by Eugène Sue
“Ah, uncle, and you, too, Gerald,” exclaimed Olivier, interrupting his friend, “you are both entirely wrong about this matter.”
“And why, if you please?”
“You admit, and so do I, that a penniless young girl is quite justified in marrying an immensely rich man, but this is only on condition that she loves the man sincerely.”
“Of course!” said Gerald. “If she is actuated by mercenary motives, it becomes nothing more nor less than a business transaction.”
“And disgraceful accordingly,” added the old sailor.
“Very well, then,” continued Olivier, “why should a poor man, — because, Gerald, you are poor in comparison with Mlle. de Beaumesnil, — why, then, I ask, should you be censured for marrying that young lady if you love her sincerely in spite of her millions, — in short, if you love her as sincerely as if she were without name and without fortune?”
“That is true, M. Gerald,” chimed in the commander; “if one loves as an honest man should love, if one is certain that he loves not the money, but the woman, one’s conscience is clear. What right can any one have to reproach him? In short, I advise you to see Mlle. de Beaumesnil first, and decide afterwards.”
“Yes, that will, I believe, be best,” Gerald replied. “That will decide everything. Ah, I was wise to come and talk over my plans with you, commander, and with you, Olivier.”
“Nonsense, M. Gerald, as if, in the refined circles in which you move, there were not plenty of persons who would have said the same things Olivier and I have just said to you.”
“Ah, don’t you believe it,” responded Gerald, shrugging his shoulders.
Then, more gravely, he added:
“It is the same in the middle classes, if not worse. Everybody cares only for money.”
“But why the devil is it that Olivier and I are so superior to all the rest of the world, M. Gerald?” asked the commander, laughing.
“Why?” repeated Gerald, with much feeling. “It is because you, commander, have led for forty years the hard, rough, dangerous, unselfish life of a sailor; it is because while you were leading this life you acquired the Christian virtues of resignation and contentment with little; it is because, ignorant of the cowardly concessions of society in these matters, you consider a man who marries for money as dishonourable as a man who cheats at cards, or shirks his duty on the battle-field. Am I not right, commander?”
“But you see it all seems so very plain to me, M. Gerald, that—”
“Oh, yes, very plain to you and to Olivier, who has led, like me, though for a much longer time, the life of a soldier, — a life that teaches one unselfishness and brotherly feeling. Is this not true?”
“My brave, kind-hearted Gerald!” cried the young soldier, as deeply moved as his friend. “But you must admit that, though the life of a soldier may have developed your natural generosity, it certainly did not endow you with that virtue. You, alone, perhaps, of all the young men in your rank of life, were capable of realising the sort of cowardice one manifested in sending some poor devil to the wars to be killed in your place, — you, alone, too, seem to feel some scruples with regard to a marriage that all the others would gladly contract at any cost.”
“You are not going to begin to pay me compliments at this late day, I hope,” laughed Gerald. “Very well, then, it is decided that I am to see Mlle. de Beaumesnil, and leave the rest to fate. My course is marked out for me. I will not deviate from it, I promise you.”
“Bravo, my dear Gerald,” replied Olivier, gaily. “I see you now in my mind’s eye in love, married, — a happy Benedict, in short. Ah, well, there’s no happiness like it, I’m sure. And alas! I, yesterday, knowing nothing of your plans, asked Madame Herbaut’s permission to introduce to her a former comrade, a very worthy young man, whom she instantly accepted on the strength of my all-potent recommendation.”
“You don’t say so,” exclaimed Gerald, laughing. “Oh, well, you needn’t consider me as good as dead and buried. I shall promptly avail myself of her kind permission to call, I assure you.”
“You will?”
“Most assuredly I shall.”
“But your matrimonial projects?”
“Why, they make me all the more determined on this point.”
“Explain, I beg of you.”
“Why, the explanation is very simple, it seems to me. The more reason I have to love a bachelor’s life, the better I shall have to love Mlle. de Beaumesnil in order to renounce my pleasures, and consequently the more certain I shall be of the sentiment she inspires. So, once for all, let it be understood that you are to take me with you to Madame Herbaut’s, and to make me still stronger — to resist temptation, of course, I’ll become the lover of one of the rivals, or even of one of the satellites of that famous duchess who is such a bugbear to me, and with whom I strongly suspect you of being in love.”
“Nonsense, Gerald!”
“Come, be frank with me. You surely can’t suspect me of desire to cut you out. As if there were not plenty of duchesses in the world! Do you remember the sutler’s pretty wife? You had only to say the word, and I, forthwith, left the coast clear for you.”
“What, another!” cried the commander. “What a fascinating rascal my nephew must be!”
“Ah, commander, if you knew the number of hearts the scamp won in Algiers alone! Madame Herbaut’s fair guests had better be on their guard if they don’t want to fall victims to Olivier’s fascinations!”
“I haven’t any designs on the charming guests, you big simpleton,” retorted Olivier, gaily. “But seriously, do you really wish me to take you to Madame Herbaut’s?”
“Certainly I do,” answered Gerald. Then turning to the veteran, he continued:
“You really must not consider me a harebrained fellow on account of this determination on my part, commander. I have accepted your friendly advice in regard to marriage, you say, and yet I end the conversation by begging Olivier to take me to Madame Herbaut’s. Ah, well, strange as this may appear to you, commander, I say, no longer jestingly, but in all seriousness this time, that the less change I make in my habits, the more sincere my love for Mlle. de Beaumesnil will have to be to induce me to abandon them.”
“Upon my word, M. Gerald, I must confess that your reasons seemed decidedly odd to me at first,” replied the veteran, “but, on reflection, I find them quite sensible. There would, perhaps, be a sort of hypocritical premeditation in breaking off in advance with a life you have led so long.”
“Come then, Olivier, and introduce me to Madame Herbaut’s charming tribe,” exclaimed Gerald, gaily. “Good-bye, commander, I shall return soon and often. What else can you expect? You can’t hope to act as my father confessor without more or less trouble, you know.”
“You’ll find me a pretty exacting mentor as regards absolution and matters of conscience, I warn you,” retorted the old sailor, gaily. “You must drop in again soon, for you are to keep me posted about the progress of your matrimonial schemes, you recollect.”
“Of course. It is my bounden duty to tell you all now, commander, and I shall not fail to do it. But now I think of it, I must report with regard to a commission you entrusted to me, M. Bernard. Will you allow me a word with your uncle in private, Olivier?”
“Most assuredly,” answered the young soldier, promptly leaving the room.
“I have some good news for you, commander,” said Gerald, in a low tone. “Thanks partly to my own efforts, and especially to the Marquis de Maillefort’s recommendation, Olivier’s appointment as a second lieutenant is almost certain.”
“Is it possible, M. Gerald!”
“There is very little doubt of it, I think, for it is very generally known that the Marquis de Maillefort is being strongly urged to become a deputy, and this fact has increased his influence very much.”
“Ah, M. Gerald, how can I express my gratitude—”
“I must hasten to rejoin Olivier, my dear commander,” said Gerald, to escape the veter
an’s thanks. “His suspicions are sure to be aroused by a longer conversation.”
“So you have a secret with my uncle,” cried Olivier, as soon as his friend rejoined him.
“Oh, yes, you know I’m a man of mysteries; and, by the way, before we adjourn to Madame Herbaut’s, I have another and very mysterious favour to ask of you.”
“Let me hear it.”
“You know all about this neighbourhood. Can’t you recommend some quiet lodgings in a retired street hereabouts?”
“What! You are thinking of deserting the Faubourg St. Germain for the Batignolles? How delightful!”
“Nonsense! Listen to me. Of course, living in my mother’s house I cannot receive my friends indiscriminately, — you understand.”
“Very well.”
“So I have had some rooms elsewhere, but the house has changed hands, and the new owner is such a strictly moral man that he has warned me that I have got to leave when my month is up, — that is, day after to-morrow.”
“All the better. It is a very fortunate thing, I think. You’re about to marry, so bid farewell to your amours.”
“Olivier, you have heard my ideas on the subject. Your uncle approves them. I am resolved to change none of my bachelor habits in advance, and if I should abandon the idea of marriage altogether, think of my desolate situation, homeless and loveless! No, no, I am much too cautious and far-sighted not to — to preserve a pear to quench my thirst.”
“You’re a man of infinite precautions, certainly. Very well, as I go and come I’ll look at the notices of rooms to rent in the windows.”
“Two little rooms, with a private hall, is all I need. I’ll look myself when we leave Madame Herbaut’s, for time presses. Day after to-morrow is the fatal day. Say, Olivier, wouldn’t it be strange if I should discover what I need right here? Do you remember the lines:
“‘What if in this same quiet spot
I both sweet love and friendship true should find?’
“The lines seem to me a fit motto for a shepherd’s pipe; but what of that? Truth needs no ornamentation. But now on, on to the house of Madame Herbaut!”
“You still insist? Consider well.”
“Olivier, you are really intolerable. I’ll go alone if you won’t accompany me.”
“Come, then, the die is cast. It is understood that you are simply Gerald Senneterre, a former comrade of mine.”
“Senneterre? No; that would be too imprudent. You had better call me Gerald Auvernay, for I am adorned with the marquisate of Auvernay, my dear Olivier, though you may not be aware of the fact.”
“You are M. Gerald Auvernay, then; that is decided. But the devil!”
“What’s the matter now?”
“But what else are you going to be?”
“What else am I going to be?”
“Yes; what is to be your occupation?”
“Why, a bachelor of the new school.”
“Pshaw! I can’t introduce you to Madame Herbaut as a young man who is living on the income of the money he saved while in the army. Besides, Madame Herbaut receives no idlers. You would excite her suspicions at once, for the worthy woman strongly distrusts young men who have nothing to do but court pretty girls, for you’ll find that her girls are pretty.”
“All this is certainly very amusing. Well, what do you want me to be?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Let me see,” said Gerald, laughing. “How would you like me to be an apothecary?”
“That would do very well, I should think.”
“Oh, no, I was only joking; that wouldn’t answer at all.”
“But there are some very nice and gentlemanly apothecaries, I assure you, Gerald.”
“But really I shouldn’t dare to look any one of those pretty girls in the face.”
“Let’s try to think of something else, then. What do you say to being the clerk of a notary? How does that suit you?”
“Admirably. My mother has an interminable lawsuit on hand, and I drop in to see her notary and lawyer occasionally, so I can study the part from nature.”
“Very well, follow me, then, and I will introduce you as Gerald Auvernay, clerk to a notary.”
“Chief clerk to a notary,” corrected Gerald, with great emphasis.
“Come on, ambitious youth!”
Gerald, thanks to Olivier’s recommendation, was received by Madame Herbaut with great cordiality.
On the afternoon of that same day grim M. Bouffard called for the rent Commander Bernard owed him. Madame Barbançon paid him, overcoming with great difficulty her strong desire to disfigure the ferocious landlord’s face with her nails.
Unfortunately, the money thus obtained, instead of appeasing M. Bouffard’s greed, seemed to imbue him with increased energy to collect his dues, and persuaded that, but for his persistent dunning and abuse, Madame Barbançon would not have paid him, he hastened off to the Rue Monceau where Herminie lived, resolved to treat the poor girl with increased severity, and thus secure the payment of the rent she owed him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ABODE OF THE DUCHESS.
HERMINIE LIVED ON the Rue de Monceau in one of the numerous dwellings of which M. Bouffard was the owner. She occupied a room on the ground floor, reached by a small hallway opening under the archway of the porte-cochère. The two windows looked out upon a pretty garden, enclosed on one side by an evergreen hedge, and on the other by a tall lattice that separated it from the adjoining street.
This garden really pertained to a much larger apartment on the ground floor, an apartment which, together with another suite of rooms on the third floor, was unoccupied, — an unpleasant state of things, which considerably increased M. Bouffard’s ill-humour towards his delinquent tenants.
Nothing could have been simpler, yet in better taste, than this abode of the duchess.
A cheap but exceedingly fresh and pretty chintz covered the walls and rather low ceiling of the room. In the daytime full draperies of the same material concealed a large alcove in which the bed stood, as well as two glass doors near it, one of which opened into a tiny dressing-room, and the other into the hall, a sort of antechamber about eight feet square.
Chintz curtains, lined with pink, veiled the windows, which were also decorated with pretty white muslin sash curtains, tied back with pink ribbons. A carpet, with a white ground, with small bouquets of pink roses dropped here and there, — this carpet had been the most expensive item in Herminie’s furnishing, — covered the floor. The mantel drapery, beautifully embroidered by Herminie herself, was pale blue, with garlands of roses and jonquils. Two candlesticks of exquisite Pompeian design stood, one on either side of a white marble clock, surmounted by a statuette of Joan of Arc, while at each end of the mantel stood two tall vases of grès verni, a wonderful invention, by the way. These vases, which were of the purest Etruscan form, held big bunches of fresh roses, which filled the room with their delicious fragrance.
These modest mantel decorations, being all of the cheapest materials, were of slight intrinsic value, having cost not more than fifty or sixty francs, but from an artistic point of view they were irreproachable.
Opposite the fireplace stood Herminie’s piano, her bread-winner. Between the two windows was a table, which also served as a bookcase, the duchess having arranged several works by her favourite authors upon it, as well as a few books which she had received as prizes during her school-days.
Here and there upon the wall, in plain pine frames, so highly polished that they looked like citron wood, hung a few well-chosen engravings, among them “Mignon Pining for Her Native Land,” and “Mignon Longing for Heaven,” both by Scheffer, hanging one on either side of Francesca da Rimini, by the same artist.
In two corners of the room small étagères held several plaster statuettes, reduced copies of famous antiques. A small rosewood cabinet, bought for a song from some second-hand furniture dealer in the Batignolles, two pretty tapestry-covered chairs, — Herminie
’s handiwork, — and a large armchair of green satin decorated with beautiful silk embroidery in brilliant hues, representing flowers and birds, completed the furniture of the room.
By means of industry and intelligence, combined with exquisite taste, Herminie had been able to create for herself this elegant and refined home at comparatively little expense.
Culinary duties or details may have been distasteful to this fastidious duchess. At all events, she had managed to escape that difficulty through the good offices of the portress, who, for a trifling compensation, brought her a glass of milk every morning, and in the evening a plate of excellent soup, accompanied with a dish of vegetables and some fruit, — a frugal repast rendered appetising enough by the exquisite daintiness of Herminie’s dinner-table; for though the duchess possessed only two cups and half a dozen plates, they were of fine china, and when the girl had placed on her round table, covered with a napkin of dazzling whiteness, her carafe, her cut-glass tumbler, her two shining silver forks and spoons, and her pretty china plate decorated with tiny pink roses and forget-me-nots, the simplest food seemed wonderfully appetising.
But alas! to Herminie’s intense chagrin, her silver spoons and forks, and her watch, the only really valuable article she possessed, were now in pawn at the mont de piété, where she had been obliged to send them by the portress, the poor girl having no other means of defraying the daily expenses of her illness, and of obtaining a small sum of money upon which she could live until she was able to resume the lessons interrupted by her illness, for a period of nearly two months.
This long delay was the cause of Herminie’s extreme poverty and consequent inability to pay the one hundred and eighty francs she owed M. Bouffard for rent.
One hundred and eighty francs!
And the poor child possessed only about fifteen francs upon which she would have to live for nearly a month!
It is evident, therefore, that the foot of a man had never crossed Herminie’s threshold.
The duchess, free and untrammelled in every way, had never loved, — though she had inspired love in the hearts of many, without intending or even caring to do so, for she was too proud to stoop to coquetry, and too generous to enjoy the torments of an unrequited love. None of her suitors had pleased Herminie, in spite of the honesty of their matrimonial overtures, based in some cases, at least, upon a certain amount of affluence, for several had been engaged in business, while others were musicians like Herminie herself, and others clerks in dry-goods establishments, or bookkeepers.
