CHAPTER IX.
The Friend of the Family.
Then began for Frederick an existence of misery. He became the parasiteof the house.
If anyone were indisposed, he called three times a day to know how thepatient was, went to the piano-tuner's, contrived to do a thousand actsof kindness; and he endured with an air of contentment MademoiselleMarthe's poutings and the caresses of little Eugene, who was alwaysdrawing his dirty hands over the young man's face. He was present atdinners at which Monsieur and Madame, facing each other, did notexchange a word, unless it happened that Arnoux provoked his wife withthe absurd remarks he made. When the meal was over, he would play aboutthe room with his son, conceal himself behind the furniture, or carrythe little boy on his back, walking about on all fours, like theBearnais.[11] At last, he would go out, and she would at once plungeinto the eternal subject of complaint--Arnoux.
[Footnote 11: Henry IV.--Translator.]
It was not his misconduct that excited her indignation, but her prideappeared to be wounded, and she did not hide her repugnance towards thisman, who showed an absence of delicacy, dignity, and honour.
"Or rather, he is mad!" she said.
Frederick artfully appealed to her to confide in him. Ere long he knewall the details of her life. Her parents were people in a humble rank inlife at Chartres. One day, Arnoux, while sketching on the bank of theriver (at this period he believed himself to be a painter), saw herleaving the church, and made her an offer of marriage. On account of hiswealth, he was unhesitatingly accepted. Besides, he was desperately inlove with her. She added:
"Good heavens! he loves me still, after his fashion!"
They spent the few months immediately after their marriage in travellingthrough Italy.
Arnoux, in spite of his enthusiasm at the sight of the scenery and themasterpieces, did nothing but groan over the wine, and, to find somekind of amusement, organised picnics along with some English people. Theprofit which he had made by reselling some pictures tempted him to takeup the fine arts as a commercial speculation. Then, he became infatuatedabout pottery. Just now other branches of commerce attracted him; and,as he had become more and more vulgarised, he contracted coarse andextravagant habits. It was not so much for his vices she had to reproachhim as for his entire conduct. No change could be expected in him, andher unhappiness was irreparable.
Frederick declared that his own life in the same way was a failure.
He was still a young man, however. Why should he despair? And she gavehim good advice: "Work! and marry!" He answered her with bitter smiles;for in place of giving utterance to the real cause of his grief, hepretended that it was of a different character, a sublime feeling, andhe assumed the part of an Antony to some extent, the man accursed byfate--language which did not, however, change very materially thecomplexion of his thoughts.
For certain men action becomes more difficult as desire becomesstronger. They are embarrassed by self-distrust, and terrified by thefear of making themselves disliked. Besides, deep attachments resemblevirtuous women: they are afraid of being discovered, and pass throughlife with downcast eyes.
Though he was now better acquainted with Madame Arnoux (for that veryreason perhaps), he was still more faint-hearted than before. Eachmorning he swore in his own mind that he would take a bold course. Hewas prevented from doing so by an unconquerable feeling of bashfulness;and he had no example to guide him, inasmuch as she was different fromother women. From the force of his dreams, he had placed her outside theordinary pale of humanity. At her side he felt himself of lessimportance in the world than the sprigs of silk that escaped from herscissors.
Then he thought of some monstrous and absurd devices, such as surprisesat night, with narcotics and false keys--anything appearing easier tohim than to face her disdain.
Besides, the children, the two servant-maids, and the relative positionof the rooms caused insurmountable obstacles. So then he made up hismind to possess her himself alone, and to bring her to live with himfar away in the depths of some solitude. He even asked himself what lakewould be blue enough, what seashore would be delightful enough for her,whether it would be in Spain, Switzerland, or the East; and expresslyfixing on days when she seemed more irritated than usual, he told herthat it would be necessary for her to leave the house, to find out someground to justify such a step, and that he saw no way out of it but aseparation. However, for the sake of the children whom she loved, shewould never resort to such an extreme course. So much virtue served toincrease his respect for her.
He spent each afternoon in recalling the visit he had paid the nightbefore, and in longing for the evening to come in order that he mightcall again. When he did not dine with them, he posted himself about nineo'clock at the corner of the street, and, as soon as Arnoux had slammedthe hall-door behind him, Frederick quickly ascended the two flights ofstairs, and asked the servant-girl in an ingenuous fashion:
"Is Monsieur in?"
Then he would exhibit surprise at finding that Arnoux was gone out.
The latter frequently came back unexpectedly. Then Frederick had toaccompany him to the little cafe in the Rue Sainte-Anne, which Regimbartnow frequented.
The Citizen began by giving vent to some fresh grievance which he hadagainst the Crown. Then they would chat, pouring out friendly abuse onone another, for the earthenware manufacturer took Regimbart for athinker of a high order, and, vexed at seeing him neglecting so manychances of winning distinction, teased the Citizen about his laziness.It seemed to Regimbart that Arnoux was a man full of heart andimagination, but decidedly of lax morals, and therefore he was quiteunceremonious towards a personage he respected so little, refusing evento dine at his house on the ground that "such formality was a bore."
Sometimes, at the moment of parting, Arnoux would be seized with hunger.He found it necessary to order an omelet or some roasted apples; and, asthere was never anything to eat in the establishment, he sent out forsomething. They waited. Regimbart did not leave, and ended by consentingin a grumbling fashion to have something himself. He was neverthelessgloomy, for he remained for hours seated before a half-filled glass. AsProvidence did not regulate things in harmony with his ideas, he wasbecoming a hypochondriac, no longer cared even to read the newspapers,and at the mere mention of England's name began to bellow with rage. Onone occasion, referring to a waiter who attended on him carelessly, heexclaimed:
"Have we not enough of insults from the foreigner?"
Except at these critical periods he remained taciturn, contemplating "aninfallible stroke of business that would burst up the whole shop."
Whilst he was lost in these reflections, Arnoux in a monotonous voiceand with a slight look of intoxication, related incredible anecdotes inwhich he always shone himself, owing to his assurance; and Frederick(this was, no doubt, due to some deep-rooted resemblances) felt more orless attracted towards him. He reproached himself for this weakness,believing that on the contrary he ought to hate this man.
Arnoux, in Frederick's presence, complained of his wife's ill-temper,her obstinacy, her unjust accusations. She had not been like this informer days.
"If I were you," said Frederick, "I would make her an allowance and livealone."
Arnoux made no reply; and the next moment he began to sound her praises.She was good, devoted, intelligent, and virtuous; and, passing to herpersonal beauty, he made some revelations on the subject with thethoughtlessness of people who display their treasures at taverns.
His equilibrium was disturbed by a catastrophe.
He had been appointed one of the Board of Superintendence in a kaolincompany. But placing reliance on everything that he was told, he hadsigned inaccurate reports and approved, without verification, of theannual inventories fraudulently prepared by the manager. The company hadnow failed, and Arnoux, being legally responsible, was, along with theothers who were liable under the guaranty, condemned to pay damages,which meant a loss to him of thirty thousand francs, not to speak of thecosts of the judgment.
Frederick read the report of the case in a newspaper, and at oncehurried off to the Rue de Paradis.
He was ushered into Madame's apartment. It was breakfast-time. A roundtable close to the fire was covered with bowls of _cafe au lait_.Slippers trailed over the carpet, and clothes over the armchairs. Arnouxwas attired in trousers and a knitted vest, with his eyes bloodshot andhis hair in disorder. Little Eugene was crying at the pain caused by anattack of mumps, while nibbling at a slice of bread and butter. Hissister was eating quietly. Madame Arnoux, a little paler than usual, wasattending on all three of them.
"Well," said Arnoux, heaving a deep sigh, "you know all about it?"
And, as Frederick gave him a pitying look: "There, you see, I have beenthe victim of my own trustfulness!"
Then he relapsed into silence, and so great was his prostration, that hepushed his breakfast away from him. Madame Arnoux raised her eyes with ashrug of the shoulders. He passed his hand across his forehead.
"After all, I am not guilty. I have nothing to reproach myself with.'Tis a misfortune. It will be got over--ay, and so much the worse,faith!"
He took a bite of a cake, however, in obedience to his wife'sentreaties.
That evening, he wished that she should go and dine with him alone in aprivate room at the Maison d'Or. Madame Arnoux did not at all understandthis emotional impulse, taking offence, in fact, at being treated as ifshe were a light woman. Arnoux, on the contrary, meant it as a proof ofaffection. Then, as he was beginning to feel dull, he went to pay theMarechale a visit in order to amuse himself.
Up to the present, he had been pardoned for many things owing to hisreputation for good-fellowship. His lawsuit placed him amongst men ofbad character. No one visited his house.
Frederick, however, considered that he was bound in honour to go theremore frequently than ever. He hired a box at the Italian opera, andbrought them there with him every week. Meanwhile, the pair had reachedthat period in unsuitable unions when an invincible lassitude springsfrom concessions which people get into the habit of making, and whichrender existence intolerable. Madame Arnoux restrained her pent-upfeelings from breaking out; Arnoux became gloomy; and Frederick grew sadat witnessing the unhappiness of these two ill-fated beings.
She had imposed on him the obligation, since she had given him herconfidence, of making enquiries as to the state of her husband'saffairs. But shame prevented him from doing so. It was painful to him toreflect that he coveted the wife of this man, at whose dinner-table heconstantly sat. Nevertheless, he continued his visits, excusing himselfon the ground that he was bound to protect her, and that an occasionmight present itself for being of service to her.
Eight days after the ball, he had paid a visit to M. Dambreuse. Thefinancier had offered him twenty shares in a coal-mining speculation;Frederick did not go back there again. Deslauriers had written lettersto him, which he left unanswered. Pellerin had invited him to go and seethe portrait; he always put it off. He gave way, however, to Cisy'spersistent appeals to be introduced to Rosanette.
She received him very nicely, but without springing on his neck as sheused to do formerly. His comrade was delighted at being received by awoman of easy virtue, and above all at having a chat with an actor.Delmar was there when he called. A drama in which he appeared as apeasant lecturing Louis XIV. and prophesying the events of '89 had madehim so conspicuous, that the same part was continually assigned to him;and now his function consisted of attacks on the monarchs of allnations. As an English brewer, he inveighed against Charles I.; as astudent at Salamanca, he cursed Philip II.; or, as a sensitive father,he expressed indignation against the Pompadour--this was the mostbeautiful bit of acting! The brats of the street used to wait at thedoor leading to the side-scenes in order to see him; and his biography,sold between the acts, described him as taking care of his aged mother,reading the Bible, assisting the poor, in fact, under the aspect of aSaint Vincent de Paul together with a dash of Brutus and Mirabeau.People spoke of him as "Our Delmar." He had a mission; he became anotherChrist.
All this had fascinated Rosanette; and she had got rid of Pere Oudry,without caring one jot about consequences, as she was not of a covetousdisposition.
Arnoux, who knew her, had taken advantage of the state of affairs forsome time past to spend very little money on her. M. Roque had appearedon the scene, and all three of them carefully avoided anything like acandid explanation. Then, fancying that she had got rid of the othersolely on his account, Arnoux increased her allowance, for she wasliving at a very expensive rate. She had even sold her cashmere in heranxiety to pay off her old debts, as she said; and he was continuallygiving her money, while she bewitched him and imposed upon himpitilessly. Therefore, bills and stamped paper rained all over thehouse. Frederick felt that a crisis was approaching.
One day he called to see Madame Arnoux. She had gone out. Monsieur wasat work below stairs in the shop. In fact, Arnoux, in the midst of hisJapanese vases, was trying to take in a newly-married pair who happenedto be well-to-do people from the provinces. He talked aboutwheel-moulding and fine-moulding, about spotted porcelain and glazedporcelain; the others, not wishing to appear utterly ignorant of thesubject, listened with nods of approbation, and made purchases.
When the customers had gone out, he told Frederick that he had that verymorning been engaged in a little altercation with his wife. In order toobviate any remarks about expense, he had declared that the Marechalewas no longer his mistress. "I even told her that she was yours."
Frederick was annoyed at this; but to utter reproaches might only betrayhim. He faltered: "Ah! you were in the wrong--greatly in the wrong!"
"What does that signify?" said Arnoux. "Where is the disgrace of passingfor her lover? I am really so myself. Would you not be flattered atbeing in that position?"
Had she spoken? Was this a hint? Frederick hastened to reply:
"No! not at all! on the contrary!"
"Well, what then?"
"Yes, 'tis true; it makes no difference so far as that's concerned."
Arnoux next asked: "And why don't you call there oftener?"
Frederick promised that he would make it his business to go there again.
"Ah! I forgot! you ought, when talking about Rosanette, to let out insome way to my wife that you are her lover. I can't suggest how you canbest do it, but you'll find out that. I ask this of you as a specialfavour--eh?"
The young man's only answer was an equivocal grimace. This calumny hadundone him. He even called on her that evening, and swore that Arnoux'saccusation was false.
"Is that really so?"
He appeared to be speaking sincerely, and, when she had taken a longbreath of relief, she said to him:
"I believe you," with a beautiful smile. Then she hung down her head,and, without looking at him:
"Besides, nobody has any claim on you!"
So then she had divined nothing; and she despised him, seeing that shedid not think he could love her well enough to remain faithful to her!Frederick, forgetting his overtures while with the other, looked on thepermission accorded to him as an insult to himself.
After this she suggested that he ought now and then to pay Rosanette avisit, to get a little glimpse of what she was like.
Arnoux presently made his appearance, and, five minutes later, wished tocarry him off to Rosanette's abode.
The situation was becoming intolerable.
His attention was diverted by a letter from a notary, who was going tosend him fifteen thousand francs the following day; and, in order tomake up for his neglect of Deslauriers, he went forthwith to tell himthis good news.
The advocate was lodging in the Rue des Trois-Maries, on the fifthfloor, over a courtyard. His study, a little tiled apartment, chilly,and with a grey paper on the walls, had as its principal decoration agold medal, the prize awarded him on the occasion of taking out hisdegree as a Doctor of Laws, which was fixed in an ebony frame near themirror. A mahogany bookcase enclosed under its glass front a hundre
dvolumes, more or less. The writing-desk, covered with sheep-leather,occupied the centre of the apartment. Four old armchairs upholstered ingreen velvet were placed in the corners; and a heap of shavings made ablaze in the fireplace, where there was always a bundle of sticks readyto be lighted as soon as he rang the bell. It was his consultation-hour,and the advocate had on a white cravat.
The announcement as to the fifteen thousand francs (he had, no doubt,given up all hope of getting the amount) made him chuckle with delight.
"That's right, old fellow, that's right--that's quite right!"
He threw some wood into the fire, sat down again, and immediately begantalking about the journal. The first thing to do was to get rid ofHussonnet.
"I'm quite tired of that idiot! As for officially professing opinions,my own notion is that the most equitable and forcible position is tohave no opinions at all."
Frederick appeared astonished.
"Why, the thing is perfectly plain. It is time that politics should bedealt with scientifically. The old men of the eighteenth century beganit when Rousseau and the men of letters introduced into the politicalsphere philanthropy, poetry, and other fudge, to the great delight ofthe Catholics--a natural alliance, however, since the modern reformers(I can prove it) all believe in Revelation. But, if you sing high massesfor Poland, if, in place of the God of the Dominicans, who was anexecutioner, you take the God of the Romanticists, who is anupholsterer, if, in fact, you have not a wider conception of theAbsolute than your ancestors, Monarchy will penetrate underneath yourRepublican forms, and your red cap will never be more than the headpieceof a priest. The only difference will be that the cell system will takethe place of torture, the outrageous treatment of Religion that ofsacrilege, and the European Concert that of the Holy Alliance; and inthis beautiful order which we admire, composed of the wreckage of thefollowers of Louis XIV., the last remains of the Voltaireans, with someImperial white-wash on top, and some fragments of the BritishConstitution, you will see the municipal councils trying to giveannoyance to the Mayor, the general councils to their Prefect, theChambers to the King, the Press to Power, and the Administration toeverybody. But simple-minded people get enraptured about the Civil Code,a work fabricated--let them say what they like--in a mean and tyrannicalspirit, for the legislator, in place of doing his duty to the State,which simply means to observe customs in a regular fashion, claims tomodel society like another Lycurgus. Why does the law impede fathers offamilies with regard to the making of wills? Why does it place shackleson the compulsory sale of real estate? Why does it punish as amisdemeanour vagrancy, which ought not even to be regarded as atechnical contravention of the Code. And there are other things! I knowall about them! and so I am going to write a little novel, entitled'The History of the Idea of Justice,' which will be amusing. But I aminfernally thirsty! And you?"
He leaned out through the window, and called to the porter to go andfetch them two glasses of grog from the public-house over the way.
"To sum up, I see three parties--no! three groups--in none of which do Itake the slightest interest: those who have, those who have nothing, andthose who are trying to have. But all agree in their idiotic worship ofAuthority! For example, Mably recommends that the philosophers should beprevented from publishing their doctrines; M. Wronsky, the geometrician,describes the censorship as the 'critical expression of speculativespontaneity'; Pere Enfantin gives his blessing to the Hapsburgs forhaving passed a hand across the Alps in order to keep Italy down; PierreLeroux wishes people to be compelled to listen to an orator; and LouisBlanc inclines towards a State religion--so much rage for governmenthave these vassals whom we call the people! Nevertheless, there is not asingle legitimate government, in spite of their sempiternal principles.But 'principle' signifies 'origin.' It is always necessary to go back toa revolution, to an act of violence, to a transitory fact. Thus, ourprinciple is the national sovereignty embodied in the Parliamentaryform, though the Parliament does not assent to this! But in what waycould the sovereignty of the people be more sacred than the DivineRight? They are both fictions. Enough of metaphysics; no more phantoms!There is no need of dogmas in order to get the streets swept! It will besaid that I am turning society upside down. Well, after all, where wouldbe the harm of that? It is, indeed, a nice thing--this society ofyours."
Frederick could have given many answers. But, seeing that his theorieswere far less advanced than those of Senecal, he was full of indulgencetowards Deslauriers. He contented himself with arguing that such asystem would make them generally hated.
"On the contrary, as we should have given to each party a pledge ofhatred against his neighbour, all will reckon on us. You are about toenter into it yourself, and to furnish us with some transcendentcriticism!"
It was necessary to attack accepted ideas--the Academy, the NormalSchool, the Conservatoire, the Comedie Francaise, everything thatresembled an institution. It was in that way that they would giveuniformity to the doctrines taught in their review. Then, as soon as ithad been thoroughly well-established, the journal would suddenly beconverted into a daily publication. Thereupon they could find fault withindividuals.
"And they will respect us, you may be sure!"
Deslauriers touched upon that old dream of his--the position ofeditor-in-chief, so that he might have the unutterable happiness ofdirecting others, of entirely cutting down their articles, of orderingthem to be written or declining them. His eyes twinkled under hisgoggles; he got into a state of excitement, and drank a few glasses ofbrandy, one after the other, in an automatic fashion.
"You'll have to stand me a dinner once a week. That's indispensable,even though you should have to squander half your income on it. Peoplewould feel pleasure in going to it; it would be a centre for theothers, a lever for yourself; and by manipulating public opinion at itstwo ends--literature and politics--you will see how, before six monthshave passed, we shall occupy the first rank in Paris."
Frederick, as he listened to Deslauriers, experienced a sensation ofrejuvenescence, like a man who, after having been confined in a room fora long time, is suddenly transported into the open air. The enthusiasmof his friend had a contagious effect upon him.
"Yes, I have been an idler, an imbecile--you are right!"
"All in good time," said Deslauriers. "I have found my Frederick again!"
And, holding up his jaw with closed fingers:
"Ah! you have made me suffer! Never mind, I am fond of you all thesame."
They stood there gazing into each other's faces, both deeply affected,and were on the point of embracing each other.
A woman's cap appeared on the threshold of the anteroom.
"What brings you here?" said Deslauriers.
It was Mademoiselle Clemence, his mistress.
She replied that, as she happened to be passing, she could not resistthe desire to go in to see him, and in order that they might have alittle repast together, she had brought some cakes, which she laid onthe table.
"Take care of my papers!" said the advocate, sharply. "Besides,this is the third time that I have forbidden you to come at myconsultation-hours."
She wished to embrace him.
"All right! Go away! Cut your stick!"
He repelled her; she heaved a great sigh.
"Ah! you are plaguing me again!"
"'Tis because I love you!"
"I don't ask you to love me, but to oblige me!"
This harsh remark stopped Clemence's tears. She took up her stationbefore the window, and remained there motionless, with her foreheadagainst the pane.
Her attitude and her silence had an irritating effect on Deslauriers.
"When you have finished, you will order your carriage, will you not?"
She turned round with a start.
"You are sending me away?"
"Exactly."
She fixed on him her large blue eyes, no doubt as a last appeal, thendrew the two ends of her tartan across each other, lingered for a minuteor two, and went away.
"You ought to call her back," said Frederick.
"Come, now!"
And, as he wished to go out, Deslauriers went into the kitchen, whichalso served as his dressing-room. On the stone floor, beside a pair ofboots, were to be seen the remains of a meagre breakfast, and a mattresswith a coverlid was rolled up on the floor in a corner.
"This will show you," said he, "that I receive few marchionesses. 'Tiseasy to get enough of them, ay, faith! and some others, too! Those whocost nothing take up your time--'tis money under another form. Now, I'mnot rich! And then they are all so silly, so silly! Can you chat with awoman yourself?"
As they parted, at the corner of the Pont Neuf, Deslauriers said: "It'sagreed, then; you'll bring the thing to me to-morrow as soon as you haveit!"
"Agreed!" said Frederick.
When he awoke next morning, he received through the post a cheque on thebank for fifteen thousand francs.
This scrap of paper represented to him fifteen big bags of money; and hesaid to himself that, with such a sum he could, first of all, keep hiscarriage for three years instead of selling it, as he would soon beforced to do, or buy for himself two beautiful damaskeened pieces ofarmour, which he had seen on the Quai Voltaire, then a quantity of otherthings, pictures, books and what a quantity of bouquets of flowers,presents for Madame Arnoux! anything, in short, would have beenpreferable to risking losing everything in that journal! Deslauriersseemed to him presumptuous, his insensibility on the night before havingchilled Frederick's affection for him; and the young man was indulgingin these feelings of regret, when he was quite surprised by the suddenappearance of Arnoux, who sat down heavily on the side of the bed, likea man overwhelmed with trouble.
"What is the matter now?"
"I am ruined!"
He had to deposit that very day at the office of Maitre Beaumont,notary, in the Rue Saint-Anne, eighteen thousand francs lent him by oneVanneroy.
"'Tis an unaccountable disaster. I have, however, given him a mortgage,which ought to keep him quiet. But he threatens me with a writ if it isnot paid this afternoon promptly."
"And what next?"
"Oh! the next step is simple enough; he will take possession of my realestate. Once the thing is publicly announced, it means ruin tome--that's all! Ah! if I could find anyone to advance me this cursedsum, he might take Vanneroy's place, and I should be saved! You don'tchance to have it yourself?"
The cheque had remained on the night-table near a book. Frederick tookup a volume, and placed it on the cheque, while he replied:
"Good heavens, my dear friend, no!"
But it was painful to him to say "no" to Arnoux.
"What, don't you know anyone who would----?"
"Nobody! and to think that in eight days I should be getting in money!There is owing to me probably fifty thousand francs at the end of themonth!"
"Couldn't you ask some of the persons that owe you money to make you anadvance?"
"Ah! well, so I did!"
"But have you any bills or promissory notes?"
"Not one!"
"What is to be done?" said Frederick.
"That's what I'm asking myself," said Arnoux. "'Tisn't for myself, myGod! but for my children and my poor wife!"
Then, letting each phrase fall from his lips in a broken fashion:
"In fact--I could rough it--I could pack off all I have--and go and seekmy fortune--I don't know where!"
"Impossible!" exclaimed Frederick.
Arnoux replied with an air of calmness:
"How do you think I could live in Paris now?"
There was a long silence. Frederick broke it by saying:
"When could you pay back this money?"
Not that he had it; quite the contrary! But there was nothing to preventhim from seeing some friends, and making an application to them.
And he rang for his servant to get himself dressed.
Arnoux thanked him.
"The amount you want is eighteen thousand francs--isn't it?"
"Oh! I could manage easily with sixteen thousand! For I could make twothousand five hundred out of it, or get three thousand on my silverplate, if Vanneroy meanwhile would give me till to-morrow; and, I repeatto you, you may inform the lender, give him a solemn undertaking, thatin eight days, perhaps even in five or six, the money will bereimbursed. Besides, the mortgage will be security for it. So there isno risk, you understand?"
Frederick assured him that he thoroughly understood the state ofaffairs, and added that he was going out immediately.
He would be sure on his return to bestow hearty maledictions onDeslauriers, for he wished to keep his word, and in the meantime, tooblige Arnoux.
"Suppose I applied to M. Dambreuse? But on what pretext could I ask formoney? 'Tis I, on the contrary, that should give him some for the sharesI took in his coal-mining company. Ah! let him go hang himself--hisshares! I am really not liable for them!"
And Frederick applauded himself for his own independence, as if he hadrefused to do some service for M. Dambreuse.
"Ah, well," said he to himself afterwards, "since I'm going to meet witha loss in this way--for with fifteen thousand francs I might gain ahundred thousand! such things sometimes happen on the Bourse--well,then, since I am breaking my promise to one of them, am I not free?Besides, when Deslauriers might wait? No, no; that's wrong; let us gothere."
He looked at his watch.
"Ah! there's no hurry. The bank does not close till five o'clock."
And, at half-past four, when he had cashed the cheque:
"'Tis useless now; I should not find him in. I'll go this evening." Thusgiving himself the opportunity of changing his mind, for there alwaysremain in the conscience some of those sophistries which we pour into itourselves. It preserves the after-taste of them, like some unwholesomeliquor.
He walked along the boulevards, and dined alone at the restaurant. Thenhe listened to one act of a play at the Vaudeville, in order to diverthis thoughts. But his bank-notes caused him as much embarrassment as ifhe had stolen them. He would not have been very sorry if he had lostthem.
When he reached home again he found a letter containing these words:
"What news? My wife joins me, dear friend, in the hope, etc.--Yours."
And then there was a flourish after his signature.
"His wife! She appeals to me!"
At the same moment Arnoux appeared, to have an answer as to whether hehad been able to obtain the sum so sorely needed.
"Wait a moment; here it is," said Frederick.
And, twenty-four hours later, he gave this reply to Deslauriers:
"I have no money."
The advocate came back three days, one after the other, and urgedFrederick to write to the notary. He even offered to take a trip toHavre in connection with the matter.
At the end of the week, Frederick timidly asked the worthy Arnoux forhis fifteen thousand francs. Arnoux put it off till the following day,and then till the day after. Frederick ventured out late at night,fearing lest Deslauriers might come on him by surprise.
One evening, somebody knocked against him at the corner of theMadeleine. It was he.
And Deslauriers accompanied Frederick as far as the door of a house inthe Faubourg Poissonniere.
"Wait for me!"
He waited. At last, after three quarters of an hour, Frederick came out,accompanied by Arnoux, and made signs to him to have patience a littlelonger. The earthenware merchant and his companion went up the Rue deHauteville arm-in-arm, and then turned down the Rue de Chabrol.
The night was dark, with gusts of tepid wind. Arnoux walked on slowly,talking about the Galleries of Commerce--a succession of coveredpassages which would have led from the Boulevard Saint-Denis to theChatelet, a marvellous speculation, into which he was very anxious toenter; and he stopped from time to time in order to have a look at thegrisettes' faces in front of the shop-windows, and then, raising hishead again, resumed the thread of his discourse.
Frederick heard Deslaurier
s' steps behind him like reproaches, likeblows falling on his conscience. But he did not venture to claim hismoney, through a feeling of bashfulness, and also through a fear thatit would be fruitless. The other was drawing nearer. He made up his mindto ask.
Arnoux, in a very flippant tone, said that, as he had not got in hisoutstanding debts, he was really unable to pay back the fifteen thousandfrancs.
"You have no need of money, I fancy?"
At that moment Deslauriers came up to Frederick, and, taking him aside:
"Be honest. Have you got the amount? Yes or no?"
"Well, then, no," said Frederick; "I've lost it."
"Ah! and in what way?"
"At play."
Deslauriers, without saying a single word in reply, made a very low bow,and went away. Arnoux had taken advantage of the opportunity to light acigar in a tobacconist's shop. When he came back, he wanted to know fromFrederick "who was that young man?"
"Oh! nobody--a friend."
Then, three minutes later, in front of Rosanette's door:
"Come on up," said Arnoux; "she'll be glad to see you. What a savage youare just now!"
A gas-lamp, which was directly opposite, threw its light on him; and,with his cigar between his white teeth and his air of contentment, therewas something intolerable about him.
"Ha! now that I think of it, my notary has been at your place thismorning about that mortgage-registry business. 'Tis my wife reminded meabout it."
"A wife with brains!" returned Frederick automatically.
"I believe you."
And once more Arnoux began to sing his wife's praises. There was no onelike her for spirit, tenderness, and thrift; he added in a low tone,rolling his eyes about: "And a woman with so many charms, too!"
"Good-bye!" said Frederick.
Arnoux made a step closer to him.
"Hold on! Why are you going?" And, with his hand half-stretched outtowards Frederick, he stared at the young man, quite abashed by the lookof anger in his face.
Frederick repeated in a dry tone, "Good-bye!"
He hurried down the Rue de Breda like a stone rolling headlong, ragingagainst Arnoux, swearing in his own mind that he would never see the managain, nor her either, so broken-hearted and desolate did he feel. Inplace of the rupture which he had anticipated, here was the other, onthe contrary, exhibiting towards her a most perfect attachment from theends of her hair to the inmost depths of her soul. Frederick wasexasperated by the vulgarity of this man. Everything, then, belonged tohim! He would meet Arnoux again at his mistress's door; and themortification of a rupture would be added to rage at his ownpowerlessness. Besides, he felt humiliated by the other's display ofintegrity in offering him guaranties for his money. He would have likedto strangle him, and over the pangs of disappointment floated in hisconscience, like a fog, the sense of his baseness towards his friend.Rising tears nearly suffocated him.
Deslauriers descended the Rue des Martyrs, swearing aloud withindignation; for his project, like an obelisk that has fallen, nowassumed extraordinary proportions. He considered himself robbed, as ifhe had suffered a great loss. His friendship for Frederick was dead, andhe experienced a feeling of joy at it--it was a sort of compensation tohim! A hatred of all rich people took possession of him. He leanedtowards Senecal's opinions, and resolved to make every effort topropagate them.
All this time, Arnoux was comfortably seated in an easy-chair near thefire, sipping his cup of tea, with the Marechale on his knees.
Frederick did not go back there; and, in order to distract his attentionfrom his disastrous passion, he determined to write a "History of theRenaissance." He piled up confusedly on his table the humanists, thephilosophers, and the poets, and he went to inspect some engravings ofMark Antony, and tried to understand Machiavelli. Gradually, theserenity of intellectual work had a soothing effect upon him. While hismind was steeped in the personality of others, he lost sight of hisown--which is the only way, perhaps, of getting rid of suffering.
One day, while he was quietly taking notes, the door opened, and theman-servant announced Madame Arnoux.
It was she, indeed! and alone? Why, no! for she was holding littleEugene by the hand, followed by a nurse in a white apron. She sat down,and after a preliminary cough:
"It is a long time since you came to see us."
As Frederick could think of no excuse at the moment, she added:
"It was delicacy on your part!"
He asked in return:
"Delicacy about what?"
"About what you have done for Arnoux!" said she.
Frederick made a significant gesture. "What do I care about him, indeed?It was for your sake I did it!"
She sent off the child to play with his nurse in the drawing-room. Twoor three words passed between them as to their state of health; then theconversation hung fire.
She wore a brown silk gown, which had the colour of Spanish wine, with apaletot of black velvet bordered with sable. This fur made him yearn topass his hand over it; and her head-bands, so long and so exquisitelysmooth, seemed to draw his lips towards them. But he was agitated byemotion, and, turning his eyes towards the door:
"'Tis rather warm here!"
Frederick understood what her discreet glance meant.
"Ah! excuse me! the two leaves of the door are merely drawn together."
"Yes, that's true!"
And she smiled, as much as to say:
"I'm not a bit afraid!"
He asked her presently what was the object of her visit.
"My husband," she replied with an effort, "has urged me to call on you,not venturing to take this step himself!"
"And why?"
"You know M. Dambreuse, don't you?"
"Yes, slightly."
"Ah! slightly."
She relapsed into silence.
"No matter! finish what you were going to say."
Thereupon she told him that, two days before, Arnoux had found himselfunable to meet four bills of a thousand francs, made payable at thebanker's order and with his signature attached to them. She felt sorryfor having compromised her children's fortune. But anything waspreferable to dishonour; and, if M. Dambreuse stopped the proceedings,they would certainly pay him soon, for she was going to sell a littlehouse which she had at Chartres.
"Poor woman!" murmured Frederick. "I will go. Rely on me!"
"Thanks!"
And she arose to go.
"Oh! there is nothing to hurry you yet."
She remained standing, examining the trophy of Mongolian arrowssuspended from the ceiling, the bookcase, the bindings, all the utensilsfor writing. She lifted up the bronze bowl which held his pens. Her feetrested on different portions of the carpet. She had visited Frederickseveral times before, but always accompanied by Arnoux. They were nowalone together--alone in his own house. It was an extraordinaryevent--almost a successful issue of his love.
She wished to see his little garden. He offered her his arm to show herhis property--thirty feet of ground enclosed by some houses, adornedwith shrubs at the corners and flower-borders in the middle. The earlydays of April had arrived. The leaves of the lilacs were already showingtheir borders of green. A breath of pure air was diffused around, andthe little birds chirped, their song alternating with the distant soundthat came from a coachmaker's forge.
Frederick went to look for a fire-shovel; and, while they walked on sideby side, the child kept making sand-pies in the walk.
Madame Arnoux did not believe that, as he grew older, he would have agreat imagination; but he had a winning disposition. His sister, on theother hand, possessed a caustic humour that sometimes wounded her.
"That will change," said Frederick. "We must never despair."
She returned:
"We must never despair!"
This automatic repetition of the phrase he had used appeared to him asort of encouragement; he plucked a rose, the only one in the garden.
"Do you remember a certain bouquet of roses one evening, in
a carriage?"
She coloured a little; and, with an air of bantering pity:
"Ah, I was very young then!"
"And this one," went on Frederick, in a low tone, "will it be the sameway with it?"
She replied, while turning about the stem between her fingers, like thethread of a spindle:
"No, I will preserve it."
She called over the nurse, who took the child in her arms; then, on thethreshold of the door in the street, Madame Arnoux inhaled the odour ofthe flower, leaning her head on her shoulder with a look as sweet as akiss.
When he had gone up to his study, he gazed at the armchair in which shehad sat, and every object which she had touched. Some portion of her wasdiffused around him. The caress of her presence lingered there still.
"So, then, she came here," said he to himself.
And his soul was bathed in the waves of infinite tenderness.
Next morning, at eleven o'clock, he presented himself at M. Dambreuse'shouse. He was received in the dining-room. The banker was seatedopposite his wife at breakfast. Beside her sat his niece, and at theother side of the table appeared the governess, an English woman,strongly pitted with small-pox.
M. Dambreuse invited his young friend to take his place among them, andwhen he declined:
"What can I do for you? I am listening to whatever you have to say tome."
Frederick confessed, while affecting indifference, that he had come tomake a request in behalf of one Arnoux.
"Ha! ha! the ex-picture-dealer," said the banker, with a noiseless laughwhich exposed his gums. "Oudry formerly gave security for him; he hasgiven a lot of trouble."
And he proceeded to read the letters and newspapers which lay closebeside him on the table.
Two servants attended without making the least noise on the floor; andthe loftiness of the apartment, which had three portieres of richesttapestry, and two white marble fountains, the polish of thechafing-dish, the arrangement of the side-dishes, and even the rigidfolds of the napkins, all this sumptuous comfort impressed Frederick'smind with the contrast between it and another breakfast at the Arnouxs'house. He did not take the liberty of interrupting M. Dambreuse.
Madame noticed his embarrassment.
"Do you occasionally see our friend Martinon?"
"He will be here this evening," said the young girl in a lively tone.
"Ha! so you know him?" said her aunt, fixing on her a freezing look.
At that moment one of the men-servants, bending forward, whispered inher ear.
"Your dressmaker, Mademoiselle--Miss John!"
And the governess, in obedience to this summons, left the room alongwith her pupil.
M. Dambreuse, annoyed at the disarrangement of the chairs by thismovement, asked what was the matter.
"'Tis Madame Regimbart."
"Wait a moment! Regimbart! I know that name. I have come across hissignature."
Frederick at length broached the question. Arnoux deserved someconsideration; he was even going, for the sole purpose of fulfilling hisengagements, to sell a house belonging to his wife.
"She is considered very pretty," said Madame Dambreuse.
The banker added, with a display of good-nature:
"Are you on friendly terms with them--on intimate terms?"
Frederick, without giving an explicit reply, said that he would be verymuch obliged to him if he considered the matter.
"Well, since it pleases you, be it so; we will wait. I have some time tospare yet; suppose we go down to my office. Would you mind?"
They had finished breakfast. Madame Dambreuse bowed slightly towardsFrederick, smiling in a singular fashion, with a mixture of politenessand irony. Frederick had no time to reflect about it, for M. Dambreuse,as soon as they were alone:
"You did not come to get your shares?"
And, without permitting him to make any excuses:
"Well! well! 'tis right that you should know a little more about thebusiness."
He offered Frederick a cigarette, and began his statement.
The General Union of French Coal Mines had been constituted. All thatthey were waiting for was the order for its incorporation. The mere factof the amalgamation had diminished the cost of superintendence, and ofmanual labour, and increased the profits. Besides, the company hadconceived a new idea, which was to interest the workmen in itsundertaking. It would erect houses for them, healthful dwellings;finally, it would constitute itself the purveyor of its _employes_, andwould have everything supplied to them at net prices.
"And they will be the gainers by it, Monsieur: there's true progress!that's the way to reply effectively to certain Republican brawlings. Wehave on our Board"--he showed the prospectus--"a peer of France, ascholar who is a member of the Institute, a retired field-officer ofgenius. Such elements reassure the timid capitalists, and appeal tointelligent capitalists!"
The company would have in its favour the sanction of the State, then therailways, the steam service, the metallurgical establishments, the gascompanies, and ordinary households.
"Thus we heat, we light, we penetrate to the very hearth of the humblesthome. But how, you will say to me, can we be sure of selling? By the aidof protective laws, dear Monsieur, and we shall get them!--that is amatter that concerns us! For my part, however, I am a downrightprohibitionist! The country before anything!"
He had been appointed a director; but he had no time to occupy himselfwith certain details, amongst other things with the editing of theirpublications.
"I find myself rather muddled with my authors. I have forgotten myGreek. I should want some one who could put my ideas into shape."
And suddenly: "Will you be the man to perform those duties, with thetitle of general secretary?"
Frederick did not know what reply to make.
"Well, what is there to prevent you?"
His functions would be confined to writing a report every year for theshareholders. He would find himself day after day in communication withthe most notable men in Paris. Representing the company with theworkmen, he would ere long be worshipped by them as a naturalconsequence, and by this means he would be able, later, to push him intothe General Council, and into the position of a deputy.
Frederick's ears tingled. Whence came this goodwill? He got confused inreturning thanks. But it was not necessary, the banker said, that heshould be dependent on anyone. The best course was to take some shares,"a splendid investment besides, for your capital guarantees yourposition, as your position does your capital."
"About how much should it amount to?" said Frederick.
"Oh, well! whatever you please--from forty to sixty thousand francs, Isuppose."
This sum was so trifling in M. Dambreuse's eyes, and his authority wasso great, that the young man resolved immediately to sell a farm.
He accepted the offer. M. Dambreuse was to select one of his disengageddays for an appointment in order to finish their arrangements.
"So I can say to Jacques Arnoux----?"
"Anything you like--the poor chap--anything you like!"
Frederick wrote to the Arnouxs' to make their minds easy, and hedespatched the letter by a man-servant, who brought back the letter:"All right!" His action in the matter deserved better recognition. Heexpected a visit, or, at least, a letter. He did not receive a visit,and no letter arrived.
Was it forgetfulness on their part, or was it intentional? Since MadameArnoux had come once, what was to prevent her from coming again? Thespecies of confidence, of avowal, of which she had made him therecipient on the occasion, was nothing better, then, than a manoeuvrewhich she had executed through interested motives.
"Are they playing on me? and is she an accomplice of her husband?" Asort of shame, in spite of his desire, prevented him from returning totheir house.
One morning (three weeks after their interview), M. Dambreuse wrote tohim, saying that he expected him the same day in an hour's time.
On the way, the thought of Arnoux oppressed him once more, and, not
having been able to discover any reason for his conduct, he was seizedwith a feeling of wretchedness, a melancholy presentiment. In order toshake it off, he hailed a cab, and drove to the Rue de Paradis.
Arnoux was away travelling.
"And Madame?"
"In the country, at the works."
"When is Monsieur coming back?"
"To-morrow, without fail."
He would find her alone; this was the opportune moment. Somethingimperious seemed to cry out in the depths of his consciousness: "Go,then, and meet her!"
But M. Dambreuse? "Ah! well, so much the worse. I'll say that I wasill."
He rushed to the railway-station, and, as soon as he was in thecarriage:
"Perhaps I have done wrong. Pshaw! what does it matter?"
Green plains stretched out to the right and to the left. The trainrolled on. The little station-houses glistened like stage-scenery, andthe smoke of the locomotive kept constantly sending forth on the sameside its big fleecy masses, which danced for a little while on thegrass, and were then dispersed.
Frederick, who sat alone in his compartment, gazed at these objectsthrough sheer weariness, lost in that languor which is produced by thevery excess of impatience. But cranes and warehouses presently appeared.They had reached Creil.
The town, built on the slopes of two low-lying hills (the first of whichwas bare, and the second crowned by a wood), with its church-tower, itshouses of unequal size, and its stone bridge, seemed to him to presentan aspect of mingled gaiety, reserve, and propriety. A long flat bargedescended to the edge of the water, which leaped up under the lash ofthe wind.
Fowl perched on the straw at the foot of the crucifix erected on thespot; a woman passed with some wet linen on her head.
After crossing the bridge, he found himself in an isle, where he beheldon his right the ruins of an abbey. A mill with its wheels revolvingbarred up the entire width of the second arm of the Oise, over which themanufactory projected. Frederick was greatly surprised by the imposingcharacter of this structure. He felt more respect for Arnoux on accountof it. Three paces further on, he turned up an alley, which had agrating at its lower end.
He went in. The door-keeper called him back, exclaiming:
"Have you a permit?"
"For what purpose?"
"For the purpose of visiting the establishment."
Frederick said in a rather curt tone that he had come to see M. Arnoux.
"Who is M. Arnoux?"
"Why, the chief, the master, the proprietor, in fact!"
"No, monsieur! These are MM. Leboeuf and Milliet's works!"
The good woman was surely joking! Some workmen arrived; he came up andspoke to two or three of them. They gave the same response.
Frederick left the premises, staggering like a drunken man; and he hadsuch a look of perplexity, that on the Pont de la Boucherie aninhabitant of the town, who was smoking his pipe, asked whether hewanted to find out anything. This man knew where Arnoux's manufactorywas. It was situated at Montataire.
Frederick asked whether a vehicle was to be got. He was told that theonly place where he could find one was at the station. He went backthere. A shaky-looking calash, to which was yoked an old horse, withtorn harness hanging over the shafts, stood all alone in front of theluggage office. An urchin who was looking on offered to go and find PerePilon. In ten minutes' time he came back, and announced that Pere Pilonwas at his breakfast. Frederick, unable to stand this any longer, walkedaway. But the gates of the thoroughfare across the line were closed. Hewould have to wait till two trains had passed. At last, he made a dashinto the open country.
The monotonous greenery made it look like the cover of an immensebilliard-table. The scoriae of iron were ranged on both sides of thetrack, like heaps of stones. A little further on, some factory chimneyswere smoking close beside each other. In front of him, on a roundhillock, stood a little turreted chateau, with the quadrangular belfryof a church. At a lower level, long walls formed irregular lines pastthe trees; and, further down again, the houses of the village spreadout.
They had only a single story, with staircases consisting of three stepsmade of uncemented blocks. Every now and then the bell in front of agrocery-shop could be heard tinkling. Heavy steps sank into the blackmire, and a light shower was falling, which cut the pale sky with athousand hatchings.
Frederick pursued his way along the middle of the street. Then, he sawon his left, at the opening of a pathway, a large wooden arch, whereonwas traced, in letters of gold, the word "Faiences."
It was not without an object that Jacques Arnoux had selected thevicinity of Creil. By placing his works as close as possible to theother works (which had long enjoyed a high reputation), he had created acertain confusion in the public mind, with a favourable result so far ashis own interests were concerned.
The main body of the building rested on the same bank of a river whichflows through the meadowlands. The master's house, surrounded by agarden, could be distinguished by the steps in front of it, adorned withfour vases, in which cactuses were bristling.
Heaps of white clay were drying under sheds. There were others in theopen air; and in the midst of the yard stood Senecal with hiseverlasting blue paletot lined with red.
The ex-tutor extended towards Frederick his cold hand.
"You've come to see the master? He's not there."
Frederick, nonplussed, replied in a stupefied fashion:
"I knew it." But the next moment, correcting himself:
"'Tis about a matter that concerns Madame Arnoux. Can she receive me?"
"Ha! I have not seen her for the last three days," said Senecal.
And he broke into a long string of complaints. When he accepted the postof manager, he understood that he would have been allowed to reside inParis, and not be forced to bury himself in this country district, farfrom his friends, deprived of newspapers. No matter! he had overlookedall that. But Arnoux appeared to pay no heed to his merits. He was,moreover, shallow and retrograde--no one could be more ignorant. Inplace of seeking for artistic improvements, it would have been better tointroduce firewood instead of coal and gas. The shop-keeping spirit_thrust itself in_--Senecal laid stress on the last words. In short, hedisliked his present occupation, and he all but appealed to Frederick tosay a word in his behalf in order that he might get an increase ofsalary.
"Make your mind easy," said the other.
He met nobody on the staircase. On the first floor, he pushed his wayhead-foremost into an empty room. It was the drawing-room. He called outat the top of his voice. There was no reply. No doubt, the cook had goneout, and so had the housemaid. At length, having reached the secondfloor, he pushed a door open. Madame Arnoux was alone in this room, infront of a press with a mirror attached. The belt of her dressing-gownhung down her hips; one entire half of her hair fell in a dark wave overher right shoulder; and she had raised both arms in order to hold up herchignon with one hand and to put a pin through it with the other. Shebroke into an exclamation and disappeared.
Then, she came back again properly dressed. Her waist, her eyes, therustle of her dress, her entire appearance, charmed him. Frederick feltit hard to keep from covering her with kisses.
"I beg your pardon," said she, "but I could not----"
He had the boldness to interrupt her with these words:
"Nevertheless--you looked very nice--just now."
She probably thought this compliment a little coarse, for her cheeksreddened. He was afraid that he might have offended her. She went on:
"What lucky chance has brought you here?"
He did not know what reply to make; and, after a slight chuckle, whichgave him time for reflection:
"If I told you, would you believe me?"
"Why not?"
Frederick informed her that he had had a frightful dream a few nightsbefore.
"I dreamt that you were seriously ill--near dying."
"Oh! my husband and I are never ill."
"I have dreamt only
of you," said he.
She gazed at him calmly: "Dreams are not always realised."
Frederick stammered, sought to find appropriate words to express himselfin, and then plunged into a flowing period about the affinity of souls.There existed a force which could, through the intervening bounds ofspace, bring two persons into communication with each other, make knownto each the other's feelings, and enable them to reunite.
She listened to him with downcast face, while she smiled with thatbeautiful smile of hers. He watched her out of the corner of his eyewith delight, and poured out his love all the more freely through theeasy channel of a commonplace remark.
She offered to show him the works; and, as she persisted, he made noobjection.
In order to divert his attention with something of an amusing nature,she showed him the species of museum that decorated the staircase. Thespecimens, hung up against the wall or laid on shelves, bore witness tothe efforts and the successive fads of Arnoux. After seeking vainly forthe red of Chinese copper, he had wished to manufacture majolicas,faience, Etruscan and Oriental ware, and had, in fact, attempted all theimprovements which were realised at a later period.
So it was that one could observe in the series big vases covered withfigures of mandarins, porringers of shot reddish-brown, pots adornedwith Arabian inscriptions, drinking-vessels in the style of theRenaissance, and large plates on which two personages were outlined asit were on bloodstone, in a delicate, aerial fashion. He now madeletters for signboards and wine-labels; but his intelligence was nothigh enough to attain to art, nor commonplace enough to look merely toprofit, so that, without satisfying anyone, he had ruined himself.
They were both taking a view of these things when Mademoiselle Marthepassed.
"So, then, you did not recognise him?" said her mother to her.
"Yes, indeed," she replied, bowing to him, while her clear and scepticalglance--the glance of a virgin--seemed to say in a whisper: "What areyou coming here for?" and she rushed up the steps with her head slightlybent over her shoulder.
Madame Arnoux led Frederick into the yard attached to the works, andthen explained to him in a grave tone how different clays were ground,cleaned, and sifted.
"The most important thing is the preparation of pastes."
And she introduced him into a hall filled with vats, in which a verticalaxis with horizontal arms kept turning. Frederick felt some regret thathe had not flatly declined her offer a little while before.
"These things are merely the slobberings," said she.
He thought the word grotesque, and, in a measure, unbecoming on herlips.
Wide straps ran from one end of the ceiling to the other, so as to rollthemselves round the drums, and everything kept moving continuously witha provoking mathematical regularity.
They left the spot, and passed close to a ruined hut, which had formerlybeen used as a repository for gardening implements.
"It is no longer of any use," said Madame Arnoux.
He replied in a tremulous voice:
"Happiness may have been associated with it!"
The clacking of the fire-pump drowned his words, and they entered theworkshop where rough drafts were made.
Some men, seated at a narrow table, placed each in front of himself on arevolving disc a piece of paste. Then each man with his left handscooped out the insides of his own piece while smoothing its surfacewith the right; and vases could be seen bursting into shape likeblossoming flowers.
Madame Arnoux had the moulds for more difficult works shown to him.
In another portion of the building, the threads, the necks, and theprojecting lines were being formed. On the floor above, they removed theseams, and stopped up with plaster the little holes that had been leftby the preceding operations.
At every opening in the walls, in corners, in the middle of thecorridor, everywhere, earthenware vessels had been placed side by side.
Frederick began to feel bored.
"Perhaps these things are tiresome to you?" said she.
Fearing lest it might be necessary to terminate his visit there andthen, he affected, on the contrary, a tone of great enthusiasm. He evenexpressed regret at not having devoted himself to this branch ofindustry.
She appeared surprised.
"Certainly! I would have been able to live near you."
And as he tried to catch her eye, Madame Arnoux, in order to avoid him,took off a bracket little balls of paste, which had come from abortivereadjustments, flattened them out into a thin cake, and pressed her handover them.
"Might I carry these away with me?" said Frederick.
"Good heavens! are you so childish?"
He was about to reply when in came Senecal.
The sub-manager, on the threshold, had noticed a breach of the rules.The workshops should be swept every week. This was Saturday, and, as theworkmen had not done what was required, Senecal announced that theywould have to remain an hour longer.
"So much the worse for you!"
They stooped over the work assigned to them unmurmuringly, but theirrage could be divined by the hoarse sounds which came from their chests.They were, moreover, very easy to manage, having all been dismissed fromthe big manufactory. The Republican had shown himself a hard taskmasterto them. A mere theorist, he regarded the people only in the mass, andexhibited an utter absence of pity for individuals.
Frederick, annoyed by his presence, asked Madame Arnoux in a low tonewhether they could have an opportunity of seeing the kilns. Theydescended to the ground-floor; and she was just explaining the use ofcaskets, when Senecal, who had followed close behind, placed himselfbetween them.
He continued the explanation of his own motion, expatiated on thevarious kinds of combustibles, the process of placing in the kiln, thepyroscopes, the cylindrical furnaces; the instruments for rounding, thelustres, and the metals, making a prodigious display of chemical terms,such as "chloride," "sulphuret," "borax," and "carbonate." Frederick didnot understand a single one of them, and kept turning round every minutetowards Madame Arnoux.
"You are not listening," said she. "M. Senecal, however, is very clear.He knows all these things much better than I."
The mathematician, flattered by this eulogy, proposed to show the way inwhich colours were laid on. Frederick gave Madame Arnoux an anxious,questioning look. She remained impassive, not caring to be alone withhim, very probably, and yet unwilling to leave him.
He offered her his arm.
"No--many thanks! the staircase is too narrow!"
And, when they had reached the top, Senecal opened the door of anapartment filled with women.
They were handling brushes, phials, shells, and plates of glass. Alongthe cornice, close to the wall, extended boards with figures engraved onthem; scraps of thin paper floated about, and a melting-stove sent forthfumes that made the temperature oppressive, while there mingled with itthe odour of turpentine.
The workwomen had nearly all sordid costumes. It was noticeable,however, that one of them wore a Madras handkerchief, and longearrings. Of slight frame, and, at the same time, plump, she had largeblack eyes and the fleshy lips of a negress. Her ample bosom projectedfrom under her chemise, which was fastened round her waist by the stringof her petticoat; and, with one elbow on the board of the work-table andthe other arm hanging down, she gazed vaguely at the open country, along distance away. Beside her were a bottle of wine and some porkchops.
The regulations prohibited eating in the workshops, a rule intended tosecure cleanliness at work and to keep the hands in a healthy condition.
Senecal, through a sense of duty or a longing to exercise despoticauthority, shouted out to her ere he had come near her, while pointingtowards a framed placard:
"I say, you girl from Bordeaux over there! read out for me Article 9!"
"Well, what then?"
"What then, mademoiselle? You'll have to pay a fine of three francs."
She looked him straight in the face in an impudent fashion.
"What does that signify to me? The master will take off your fine whenhe comes back! I laugh at you, my good man!"
Senecal, who was walking with his hands behind his back, like an usherin the study-room, contented himself with smiling.
"Article 13, insubordination, ten francs!"
The girl from Bordeaux resumed her work. Madame Arnoux, through a senseof propriety, said nothing; but her brows contracted. Frederickmurmured:
"Ha! you are very severe for a democrat!"
The other replied in a magisterial tone:
"Democracy is not the unbounded license of individualism. It is theequality of all belonging to the same community before the law, thedistribution of work, order."
"You are forgetting humanity!" said Frederick.
Madame Arnoux took his arm. Senecal, perhaps, offended by this mark ofsilent approbation, went away.
Frederick experienced an immense relief. Since morning he had beenlooking out for the opportunity to declare itself; now it had arrived.Besides, Madame Arnoux's spontaneous movements seemed to him to containpromises; and he asked her, as if on the pretext of warming their feet,to come up to her room. But, when he was seated close beside her, hebegan once more to feel embarrassed. He was at a loss for astarting-point. Senecal, luckily, suggested an idea to his mind.
"Nothing could be more stupid," said he, "than this punishment!"
Madame Arnoux replied: "There are certain severe measures which areindispensable!"
"What! you who are so good! Oh! I am mistaken, for you sometimes takepleasure in making other people suffer!"
"I don't understand riddles, my friend!"
And her austere look, still more than the words she used, checked him.Frederick was determined to go on. A volume of De Musset chanced to beon the chest of drawers; he turned over some pages, then began to talkabout love, about his hopes and his transports.
All this, according to Madame Arnoux, was criminal or factitious. Theyoung man felt wounded by this negative attitude with regard to hispassion, and, in order to combat it, he cited, by way of proof, thesuicides which they read about every day in the newspapers, extolled thegreat literary types, Phedre, Dido, Romeo, Desgrieux. He talked as if hemeant to do away with himself.
The fire was no longer burning on the hearth; the rain lashed againstthe window-panes. Madame Arnoux, without stirring, remained with herhands resting on the sides of her armchair. The flaps of her cap felllike the fillets of a sphinx. Her pure profile traced out its clear-cutoutlines in the midst of the shadow.
He was anxious to cast himself at her feet. There was a creaking soundin the lobby, and he did not venture to carry out his intention.
He was, moreover, restrained by a kind of religious awe. That robe,mingling with the surrounding shadows, appeared to him boundless,infinite, incapable of being touched; and for this very reason hisdesire became intensified. But the fear of doing too much, and, again,of not doing enough, deprived him of all judgment.
"If she dislikes me," he thought, "let her drive me away; if she caresfor me, let her encourage me."
He said, with a sigh:
"So, then, you don't admit that a man may love--a woman?"
Madame Arnoux replied:
"Assuming that she is at liberty to marry, he may marry her; when shebelongs to another, he should keep away from her."
"So happiness is impossible?"
"No! But it is never to be found in falsehood, mental anxiety, andremorse."
"What does it matter, if one is compensated by the enjoyment of supremebliss?"
"The experience is too costly."
Then he sought to assail her with irony.
"Would not virtue in that case be merely cowardice?"
"Say rather, clear-sightedness. Even for those women who might forgetduty or religion, simple good sense is sufficient. A solid foundationfor wisdom may be found in self-love."
"Ah, what shop-keeping maxims these are of yours!"
"But I don't boast of being a fine lady."
At that moment the little boy rushed in.
"Mamma, are you coming to dinner?"
"Yes, in a moment."
Frederick arose. At the same instant, Marthe made her appearance.
He could not make up his mind to go away, and, with a look of entreaty:
"These women you speak of are very unfeeling, then?"
"No, but deaf when it is necessary to be so."
And she remained standing on the threshold of her room with her twochildren beside her. He bowed without saying a word. She mutely returnedhis salutation.
What he first experienced was an unspeakable astonishment. He feltcrushed by this mode of impressing on him the emptiness of his hopes. Itseemed to him as if he were lost, like a man who has fallen to thebottom of an abyss and knows that no help will come to him, and that hemust die. He walked on, however, but at random, without looking beforehim. He knocked against stones; he mistook his way. A clatter of woodenshoes sounded close to his ear; it was caused by some of theworking-girls who were leaving the foundry. Then he realised where hewas.
The railway lamps traced on the horizon a line of flames. He arrivedjust as the train was starting, let himself be pushed into a carriage,and fell asleep.
An hour later on the boulevards, the gaiety of Paris by night made hisjourney all at once recede into an already far-distant past. He resolvedto be strong, and relieved his heart by vilifying Madame Arnoux withinsulting epithets.
"She is an idiot, a goose, a mere brute; let us not bestow anotherthought on her!"
When he got home, he found in his study a letter of eight pages on blueglazed paper, with the initials "R. A."
It began with friendly reproaches.
"What has become of you, my dear? I am getting quite bored."
But the handwriting was so abominable, that Frederick was about to flingaway the entire bundle of sheets, when he noticed in the postscript thefollowing words:
"I count on you to come to-morrow and drive me to the races."
What was the meaning of this invitation? Was it another trick of theMarechale? But a woman does not make a fool of the same man twicewithout some object; and, seized with curiosity, he read the letter overagain attentively.
Frederick was able to distinguish "Misunderstanding--to have taken awrong path--disillusions--poor children that we are!--like two riversthat join each other!" etc.
He kept the sheets for a long time between his fingers. They had theodour of orris; and there was in the form of the characters and theirregular spaces between the lines something suggestive, as it were, ofa disorderly toilet, that fired his blood.
"Why should I not go?" said he to himself at length. "But if MadameArnoux were to know about it? Ah! let her know! So much the better! andlet her feel jealous over it! In that way I shall be avenged!"
CHAPTER X.
At the Races.
The Marechale was prepared for his visit, and had been awaiting him.
"This is nice of you!" she said, fixing a glance of her fine eyes on hisface, with an expression at the same time tender and mirthful.
When she had fastened her bonnet-strings, she sat down on the divan, andremained silent.
"Shall we go?" said Frederick. She looked at the clock on themantelpiece.
"Oh, no! not before half-past one!" as if she had imposed this limit toher indecision.
At last, when the hour had struck:
"Ah! well, _andiamo, caro mio_!" And she gave a final touch to herhead-bands, and left directions for Delphine.
"Is Madame coming home to dinner?"
"Why should we, indeed? We shall dine together somewhere--at the CafeAnglais, wherever you wish."
"Be it so!"
Her little dogs began yelping around her.
"We can bring them with us, can't we?"
Frederick carried them himself to the vehicle. It was a hired berlinwith two post-horses and a postilion. He had put his man-servant in theback seat. The Marechale appeared satisfied wit
h his attentions. Then,as soon as she had seated herself, she asked him whether he had beenlately at the Arnouxs'.
"Not for the past month," said Frederick.
"As for me, I met him the day before yesterday. He would have even cometo-day, but he has all sorts of troubles--another lawsuit--I don't knowwhat. What a queer man!"
Frederick added with an air of indifference:
"Now that I think of it, do you still see--what's that his nameis?--that ex-vocalist--Delmar?"
She replied dryly:
"No; that's all over."
So it was clear that there had been a rupture between them. Frederickderived some hope from this circumstance.
They descended the Quartier Breda at an easy pace. As it happened to beSunday, the streets were deserted, and some citizens' faces presentedthemselves at the windows. The carriage went on more rapidly. The noiseof wheels made the passers-by turn round; the leather of the hood, whichhad slid down, was glittering. The man-servant doubled himself up, andthe two Havanese, beside one another, seemed like two ermine muffs laidon the cushions. Frederick let himself jog up and down with the rockingof the carriage-straps. The Marechale turned her head to the right andto the left with a smile on her face.
Her straw hat of mother-of-pearl colour was trimmed with black lace. Thehood of her bournous floated in the wind, and she sheltered herselffrom the rays of the sun under a parasol of lilac satin pointed at thetop like a pagoda.
"What loves of little fingers!" said Frederick, softly taking her otherhand, her left being adorned with a gold bracelet in the form of acurb-chain.
"I say! that's pretty! Where did it come from?"
"Oh! I've had it a long time," said the Marechale.
The young man did not challenge this hypocritical answer in any way. Hepreferred to profit by the circumstance. And, still keeping hold of thewrist, he pressed his lips on it between the glove and the cuff.
"Stop! People will see us!"
"Pooh! What does it signify?"
After passing by the Place de la Concorde, they drove along the Quai dela Conference and the Quai de Billy, where might be noticed a cedar in agarden. Rosanette believed that Lebanon was situated in China; shelaughed herself at her own ignorance, and asked Frederick to give herlessons in geography. Then, leaving the Trocadero at the right, theycrossed the Pont de Jena, and drew up at length in the middle of theChamp de Mars, near some other vehicles already drawn up in theHippodrome.
The grass hillocks were covered with common people. Some spectatorsmight be seen on the balcony of the Military School; and the twopavilions outside the weighing-room, the two galleries contained withinits enclosure, and a third in front of that of the king, were filledwith a fashionably dressed crowd whose deportment showed their regardfor this as yet novel form of amusement.
The public around the course, more select at this period, had a lessvulgar aspect. It was the era of trouser-straps, velvet collars, andwhite gloves. The ladies, attired in showy colours, displayed gowns withlong waists; and seated on the tiers of the stands, they formed, so tospeak, immense groups of flowers, spotted here and there with black bythe men's costumes. But every glance was directed towards the celebratedAlgerian Bou-Maza, who sat, impassive, between two staff officers in oneof the private galleries. That of the Jockey Club contained none butgrave-looking gentlemen.
The more enthusiastic portion of the throng were seated underneath,close to the track, protected by two lines of sticks which supportedropes. In the immense oval described by this passage, cocoanut-sellerswere shaking their rattles, others were selling programmes of the races,others were hawking cigars, with loud cries. On every side there was agreat murmur. The municipal guards passed to and fro. A bell, hung froma post covered with figures, began ringing. Five horses appeared, andthe spectators in the galleries resumed their seats.
Meanwhile, big clouds touched with their winding outlines the tops ofthe elms opposite. Rosanette was afraid that it was going to rain.
"I have umbrellas," said Frederick, "and everything that we need toafford ourselves diversion," he added, lifting up the chest, in whichthere was a stock of provisions in a basket.
"Bravo! we understand each other!"
"And we'll understand each other still better, shall we not?"
"That may be," she said, colouring.
The jockeys, in silk jackets, were trying to draw up their horses inorder, and were holding them back with both hands. Somebody lowered ared flag. Then the entire five bent over the bristling manes, and offthey started. At first they remained pressed close to each other in asingle mass; this presently stretched out and became cut up. The jockeyin the yellow jacket was near falling in the middle of the first round;for a long time it was uncertain whether Filly or Tibi should take thelead; then Tom Pouce appeared in front. But Clubstick, who had been inthe rear since the start, came up with the others and outstripped them,so that he was the first to reach the winning-post, beating Sir Charlesby two lengths. It was a surprise. There was a shout of applause; theplanks shook with the stamping of feet.
"We are amusing ourselves," said the Marechale. "I love you, darling!"
Frederick no longer doubted that his happiness was secure. Rosanette'slast words were a confirmation of it.
A hundred paces away from him, in a four-wheeled cabriolet, a lady couldbe seen. She stretched her head out of the carriage-door, and thenquickly drew it in again. This movement was repeated several times.Frederick could not distinguish her face. He had a strong suspicion,however, that it was Madame Arnoux. And yet this seemed impossible! Whyshould she have come there?
He stepped out of his own vehicle on the pretence of strolling into theweighing-room.
"You are not very gallant!" said Rosanette.
He paid no heed to her, and went on. The four-wheeled cabriolet, turningback, broke into a trot.
Frederick at the same moment, found himself button-holed by Cisy.
"Good-morrow, my dear boy! how are you going on? Hussonnet is overthere! Are you listening to me?"
Frederick tried to shake him off in order to get up with thefour-wheeled cabriolet. The Marechale beckoned to him to come round toher. Cisy perceived her, and obstinately persisted in bidding hergood-day.
Since the termination of the regular period of mourning for hisgrandmother, he had realised his ideal, and succeeded in "getting theproper stamp." A Scotch plaid waistcoat, a short coat, large bows overthe pumps, and an entrance-card stuck in the ribbon of his hat; nothing,in fact, was wanting to produce what he described himself as his_chic_--a _chic_ characterised by Anglomania and the swagger of themusketeer. He began by finding fault with the Champ de Mars, which hereferred to as an "execrable turf," then spoke of the Chantilly races,and the droll things that had occurred there, swore that he could drinka dozen glasses of champagne while the clock was striking the midnighthour, offered to make a bet with the Marechale, softly caressed her twolapdogs; and, leaning against the carriage-door on one elbow, he kepttalking nonsense, with the handle of his walking-stick in his mouth, hislegs wide apart, and his back stretched out. Frederick, standing besidehim, was smoking, while endeavouring to make out what had become of thecabriolet.
The bell having rung, Cisy took himself off, to the great delight ofRosanette, who said he had been boring her to death.
The second race had nothing special about it; neither had the third,save that a man was thrown over the shaft of a cart while it was takingplace. The fourth, in which eight horses contested the City Stakes, wasmore interesting.
The spectators in the gallery had clambered to the top of their seats.The others, standing up in the vehicles, followed with opera-glasses intheir hands the movements of the jockeys. They could be seen startingout like red, yellow, white, or blue spots across the entire spaceoccupied by the crowd that had gathered around the ring of thehippodrome. At a distance, their speed did not appear to be very great;at the opposite side of the Champ de Mars, they seemed even to beslackening their pace, and to be merely slip
ping along in such a waythat the horses' bellies touched the ground without their outstretchedlegs bending at all. But, coming back at a more rapid stride, theylooked bigger; they cut the air in their wild gallop. The sun's raysquivered; pebbles went flying about under their hoofs. The wind, blowingout the jockeys' jackets, made them flutter like veils. Each of themlashed the animal he rode with great blows of his whip in order to reachthe winning-post--that was the goal they aimed at. One swept away thefigures, another was hoisted off his saddle, and, in the midst of aburst of applause, the victorious horse dragged his feet to theweighing-room, all covered with sweat, his knees stiffened, his neck andshoulders bent down, while his rider, looking as if he were expiring inhis saddle, clung to the animal's flanks.
The final start was retarded by a dispute which had arisen. The crowd,getting tired, began to scatter. Groups of men were chatting at thelower end of each gallery. The talk was of a free-and-easy description.Some fashionable ladies left, scandalised by seeing fast women in theirimmediate vicinity.
There were also some specimens of the ladies who appeared at publicballs, some light-comedy actresses of the boulevards, and it was not thebest-looking portion of them that got the most appreciation. The elderlyGeorgine Aubert, she whom a writer of vaudevilles called the Louis XI.of her profession, horribly painted, and giving vent every now and thento a laugh resembling a grunt, remained reclining at full length in herbig calash, covered with a sable fur-tippet, as if it were midwinter.Madame de Remoussat, who had become fashionable by means of a notorioustrial in which she figured, sat enthroned on the seat of a brake incompany with some Americans; and Therese Bachelu, with her look of aGothic virgin, filled with her dozen furbelows the interior of a trapwhich had, in place of an apron, a flower-stand filled with roses. TheMarechale was jealous of these magnificent displays. In order to attractattention, she began to make vehement gestures and to speak in a veryloud voice.
Gentlemen recognised her, and bowed to her. She returned theirsalutations while telling Frederick their names. They were all counts,viscounts, dukes, and marquises, and carried a high head, for in alleyes he could read a certain respect for his good fortune.
Cisy had a no less happy air in the midst of the circle of mature menthat surrounded them. Their faces wore cynical smiles above theircravats, as if they were laughing at him. At length he gave a tap inthe hand of the oldest of them, and made his way towards the Marechale.
She was eating, with an affectation of gluttony, a slice of _pate defoie gras_. Frederick, in order to make himself agreeable to her,followed her example, with a bottle of wine on his knees.
The four-wheeled cabriolet reappeared. It _was_ Madame Arnoux! Her facewas startlingly pale.
"Give me some champagne," said Rosanette.
And, lifting up her glass, full to the brim as high as possible, sheexclaimed:
"Look over there! Look at my protector's wife, one of the virtuouswomen!"
There was a great burst of laughter all round her; and the cabrioletdisappeared from view. Frederick tugged impatiently at her dress, andwas on the point of flying into a passion. But Cisy was there, in thesame attitude as before, and, with increased assurance, he invitedRosanette to dine with him that very evening.
"Impossible!" she replied; "we're going together to the Cafe Anglais."
Frederick, as if he had heard nothing, remained silent; and Cisy quittedthe Marechale with a look of disappointment on his face.
While he had been talking to her at the right-hand door of the carriage,Hussonnet presented himself at the opposite side, and, catching thewords "Cafe Anglais":
"It's a nice establishment; suppose we had a pick there, eh?"
"Just as you like," said Frederick, who, sunk down in the corner of theberlin, was gazing at the horizon as the four-wheeled cabriolet vanishedfrom his sight, feeling that an irreparable thing had happened, andthat there was an end of his great love. And the other woman was therebeside him, the gay and easy love! But, worn out, full of conflictingdesires, and no longer even knowing what he wanted, he was possessed bya feeling of infinite sadness, a longing to die.
A great noise of footsteps and of voices made him raise his head. Thelittle ragamuffins assembled round the track sprang over the ropes andcame to stare at the galleries. Thereupon their occupants rose to go. Afew drops of rain began to fall. The crush of vehicles increased, andHussonnet got lost in it.
"Well! so much the better!" said Frederick.
"We like to be alone better--don't we?" said the Marechale, as sheplaced her hand in his.
Then there swept past him with a glitter of copper and steel amagnificent landau to which were yoked four horses driven in the Daumontstyle by two jockeys in velvet vests with gold fringes. Madame Dambreusewas by her husband's side, and Martinon was on the other seat facingthem. All three of them gazed at Frederick in astonishment.
"They have recognised me!" said he to himself.
Rosanette wished to stop in order to get a better view of the peopledriving away from the course. Madame Arnoux might again make herappearance! He called out to the postilion:
"Go on! go on! forward!" And the berlin dashed towards theChamps-Elysees in the midst of the other vehicles--calashes, britzkas,wurths, tandems, tilburies, dog-carts, tilted carts with leathercurtains, in which workmen in a jovial mood were singing, or one-horsechaises driven by fathers of families. In victorias crammed with peoplesome young fellows seated on the others' feet let their legs both hangdown. Large broughams, which had their seats lined with cloth, carrieddowagers fast asleep, or else a splendid machine passed with a seat assimple and coquettish as a dandy's black coat.
The shower grew heavier. Umbrellas, parasols, and mackintoshes were putinto requisition. People cried out at some distance away: "Good-day!""Are you quite well?" "Yes!" "No!" "Bye-bye!"--and the faces succeededeach other with the rapidity of Chinese shadows.
Frederick and Rosanette did not say a word to each other, feeling a sortof dizziness at seeing all these wheels continually revolving close tothem.
At times, the rows of carriages, too closely pressed together, stoppedall at the same time in several lines. Then they remained side by side,and their occupants scanned one another. Over the sides of panelsadorned with coats-of-arms indifferent glances were cast on the crowd.Eyes full of envy gleamed from the interiors of hackney-coaches.Depreciatory smiles responded to the haughty manner in which some peoplecarried their heads. Mouths gaping wide expressed idiotic admiration;and, here and there, some lounger, in the middle of the road, fell backwith a bound, in order to avoid a rider who had been galloping throughthe midst of the vehicles, and had succeeded in getting away from them.Then, everything set itself in motion once more; the coachmen let go thereins, and lowered their long whips; the horses, excited, shook theircurb-chains, and flung foam around them; and the cruppers and theharness getting moist, were smoking with the watery evaporation, throughwhich struggled the rays of the sinking sun. Passing under the Arc deTriomphe, there stretched out at the height of a man, a reddish light,which shed a glittering lustre on the naves of the wheels, the handlesof the carriage-doors, the ends of the shafts, and the rings of thecarriage-beds; and on the two sides of the great avenue--like a river inwhich manes, garments, and human heads were undulating--the trees, allglittering with rain, rose up like two green walls. The blue of the skyoverhead, reappearing in certain places, had the soft hue of satin.
Then, Frederick recalled the days, already far away, when he yearned forthe inexpressible happiness of finding himself in one of these carriagesby the side of one of these women. He had attained to this bliss, andyet he was not thereby one jot the happier.
The rain had ceased falling. The pedestrians, who had sought shelterbetween the columns of the Public Storerooms, took their departure.Persons who had been walking along the Rue Royale, went up again towardsthe boulevard. In front of the residence of the Minister of ForeignAffairs a group of boobies had taken up their posts on the steps.
When it had got
up as high as the Chinese Baths, as there were holes inthe pavement, the berlin slackened its pace. A man in a hazel-colouredpaletot was walking on the edge of the footpath. A splash, spurting outfrom under the springs, showed itself on his back. The man turned roundin a rage. Frederick grew pale; he had recognised Deslauriers.
At the door of the Cafe Anglais he sent away the carriage. Rosanette hadgone in before him while he was paying the postilion.
He found her subsequently on the stairs chatting with a gentleman.Frederick took her arm; but in the lobby a second gentleman stopped her.
"Go on," said she; "I am at your service."
And he entered the private room alone. Through the two open windowspeople could be seen at the casements of the other houses opposite.Large watery masses were quivering on the pavement as it began to dry,and a magnolia, placed on the side of a balcony, shed a perfume throughthe apartment. This fragrance and freshness had a relaxing effect on hisnerves. He sank down on the red divan underneath the glass.
The Marechale here entered the room, and, kissing him on the forehead:
"Poor pet! there's something annoying you!"
"Perhaps so," was his reply.
"You are not alone; take heart!"--which was as much as to say: "Let useach forget our own concerns in a bliss which we shall enjoy in common."
Then she placed the petal of a flower between her lips and extended ittowards him so that he might peck at it. This movement, full of graceand of almost voluptuous gentleness, had a softening influence onFrederick.
"Why do you give me pain?" said he, thinking of Madame Arnoux.
"I give you pain?"
And, standing before him, she looked at him with her lashes drawn closetogether and her two hands resting on his shoulders.
All his virtue, all his rancour gave way before the utter weakness ofhis will.
He continued:
"Because you won't love me," and he took her on his knees.
She gave way to him. He pressed his two hands round her waist. Thecrackling sound of her silk dress inflamed him.
"Where are they?" said Hussonnet's voice in the lobby outside.
The Marechale arose abruptly, and went across to the other side of theroom, where she sat down with her back to the door.
She ordered oysters, and they seated themselves at table.
Hussonnet was not amusing. By dint of writing every day on all sorts ofsubjects, reading many newspapers, listening to a great number ofdiscussions, and uttering paradoxes for the purpose of dazzling people,he had in the end lost the exact idea of things, blinding himself withhis own feeble fireworks. The embarrassments of a life which hadformerly been frivolous, but which was now full of difficulty, kept himin a state of perpetual agitation; and his impotency, which he did notwish to avow, rendered him snappish and sarcastic. Referring to a newballet entitled _Ozai_, he gave a thorough blowing-up to the dancing,and then, when the opera was in question, he attacked the Italians, nowreplaced by a company of Spanish actors, "as if people had not quiteenough of Castilles[12] already!" Frederick was shocked at this, owingto his romantic attachment to Spain, and, with a view to diverting theconversation into a new channel, he enquired about the College ofFrance, where Edgar Quinet and Mickiewicz had attended. But Hussonnet,an admirer of M. de Maistre, declared himself on the side of Authorityand Spiritualism. Nevertheless, he had doubts about the mostwell-established facts, contradicted history, and disputed about thingswhose certainty could not be questioned; so that at mention of the word"geometry," he exclaimed: "What fudge this geometry is!" All this heintermingled with imitations of actors. Sainville was specially hismodel.
[Footnote 12: This pun of Hussonnet turns on the double sense of theword "Castille," which not only means a place in Spain, but also analtercation.--Translator.]
Frederick was quite bored by these quibbles. In an outburst ofimpatience he pushed his foot under the table, and pressed it on one ofthe little dogs.
Thereupon both animals began barking in a horrible fashion.
"You ought to get them sent home!" said he, abruptly.
Rosanette did not know anyone to whom she could intrust them.
Then, he turned round to the Bohemian:
"Look here, Hussonnet; sacrifice yourself!"
"Oh! yes, my boy! That would be a very obliging act!"
Hussonnet set off, without even requiring to have an appeal made to him.
In what way could they repay him for his kindness? Frederick did notbestow a thought on it. He was even beginning to rejoice at findinghimself alone with her, when a waiter entered.
"Madame, somebody is asking for you!"
"What! again?"
"However, I must see who it is," said Rosanette.
He was thirsting for her; he wanted her. This disappearance seemed tohim an act of prevarication, almost a piece of rudeness. What, then,did she mean? Was it not enough to have insulted Madame Arnoux? So muchfor the latter, all the same! Now he hated all women; and he felt thetears choking him, for his love had been misunderstood and his desireeluded.
The Marechale returned, and presented Cisy to him.
"I have invited Monsieur. I have done right, have I not?"
"How is that! Oh! certainly."
Frederick, with the smile of a criminal about to be executed, beckonedto the gentleman to take a seat.
The Marechale began to run her eye through the bill of fare, stopping atevery fantastic name.
"Suppose we eat a turban of rabbits _a la Richelieu_ and a pudding _a lad'Orleans_?"[13]
[Footnote 13: The word "Orleans" means light woollen cloth, andpossibly Cisy's pun might be rendered: "Oh! no cloth pudding,please."--Translator.]
"Oh! not Orleans, pray!" exclaimed Cisy, who was a Legitimist, andthought of making a pun.
"Would you prefer a turbot _a la_ Chambord?" she next asked.
Frederick was disgusted with this display of politeness.
The Marechale made up her mind to order a simple fillet of beef cut upinto steaks, some crayfishes, truffles, a pine-apple salad, and vanillaices.
"We'll see what next. Go on for the present! Ah! I was forgetting! Bringme a sausage!--not with garlic!"
And she called the waiter "young man," struck her glass with her knife,and flung up the crumbs of her bread to the ceiling. She wished todrink some Burgundy immediately.
"It is not taken in the beginning," said Frederick.
This was sometimes done, according to the Vicomte.
"Oh! no. Never!"
"Yes, indeed; I assure you!"
"Ha! you see!"
The look with which she accompanied these words meant: "This is a richman--pay attention to what he says!"
Meantime, the door was opening every moment; the waiters kept shouting;and on an infernal piano in the adjoining room some one was strumming awaltz. Then the races led to a discussion about horsemanship and the tworival systems. Cisy was upholding Baucher and Frederick the Comte d'Aurewhen Rosanette shrugged her shoulders:
"Enough--my God!--he is a better judge of these things than youare--come now!"
She kept nibbling at a pomegranate, with her elbow resting on the table.The wax-candles of the candelabrum in front of her were flickering inthe wind. This white light penetrated her skin with mother-of-pearltones, gave a pink hue to her lids, and made her eyeballs glitter. Thered colour of the fruit blended with the purple of her lips; her thinnostrils heaved; and there was about her entire person an air ofinsolence, intoxication, and recklessness that exasperated Frederick,and yet filled his heart with wild desires.
Then, she asked, in a calm voice, who owned that big landau withchestnut-coloured livery.
Cisy replied that it was "the Comtesse Dambreuse"
"They're very rich--aren't they?"
"Oh! very rich! although Madame Dambreuse, who was merely a MademoiselleBoutron and the daughter of a prefect, had a very modest fortune."
Her husband, on the other hand, must have inherited severalestates--Cisy enumer
ated them: as he visited the Dambreuses, he knewtheir family history.
Frederick, in order to make himself disagreeable to the other, took apleasure in contradicting him. He maintained that Madame Dambreuse'smaiden name was De Boutron, which proved that she was of a noble family.
"No matter! I'd like to have her equipage!" said the Marechale, throwingherself back on the armchair.
And the sleeve of her dress, slipping up a little, showed on her leftwrist a bracelet adorned with three opals.
Frederick noticed it.
"Look here! why----"
All three looked into one another's faces, and reddened.
The door was cautiously half-opened; the brim of a hat could be seen,and then Hussonnet's profile exhibited itself.
"Pray excuse me if I disturb the lovers!"
But he stopped, astonished at seeing Cisy, and that Cisy had taken hisown seat.
Another cover was brought; and, as he was very hungry, he snatched up atrandom from what remained of the dinner some meat which was in a dish,fruit out of a basket, and drank with one hand while he helped himselfwith the other, all the time telling them the result of his mission. Thetwo bow-wows had been taken home. Nothing fresh at the house. He hadfound the cook in the company of a soldier--a fictitious story which hehad especially invented for the sake of effect.
The Marechale took down her cloak from the window-screw. Frederick madea rush towards the bell, calling out to the waiter, who was somedistance away:
"A carriage!"
"I have one of my own," said the Vicomte.
"But, Monsieur!"
"Nevertheless, Monsieur!"
And they stared into each other's eyes, both pale and their handstrembling.
At last, the Marechale took Cisy's arm, and pointing towards theBohemian seated at the table:
"Pray mind him! He's choking himself. I wouldn't care to let hisdevotion to my pugs be the cause of his death."
The door closed behind him.
"Well?" said Hussonnet.
"Well, what?"
"I thought----"
"What did you think?"
"Were you not----?"
He completed the sentence with a gesture.
"Oh! no--never in all my life!"
Hussonnet did not press the matter further.
He had an object in inviting himself to dinner. His journal,--which wasno longer called _L'Art_, but _Le Flambart_,[14] with this epigraph,"Gunners, to your cannons!"--not being at all in a flourishingcondition, he had a mind to change it into a weekly review, conductedby himself, without any assistance from Deslauriers. He again referredto the old project and explained his latest plan.
[Footnote 14: _The Blaser._]
Frederick, probably not understanding what he was talking about, repliedwith some vague words. Hussonnet snatched up several cigars from thetables, said "Good-bye, old chap," and disappeared.
Frederick called for the bill. It had a long list of items; and thewaiter, with his napkin under his arm, was expecting to be paid byFrederick, when another, a sallow-faced individual, who resembledMartinon, came and said to him:
"Beg pardon; they forgot at the bar to add in the charge for the cab."
"What cab?"
"The cab the gentleman took a short time ago for the little dogs."
And the waiter put on a look of gravity, as if he pitied the poor youngman. Frederick felt inclined to box the fellow's ears. He gave thewaiter the twenty francs' change as a _pour-boire_.
"Thanks, Monseigneur," said the man with the napkin, bowing low.
Sentimental Education; Or, The History of a Young Man. Volume 1 Page 9
