doubt concerning Maitre Le Merquier remained in his mind, that doubt
vanished when he saw that high-studded office, simple and severe in
appearance,--although somewhat more decorated than the waiting-room--of
which the advocate made a framework for his rigid principles and his
long, thin, stooping, narrow-shouldered person, eternally squeezed into
a black coat too short in the sleeves, from which protruded two flat,
square, black hands, two clubs of India ink covered with swollen veins
like hieroglyphics. In the clerical deputy's sallow complexion, the
complexion of the Lyonnais turned mouldy between his two rivers, there
was a certain animation, due to his varying expression, sometimes
sparkling but impenetrable behind his spectacles, more frequently keen,
suspicious and threatening over those same spectacles, and surrounded by
the retreating shadow which follows the arch of the eyebrow when the eye
is raised and the head low.
After a greeting that was almost cordial in comparison with the cold
salutation which the two colleagues exchanged at the Chamber, an "I was
expecting you," uttered with a purpose perhaps, the advocate waved the
Nabob to the chair near his desk, bade the smug domestic, dressed in
black from head to foot, not to "tighten the sack-cloth with the
scourge," but to stay away until the bell should ring for him, arranged
a few scattered papers, and then, crossing his legs, burying himself in
his armchair in the crouching attitude of the man who is making ready to
listen, who becomes all ears, he took his chin in his hand and sat with
his eyes fixed on a long curtain of green ribbed velvet that fell from
the ceiling to the floor opposite him.
It was a decisive moment, an embarrassing situation. But Jansoulet did
not hesitate. It was one of the poor Nabob's boasts that he understood
men as well as Mora. And the keen scent, which, he said, had never
deceived him, warned him that he was at that moment in presence of a
rigid, immovable honesty, a conscience of solid rock unassailable by
pick-axe or powder. "My conscience!" So he suddenly changed his
programme, cast aside the stratagems, the equivocal hints, in which his
open, courageous nature was wallowing about, and with head erect and
heart laid bare, talked to that upright man in a language which he was
built to understand.
"Do not be surprised, my dear colleague,"--his voice trembled at first,
but soon became firm in his conviction of the justice of his cause--"do
not be surprised that I have come to see you here instead of simply
asking to be heard by the third committee. The explanations that I have
to put before you are of such a delicate and confidential nature that it
would have been impossible for me to give them in a public place, before
my assembled colleagues."
Maitre Le Merquier looked at the curtain over his spectacles with an air
of dismay. Evidently the conversation was taking an unexpected turn.
"I do not touch upon the substance of the question," continued the
Nabob. "I am sure that your report is impartial and just, such a report
as your conscience must have dictated. But certain disgusting slanders
have been set on foot concerning myself, to which I have not replied,
and which may have influenced the opinion of the committee. That is the
subject on which I wish to speak to you. I know the confidence which
your colleagues repose in you, Monsieur Le Merquier, and that, when I
have convinced you, your word will be sufficient and I shall not be
obliged to parade my distress before the full committee. You know the
charge. I refer to the most horrible, the most shameful one. There are
so many that one might make a mistake among them. My enemies have given
names, dates, addresses. Be it so! I bring you the proofs of my
innocence. I lay them before you, before you only; for I have the
gravest reasons for keeping this whole affair secret."
Thereupon he showed the advocate a certificate from the consulate at
Tunis that in twenty years he had left the principality but twice, the
first time to see his father who lay dying at Bourg-Saint-Andeol, the
second time to pay a visit of three days at his Chateau of Saint-Romans
with the bey.
"How does it happen that with such a decisive document in my hands I
have not cited my defamers before the courts to contradict them and put
them to shame? Alas! Monsieur, there are family bonds that cut into the
flesh. I had a brother, a poor weak spoiled creature, who rolled for a
long while in the filth of Paris, left his intelligence and his honor
here. Did he really descend to that stage of degradation at which I have
been placed in his name? I have not dared to ascertain. What I can say
is that my poor father, who knew more about it than any one else in the
family, whispered to me when he was dying: 'Bernard, your brother is
killing me. I am dying of shame, my child.'"
He paused for a moment, compelled by his suffocating emotion, then
continued:
"My father died, Monsieur Le Merquier, but my mother is still alive, and
it is for her sake, for her repose, that I have recoiled, that I still
recoil from making public my justification. Thus far the filth that has
been thrown at me has not splashed upon her. It does not extend outside
a certain social circle, a special class of newspapers, from which the
dear woman is a thousand leagues away. But the courts, a law-suit, means
the parading of our misfortune from one end of France to the other, the
_Messager_ articles printed by every newspaper, even those in the
retired little place where my mother lives. The slander itself, my
defence, both her children covered with shame at one blow, the family
name--the old peasant woman's only pride--tarnished forever. That would
be too much for her. And really it seems to me that one is enough. That
is why I have had the courage to hold my peace, to tire out my enemies,
if possible, by my silence. But I need some one to answer for me in the
Chamber, I wish to deprive it of the right to eject me for reasons
dishonoring to me, and as it selected you to report upon my election, I
have come to tell everything to you, as to a confessor, a priest, begging
you not to divulge a word of this conversation, even in the interest of
my cause. I ask nothing but that, my dear colleague,--absolute reticence
on this subject; for the rest I rely upon your justice and your loyalty."
He rose, prepared to go, and Le Merquier did not stir, still questioning
the green hanging in front of him, as if seeking there an inspiration
for his reply. At last,--
"It shall be as you wish, my dear colleague," he said. "This confidence
shall remain between ourselves. You have told me nothing, I have heard
nothing."
The Nabob, still all aflame with his eloquent outburst, which, as it
seemed to him, called for a cordial response, a warm grasp of the hand,
had a strangely uneasy feeling. That cold manner, that absent expression
weighed so heavily upon him, that he was already walking to the door
with the awkward salutation of unwelcome visitors. But the other
detained him.
"Stay a moment, my dear colleague. How eager you are to leave me! A few
moments more, I beg. I am too happy to converse with such a man as you.
Especially as we have more than one common bond. Our friend Hemerlingue
tells me that you, like myself, are much interested in pictures."
Jansoulet started. The two words "Hemerlingue" and "pictures," meeting
so unexpectedly in the same sentence, brought back all his doubts, all
his perplexity. He did not surrender even then, however, but left Le
Merquier to put his words forward, one in front of another, feeling the
ground for his stumbling advance. He had heard much of his honorable
colleague's gallery. Would it be presumptuous for him to ask the favor
of being admitted to--?
"Nonsense! why, I should be too highly honored," said the Nabob, tickled
in the most sensitive--because it had been the most expensive--part of
his vanity; and, glancing about at the walls of the study, he added in
the tone of a connoisseur:
"You have some fine examples yourself."
"Oh!" said the other modestly, "a few poor canvases. Pictures are so
dear in these days--it's a taste so hard to gratify, a genuinely
luxurious passion. A Nabob's passion," he added with a smile and a
stealthy glance over his spectacles.
They were two prudent gamblers face to face; Jansoulet, however, was
somewhat at fault in that novel situation, in which he was obliged to
walk warily, he who knew of no other mode of action than by bold,
audacious strokes.
"When I think," murmured the advocate, "that I have spent ten years
covering these walls, and that I still have this whole panel to fill!"
In truth, in the most conspicuous part of the high partition there was
an empty space, a vacated space rather, for a great gilt-headed nail
near the ceiling showed the visible, almost clumsy trace of the trap
set for the poor innocent, who foolishly allowed himself to be taken in
it.
"My dear Monsieur Le Merquier," he said, in an engaging, affable tone,
"I have a _Virgin_ by Tintoret just the size of your panel."
It was impossible to read anything in the advocate's eyes, which had now
taken refuge behind their gleaming shelter.
"Permit me to hang it there, opposite your desk. It will give you an
excuse for thinking of me sometimes--"
"And for mitigating the strictures of my report, eh, Monsieur?" cried Le
Merquier, springing to his feet, a threatening figure, with his hand on
the bell. "I have seen many shameless performances in my life, but never
anything equal to this. Such offers to me, in my own house!"
"But, my dear colleague, I swear--"
"Show him out," said the advocate to the surly servant who entered the
room at that moment; and from the centre of his office, the door
remaining open, before the whole parlor, where the prayers had ceased,
he pursued Jansoulet,--who turned his back and hastened, mumbling
incoherently, toward the outer door--with these crushing words:
"You have insulted the honor of the whole Chamber in my person,
Monsieur. Our colleagues shall be informed of it this very day; and,
this additional offence being added to the others, you will learn to
your sorrow that Paris is not the Orient, and the human conscience is
not shamefully traded in and bartered here as it is there."
Thereupon, having driven the money-changer from the temple, the just man
closed his door, and approaching the green curtain, said in a tone which
sounded sweet as honey after his pretended anger:
"Was that about right, Baronne Marie?"
XXI.
THE SITTING.
That morning there was not, as usual, a grand breakfast-party at number
32 Place Vendome. So that about one o'clock you might have seen M.
Barreau's majestic paunch arrayed in white linen displaying itself at
the entrance to the porch, surrounded by four or five scullions in their
paper caps and as many grooms in Scotch caps,--an imposing group, which
gave the sumptuous mansion the appearance of a hostelry, where the whole
staff was taking a breath of fresh air between two arrivals. The
resemblance was made complete by the cab stopping in front of the door
and the driver lifting down an old-fashioned leather trunk, while a tall
old woman in a yellow cap, an erect figure with a little green shawl
over her shoulders, leaped lightly to the sidewalk, a basket on her arm,
and looked carefully at the number, then approached the group of
servants and asked if that was where M. Bernard Jansoulet lived.
"This is the place," was the reply. "But he isn't in."
"That's no matter," said the old woman, very naturally.
She returned to the driver, bade him put her trunk under the porch, and
paid him, at once replacing her purse in her pocket with a gesture that
said much for provincial distrust.
Since Jansoulet had been Deputy for Corsica, his servants had seen so
many strange, foreign-looking creatures alight at his door that they
were not greatly surprised at sight of that sun-burned woman, with eyes
like glowing coals, bearing much resemblance in her simple head-dress to
a genuine Corsican, some old psalm-singer straight from the underbrush,
but distinguished from newly-arrived islanders by the ease and
tranquillity of her manners.
"What do you say, the master isn't in?" she said with an intonation
which is much more frequently heard by the hands on a farm, on a _mas_
in her province, than by the impertinent lackeys of a great Parisian
household.
"No, the master isn't in."
"And the children?"
"They're taking their lesson. You can't see them."
"And Madame?"
"She's asleep. No one enters her room before three o'clock."
That seemed to surprise the good woman a little, that any one could stay
in bed so late; but the sure instinct which, in default of education,
acts as a guide to intelligent natures, prevented her from saying so to
the servants, and she at once asked to speak to Paul de Gery.
"He is travelling."
"Bompain Jean-Baptiste then?"
"He's at the Chamber with Monsieur."
Her great gray eyebrows contracted.
"No matter; take my trunk upstairs all the same."
And, with a malicious little twitching of the eye, a touch of pride, of
vengeance for the insolent glances turned upon her, she added:
"I am his mother."
Scullions and grooms stood aside respectfully. M. Barreau raised his
cap:
"I was saying to myself that I had seen Madame somewhere."
"That's just what I was saying to myself too, my boy," said Mere
Jansoulet, shuddering at the memory of the ill-fated festivities in
honor of the bey.
"My boy!"--to M. Barreau, to a man of his importance! That instantly
placed her very high in the esteem of that little circle.
Ah! grandeurs and splendors did not dazzle her, the brave-hearted old
woman. She was no opera-comique Mere Boby going into ecstasies over the
gildings and fine trinkets; the vases of flowers on every landing of the
staircase she ascended behind her trunk, the hall-lamps supported by
bronze statues, did not prevent her noticing that there was a finger's
depth of dust on the stair-rail and that the carpet was torn. They
escorted her to the apartments on the second floor, reserved for the
Levantine and the children, and there, in a room used as a linen closet,
which was evidently near the school-room, for she could hear a murmur of
childish voices, she waited, all alone, her basket on her knees, for her
Bernard to return, for her daughter-in-law to awake, or for the great
joy of embracing her grandchildren. Nothing could be better adapted than
what she saw around her to give her an idea of the confusion of a
household given over to servants, where the oversight of the housewife
and her far-seeing activity are lacking. In huge wardrobes, all wide
open, linen was heaped up pell-mell in shapeless, bulging, tottering
piles,--fine sheets, Saxony table linen crumbled and torn, and the locks
prevented from working by some stray piece of embroidery which nobody
took the trouble to remove. And yet many servants passed through that
linen closet,--negresses in yellow madras, who hastily seized a napkin
or a table-cloth, heedlessly trampled on those domestic treasures
scattered all about, dragged to the end of the room on their great flat
feet lace flounces cut from a long skirt which a maid had cast aside,
thimble here, scissors there, as a piece of work to be taken up again.
The semi-rustic artisan, which Mere Jansoulet had not ceased to be, was
sadly grieved at the sight, wounded in the respect, the affection, the
inoffensive mania which is inspired in the provincial housewife by the
wardrobe filled with linen, piece by piece, to the very top, full of
relics of the poor past, its contents increasing gradually in quantity
and in quality, the first visible symptom of comfortable circumstances,
of wealth in a house. Again, that woman always had the distaff in her
hand from morning till night, and if the house-keeper was indignant, the
spinster could have wept as at a profanation. Finally, unable to endure
it longer, she rose, abandoned her patient, watchful attitude, and
stooping over, her little green shawl displaced by every movement, began
actively to pick up, smooth and fold with care that beautiful linen, as
she did on the lawns at Saint-Romans, when she indulged in the amusement
of a grand washing, employing twenty women, the baskets overflowing with
snow-white folds, the sheets flapping in the morning breeze on the long
drying lines. She was deeply engrossed in that occupation, which made
her forget her journey, Paris, even the place where she was, when a
stout, thickset man, heavily bearded, in varnished boots, and a velvet
jacket covering the chest and shoulders of a bull, entered the linen
closet.
"Ah! Cabassu."
"You here, Madame Francoise! This is a surprise," said the _masseur_,
opening wide his great Japanese idol's eyes.
"Why, yes, good Cabassu, it's me. I've just come. And I'm at work
already, as you see. It made my heart bleed to see all this mess."
"So you've come for the sitting, have you?"
"What sitting?"
"Why, the great sitting of the Corps Legislatif. This is the day."
"Faith, no. What difference do you suppose that can make to me? I don't
understand anything about such things. No, I came because I wanted to
know my little Jansoulets, and then, I was beginning to be uneasy. I've
written two or three times now without getting any answer. I was afraid
there might be a child sick, or that Bernard's business was in a bad
way--all sorts of uncomfortable ideas. I had an attack of great black
anxiety, and I started. Everybody's well here, so they tell me?"
"Why, yes, Madame Francoise. Everybody 's exceedingly well, thank God!"
"And Bernard? His business? Is it going along to suit him?"
"Oh! you know a man always has his little crosses in this life; however,
I don't think he has any reason to complain. But now I think of it, you
must be hungry. I'll go and send you something to eat."
He was about to ring, much more self-assured and at home than the old
mother. But she checked him.
"No, no, I don't need anything. I still have some of my luncheon left."
She placed two figs and a crust of bread, taken from her basket, on the
table, and continued to talk as she ate:
"And what about your affairs, little one? It seems to me you've spruced
up mightily since the last time you came to the Bourg. What linen, what
clothes! What department are you in?"
"I am professor of massage," said Aristide gravely.
"You a professor!" she exclaimed, with respectful amazement; but she
dared not ask him what he taught, and Cabassu, somewhat embarrassed by
her questions, hastened to change the subject.
"Suppose I go and fetch the children? Hasn't any one told them their
grandmother was here?"
"I didn't want to take them away from their work. But I believe the
lesson is over now. Listen."
On the other side of the door they heard the impatient stamping of
school children longing to be dismissed, eager for room and air; and the
old woman listened with delight to the fascinating sounds that increased
her maternal longing ten-fold, but prevented her from doing anything to
satisfy it. At last the door opened. First the tutor appeared, an abbe
with a pointed nose and prominent cheek-bones, whom we have seen at the
state breakfasts of an earlier day. Having fallen out with his bishop,
the ambitious ecclesiastic had left the diocese where he formerly
exercised the priestly functions, and, in his precarious position as an
irregular member of the clergy--for the clergy has its own Bohemia--was
glad of the opportunity to teach the little Jansoulets, recently
expelled from Bourdaloue. With the same solemn, arrogant mien, as of one
overburdened with responsibility, which the great prelates intrusted
with the education of the Dauphins of France might assume, he stalked
in front of three little fellows, curled and gloved, with oblong hats
and short jackets, leather bags slung over their shoulders, and long red
stockings reaching to the middle of the leg, the costume of the complete
velocipedist about to mount his machine.
"Children," said Cabassu, the intimate friend of the family, "this is
Madame Jansoulet, your grandmother, who has come to Paris on purpose to
see you."
They halted, very much astonished, arranged according to height, and
examined that withered old face between the yellow barbs of the cap,
that strange costume, unfamiliar in its simplicity; and their
grandmother's astonishment answered theirs, increased by heart-rending
disappointment and by the embarrassment she felt in presence of those
little gentlemen, who were as stiff and disdainful as the marquises, the
counts and the prefects on circuit whom her son used to bring to her at
Saint-Romans. In obedience to their tutor's injunction, "to salute their
venerable grandmother," they came up one by one and gave her one of the
same little handshakes with arms close to their sides of which they had
distributed so many among the garrets; indeed, that good woman with the
earth-colored face, and neat but very simple clothes, reminded them of
their charitable visits from College Bourdaloue. They felt between
herself and them the same strangeness, the same distance, which no
memory, no word from their parents had ever lessened. The abbe realized
her embarrassment, and, to banish it, launched forth upon a speech
delivered with the throaty voice, the violent gestures common to those
men who always think that they have below them the ten steps leading to
a pulpit:
"Lo, the day has come, Madame, the great day when Monsieur Jansoulet is
to confound his enemies. _Confundantur hostes mei, quia injuste
iniquitatem fecerunt in me_,--because they have persecuted me unjustly."
The old woman bowed devoutly to the Church Latin; but her face assumed a
vague expression of uneasiness at the idea of enemies and persecutions.
"Those enemies are numerous and powerful, noble lady, but let us not be
alarmed beyond measure. Let us have confidence in the decrees of heaven
and the justice of our cause. God is in the midst of it and it shall not
be shaken. _In medio ejus non commovebitur._"
A gigantic negro, resplendent in new gold lace, interrupted them to
announce that the velocipedes were ready for the daily lesson on the
terrace of the Tuileries. Before leaving the room, the children solemnly
shook once more the wrinkled, calloused hand of their grandmother, who
was watching them walk away, utterly bewildered and with a sore heart,
when, yielding to an adorable, spontaneous impulse, the youngest of the
three, having reached the door, suddenly turned, pushed the great negro
aside, and plunged head foremost, like a little buffalo, into Mere
Jansoulet's skirts, throwing his arms around her and holding up to her
his smooth brow splashed with brown curls, with the sweet grace of the
child who offers his caress like a flower. Perhaps the little fellow,
being nearer the nest and its warmth, the nurse's cradling lap and
_patois_ ballads, had felt the waves of maternal love of which the
Levantine deprived him flowing toward his little heart. The old
"Grandma" shuddered from head to foot in her surprise at that
instinctive embrace.
"Oh my darling--my darling!" seizing the curly, silky little head which
reminded her of another, and kissing it frantically. Then the child
released himself and ran away without a word, his hair wet with hot
tears.
Left alone with Cabassu, the mother, whom that kiss had consoled, asked
for an explanation of the priest's words.--Had her son many enemies,
pray?
"Oh!" said Cabassu, "it is not at all surprising in his position."
"But what's all this about this being a great day, and this 'sitting'
you all talk about?"
"Why, yes! This is the day when we're to know whether Bernard is to be a
deputy or not."
"What? Isn't he one yet? Why, I have told it everywhere in the
neighborhood, and I illuminated Saint-Romans a month ago. So I was made
to tell a lie!"
The _masseur_ had much difficulty in explaining to her the parliamentary
formality of testing the validity of elections. She listened with only
one ear, feverishly pulling over the linen.
"And that's where my Bernard is at this moment?"
"Yes, Madame."
"Are women allowed to go into this Chamber?--Then why isn't his wife
there? For I can understand that it's a great affair for him. On such a
day as to-day he will need to feel that all those he loves are beside
him. Look you, my boy, you must take me to this sitting. Is it very
far?"
"No, very near. Only it must have begun before this. And then," added
the Giaour, a little embarrassed, "this is the hour when Madame needs
me."
"Ah! Do you teach her this thing that you're professor of? What do you
call it?"