melancholy, the ominous heart-sickness in which Mora's death had plunged
her. What a terrible blow for the haughty girl! Ennui, spite had driven
her into that man's arms; pride, modesty, she had given all to him, and
now he had carried it all away, leaving her withered for life, a widow
without tears, without mourning, without dignity. Two or three visits to
Saint-James, a few evenings in the back of a box at some small theatre,
behind the grating where forbidden, shamefaced pleasure conceals
itself,--those were the only memories bequeathed to her by that liaison
of two weeks, that loveless sin, wherein not even her pride had
succeeded in satisfying itself by the notoriety of a scandal in high
life. The fruitless, ineffaceable stain, the senseless fall into the
gutter of a woman who cannot walk, and upon whom the ironical pity of
the passers-by weighs heavily when she tries to rise.
For a moment she contemplated suicide, but was deterred by the thought
that it might be attributed to despairing love. She saw in anticipation
the sentimental emotion of the salons, the absurd figure that her
supposed passion would cut amid the duke's innumerable conquests, and
upon her grave, dug so near the other, the Parma violets, stripped of
their petals by the dandified Moessards of journalism. There remained
the resource of travel, one of those journeys to countries so distant
that they expatriate even the thoughts. Unluckily, she lacked money.
Thereupon she remembered that, on the day following her success at the
Salon, old Brahim Bey had come to see her, to make magnificent proposals
to her in his master's name for divers great works to be executed at
Tunis. She had said no at the moment, refusing to be tempted by Oriental
prices, by a munificent hospitality, by the promise of the finest
courtyard on the Bardo for a studio, surrounded by arches carved like
exquisite lace. But now she was willing to accept. She had but to make a
sign, the bargain was concluded at once, and after an exchange of
despatches, a hasty packing-up, and closing the house, she started for
the railway-station as if she were going away for a week, surprised
herself by her prompt decision, pleased in all the adventurous and
artistic portions of her nature by the prospect of a new life in a
strange land.
The bey's pleasure yacht was to await her at Genoa; and, closing her
eyes in the cab, she saw in anticipation the white stones of an Italian
harbor enclosing an iridescent sea, where the sunlight had a gleam of
the Orient, where everything sang joyously, even to the swelling sails
upon the deep. It so happened that on that day Paris was muddy and
murky, drowned by one of those continuous downpours of rain which seem
to have been made for it alone, to have ascended in clouds from its
river, its steam, its monster breath, only to descend again in streams
from its roofs, its gutters, the innumerable windows of its attics.
Felicia was in haste to escape from that depressing Paris, and her
feverish impatience vented itself upon the driver for not driving
faster, upon the horses,--two genuine broken-down cab-horses,--and upon
an inexplicable multitude of carriages and omnibuses jammed together at
the approaches to Pont de la Concorde.
"Go on, driver, go on."
"I can't, Madame,--it's the funeral."
She put her head out of the window and instantly withdrew it, in dismay.
A double line of soldiers marching with guns reversed, a wilderness of
helmets, of heads uncovered while an interminable procession passed. It
was Mora's funeral procession.
"Don't stay here. Drive around some other way," she cried to the driver.
The vehicle turned painfully, tearing itself away with regret from that
superb spectacle for which Paris had been waiting four days, rolled back
up the avenue, into Rue Montaigne, and down Boulevard Malesherbes, at an
unwilling, crawling trot, to the Madeleine. There the crowd was greater,
more compact. In the heavy mist, the brightly lighted windows of the
church, the muffled strains of the funeral chants behind the black
hangings, which were in such profusion that they concealed even the
shape of the Greek temple, filled the whole square with reminders of the
service then in progress, while the greater part of the huge procession
still crowded Rue Royale as far as the bridges,--a long black line
connecting the defunct statesman with the iron fence of the Corps
Legislatif through which he had so often passed. Beyond the Madeleine
the roadway of the boulevard was entirely empty, kept clear by two lines
of soldiers, who forced the spectators back to the sidewalks, black with
people; all the stores closed, and the balconies, despite the rain,
overflowing with bodies leaning far forward in the direction of the
church, as if to watch the passage of a herd of fat cattle, or the
return of victorious troops. Paris, greedy of spectacles, makes a
spectacle of everything indifferently, of civil war or of the burial of
a statesman.
Once more the cab must retrace its steps, make another detour, and we
can fancy the ill-humor of the driver and his beasts, Parisians all
three at heart, and furious at being deprived of such a fine show.
Thereupon, through the silent deserted streets, all the life of Paris
having betaken itself to the great artery of the boulevard, began a
capricious, aimless journey, the senseless loitering of a cab hired by
the hour, reaching the extreme limits of Faubourg Saint-Martin, Faubourg
Saint-Denis, returning toward the centre, and always finding at the end
of every circuit, every stratagem, the same obstacle lying in wait, the
same crowd, some off-shoot of the black procession seen vaguely at the
end of a street, defiling slowly in the rain to the sound of muffled
drums, a dull heavy sound like that made by earth falling bit by bit
into a hole.
What torture for Felicia! It was her sin, her remorse passing through
the streets of Paris in all that solemn pomp, that funereal
magnificence, that public mourning reflected even in the clouds; and the
proud girl rebelled against the affront that circumstances put upon her,
fled from it to the depths of the carriage, where she remained with
closed eyes, overwhelmed, while old Crenmitz, believing that it was her
grief which so affected her nerves, strove to comfort her, wept herself
over their separation, and withdrawing into the other corner, left the
cab-window in full possession of the great Algerian _slougui_, his
delicate nostrils sniffing the air and his forepaws resting despotically
on the sill with heraldic rigidity.
At last, after a thousand interminable detours, the cab suddenly
stopped, moved slowly forward again amid shouts and insults, was then
pushed this way and that, lifted from the ground, its equilibrium
threatened by the trunks on its roof, and finally halted for good and
all, as if anchored.
"_Bon Dieu!_ What a crowd!" murmured La Crenmitz in terror.
Felicia emerged from her torpor.
"Where in heaven's name are we?"
Beneath a colorless, smoky sky, with a fine network of rain drawn like
gauze over the reality of things, lay a great square, filled with a
human ocean flowing in from all the adjoining streets, immobilized
around a lofty column which towered above that sea of heads like the
gigantic mast of a sinking ship. Cavalry in troops, with drawn sabres,
artillery in batteries lined the sides of an open pathway, a complete
warlike host awaiting him who was soon to pass,--perhaps to try to
rescue him, to carry him off by force from the redoubtable foe in whose
power he was. Alas! cavalry charges, cannonades were of no avail. The
prisoner was firmly bound, protected by a threefold wall of solid wood,
of metal and of velvet, inaccessible to shot and shell, and not at the
hands of those soldiers could he hope for deliverance.
"Drive on. I do not wish to remain here," said Felicia frantically,
pulling the driver's dripping cape, seized with a mad fear at the
thought of the nightmare that pursued her, of what she could hear
approaching with a ghastly rolling of drums, still distant but drawing
nearer momentarily. But, at the first movement of the wheels, the shouts
and hooting began anew. Thinking that they would allow him to cross the
square, the driver had with great difficulty forced his way to the front
rank of the crowd, which had closed in behind him and refused to allow
him to turn back. It was impossible to advance or retreat She must
remain there, endure those alcoholic breaths, those inquisitive glances,
kindled in anticipation of an exceptionally fine spectacle, and eyeing
with interest the fair traveller who was decamping "with such a pile o'
trunks as that!" and a cur of that size to protect her. La Crenmitz was
horribly frightened; Felicia, for her part, had but one thought, that he
was about to pass, that she would be in the front rank to see him.
Suddenly there was a loud shout: "Here he comes!" then a great silence
fell upon the square, which had shaken off the burden of three weary
hours of waiting.
He was coming!
Felicia's first impulse was to lower the curtain on her side, the side
on which the procession was to pass. But, when she heard the drums
close at hand, seized with a nervous frenzy at her inability to escape
that obsession, or, it may be, infected by the unhealthy curiosity that
encompassed her, she raised the curtain with a jerk, and her pale,
ardent little face appeared, resting on both hands, at the window.
"Very good! you will have it so; I am looking at you."
It was the most magnificent funeral one can imagine, the last honors
paid in all their vain pomp, as sonorous and as hollow as the rhythmic
accompaniment upon asses' skins draped in crape. First, the white
surplices of the clergy indistinctly seen amid the black trappings of
the first five carriages; then, drawn by six black horses, veritable
horses of Erebus, as black, as slow, as sluggish as its flood, came the
funeral car, all bedecked with plumes and fringe, embroidered with
silver, with heavy tears, with heraldic coronets surmounting gigantic
M's, a prophetic initial which seemed to be that of Death (_Mort_)
itself, of the Duchess Death decorated with eight _fleurons_. Such a
mass of canopies and heavy draperies concealed the ignoble framework of
the hearse that it shivered and swayed from top to bottom at every step,
as if oppressed by the majesty of its dead. On the casket lay the sword,
the coat, the embroidered hat, garments of state which had never been
used, resplendent with gold and pearl in the dark chapel formed by the
hangings, amid the beautiful display of fresh flowers which told that
the season was spring despite the sulkiness of the sky. Ten paces
behind came the people of the duke's household; and then, in solitary
majesty, an official in a cloak carrying the decorations, a veritable
show-case of all the orders in the known world, crosses, ribbons of all
hues, which more than covered the black velvet cushion fringed with
silver.
The master of ceremonies came next, at the head of the committee of the
Corps Legislatif, a dozen or more deputies chosen by lot, in their midst
the tall figure of the Nabob, dressed for the first time in his official
costume, as if satirical fortune had chosen to give the representative
on trial a foretaste of all the joys of parliamentary life. The friends
of the deceased, who came next in line, formed a very limited
contingent, exceedingly well chosen to lay bare the superficiality and
emptiness of the existence of that great personage, reduced to the
companionship of a theatrical manager thrice insolvent, a picture-dealer
enriched by usury, a nobleman of unsavory reputation and a few
high-livers and boulevard idlers unknown to fame. Thus far everybody was
on foot and bareheaded; in the parliamentary committee a few black silk
skull caps had been timidly donned as they approached the populous
quarters. After the friends came the carriages.
At the obsequies of a great warrior, it is customary to include in the
funeral procession the hero's favorite horse, his battle-horse,
compelled to adapt to the snail-like pace of the cortege the prancing
gait which survives the smell of gunpowder and the waving of standards.
On this occasion Mora's great coupe, the "eight-spring" affair which
carried him to social or political gatherings, occupied the place of
that companion in victory, its panels draped in black, its lanterns
enveloped in long, light streamers of crepe, which floated to the ground
with an indescribable undulatory feminine grace. That was a new idea for
funerals, those veiled lanterns, the supreme manifestation of _chic_ in
mourning; and it was most fitting for that dandy to give one last lesson
in style to the Parisians who flocked to his funeral as to a Longchamps
of death.
Three more masters of ceremonies, then came the impassive official
display, always the same for marriages, deaths, baptisms, openings of
Parliament, receptions by the sovereign,--the interminable procession of
state carriages, with gleaming panels, great mirrors, gaudy,
gold-bespangled liveries, which passed amid the dazzled throngs,
reminding them of fairy tales, the equipages of Cinderella, and arousing
the same _Ohs_! of admiration that ascend and burst with the bombs at
displays of fireworks. And in the crowd there was always an obliging
police officer, of an erudite petty bourgeois with nothing to do, on the
watch for public ceremonials, to name aloud all the people in the
carriages as they passed with their proper escorts of dragoons,
cuirassiers or _gardes de Paris_.
First the representatives of the Emperor, the Empress, all the imperial
family; then, in hierarchical order, scientifically worked out, the
slightest departure from which might have caused a serious conflict
between the various bodies of the government, the members of the Privy
Council, the marshals, the admirals, the grand chancellor of the Legion
of Honor, the Senate, the Corps Legislatif, the Council of State, the
whole of the judicial and educational departments, whose costumes,
furred robes and wigs carried you back to the days of old Paris; they
seemed pompous, superannuated, out of place in the sceptical era of the
blouse and the black coat.
* * * * *
Felicia, to avoid thought, fixed her eyes persistently on that
monotonous procession, of exasperating length, and gradually a sort of
torpor stole over her, as if on a rainy day she were turning the leaves
of an album with colored plates lying on the table of a dreary salon, a
history of state costumes from the earliest times to our own day. All
those people, seen in profile, sitting erect and motionless behind the
wide glass panels, bore a close resemblance to the faces of people in
the colored fashion-plates displayed as near as possible to the
sidewalk, so that we may lose nothing of their gold embroidery, their
palm-leaves, their gold lace and braid; manikins intended to gratify the
curiosity of the vulgar and exposing themselves with an air of heedless
indifference.
Indifference! That was the most marked characteristic of that funeral.
You felt it everywhere, on the faces and in the hearts of the mourners,
not only among all those functionaries, most of whom had known the duke
by sight only, but in the ranks of those on foot between his hearse and
his coupe, his closest friends and those who were in daily attendance
upon him. Indifferent, yes, cheerful, was the corpulent minister,
vice-president of the Council, who grasped the cords of the pall firmly
in his powerful hand, accustomed to pound the desk of the tribune, and
seemed to be drawing it forward, in greater haste than the horses and
the hearse to consign to his six feet of earth his enemy of twenty
years' standing, his constant rival, the obstacle to all his ambitions.
The other three dignitaries did not press forward with so much of the
vigor of a led horse, but the long streamers were held listlessly in
their wearied or distraught hands, significantly nerveless. Indifferent
the priests by profession. Indifferent the servants, whom he never
called anything else than "What's-your-name,"[4] and whom he treated
like things. Indifferent, too, was M. Louis, whose last day of servitude
it was--an enfranchised slave rich enough to pay his ransom. Even among
his intimates that freezing coldness had made its way. And yet some of
them were much attached to him. But Cardailhac was too much occupied in
superintending the order and progress of the ceremonial to give way to
the slightest emotion, which was quite foreign to his nature moreover.
Old Monpavon, although he was struck to the heart, would have considered
the slightest crease in his linen breastplate, the slightest bending of
his tall figure, as lamentably bad form, altogether unworthy his
illustrious friend. His eyes remained dry, as sparkling as ever, for the
Funeral Pageant furnishes the tears for state mourning, embroidered in
silver on black cloth. Some one was weeping, however, among the members
of the committee, but that some one was shedding ingenuous tears on his
own account. Poor Nabob, melted by the music and the display, it seemed
to him that he was burying all his fortune, all his ambition for dignity
and renown. And even that was one variety of indifference.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] _Chose_--literally _thing._
In the public the gratification of a gorgeous spectacle, the joy of
making a Sunday of a weekday, dominated every other feeling. As the
procession passed along the boulevards, the spectators on the balconies
almost applauded; here, in the populous quarters, irreverence manifested
itself even more frankly. Coarse chaff, vulgar comments on the dead man
and his doings, with which all Paris was familiar, laughter called forth
by the broad-brimmed hats of the rabbis and the solemn "mugs" of the
council of wise men, filled the air between two drum-beats. With feet in
the water, dressed in blouses and cotton caps, the head uncovered from
habit, poverty, forced labor, idleness and strikes watched with a sneer
the passing of that dweller in another sphere, that brilliant duke now
shorn of all his honors, who never in his life perhaps had visited that
extremity of the city. But here he is! To reach the spot to which
everybody goes, one must follow the road that everybody follows:
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Rue de la Roquette, to that mammoth toll-gate
open so wide into the infinite. And _dame_! it is pleasant to see that
noblemen like Mora, dukes and ministers, all take the same road to the
same destination. That equality in death consoles one for many unjust
things in life. To-morrow the bread will seem not so dear, the wine
better, the tools less heavy, when one can say to oneself on rising:
"Well, that old Mora had to come to it like everybody else."
The procession dragged along, even more tiresome than lugubrious. Now it
was the choral societies, deputations from the Army and Navy, officers
of all arms of the service, herded together in front of a long line of
empty carriages, mourning carriages, gentlemen's carriages, parading in
compliance with etiquette; then came the troops in their turn, and Rue
de la Roquette, that long street running through the filthy faubourg,
already swarming with people as far as the eye could see, swallowed up a
whole army, infantry, dragoons, lancers, carabineers, heavy guns with
muzzles in the air, all ready to bark, shaking pavements and
window-panes, but unable to drown the rolling of the drums, a sinister,
barbarous sound, which transported Felicia's imagination to the
obsequies of African monarchs, where thousands of immolated victims
attend the soul of a prince so that it may not enter the kingdom of
spirits alone, and made her think that perhaps that ostentatious,
interminable procession was about to descend and disappear in a
supernatural grave vast enough to hold it all.
"Now, and in the hour of our death. Amen!" murmured La Crenmitz, while
the cab rattled across the empty square, where Liberty, in solid gold,
seemed to be taking a magic flight in space; and the old dancer's prayer
was perhaps the only sincere note of true emotion uttered throughout the
vast space covered by the funeral.
* * * * *
All the discourses are at an end, three long discourses as cold as the
cavern into which the dead man has descended, three official harangues
which have afforded the orators an opportunity to proclaim in very loud
tones their devotion to the interests of the dynasty. Fifteen times the
cannon have awakened the numerous echoes of the cemetery, shaken the
wreaths of jet and immortelles, the light _ex-votos_ hanging at the
corners of burial lots, and while a reddish cloud floats upward and
revolves amid the odor of powder across the city of the dead, mingling
gradually with the smoke from the factories of the plebeian quarter, the
countless multitude also disperses, scattering through the sloping
streets, the long stairways gleaming white among the verdure, with a
confused murmur as of waves beating against the rocks. Purple robes,
black robes, blue and green coats, gold ornaments, slender swords which
their wearers adjust while marching, return hastily to the carriages.
Dignified salutations, meaning smiles are exchanged, while the mourning
equipages rumble along the paths at a gallop, displaying lines of
black-coated drivers, with rounded backs, hats _en bataille_, capes
floating in the wind caused by their swift pace.
The general feeling is one of relief at the close of a long and
fatiguing exhibition, a legitimate eagerness to lay aside the
administrative harness, the ceremonious costumes, to loosen the belts,
the high collars and the stocks, to relax the features which, no less
than the bodies, have been wearing fetters.
Short and stout, dragging his bloated legs with difficulty, Hemerlingue
hurried toward the exit, declining the offers that were made him of a
seat in various carriages, knowing well that only his own was adapted to
the weight of his dropsical body.
"Baron, baron, this way. There's a seat for you."
"No, thanks. I am walking the numbness out of my legs."
And, in order to avoid these proposals, which at length annoyed him, he
took a cross-path that was almost deserted, too deserted in fact, for he
had hardly entered it when he regretted having done so. Ever since he
had entered the cemetery, he had had but one absorbing thought, the fear
of coming face to face with Jansoulet, whose violent temper he knew
well, and who might forget the majesty of the spot and repeat the
scandalous scene of Rue Royale in Pere-Lachaise. Two or three times
during the ceremony he had seen his former partner's great head emerge
from the mass of colorless types of which the attendant throng was
largely composed, and move toward him, evidently seeking him, actuated
by a desire for a meeting. In the main avenue yonder there would be
people at hand in case of accident, while here--_Brr!_ It was that
anxiety which caused him to force his short steps, his panting breath;
but in vain. As he turned in his fear of being followed, the Nabob's
tall form and broad shoulders appeared at the entrance of the path. It
was impossible for the bulky creature to walk in the narrow space
between the tombs, which were packed so closely that there was hardly
room to kneel. The rich, rain-soaked earth slipped and gave way under
his feet. He adopted the plan of walking on with an indifferent air,
hoping that the other would not recognize him. But a hoarse, powerful
voice behind him called:
"Lazare!"
The capitalist's name was Lazare. He made no reply but tried to overtake
a group of officers who were walking a long way in front of him.
"Lazare! O Lazare!"