, which had demonstrated the immediate inutility of his gifts, the impossibility of entering and living in the sphere for which hewas fitted. Those eyes could at times flash lightnings. From thoselips a voice of thunder must surely proceed; it was a mouth likeMirabeau's. 

"I have seen such a grand fellow in the street, " said I to Juste oncoming in. 

"It must be our neighbor, " replied Juste, who described, in fact, theman I had just met. "A man who lives like a wood-louse would be sureto look like that, " he added. 

"What dejection and what dignity!"

"One is the consequence of the other. "

"What ruined hopes! What schemes and failures!"

"Seven leagues of ruins! Obelisks--palaces--towers!--The ruins ofPalmyra in the desert!" said Juste, laughing. 

So we called him the Ruins of Palmyra. 

As we went out to dine at the wretched eating-house in the Rue de laHarpe to which we subscribed, we asked the name of Number 37, and thenheard the weird name Z. Marcas. Like boys, as we were, we repeated itmore than a hundred times with all sorts of comments, absurd ormelancholy, and the name lent itself to a jest. Juste would fire offthe Z like a rocket rising, _z-z-z-z-zed_; and after pronouncing thefirst syllable of the name with great importance, depicted a fall bythe dull brevity of the second. 

"Now, how and where does the man live?"

From this query, to the innocent espionage of curiosity there was nopause but that required for carrying out our plan. Instead ofloitering about the streets, we both came in, each armed with a novel. We read with our ears open. And in the perfect silence of our atticrooms, we heard the even, dull sound of a sleeping man breathing. 

"He is asleep, " said I to Juste, noticing this fact. 

"At seven o'clock!" replied the Doctor. 

This was the name by which I called Juste, and he called me the Keeperof the Seals. 

"A man must be wretched indeed to sleep as much as our neighbor!"cried I, jumping on to the chest of drawers with a knife in my hand, to which a corkscrew was attached. 

I made a round hole at the top of the partition, about as big as afive-sou piece. I had forgotten that there would be no light in theroom, and on putting my eye to the hole, I saw only darkness. At aboutone in the morning, when we had finished our books and were about toundress, we heard a noise in our neighbor's room. He got up, struck amatch, and lighted his dip. I got on to the drawers again, and I thensaw Marcas seated at his table and copying law-papers. 

His room was about half the size of ours; the bed stood in a recess bythe door, for the passage ended there, and its breadth was added tohis garret; but the ground on which the house was built was evidentlyirregular, for the party-wall formed an obtuse angle, and the room wasnot square. There was no fireplace, only a small earthenware stove, white blotched with green, of which the pipe went up through the roof. The window, in the skew side of the room, had shabby red curtains. Thefurniture consisted of an armchair, a table, a chair, and a wretchedbed-table. A cupboard in the wall held his clothes. The wall-paper washorrible; evidently only a servant had ever been lodged there beforeMarcas. 

"What is to be seen?" asked the Doctor as I got down. 

"Look for yourself, " said I. 

At nine next morning, Marcas was in bed. He had breakfasted off asaveloy; we saw on a plate, with some crumbs of bread, the remains ofthat too familiar delicacy. He was asleep; he did not wake tilleleven. He then set to work again on the copy he had begun the nightbefore, which was lying on the table. 

On going downstairs we asked the price of that room, and were toldfifteen francs a month. 

In the course of a few days, we were fully informed as to the mode oflife of Z. Marcas. He did copying, at so much a sheet no doubt, for alaw-writer who lived in the courtyard of the Sainte-Chapelle. Heworked half the night; after sleeping from six till ten, he beganagain and wrote till three. Then he went out to take the copy homebefore dinner, which he ate at Mizerai's in the Rue Michel-le-Comte, at a cost of nine sous, and came in to bed at six o'clock. It becameknown to us that Marcas did not utter fifteen sentences in a month; henever talked to anybody, nor said a word to himself in his dreadfulgarret. 

"The Ruins of Palmyra are terribly silent!" said Juste. 

This taciturnity in a man whose appearance was so imposing wasstrangely significant. Sometimes when we met him, we exchanged glancesfull of meaning on both sides, but they never led to any advances. Insensibly this man became the object of our secret admiration, thoughwe knew no reason for it. Did it lie in his secretly simple habits, his monastic regularity, his hermit-like frugality, his idioticallymechanical labor, allowing his mind to remain neuter or to work on hisown lines, seeming to us to hint at an expectation of some stroke ofgood luck, or at some foregone conclusion as to his life?

After wandering for a long time among the Ruins of Palmyra, we forgotthem--we were young! Then came the Carnival, the Paris Carnival, which, henceforth, will eclipse the old Carnival of Venice, unlesssome ill-advised Prefect of Police is antagonistic. 

Gambling ought to be allowed during the Carnival; but the stupidmoralists who have had gambling suppressed are inert financiers, andthis indispensable evil will be re-established among us when it isproved that France leaves millions at the German tables. 

This splendid Carnival brought us to utter penury, as it does everystudent. We got rid of every object of luxury; we sold our secondcoats, our second boots, our second waistcoats--everything of which wehad a duplicate, except our friend. We ate bread and cold sausages; welooked where we walked; we had set to work in earnest. We owed twomonths' rent, and were sure of having a bill from the porter for sixtyor eighty items each, and amounting to forty or fifty francs. We madeno noise, and did not laugh as we crossed the little hall at thebottom of the stairs; we commonly took it at a flying leap from thelowest step into the street. On the day when we first found ourselvesbereft of tobacco for our pipes, it struck us that for some days wehad been eating bread without any kind of butter. 

Great was our distress. 

"No tobacco!" said the Doctor. 

"No cloak!" said the Keeper of the Seals. 

"Ah, you rascals, you would dress as the postillion de Longjumeau, youwould appear as Debardeurs, sup in the morning, and breakfast at nightat Very's--sometimes even at the _Rocher de Cancale_. --Dry bread foryou, my boys! Why, " said I, in a big bass voice, "you deserve to sleepunder the bed, you are not worthy to lie in it--"

"Yes, yes; but, Keeper of the Seals, there is no more tobacco!" saidJuste. 

"It is high time to write home, to our aunts, our mothers, and oursisters, to tell them we have no underlinen left, that the wear andtear of Paris would ruin garments of wire. Then we will solve anelegant chemical problem by transmuting linen into silver. "

"But we must live till we get the answer. "

"Well, I will go and bring out a loan among such of our friends as maystill have some capital to invest. "

"And how much will you find?"

"Say ten francs!" replied I with pride. 

It was midnight. Marcas had heard everything. He knocked at our door. 

"Messieurs, " said he, "here is some tobacco; you can repay me on thefirst opportunity. "

We were struck, not by the offer, which we accepted, but by the rich, deep, full voice in which it was made; a tone only comparable to thelowest string of Paganini's violin. Marcas vanished without waitingfor our thanks. 

Juste and I looked at each other without a word. To be rescued by aman evidently poorer than ourselves! Juste sat down to write to everymember of his family, and I went off to effect a loan. I brought intwenty francs lent me by a fellow-provincial. In that evil but happyday gambling was still tolerated, and in its lodes, as hard as therocky ore of Brazil, young men, by risking a small sum, had a chanceof winning a few gold pieces. My friend, too, had some Turkish tobaccobrought home from Constantinople by a sailor, and he gave me quite asmuch as we had taken from Z. Marcas. I conveyed the splendid cargointo port, and we went in triumph to repay our neighbor with a tawnywig of Turkish tobacco for his dark _Caporal_. 

"You are determined not to be my debtors, " said he. "You are giving megold for copper. --You are boys--good boys----"

The sentences, spoken in varying tones, were variously emphasized. Thewords were nothing, but the expression!--That made us friends of tenyears' standing at once. 

Marcas, on hearing us coming, had covered up his papers; we understoodthat it would be taking a liberty to allude to his means ofsubsistence, and felt ashamed of having watched him. His cupboardstood open; in it there were two shirts, a white necktie and a razor. The razor made me shudder. A looking-glass, worth five francs perhaps, hung near the window. 

The man's few and simple movements had a sort of savage grandeur. TheDoctor and I looked at each other, wondering what we could say inreply. Juste, seeing that I was speechless, asked Marcas jestingly:

"You cultivate literature, monsieur?"

"Far from it!" replied Marcas. "I should not be so wealthy. "

"I fancied, " said I, "that poetry alone, in these days, was amplysufficient to provide a man with lodgings as bad as ours. "

My remark made Marcas smile, and the smile gave a charm to his yellowface. 

"Ambition is not a less severe taskmaster to those who fail, " said he. "You, who are beginning life, walk in the beaten paths. Never dream ofrising superior, you will be ruined!"

"You advise us to stay just as we are?" said the Doctor, smiling. 

There is something so infectious and childlike in the pleasantries ofyouth, that Marcas smiled again in reply. 

"What incidents can have given you this detestable philosophy?" askedI. 

"I forgot once more that chance is the result of an immense equationof which we know not all the factors. When we start from zero to workup to the unit, the chances are incalculable. To ambitious men Parisis an immense roulette table, and every young man fancies he can hiton a successful progression of numbers. "

He offered us the tobacco I had brought that we might smoke with him;the Doctor went to fetch our pipes; Marcas filled his, and then hecame to sit in our room, bringing the tobacco with him, since therewere but two chairs in his. Juste, as brisk as a squirrel, ran out, and returned with a boy carrying three bottles of Bordeaux, some Briecheese, and a loaf. 

"Hah!" said I to myself, "fifteen francs, " and I was right to a sou. 

Juste gravely laid five francs on the chimney-shelf. 

There are immeasurable differences between the gregarious man and theman who lives closest to nature. Toussaint Louverture, after he wascaught, died without speaking a word. Napoleon, transplanted to arock, talked like a magpie--he wanted to account for himself. Z. Marcas erred in the same way, but for our benefit only. Silence in allits majesty is to be found only in the savage. There is never acriminal who, though he might let his secrets fall with his head intothe basket of sawdust does not feel the purely social impulse to tellthem to somebody. 

Nay, I am wrong. We have seen one Iroquois of the FaubourgSaint-Marceau who raised the Parisian to the level of the natural savage--a republican, a conspirator, a Frenchman, an old man, who outdid allwe have heard of Negro determination, and all that Cooper tells us ofthe tenacity and coolness of the Redskins under defeat. Morey, theGuatimozin of the "Mountain, " preserved an attitude unparalleled inthe annals of European justice. 

This is what Marcas told us during the small hours, sandwiching hisdiscourse with slices of bread spread with cheese and washed down withwine. All the tobacco was burned out. Now and then the hackney coachesclattering across the Place de l'Odeon, or the omnibuses toiling past, sent up their dull rumbling, as if to remind us that Paris was stillclose to us. 

His family lived at Vitre; his father and mother had fifteen hundredfrancs a year in the funds. He had received an education gratis in aSeminary, but had refused to enter the priesthood. He felt in himselfthe fires of immense ambition, and had come to Paris on foot at theage of twenty, the possessor of two hundred francs. He had studied thelaw, working in an attorney's office, where he had risen to besuperior clerk. He had taken his doctor's degree in law, had masteredthe old and modern codes, and could hold his own with the most famouspleaders. He had studied the law of nations, and was familiar withEuropean treaties and international practice. He had studied men andthings in five capitals--London, Berlin, Vienna, Petersburg, andConstantinople. 

No man was better informed than he as to the rules of the Chamber. Forfive years he had been reporter of the debates for a daily paper. Hespoke extempore and admirably, and could go on for a long time in thatdeep, appealing voice which had struck us to the soul. Indeed, heproved by the narrative of his life that he was a great orator, aconcise orator, serious and yet full of piercing eloquence; heresembled Berryer in his fervor and in the impetus which commands thesympathy of the masses, and was like Thiers in refinement and skill;but he would have been less diffuse, less in difficulties for aconclusion. He had intended to rise rapidly to power without burdeninghimself first with the doctrines necessary to begin with, for a man inopposition, but an incubus later to the statesman. 

Marcas had learned everything that a real statesman should know;indeed, his amazement was considerable when he had occasion to discernthe utter ignorance of men who have risen to the administration ofpublic affairs in France. Though in him it was vocation that had ledto study, nature had been generous and bestowed all that cannot beacquired--keen perceptions, self-command, a nimble wit, rapidjudgment, decisiveness, and, what is the genius of these men, fertility in resource. 

By the time when Marcas thought himself duly equipped, France was tornby intestine divisions arising from the triumph of the House ofOrleans over the elder branch of the Bourbons. 

The field of political warfare is evidently changed. Civil warhenceforth cannot last for long, and will not be fought out in theprovinces. In France such struggles will be of brief duration and atthe seat of government; and the battle will be the close of the moralcontest which will have been brought to an issue by superior minds. This state of things will continue so long as France has her presentsingular form of government, which has no analogy with that of anyother country; for there is no more resemblance between the Englishand the French constitutions than between the two lands. 

Thus Marcas' place was in the political press. Being poor and unableto secure his election, he hoped to make a sudden appearance. Heresolved on making the greatest possible sacrifice for a man ofsuperior intellect, to work as a subordinate to some rich andambitious deputy. Like a second Bonaparte, he sought his Barras; thenew Colbert hoped to find a Mazarin. He did immense services, and hedid them then and there; he assumed no importance, he made no boast, he did not complain of ingratitude. He did them in the hope that hispatron would put him in a position to be elected deputy; Marcas wishedfor nothing but a loan that might enable him to purchase a house inParis, the qualification required by law. Richard III. Asked fornothing but his horse. 

In three years Marcas had made his man--one of the fifty supposedgreat statesmen who are the battledores with which two cunning playerstoss the ministerial portfolios exactly as the man behind thepuppet-show hits Punch against the constable in his street theatre, andcounts on always getting paid. This man existed only by Marcas, but hehad just brains enough to appreciate the value of his "ghost" and toknow that Marcas, if he ever came to the front, would remain there, would be indispensable, while he himself would be translated to thepolar zone of Luxembourg. So he determined to put insurmountableobstacles in the way of his Mentor's advancement, and hid his purposeunder the semblance of the utmost sincerity. Like all mean men, hecould dissimulate to perfection, and he soon made progress in the waysof ingratitude, for he felt that he must kill Marcas, not to be killedby him. These two men, apparently so united, hated each other as soonas one had deceived the other. 

The politician was made one of a ministry; Marcas remained in theopposition to hinder his man from being attacked; nay, by skilfultactics he won him the applause of the opposition. To excuse himselffor not rewarding his subaltern, the chief pointed out theimpossibility of finding a place suddenly for a man on the other side, without a great deal of manoeuvring. Marcas had hoped confidently fora place to enable him to marry, and thus acquire the qualification heso ardently desired. He was two-and-thirty, and the Chamber ere longmust be dissolved. Having detected his man in this flagrant act of badfaith, he overthrew him, or at any rate contributed largely to hisoverthrow, and covered him with mud. 

A fallen minister, if he is to rise again to power, must show that heis to be feared; this man, intoxicated by Royal glibness, had fanciedthat his position would be permanent; he acknowledged hisdelinquencies; besides confessing them, he did Marcas a small moneyservice, for Marcas had got into debt. He subsidized the newspaper onwhich Marcas worked, and made him the manager of it. 

Though he despised the man, Marcas, who, practically, was beingsubsidized too, consented to take the part of the fallen minister. Without unmasking at once all the batteries of his superior intellect, Marcas came a little further than before; he showed half hisshrewdness. The Ministry lasted only a hundred and eighty days; it wasswallowed up. Marcas had put himself into communication with certaindeputies, had moulded them like dough, leaving each impressed with ahigh opinion of his talent; his puppet again became a member of theMinistry, and then the paper was ministerial. The Ministry united thepaper with another, solely to squeeze out Marcas, who in this fusionhad to make way for a rich and insolent rival, whose name was wellknown, and who already had his foot in the stirrup. 

Marcas relapsed into utter destitution; his haughty patron well knewthe depths into which he had cast him. 

Where was he to go? The ministerial papers, privily warned, would havenothing to say to him. The opposition papers did not care to admit himto their offices. Marcas could side neither with the Republicans norwith the Legitimists, two parties whose triumph would mean theoverthrow of everything that now is. 

"Ambitious men like a fast hold on things, " said he with a smile. 

He lived by writing a few articles on commercial affairs, andcontributed to one of those encyclopedias brought out by speculationand not by learning. Finally a paper was founded, which was destinedto live but two years, but which secured his services. From thatmoment he renewed his connection with the minister's enemies; hejoined the party who were working for the fall of the Government; andas soon as his pickaxe had free play, it fell. 

This paper had now for six months ceased to exist; he had failed tofind employment of any kind; he was spoken of as a dangerous man, calumny attacked him; he had unmasked a huge financial and mercantilejob by a few articles and a pamphlet. He was known to be a mouthpieceof a banker who was said to have paid him largely, and from whom hewas supposed to expect some patronage in return for his championship. Marcas, disgusted by men and things, worn out by five years offighting, regarded as a free lance rather than as a great leader, crushed by the necessity of earning his daily bread, which hinderedhim from gaining ground, in despair at the influence exerted by moneyover mind, and given over to dire poverty, buried himself in a garret, to make thirty sous a day, the sum strictly answering to his needs. Meditation had leveled a desert all round him. He read the papers tobe informed of what was going on. Pozzo di Borgo had once lived likethis for some time. 

Marcas, no doubt, was planning a serious attack, accustoming himselfto dissimulation, and punishing himself for his blunders byPythagorean muteness. But he did not tell us the reasons for hisconduct. 

It is impossible to give you an idea of the scenes of the highestcomedy that lay behind this algebraic statement of his career; hisuseless patience dogging the footsteps of fortune, which presentlytook wings, his long tramps over the thorny brakes of Paris, hisbreathless chases as a petitioner, his attempts to win over fools; theschemes laid only to fail through the influence of some frivolouswoman; the meetings with men of business who expected their capital tobring them places and a peerage, as well as large interest. Then thehopes rising in a towering wave only to break in foam on the shoal;the wonders wrought in reconciling adverse interests which, afterworking together for a week, fell asunder; the annoyance, a thousandtimes repeated, of seeing a dunce decorated with the Legion of Honor, and preferred, though as ignorant as a shop-boy, to a man of talent. Then, what Marcas called the stratagems of stupidity--you strike aman, and he seems convinced, he nods his head--everything is settled;next day, this india-rubber ball, flattened for a moment, hasrecovered itself in the course of the night; it is as full of wind asever; you must begin all over again; and you go on till you understandthat you are not dealing with a man, but with a lump of gum that losesshape in the sunshine. 

These thousand annoyances, this vast waste of human energy on barrenspots, the difficulty of achieving any good, the incredible facilityof doing mischief; two strong games played out, twice won, and thentwice lost; the hatred of a statesman--a blockhead with a painted faceand a wig, but in whom the world believed--all these things, great andsmall, had not crushed, but for the moment had dashed Marcas. In thedays when money had come into his hands, his fingers had not clutchedit; he had allowed himself the exquisite pleasure of sending it all tohis family--to his sisters, his brothers, his old father. LikeNapoleon in his fall, he asked for no more than thirty sous a day, andany man of energy can earn thirty sous for a day's work in Paris. 

When Marcas had finished the story of his life, intermingled withreflections, maxims, and observations, revealing him as a greatpolitician, a few questions and answers on both sides as to theprogress of affairs in France and in Europe were enough to prove to usthat he was a real statesman; for a man may be quickly and easilyjudged when he can be brought on to the ground of immediatedifficulties: there is a certain Shibboleth for men of superiortalents, and we were of the tribe of modern Levites without belongingas yet to the Temple. As I have said, our frivolity covered certainpurposes which Juste has carried out, and which I am about to execute. 

When we had done talking, we all three went out, cold as it was, towalk in the Luxembourg gardens till the dinner hour. In the course ofthat walk our conversation, grave throughout, turned on the painfulaspects of the political situation. Each of us contributed hisremarks, his comment, or his jest, a pleasantry or a proverb. This wasno longer exclusively a discussion of life on the colossal scale justdescribed by Marcas, the soldier of political warfare. Nor was it thedistressful monologue of the wrecked navigator, stranded in a garretin the Hotel Corneille; it was a dialogue in which two well-informedyoung men, having gauged the times they lived in, were endeavoring, under the guidance of a man of talent, to gain some light on their ownfuture prospects. 

"Why, " asked Juste, "did you not wait patiently for an opportunity, and imitate the only man who has been able to keep the lead since theRevolution of July by holding his head above water?"

"Have I not said that we never know where the roots of chance lie?Carrell was in identically the same position as the orator you speakof. That gloomy young man, of a bitter spirit, had a whole governmentin his head; the man of whom you speak had no idea beyond mounting onthe crupper of every event. Of the two, Carrel was the better man. Well, one becomes a minister, Carrel remained a journalist; theincomplete but craftier man is living; Carrel is dead. 

"I may point out that your man has for fifteen years been making hisway, and is but making it still. He may yet be caught and crushedbetween two cars full of intrigues on the highroad to power. He has nohouse; he has not the favor of the palace like Metternich; nor, likeVillele, the protection of a compact majority. 

"I do not believe that the present state of things will last tenyears longer. Hence, supposing I should have such poor good luck, I am already too late to avoid being swept away by the commotionI foresee. I should need to be established in a superiorposition. "

"What commotion?" asked Juste. 

"AUGUST, 1830, " said Marcas in solemn tones, holding out his handtowards Paris; "AUGUST, the offspring of Youth which bound thesheaves, and of Intellect which had ripened the harvest, forgot toprovide for Youth and Intellect. 

"Youth will explode like the boiler of a steam-engine. Youth has nooutlet in France; it is gathering an avalanche of underratedcapabilities, of legitimate and restless ambitions; young men are notmarrying now; families cannot tell what to do with their children. What will the thunderclap be that will shake down these masses? I knownot, but they will crash down into the midst of things, and overthroweverything. These are laws of hydrostatics which act on the humanrace; the Roman Empire had failed to understand them, and the Barbarichordes came down. 

"The Barbaric hordes now are the intelligent class. The laws ofoverpressure are at this moment acting slowly and silently in ourmidst. The Government is the great criminal; it does not appreciatethe two powers to which it owes everything; it has allowed its handsto be tied by the absurdities of the Contract; it is bound, ready tobe the victim. 

"Louis XIV. , Napoleon, England, all were or are eager for intelligentyouth. In France the young are condemned by the new legislation, bythe blundering principles of elective rights, by the unsoundness ofthe ministerial constitution. 

"Look at the elective Chamber; you will find no deputies of thirty;the youth of Richelieu and of Mazarin, of Turenne and of Colbert, ofPitt and of Saint-Just, of Napoleon and of Prince Metternich, wouldfind no admission there; Burke, Sheridan, or Fox could not win seats. Even if political majority had been fixed at one-and-twenty, andeligibility had been relieved of every disabling qualification, theDepartments would have returned the very same members, men devoid ofpolitical talent, unable to speak without murdering French grammar, and among whom, in ten years, scarcely one statesman has been found. 

"The causes of an impending event may be seen, but the event itselfcannot be foretold. At this moment the youth of France is being driveninto Republicanism, because it believes that the Republic would bringit emancipation. It will always remember the young representatives ofthe people and the young army leaders! The imprudence of theGovernment is only comparable to its avarice. "

That day left its echoes in our lives. Marcas confirmed us in ourresolution to leave France, where young men of talent and energy arecrushed under the weight of successful commonplace, envious, andinsatiable middle age. 

We dined together in the Rue de la Harpe. We thenceforth felt forMarcas the most respectful affection; he gave us the most practicalaid in the sphere of the mind. That man knew everything; he hadstudied everything. For us he cast his eye over the whole civilizedworld, seeking the country where openings would be at once the mostabundant and the most favorable to the success of our plans. Heindicated what should be the goal of our studies; he bid us makehaste, explaining to us that time was precious, that emigration wouldpresently begin, and that its effect would be to deprive France of thecream of its powers and of its youthful talent; that theirintelligence, necessarily sharpened, would select the best places, andthat the great thing was to be first in the field. 

Thenceforward, we often sat late at work under the lamp. Our generousinstructor wrote some notes for our guidance--two pages for Juste andthree for me--full of invaluable advice--the sort of information whichexperience alone can supply, such landmarks as only genius can place. In those papers, smelling of tobacco, and covered with writing so vileas to be almost hieroglyphic, there are suggestions for a fortune, andforecasts of unerring acumen. There are hints as to certain parts ofAmerica and Asia which have been fully justified, both before andsince Juste and I could set out. 

Marcas, like us, was in the most abject poverty. He earned, indeed, his daily bread, but he had neither linen, clothes, nor shoes. He didnot make himself out any better than he was; his dreams had been ofluxury as well as of power. He did not admit that this was the realMarcas; he abandoned this person, indeed, to the caprices of life. What he lived by was the breath of ambition; he dreamed of revengewhile blaming himself for yielding to so shallow a feeling. The truestatesman ought, above all things, to be superior to vulgar passions;like the man of science. It was in these days of dire necessity thatMarcas seemed to us so great--nay, so terrible; there was somethingawful in the gaze which saw another world than that which strikes theeye of ordinary men. To us he was a subject of contemplation andastonishment; for the young--which of us has not known it?--the younghave a keen craving to admire; they love to attach themselves, and arenaturally inclined to submit to the men they feel to be superior, asthey are to devote themselves to a great cause. 

Our surprise was chiefly roused by his indifference in matters ofsentiment; women had no place in his life. When we spoke of thismatter, a perennial theme of conversation among Frenchmen, he simplyremarked:

"Gowns cost too much. "

He saw the look that passed between Juste and me, and went on:

"Yes, far too much. The woman you buy--and she is the least expensive--takes a great deal of money. The woman who gives herself takes allyour time! Woman extinguishes every energy, every ambition. Napoleonreduced her to what she should be. From that point of view, he reallywas great. He did not indulge such ruinous fancies of Louis XIV. AndLouis XV. ; at the same time he could love in secret. "

We discovered that, like Pitt, who made England is wife, Marcas boreFrance in his heart; he idolized his country; he had not a thoughtthat was not for his native land. His fury at feeling that he had inhis hands the remedy for the evils which so deeply saddened him, andcould not apply it, ate into his soul, and this rage was increased bythe inferiority of France at that time, as compared with Russia andEngland. France a third-rate power! This cry came up again and againin his conversation. The intestinal disorders of his country hadentered into his soul. All the contests between the Court and theChamber, showing, as they did, incessant change and constantvacillation, which must injure the prosperity of the country, hescoffed at as backstairs squabbles. 

"This is peace at the cost of the future, " said he. 

One evening Juste and I were at work, sitting in perfect silence. Marcas had just risen to toil at his copying, for he had refused ourassistance in spite of our most earnest entreaties. We had offered totake it in turns to copy a batch of manuscript, so that he should dobut a third of his distasteful task; he had been quite angry, and wehad ceased to insist. 

We heard the sound of gentlemanly boots in the passage, and raised ourheads, looking at each other. There was a tap at Marcas' door--henever took the key out of the lock--and we heard the hero answer:

"Come in. " Then--"What, you here, monsieur?"

"I, myself, " replied the retired minister. 

It was the Diocletian of this unknown martyr. 

For some time he and our neighbor conversed in an undertone. SuddenlyMarcas, whose voice had been heard but rarely, as is natural in adialogue in which the applicant begins by setting forth the situation, broke out loudly in reply to some offer we had not overheard. 

"You would laugh at me for a fool, " cried he, "if I took you at yourword. Jesuits are a thing of the past, but Jesuitism is eternal. YourMachiavelism and your generosity are equally hollow and untrustworthy. You can make your own calculations, but who can calculate on you? YourCourt is made up of owls who fear the light, of old men who quake inthe presence of the young, or who simply disregard them. TheGovernment is formed on the same pattern as the Court. You have huntedup the remains of the Empire, as the Restoration enlisted theVoltigeurs of Louis XIV. 

"Hitherto the evasions of cowardice have been taken for themanoeuvring of ability; but dangers will come, and the youngergeneration will rise as they did in 1790. They did grand things then. --Just now you change ministries as a sick man turns in his bed; theseoscillations betray the weakness of the Government. You work on anunderhand system of policy which will be turned against you, forFrance will be tired of your shuffling. France will not tell you thatshe is tired of you; a man never knows whence his ruin comes; it isthe historian's task to find out; but you will undoubtedly perish asthe reward of not having the youth of France to lend you its strengthand energy; for having hated really capable men; for not havinglovingly chosen them from this noble generation; for having in allcases preferred mediocrity. 

"You have come to ask my support, but you are an atom in that decrepitheap which is made hideous by self-interest, which trembles andsquirms, and, because it is so mean, tries to make France mean too. Mystrong nature, my ideas, would work like poison in you; twice you havetricked me, twice have I overthrown you. If we unite a third time, itmust be a very serious matter. I should kill myself if I allowedmyself to be duped; for I should be to blame, not you. "

Then we heard the humblest entreaties, the most fervent adjuration, not to deprive the country of such superior talents. The man spoke ofpatriotism, and Marcas uttered a significant "_Ouh! ouh!_" He laughedat his would-be patron. Then the statesman was more explicit; he bowedto the superiority of his erewhile counselor; he pledged himself toenable Marcas to remain in office, to be elected deputy; then heoffered him a high appointment, promising him that he, the speaker, would thenceforth be the subordinate of a man whose subaltern he wasonly worthy to be. He was in the newly-formed ministry, and he wouldnot return to power unless Marcas had a post in proportion to hismerit; he had already made it a condition, Marcas had been regarded asindispensable. 

Marcas refused. 

"I have never before been in a position to keep my promises; here isan opportunity of proving myself faithful to my word, and you failme. "

To this Marcas made no reply. The boots were again audible in thepassage on the way to the stairs. 

"Marcas! Marcas!" we both cried, rushing into his room. "Why refuse?He really meant it. His offers are very handsome; at any rate, go tosee the ministers. "

In a twinkling, we had given Marcas a hundred reasons. The minister'svoice was sincere; without seeing him, we had felt sure that he washonest. 

"I have no clothes, " replied Marcas. 

"Rely on us, " said Juste, with a glance at me. 

Marcas had the courage to trust us; a light flashed in his eye, hepushed his fingers through his hair, lifting it from his forehead witha gesture that showed some confidence in his luck and when he had thusunveiled his face, so to speak, we saw in him a man absolutely unknownto us--Marcas sublime, Marcas in his power! His mind was in itselement--the bird restored to the free air, the fish to the water, thehorse galloping across the plain. 

It was transient. His brow clouded again, he had, it would seem, avision of his fate. Halting doubt had followed close on the heels ofwhite-winged hope. 

We left him to himself. 

"Now, then, " said I to the Doctor, "we have given our word; how are weto keep it?"

"We will sleep upon it, " said Juste, "and to-morrow morning we willtalk it over. "

Next morning we went for a walk in the Luxembourg. 

We had had time to think over the incident of the past night, and wereboth equally surprised at the lack of address shown by Marcas in theminor difficulties of life--he, a man who never saw any difficultiesin the solution of the hardest problems of abstract or practicalpolitics. But these elevated characters can all be tripped up on agrain of sand, and will, like the grandest enterprise, miss fire forwant of a thousand francs. It is the old story of Napoleon, who, forlack of a pair of boots, did not set out for India. 

"Well, what have you hit upon?" asked Juste. 

"I have thought of a way to get him a complete outfit. "

"Where?"

"From Humann. "

"How?"

"Humann, my boy, never goes to his customers--his customers go to him;so that he does not know whether I am rich or poor. He only knows thatI dress well and look decent in the clothes he makes for me. I shalltell him that an uncle of mine has dropped in from the country, andthat his indifference in matters of dress is quite a discredit to mein the upper circles where I am trying to find a wife. --It will not beHumann if he sends in his bill before three months. "

The Doctor thought this a capital idea for a vaudeville, but poorenough in real life, and doubted my success. But I give you my word ofhonor, Humann dressed Marcas, and, being an artist, turned him out asa political personage ought to be dressed. 

Juste lent Marcas two hundred francs in gold, the product of twowatches bought on credit, and pawned at the Mont-de-Piete. For mypart, I had said nothing of the six shirts and all necessary linen, which cost me no more than the pleasure of asking for them from aforewoman in a shop whom I had treated to Musard's during thecarnival. 

Marcas accepted everything, thanking us no more than he ought. He onlyinquired as to the means by which we had got possession of suchriches, and we made him laugh for the last time. We looked on ourMarcas as shipowners, when they have exhausted their credit and everyresource at their command it fit out a vessel, must look on it as itputs out to sea. 

Here Charles was silent; he seemed crushed by his memories. 

"Well, " cried the audience, "and what happened?"

"I will tell you in a few words--for this is not romance--it ishistory. "

We saw no more of Marcas. The administration lasted for three months;it fell at the end of the session. Then Marcas came back to us, workedto death. He had sounded the crater of power; he came away from itwith the beginnings of brain fever. The disease made rapid progress;we nursed him. Juste at once called in the chief physician of thehospital where he was working as house-surgeon. I was then livingalone in our room, and I was the most attentive attendant; but careand science alike were in vain. By the month of January, 1838, Marcashimself felt that he had but a few days to live. 

The man whose soul and brain he had been for six months never evensent to inquire after him. Marcas expressed the greatest contempt forthe Government; he seemed to doubt what the fate of France might be, and it was this doubt that had made him ill. He had, he thought, detected treason in the heart of power, not tangible, seizabletreason, the result of facts, but the treason of a system, thesubordination of national interests to selfish ends. His belief in thedegradation of the country was enough to aggravate his complaint. 

I myself was witness to the proposals made to him by one of theleaders of the antagonistic party which he had fought against. Hishatred of the men he had tried to serve was so virulent, that he wouldgladly have joined the coalition that was about to be formed amongcertain ambitious spirits who, at least, had one idea in common--thatof shaking off the yoke of the Court. But Marcas could only reply tothe envoy in the words of the Hotel de Ville:

"It is too late!"

Marcas did not leave money enough to pay for his funeral. Juste and Ihad great difficulty in saving him from the ignominy of a pauper'sbier, and we alone followed the coffin of Z. Marcas, which was droppedinto the common grave of the cemetery of Mont-Parnasse. 

We looked sadly at each other as we listened to this tale, the last weheard from the lips of Charles Rabourdin the day before he embarked atle Havre on a brig that was to convey him to the islands of Malay. Weall knew more than one Marcas, more than one victim of his devotion toa party, repaid by betrayal or neglect. 

LES JARDIES, May 1840. 

ADDENDUM

The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Marcas, Zephirin A Prince of Bohemia