MADAME ROBINEAU was tall, angular, thin-lipped and devout, and so far as
she indulged in social intercourse, loved to mingle with other angular,
thin-lipped and devout ladies who belonged to the same lay sisterhood.
She dressed in unrelieved black and always wore on her bosom a bronze
cross of threatening magnitude. She prayed in the Cathedral at
inconvenient hours, and fasted as rigorously as her Confessor, Monsieur
l’Abbé Duloup, himself. Monsieur l’Abbé regarded her as one of the most
pious women in Chartres. No doubt she was.
But Félise, although a good Catholic in her very simple way, and anxious
to win favour by observance of the rules of the solitary household, was
wicked enough to wish that her aunt were not quite so pious. In
religious matters a wide latitudinarianism prevailed at the Hôtel des
Grottes. There, with a serene conscience, one could eat meat on Fridays
and crack a mild joke at the expense of the good Saint Peter. But
neither forbidden flesh nor jocularity on any subject, let alone on a
saint’s minor foibles, mitigated the austerities of the perky,
wind-swept little house at Chartres. No wonder, thought Félise, Aunt
Clothilde had married off a regiment of daughters—four to be exact; it
had been an easy matter; she herself would have married any caricature
of a man rather than spend her life in an atmosphere so rarefied and so
depressing. She pitied her cousins, although, according to her Aunt
Clothilde’s pragmatical account, they were all doing splendidly and had
innumerable babies. By the end of the first week of her visit, she
consolidated an intense dislike to Chartres and everything in it,
especially the Cathedral. Now, it may be thought that any one who can
shake the fist of disapprobation at the Cathedral of Chartres, is beyond
the pale of human sympathy. But when you are dragged relentlessly
thither in the icy dark of every winter morning, and the bitter gloom of
every winter evening, to say nothing of sporadic attendances during the
daytime, you may be pardoned if your æsthetic perceptions are obscured
by the sense of outrage inflicted on your personal comfort. To many
generations of men the Cathedral has been a symbol of glories,
revelations and eternities. In such slanting shafts of light, mystically
hued, the Grail might have been made manifest, the Sacred Dove might
have glided down to the Head of the Holy One. . . . But what need to
tell of its spiritual wonders and of its mystery, the heart of which it
is given to every suffering man to pluck out according to his own soul’s
needs? It was a little tragedy that to poor Félise the Cathedral
symbolised nothing but an overwhelming tyranny. She hated every stone of
it, as much as she hated every shiny plank and every polished chair in
her aunt’s frigid salon. Even the streets of Chartres repelled her by
their bleakness. They lacked the smiling homeliness of Brantôme; and the
whole place was flatter than the Sahara. She sighed for the rocks and
hills of Périgord.
She also ate the unaccustomed bread of idleness. Had her aunt permitted,
she would delightedly have helped with the house-work. But Madame
Robineau, widow of a dealer in grain who, before his death, had retired
on a comfortable fortune, lived, according to her lights, at her ease,
her wants being scrupulously administered to by a cook and a maid. There
was no place in the domestic machine for Félise. Her aunt passed long
chilly hours over ecclesiastical embroidery, sitting bolt upright in her
chair with a _chaufferette_ beneath her feet. Félise, unaccustomed
needlewoman, passed longer and chillier hours (having no _chaufferette_)
either playing with a grey ascetic cat or reading aloud _La Croix_, the
only newspaper allowed to cross the threshold of the house. Now and
again, Madame Robineau would drop her thin hands into her lap and regard
her disapprovingly. One day she said, interrupting the reading,
“My poor child, how your education has been neglected. You scarcely know
how to hold a needle, you can’t read aloud without making faults, and
you are ignorant of the elements of our holy religion.”
“My Aunt,” Félise replied, “I know how to manage an hotel.”
“That would be of little use to your husband.”
Félise winced at the unhappy word.
“I am never going to marry, _ma tante_,” she said.
“You surely do not expect to be admitted into a convent?”
“Heaven forbid!” cried Félise.
“Heaven would forbid,” said Madame Robineau severely, “seeing that you
have not the vocation. But the _jeune fille bien élevée_”—in the mouth
of her Aunt Clothilde the familiar phrase assumed a detestable
significance, implying, to Félise’s mind, a pallid young creature from
whom all blood and laughter had been driven by undesirable virtues—“the
_jeune fille bien élevée_ has only two careers offered to her—the
convent or marriage. For you, my dear child, it is marriage.”
“Well,” said Félise, with a smile, preparing, to resume the article in
the newspaper over which she had stumbled, “perhaps the beautiful prince
will come along one of these days.”
But Madame Robineau rebuked her for vain imaginings.
“It is true, what I said, that your education has been neglected. A
young girl’s duty is not to look for princes, but to accept the husband
chosen by the wisdom of her family.”
“_Ma tante_,” said Félise demurely, after a pause during which her aunt
took up her work again. “If you would teach me how to embroider, perhaps
I might learn to be useful in my future home.”
From this and many other conversations, Félise began to be aware of the
subtle strategy of Bigourdin. On the plea of providing her with
pro-maternal consolation, he had delivered her into the hands of the
enemy. This became abundantly clear as the days went on. Aunt Clothilde,
incited thereto by her uncle, was opening a deadly campaign in favour of
Lucien Viriot. Now, the cathedral, though paralysing, could be borne for
a season, and so could the blight that pervaded the house; but the
campaign was intolerable. If she could have resented the action of one
so beloved as Bigourdin, she would have resented his sending her to her
Aunt Clothilde. Under the chaperonage of the respectable Madame Chauvet
she had fallen into a pretty trap. She had found none of the promised
sympathy. Aunt Clothilde, although receiving her with the affectionate
hospitality due to a sister’s child, had from the first interview frozen
the genial current of her little soul. The great bronze cross in itself
repelled her. If it had been a nice, gentle little cross, rising and
falling on a motherly bosom, it would have worked its all-human,
adorable influence. But this was a harsh, aggressive,
come-and-be-crucified sort of cross, with no suggestion of pity or
understanding. The sallow, austere face above it might have easily been
twisted into such a cross. It conveyed no invitation to the sufferer to
pour out her troubles. Uncle Bigourdin was wrong again. Rather would
Félise have poured out her troubles into the portentous ear of the
Suisse at the Cathedral.
Her aunt and herself met nowhere on common ground. They were for ever at
variance. Madame Robineau spoke disparagingly of the English, because
they were Protestants and therefore heretics.
“But I am English, and I am not a heretic,” cried Félise.
“You are not English,” replied her aunt, “because you have a French
mother and have been brought up in France. And as for not being a
heretic, I am not so sure. Monsieur l’Abbé Duloup thinks you must have
been brought up among Freemasons.”
“_Ah non, par exemple!_” exclaimed Félise indignantly. For, in the eyes
of the Church, French Freemasons are dreadful folk, capable of anything
sacrilegious, from denying the miracle of Saint Januarius to slitting
the Pope’s weasand. So—“_Ah! non par exemple!_” cried Félise.
Freemasons, indeed! Her Uncle Gaspard, it is true, did not attend church
regularly—but yes, he did attend regularly—he went once a year, every
Easter Sunday, and he was the best of friends with Monsieur le Curé of
their Paroisse. And as for herself, Monsieur le Curé, who looked like a
venerable saint in the holy pictures, had always a smile and a _ma chère
enfant_ for her whenever they met. She was on excellent terms with
Monsieur le Curé; he would no more have dreamed of associating her with
Freemasons than of accusing her of being in league with devils.
He was a good, common-sensical old curé, like thousands of the secular
clergy in France, and knew how to leave well alone. Questioned by the
ecclesiastically environed Abbé Duloup as to the spiritual state of
Félise, he would indubitably have answered with serene conviction:—
“If a soul so pure and so candid, which I have watched from childhood,
is not acceptable to the _bon Dieu_, then I know no more about the _bon
Dieu_ than I know about the Emperor of Patagonia.”
But Félise, disliking the Abbé Duloup and many of his works, felt a
delicacy in dragging her own curé into the argument and contented
herself with protesting against the charge of heresy. As a matter of
fact, she proclaimed her Uncle Gaspard was not a Freemason. He held in
abhorrence all secret political societies as being subversive of the
State. No one should attack her Uncle Gaspard, although he had betrayed
her so shabbily.
In vain she sought some link with her aunt. Even Mimi, the lean old cat,
did not form a bond of union. As a vagrant kitten it had been welcomed
years ago by the late good-natured Robineau, and the widow tolerated its
continued presence with Christian resignation. Félise took the unloved
beast to her heart. From Aunt Clothilde’s caustic remarks she gathered
that her four cousins, of whose exemplary acceptance of husbands she had
heard so much, had eyed Mimi with the coldness of their mother. She
began to thank Providence that she did not resemble her cousins, which
was reprehensible; and now and then manifested a lack of interest in
their impeccable doings, which was more reprehensible still, and thus
stirred up against her the maternal instincts of Madame Robineau.
Relations grew strained. Aunt Clothilde spoke to her with sharp
impatience. From her recalcitrance in the matter of Lucien she deduced
every fault conceivable. For the first time in her life Félise dwelt in
an atmosphere where love was not. She longed for home. She longed
especially for her father and his wise tenderness. Because she longed so
greatly she could not write to him as a father should be written to; and
the many-paged letters into which, at night, she put all her aching
little heart, in the morning she blushed at the thought of sending. In
spite of his lapse from grace she could not be so disloyal to the
beloved Uncle Gaspard. Nor could she distress her suffering angel mother
by her incoherent account of things. If only she could see her!
At last, one dreary afternoon, Madame Robineau opened an attack in
force.
“Put down that cat. I have to talk to you.”
Félise obeyed and Aunt Clothilde talked. The more she talked, the more
stubborn front did Félise oppose. Madame Robineau lost her temper. Her
thin lips twitched.
“I order you,” she said, “to marry Lucien Viriot.”
“I am sorry to say anything to vex you, _ma tante_,” replied Félise
valiantly; “but you have not the power.”
“And I suppose your uncle has not the power to command you?”
“In matters like that, no, _ma tante_,” said Félise.
Aunt Clothilde rose from her straight-backed chair and shook a long,
threatening finger. The nail at the end was also long and not very
clean. Félise often wondered whether her aunt abhorred a nail-brush by
way of mortification.
“When one considers all the benefits my brother has heaped on your
head,” she cried in a rasping voice, “you are nothing else than a little
monster of ingratitude!”
Félise flared up. She did not lack spirit.
“It is false,” she cried. “I adore my Uncle Gaspard. I would give him my
life. I am not ungrateful. It is worse than false.”
“It is true,” retorted Madame Robineau. “Otherwise you would not refuse
him the desire of his heart. Without him you would have not a rag to
your back, or a shoe to your foot, and no more religion than a heathen.
It is to him you owe everything—everything. Without him you would be in
the gutter where he fished you from.”
She ended on a shrill note. Félise, very pale, faced her passionately,
with a new light in her mild eyes.
“What do you mean? The gutter? My father——?”
“Bah! Your father! Your vagabond, ne’er-do-weel scamp of a father! He’s
a scandal to the family, your father. He should never have been born.”
The girl reeled. It was a foul bludgeon blow. Madame Robineau, with
quick realisation of folly, checked further utterance and allowed
Félise, white, quivering and vanquished, but carrying her little head
fiercely in the air, to retire from the scene with all the honours of
war.
Madame Robineau was sorry. She had lost both temper and dignity. Her
next confession would be an unpleasant matter. Possibly, however, the
Abbé Duloup would understand and guess the provocation. She shrugged her
lean shoulders. It was good sometimes for hoity-toity damsels to learn
humility. So she sat down again, pursing her lips, and continued her
embroidered stole until it was the hour of vespers. Contrary to custom,
she did not summon Félise to accompany her to the Cathedral. An hour or
two of solitude, she thought, not unkindly, would bring her to a more
reasonable frame of mind. She went out alone.
When she returned she found that Félise had left the house.
* * * * *
It was a very scared young person that presented herself at the
_guichet_ at the railway station and asked for a second class ticket to
Paris. She had never travelled alone in her life before. Even on her
rare visits to the metropolis of Périgueux, in whose vast emporium of
fashion she clothed herself, she was attended by Euphémie or the
chambermaid. She felt lost, a tiny, helpless creature, in the great,
high station in which an engine letting off steam produced a bewildering
uproar. How much she paid for her ticket, thrifty and practised
housekeeper that she was, she did not know. She clutched the change from
a hundred franc note which, a present from her uncle before leaving
Brantôme, she had preserved intact, and scuttled like a little brown
rabbit to the door of the _salle d’attente_.
“_Le train de Paris? A quatre heures cinquante_,” said the official at
the door, as though this palpitating adventure were the commonplace of
every minute.
“And that will be?” she gasped.
He cocked an eye at the clock. “In half an hour.”
A train was on the point of starting. There was a scuttle for seats. She
felt sure it was the Paris train. From it emanated the magic influence
of the great city whither she was bound. A questioned porter informed
her it was going in the opposite direction. The Paris express left at
four-fifty. The train steamed out. It seemed to Félise as though she had
lost a friend. She looked round helplessly, and seeing a fat peasant
woman sitting on a bench, surrounded by bundles and children, she ran to
her side for protection. It is the unknown that frightens. In the Hôtel
des Grottes she commanded men with the serenity of a Queen Elizabeth,
and as for commercial travellers and other male visitors, she took no
more account of them than of the geese that she plucked. And the
terrifying Aunt Clothilde had terrified in vain. But here, in this cold,
glass-roofed, steel-strutted, screeching, ghostly inferno of a place,
with men prowling about like roaring lions seeking probably whom they
might devour, conditions were terrifyingly unfamiliar.
Yet she did not care. Under the blasphemous roof of her Aunt Clothilde
she could not have remained. For, in verity, blasphemy had been spoken.
Her father was loved and honoured by all the world; by her mother, by
Uncle Gaspard, by Corinna, by Martin. And she herself—did she not know
her father? Was there ever a man like him? The insulting words rang
through her brain. She would have confronted terrors a million fold more
grisly than these in order to escape from the blasphemer, whom she could
never forgive—no, not for all the curés and abbés in Christendom. An
intense little soul was that of Félise Fortinbras. It swept her
irresistibly out of the unhallowed villa, with a handbag containing a
nightgown, a toothbrush and a faded little photograph of her father and
mother standing side by side in wedding garb, on the way to the dread,
fascinating whirlpool of Paris, where dwelt the worshipped gods of her
idolatry. And, as she sat in the comforting lee of the fat and unafraid
peasant woman and her bundles and her children, she took herself to task
for cowardice.
The journey, under two hours, was but a trifle. Had it been to Brantôme,
an all-night affair, she might have had reason for quailing. But to
Paris it was practically but a step. . . . The Abbé Duloup spoke of
going to Paris as her uncle spoke of going to Périgueux. Yet her heart
thudded violently during the interminable half hour. And there was the
grim possibility of the appearance of a pursuing Aunt Clothilde. She
kept a fearful eye upon the doorway of the _salle d’attente_.
At last the train rushed in, and there was clangour of luggage trucks
and clamour of raucous voices announcing the train for Paris; and a flow
of waiting people, among whom was her neighbour with her varied
impedimenta, swept across the lines and scaled the heights of the
carriages. By luck, in front of Félise loomed a compartment showing
second class on the door panel and “_Dames seules_” on the window. She
clambered in and sank into a seat. Who her lonely lady fellow-travellers
were she could not afterwards remember; for she kept her eyes closed,
absorbed in the adventure that still lay before her. Yet it was
comforting to feel that as long as the train went on she was safe in
this feminine sanctuary, free from depredations of marauding males.
Paris. One of the ladies, seeing that she was about to remain in the
carriage, jerked the information over a descending shoulder. Félise
followed and stood for a moment more confused than ever in the blue
glare and ant-hill hurry of the Gare de Montparnasse. A whole town
seemed to have emerged from the train and to stream like a rout of
refugees flying from disaster, men, women and children, laden with
luggage, towards the barrier. Carried along, she arrived there at
length, gave up her ticket, and, issuing from the station, found herself
in a narrow street, at the end of which, still following the throng, she
came to a thundering thoroughfare. Never, in all her imaginings of
Paris, had she pictured such a soul-stunning phantasmagoria of flashing
light and flashing movement. There were millions of faces passing her by
on the pavement, in the illuminated interiors of omnibuses, in the
dimmed recesses of taxi-autos, on waggons, on carts, on bicycles;
millions in gaily lit cafés; before her dazzled eyes millions seemed to
be reflected even in the quivering, lucent air. She stood at the corner
of the Place de Rennes and the Boulevard de Montparnasse paralysed with
fear, clutching her handbag tight to her side. In that perilous street
thousands of thieves must jostle her. She could not move a step,
overwhelmed by the immensity of Paris. A good-natured sergent de ville,
possibly the father of pretty daughters, noticed her agonised distress.
It was not his business to perform unsolicited deeds of knight errantry;
but having nothing else to do for the moment, he caught her eye and
beamed paternal encouragement. Now a sergent de ville is a _sergent de
ville_ (recognisable by his uniform) all France over. Félise held Père
Chavrol, who exercised that function at Brantôme, in high esteem. This
policeman had a fat, dark, grinning, scrubbily-moustached face which
resembled that of Père Chavrol. She took her courage and her handbag in
both hands.
“Monsieur,” she said, “can you direct me to the Rue Maugrabine?”
He couldn’t. He did not know that street. In what _quartier_ was it?
Félise was ignorant.
“_C’est là où demeure mon père_,” she added. “_C’est Monsieur
Fortinbras. Tout le monde le connaît à Paris._”
But alas! the sergent de ville had never heard of the illustrious
Fortinbras: which was strange, seeing that all Brantôme knew him,
although he did not live there.
“What then shall I do, Monsieur,” asked Félise, “to get to my father?”
The sergent de ville pushed his képi to the back of his head and
cogitated. Then, with uplifted hand, he halted a crawling fiacre. Rue de
Maugrabine? Of course the glazed-hatted, muffled-up driver knew it.
Somewhere between the Rue de la Roquette and the Avenue de la
République. The sergent de ville smiled vaingloriously. It was only _ces
vieux collignons_, old drivers of fiacres, that knew their Paris, he
explained. The chauffeur of a taxi-auto would have been ignorant of the
whereabouts of the Arc de Triomphe. He advised her to engage the
omniscient cabman. The Rue Maugrabine was infinitely distant, on the
other side of the river. Félise suggested that a cab would cost
enormously. In Brantôme legends were still current of scandalous
exactions levied by Paris cabmen on provincials. The driver twisted his
head affably and hoarsely murmured that it would not cost a fortune.
Perhaps two francs, two francs fifty, with a little _pourboire_. He did
not know. The amount would be registered. The sergent de ville pointed
out the taximeter.
“Be not afraid, Mademoiselle. Enter. What number?”
“Number 29.”
He opened the door of the stuffy little brougham. Félise held out her
hand as she would have held it out to Père Chavrol, and thanked him as
though he had preserved her from legions of dragons. The last she saw of
him as she drove off was in the act of majestically sweeping back a
group of idlers who had halted to witness the touching farewell.
The old cab jolted and swerved through blazing vistas of unimagined
thoroughfares; over bridges spanning mysterious stretches of dark waters
and connecting looming masses of gigantic buildings; and through more
streets garish with light and apparent revelry. Realisation of its glory
came with a little sob of joy. She was in Paris, the Wonderland of Paris
transcending all her dreams. Brantôme and Chartres seemed afar off. She
had the sensation of a butterfly escaping from the chrysalis. She had
been a butterfly for ages. What unremembered kind of state had been her
grub condition? Thrills of excitement swept her little body. She was
throbbingly happy. And at the end of the magic journey she would meet
her father, marvel among men, and her mother, the strange, sweet,
mystical being, the enchanted princess of her childish visions, the
warm, spiritual, all understanding, all embracing woman of her maiden
longings.
The streets grew narrower, less important. They were passing through the
poor neighbourhood east of the Place de la Bastille. Fairyland suffered
a sinister touch. Slight fears again assailed her. Some of the streets
appeared dark and suspect. Evil-looking folk haunted the pavements. She
wondered, with a catch of the breath, whither she was being driven. At
last the cab swung into a street, darker, more suspect, more ill-odoured
than any, and stopped before a large open doorway. She peered through
the window. Above the door she could just discern the white figures “29”
on the blue plaque. Her rosy dreams melted into night, her heart sank.
She alighted.
“This is really 29 Rue Maugrabine?”
“_Bien sûr, mademoiselle._”
She had forgotten to look at the taximeter, but taking three francs from
her purse, she asked the driver if that was enough. He thanked her with
raised hat for munificence, and, whipping up his old horse, drove off.
Félise entered a smelly little paved courtyard and gazed about her
helplessly. She had imagined such another decent little house as her
aunt’s, at which a ring at the front door would ensure immediate
admittance. In this extraordinary dank well she felt more lost than
ever. Paris was a bewildering mystery. A child emerged from some dark
cavern.
“Can you tell me where Monsieur Fortinbras lives?”
The child advised her to ask the concierge, and pointed to the iron
bell-pull. Félise rang. The frowsy concierge gave the directions.
“_Au quatrième au coin, à gauche._”
Félise entered the corner cavern and came on an evil-smelling stone
staircase, lit here and there by naked gas-jets which blackened the
walls at intervals. The cold gathered round her heart. On the second
landing some noisy, ill-dressed men clattered past her and caused her to
shrink back with fear. She mounted the interminable stairs. Here and
there an open door revealed a squalid interior. The rosy dream became a
nightmare. She had made some horrible blunder. It was impossible that
her father should live here. But the concierge had confirmed the
address. On the fourth floor she paused; then, as directed, turned down
a small, ill-lit passage to the left. On a door facing her at the end,
she noticed the gleam of a card. She approached. It bore the printed
legend,
“Daniel Fortinbras,
_Ancien Avoué de Londres,_
_Agent de Famille, &c, &c._”
And written in pencil was the direction: “_Sonnez, S. V. P._”
The sight reassured and comforted her. Behind this thin barrier dwelt
those dearest to her on earth, the dimly remembered saintly mother, the
wise and tender father. She forgot the squalor of the environment. It
was merely a feature of Paris mighty and inscrutable, so different from
Brantôme. She felt a little throb of pride in her daring, in her
achievement. Without guidance—ungenerously she took no account of the
sergent de ville, the cabman and the concierge—she had travelled from
Chartres to this inmost heart of Paris. She had accomplished her
stupendous adventure. . . . The card invited her to ring. Above it hung
a bit of wood attached in the middle to a length of twine. She pulled
and an answering clang was heard from within the apartment. Her whole
being vibrated.
After a moment’s waiting, the door was flung open by a coarse,
red-faced, slatternly woman standing in a poverty-stricken little
vestibule. She looked at the girl with curiously glazed eyes and
slightly swayed as she put up a hand to dishevelled hair.
“_Vous désirez?_”
“Monsieur Fortinbras,” gasped Félise, scared by the abominable
apparition.
“Monsieur Fortinbras?” She mimicked the girl’s clear accent.
“_Oui, madame_,” replied Félise.
Whereupon the woman withered her with a sudden volley of drunken abuse.
She knew how Fortinbras occupied himself all day long. She did not
complain. But when the _gonzesses_ of the _rive gauche_ had the
indecency to come to his house, she would very soon put them across her
knee and teach them manners. This is but a paraphrase of what fell upon
Félise’s terror-stricken ears. It fell like an avalanche; but it did not
last long, for suddenly came a voice well known but pitched in an
unfamiliar key of anger:
“_Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?_”
And Fortinbras appeared.
As he caught sight of his daughter’s white face, he clapped his hands to
his head and reeled back, horror in his eyes. Then:
“_Tais-toi!_” he thundered, and seizing the woman masterfully by the
arms, he pushed her into some inner room, leaving Félise shaking on the
threshold. In a moment or two he re-appeared, caught overcoat and old
silk hat from a peg, and motioning Félise back, marched out of his home
and slammed the door behind him. Father and daughter were now in the
neutral ground at the end of the dim, malodorous passage.
“What in the name of God are you doing here, Félise?”
“I came to see my mother.”
The fleshy, benign face of the man fell into the sags of old age. His
lower lip hung loose. His mild blue eyes, lamping out from beneath noble
brows, stared agony.
“Your mother?”
“Yes. Where is she?”
He drew a deep breath. “Your mother—well—she is in a nursing home,
dear. No one, not even I, can see her.” He took her by the arm and
hurried her to the staircase. “Come, come, dear, we must get away from
this. You understand. I did not tell you your mother was so ill, for
fear of making you unhappy.”
“But that dreadful woman, father?” she cried. And the Alpine flower from
which honey is made looked like a poor little frost-bitten lily of the
valley. She faced him on the landing.
“That woman—that——” he waved an arm. “That,” said he, quoting
bitterly, “is a woman of no importance.”
“Ah!” cried Félise.
With some of the elemental grossnesses of life she was acquainted. You
cannot manage a hotel in France which is a free, non-Puritanical
country, and remain in imbecile ignorance. She was shocked to the depths
of her being.
“Come,” said Fortinbras with outstretched hand. But she shrank from him.
“Come!” he commanded. “There’s no time to lose. We must get out of
this.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To the Gare de Montparnasse. You must return at once to Chartres.”
“I will never enter the house of Aunt Clothilde again,” said Félise.
“But what has happened? My God! what has happened?” he asked, as they
hurried down the stairs.
Breathlessly, brokenly, she told him. In the courtyard he paused, put
his hand to his head.
“But what can I do with you? My God! what can I do with you in this
dreadful city?”
“Isn’t there a hotel in Paris?” she asked, coldly.
He laughed in a mirthless way. “There are many. There are the Ritz and
the Meurice and the Elysée Palace. Yes—there are hotels enough!”
“I have plenty of money,” she said.
“No, no, my child,” said he. “Not an hotel. I should go mad. I have an
idea. Come.”
They had just reached the evil pavement of the Rue Maugrabine, when
Cécile Fortinbras, sister of the excellent Gaspard Bigourdin and the
pious Clothilde Robineau, and mother of Félise, recovered from the
stupor to which the unprecedented fury of her husband had reduced her,
and reeled drunkenly to the flat door.
“_Je vais arracher les yeux à cette putain-là!_”
She started to tear the hussy’s eyes out; but by the time she had
accomplished the difficult descent and had expounded her grievances to
an unsympathetic concierge, a motor omnibus was conveying father and
daughter silent and anguished to the other side of the River Seine.