shocking events of which I have been the plaything for some days past.
This time it is all up with the _Territoriale_ and all my ambitious
dreams. Protests, levies, police-raids, all our books in the custody of
the examining magistrate, the Governor a fugitive, our director
Bois-l'Hery at Mazas, our director Monpavon disappeared. My head is in a
whirl with all these disasters. And to think that, if I had followed the
warnings of sound common-sense, I should have been tranquilly settled at
Montbars six months ago, cultivating my little vineyard, with no other
preoccupation than watching the grapes grow round and turn to the color
of gold in the pleasant Burgundian sunshine, and picking from the vines,
after a shower, the little gray snails that make such an excellent
fricassee. With the results of my economy I would have built, on the
high land at the end of the vineyard, on a spot that I can see at this
moment, a stone summer-house like M. Chalmette's, so convenient for an
afternoon nap, while the quail are singing all around among the vines.
But no, constantly led astray by treacherous illusions, I longed to make
a fortune, to speculate, to try banking operations on a grand scale, to
tie my fortune to the chariot of the successful financiers of the day;
and now here I am at the most melancholy stage of my history, clerk in a
ruined counting-house, intrusted with the duty of answering a horde of
creditors, of shareholders drunk with rage, who pour out the vilest
insults upon my white hairs and would fain hold me responsible for the
Nabob's ruin and the governor's flight. As if I were not as cruelly hit
myself, with my four years' back pay which I lose once more, and my
seven thousand francs of money advanced, all of which I intrusted to
that villain, Paganetti of Porto-Vecchio.
But it was written that I should drink the cup of humiliation and
mortification to the dregs. Was I not forced to appear before the
examining magistrate, I, Passajon, formerly apparitor to the Faculty,
with my record of thirty years of faithful service and the ribbon of an
officer of the Academy! Oh! when I saw myself ascending that stairway at
the Palais de Justice, so long and broad, with no rail to cling to, I
felt my head going round and my legs giving way under me. That was when
I had a chance to reflect, as I passed through those halls, black with
lawyers and judges, with here and there a high green door, behind which
I could hear the impressive sounds of courts in session; and up above,
in the corridor where the offices of the examining magistrates are,
during the hour that I had to wait on a bench where I had prison vermin
crawling up my legs, while I listened to a lot of thieves, pickpockets
and girls in Saint-Lazare caps, talking and laughing with Gardes de
Paris, and the ringing of the muskets on the floor of the corridors, and
the dull rumbling of prison vans. I realized then the danger of
_combinazioni_, and that it was not always well to laugh at M. Gogo.
One thing comforted me somewhat, however, and that was that, as I had
never taken part in the deliberations of the _Territoriale_, I was in no
way responsible for its transactions and swindles. But explain this.
When I was in the magistrate's office, facing that man in a velvet cap
who stared at me from the other side of the table with his little
crooked eyes, I had such a feeling that I was being explored and
searched and turned absolutely inside out that, in spite of my
innocence, I longed to confess. To confess what? I have no idea. But
that is the effect that justice produces. That devil of a man sat for
five long minutes staring at me without speaking, turning over a package
of papers covered with a coarse handwriting that seemed familiar to me,
then said to me abruptly, in a tone that was at once cunning and stern:
"Well, Monsieur Passajon! How long is it since we played the drayman's
trick?"
The memory of a certain little peccadillo, in which I had taken part in
days of distress, was so distant that at first I did not understand; but
a few words from the magistrate proved to me that he was thoroughly
posted as to the history of our bank. That terrible man knew everything,
to the most trivial, the most secret details.
Who could have given him such accurate information?
And with it all he was very sharp, very abrupt, and when I attempted to
guide the course of justice by some judicious observations, he had a
certain insolent way of saying: "None of your fine phrases," which was
the more wounding to me, at my age, with my reputation as a fine
speaker, because we were not alone in his office. A clerk sat near me,
writing down my deposition, and I could hear some one behind turning
over the leaves of some great book. The magistrate asked me all sorts of
questions about the Nabob, the time when he had made his contributions,
where we kept our books, and all at once, addressing the person whom I
did not see, he said:
"Show us the cash-book, Monsieur l'Expert."
A little man in a white cravat brought the great volume and placed it on
the table. It was M. Joyeuse, formerly cashier for Hemerlingue and Son.
But I had no time to present my respects to him.
"Who did that?" the magistrate asked me, opening the book at a place
where a leaf had been torn out. "Come, do not lie about it."
I did not lie, for I had no idea, as I never concerned myself about the
books. However, I thought it my duty to mention M. de Gery, the Nabob's
secretary, who used often to come to our offices at night and shut
himself up alone in the counting-room for hours at a time. Thereupon
little Pere Joyeuse turned red with anger.
"What he says is absurd, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Monsieur de
Gery is the young man I mentioned to you. He went to the _Territoriale_
solely for the purpose of keeping an eye on affairs there, and felt too
deep an interest in poor Monsieur Jansoulet to destroy the receipts for
his contributions, the proofs of his blind but absolute honesty.
However, Monsieur de Gery, who has been detained a long while in Tunis,
is now on his way home, and will soon be able to afford all necessary
explanations."
I felt that my zeal was likely to compromise me.
"Be careful, Passajon," said the judge very sternly. "You are here only
as a witness; but if you try to give the investigation a wrong turn you
may return as a suspect."--Upon my word the monster seemed to desire
it.--"Come, think, who tore out this page?"
Thereupon I very opportunely remembered that, a few days before leaving
Paris, our Governor had told me to bring the books to his house, where
they had remained until the following day. The clerk made a note of my
declaration, whereupon the magistrate dismissed me with a wave of the
hand, warning me that I must hold myself at his disposal. When I was at
the door he recalled me:
"Here, Monsieur Passajon, take this; I have no further use for it."
He handed me the papers he had been consulting while he questioned me;
and my confusion can be imagined when I saw on the cover the word
"_Memoirs_" written in my roundest hand. I had myself furnished justice
with weapons, with valuable information which the suddenness of our
catastrophe had prevented me from rescuing from the general cleaning out
executed by the police in our offices.
My first impulse, on returning, was to tear these tale-bearing sheets in
pieces; then, after reflection, having satisfied myself that there was
nothing in these _Memoirs_ to compromise me, I decided, instead of
destroying them, to continue them, with the certainty of making
something out of them some day or other. There is no lack in Paris of
novelists without imagination, who have not the art of introducing
anything but true stories in their books, and who will not be sorry to
buy a little volume of facts. That will be my way of revenging myself on
this crew of high-toned pirates with whom I have become involved, to my
shame and to my undoing.
It was necessary, however, for me to find some way of occupying my
leisure time. Nothing to do at the office, which has been utterly
deserted since the legal investigation began, except to pile up
summonses of all colors. I have renewed my former practice of writing
for the cook on the second floor, Mademoiselle Seraphine, from whom I
accept some trifling supplies which I keep in the safe, once more a
pantry. The Governor's wife also is very kind to me and stuffs my
pockets whenever I go to see her in her fine apartments in the Chaussee
d'Antin. Nothing is changed there. The same magnificence, the same
comfort; furthermore, a little baby three months old, the seventh, and a
superb nurse, whose Normandy cap creates a sensation when they drive in
the Bois de Boulogne. I suppose that when people are once fairly started
on the railway of fortune they require a certain time to slacken their
speed or come to a full stop. And then, too, that thief of a Paganetti,
to guard against accidents, had put everything in his wife's name.
Perhaps that is why that jabbering Italian has taken a vow of affection
for him which nothing can weaken. He is a fugitive, he is in hiding; but
she is fully convinced that her husband is a little St. John in
guilelessness, a victim of his kindness of heart and credulity. You
should hear her talk: "You know him, Moussiou Passajon. You know whether
he is _e_scrupulous. Why, as true as there's a God, if my husband had
done the dishonest things they accuse him of, I myself--do you hear
me--I myself would have put a gun in his hands, and I would have said:
'Here, Tchecco, blow your head off!'" And the way she opens the nostrils
in her little turned-up nose, and her round black eyes, like two balls
of jet, makes you feel that that little Corsican from Ile Rousse would
have done as she says. I tell you that damned Governor must be a shrewd
fellow to deceive even his wife, to act a part in his own house, where
the cleverest let themselves be seen as they are.
Meanwhile all these people are living well; Bois-l'Hery at Mazas has his
meals sent from the Cafe Anglais, and Uncle Passajon is reduced to
living on odds and ends picked up in kitchens. However, we must not
complain too much. There are those who are more unfortunate than we, M.
Francis, for instance, whom I saw at the _Territoriale_ this morning,
pale and thin, with disgraceful linen and ragged cuffs, which he
continues to pull down as a matter of habit.
I was just in the act of broiling a bit of bacon in front of the fire in
the directors' room, my cover being laid on the corner of a marquetry
table with a newspaper underneath in order not to soil it. I invited
Monpavon's valet to share my frugal repast; but, because he has waited
on a marquis, that fellow fancies that he's one of the nobility, and he
thanked me with a dignified air, which made me want to laugh when I
looked at his hollow cheeks. He began by telling me that he was still
without news of his master, that they had sent him away from the club on
Rue Royale where all the papers were under seal and crowds of creditors
swooping down like flocks of swallows on the marquis's trifling effects.
"So that I find myself a little short," added M. Francis. That meant
that he had not a sou in his pocket, that he had slept two nights on the
benches along the boulevards, waked every minute by policemen,
compelled to get up, to feign drunkenness in order to obtain another
shelter. As for eating, I believe that he had not done that for a long
while, for he stared at the food with hungry eyes that made one's heart
ache, and when I had forcibly placed a slice of bacon and a glass of
wine in front of him, he fell on them like a wolf. The blood instantly
came to his cheeks, and as he ate he began to chatter and chatter.
"Do you know, Pere Passajon," he said between two mouthfuls, "I know
where he is--I've seen him."
He winked slyly. For my part, I stared at him in amazement.
"In God's name, what have you seen, Monsieur Francis?"
"The marquis, my master--yonder in the little white house behind Notre
Dame." He did not say the morgue, because that is a too vulgar word. "I
was very sure I should find him there. I went straight there the next
day. And there he was. Oh! very well hidden, I promise you. No one but
his valet de chambre could have recognized him. His hair all gray, his
teeth gone, and his real wrinkles, his sixty-five years that he used to
fix up so well. As he lay there on that marble slab with the faucet
dripping on him, I fancied I saw him at his dressing table."
"And you said nothing?"
"No, I had known his intentions on that subject for a long while. I let
him go out of the world quietly, in the English fashion, as he wanted
to do. All the same, he might have given me a bit of bread before he
went, when I had been in his service twenty years."
Suddenly he brought his fist down upon the table in a rage:
"When I think that, if I had chosen, I might have entered Mora's service
instead of Monpavon's, that I might have had Louis's place! There was a
lucky dog! Think of the rolls of a thousand he nabbed at his duke's
death!--And the clothes the duke left, shirts by the hundred, a
dressing-gown in blue fox-skin worth more than twenty thousand francs!
And there's that Noel, he must have lined his pockets! Simply by making
haste, _parbleu!_ for he knew it couldn't last long. And there's nothing
to be picked up on Place Vendome now. An old gendarme of a mother who
manages everything. They're selling Saint-Romans, they're selling the
pictures. Half of the house is to let. It's the end of everything."
I confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction; for, after all,
that wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who
boasted of being so rich and talked about it everywhere. The public was
taken in by it, like the fish that sees scales shining in a net. He has
lost millions, I grant you; but why did he let people think he had
plenty more? They have arrested Bois-l'Hery, but he's the one they
should have arrested.--Ah! if we had had another expert, I am sure it
would have been done long ago.--Indeed, as I said to Francis, one has
only to look at that parvenu of a Jansoulet to see what he amounts to.
Such a face, like a high and mighty brigand!
"And so common," added the former valet.
"Not the slightest moral character."
"Utter lack of breeding.--However, he's under water, and Jenkins too,
and many others with them."
"What! the doctor too? That's too bad. Such a polite, pleasant man!"
"Yes, there's another man that's being sold out. Horses, carriages,
furniture. The courtyard at his house is full of placards and sounds
empty as if death had passed that way. The chateau at Nanterre's for
sale. There were half a dozen 'little Bethlehems' left, and they packed
them off in a cab. It's the crash, I tell you, Pere Passajon, a crash
that we may not see the end of, perhaps, because we're both old, but it
will be complete. Everything's rotten; everything must burst!"
It was horrible to see that old flunkey of the Empire, gaunt and
stooping, covered with filth and crying like Jeremiah: "This is the
end," with his toothless mouth wide open like a great black hole. I was
afraid and ashamed before him, I longed to see his back; and I thought
to myself: "O Monsieur Chalmette! O my little vineyard at Montbars!"
Same date.
Great news! Madame Paganetti came this afternoon mysteriously and
brought me a letter from the Governor. He is in London, just about to
start a magnificent enterprise. Splendid offices in the finest part of
the city; a stock company with superb prospects. He requests me to join
him there, "happy," he says, "to repair in that way the wrong that has
been done me." I shall have twice the salary I had at the
_Territoriale_, with lodgings and fuel thrown in, five shares in the new
company, and all my back pay in full. Only a trifling advance to be made
for travelling expenses and some few importunate debts in the quarter.
_Vive la joie!_ my fortune is assured. I must write to the notary at
Montbars to raise some money on my vineyard.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AT BORDIGHERA.
As M. Joyeuse had informed the examining magistrate, Paul de Gery was on
his way home from Tunis after an absence of three weeks. Three
interminable weeks, passed in struggling amid a network of intrigues, of
plots cunningly devised by the powerful enmity of the Hemerlingues,
wandering from office to office, from department to department, through
that vast _residence_ on the Bardo, where all the different departments
of the State are collected in the same frowning enclosure, bristling
with culverins, under the immediate supervision of the master, like his
stables and his harem. Immediately on his arrival Paul had learned that
the Chamber of Justice was beginning to hear the Jansoulet case in
secret,--a mockery of a trial, lost beforehand; and the Nabob's closed
counting-rooms on the Marine Quay, the seals placed upon his cash boxes,
his vessels lying at anchor in the harbor of Goletta, the guard of
_chaouchs_ around his palaces, already denoted a species of civil death,
an intestacy as to which there would soon be nothing left to do but
divide the spoils.
Not a champion, not a friend in that greedy pack; even the Frankish
colony seemed not displeased at the downfall of a courtier who had so
long obstructed all the roads to favor by occupying them himself. It was
absolutely hopeless to think of rescuing that victim from the bey's
clutches in the absence of a signal triumph in the Chamber of Deputies.
All that de Gery could hope to do was to save a few spars from the
wreck, and even that required haste, for he expected from day to day to
be advised of his friend's complete discomfiture.
He took the field, therefore, and went about his operations with an
activity which nothing could abate, neither Oriental cajolery, that
refined honey-sweet courtesy beneath which lurk savage ferocity and
dissolute morals, nor the hypocritically indifferent smiles, nor the
demure airs, the folded arms which invoke divine fatalism when human
falsehood fails of its object. The _sang-froid_ of that cool-headed
little Southerner, in whom all the exuberant qualities of his countrymen
were condensed, stood him in at least as good stead as his perfect
familiarity with the French law, of which the Code of Tunis is simply a
disfigured copy.
By adroit manoeuvring and circumspection, and in spite of the
intrigues of Hemerlingue _fils_, who had great influence at the Bardo,
he succeeded in exempting from confiscation the money loaned by the
Nabob a few months before, and in extorting ten millions out of fifteen
from the rapacious Mohammed. On the morning of the very day when that
sum was to be paid over to him he received a despatch from Paris
announcing that the election was annulled. He hurried at once to the
palace, desirous to reach there in advance of the news; and on his
return, with his ten millions in drafts on Marseille safely bestowed in
his pocket-book, he passed Hemerlingue's carriage on the road, its three
mules tearing along at full speed. The gaunt, owl-like face was radiant.
As de Gery realized that if he remained only a few hours longer at Tunis
his drafts would be in great danger of being confiscated, he engaged his
passage on an Italian packet that was to sail for Genoa the next day and
passed the night on board, and his mind was not at rest until he saw the
white terraces of Tunis at the upper end of its bay, and the cliffs of
Cape Carthage fading from sight behind him. When they entered the harbor
of Genoa, the packet, as it ran alongside the wharf, passed close to a
large yacht flying the Tunisian flag among a number of small flags with
which she was decorated. De Gery was greatly excited, thinking for a
moment that he was pursued and that on going ashore he might have a
scuffle with the Italian police like a common pickpocket. But no, the
yacht was lying quietly at anchor, her crew were scrubbing the deck and
repainting the red mermaid that formed her figurehead as if some
personage of importance were expected on board. Paul had no curiosity to
ascertain who that personage might be; he simply rode across the marble
city and returned by the railway which runs from Genoa to Marseille,
following the coast; a marvellous road, where you pass from the inky
darkness of tunnels into the dazzling splendor of the blue sea, but so
narrow that accidents are very frequent.
At Savona the train stopped and the passengers were told that they could
go no farther, as one of the small bridges across the streams that rush
down from the mountain into the sea had broken down during the night.
They must wait for the engineer and workmen who had been summoned by
telegraph, stay there half a day perhaps. It was early morning. The
Italian town was just awaking in one of those hazy dawns which promise
extreme heat during the day. While the passengers scattered, seeking
refuge in hotels or restaurants, or wandering about the town, de Gery,
distressed by the delay, tried to find some way of avoiding the loss of
ten hours or more. He thought of poor Jansoulet, whose honor and whose
life might perhaps be saved by the money he was bringing, of his dear
Aline, the thought of whom had not left him once during his journey, any
more than the portrait she had given him. Suddenly it occurred to him to
hire one of the _calesinos_, four-horse vehicles which make the journey
from Genoa to Nice along the Italian Corniche, a fascinating drive often
taken by foreigners, lovers, and gamblers who have been lucky at Monaco.
The driver agreed to be at Nice early; but even though he should reach
there no sooner than by waiting for the train, the impatient traveller
felt an immense longing to be relieved of the necessity of pacing the
streets, to know that the space between him and his desire decreased
with every revolution of the wheels.
Ah! on a lovely June morning, at our friend Paul's age and with one's
heart overflowing with love as his was, to fly along the white Corniche
road behind four horses, is to feel an intoxication of travel that words
cannot describe. On the left, at a depth of a hundred feet, lies the sea
flecked with foam, from the little round bays along the shore to the
hazy horizon where the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky melt
together; red or white sails, like birds with a single wing spread to
the breeze, the slender silhouettes of steamers with a little smoke
trailing behind like a farewell, and along the beaches, of which you
catch glimpses as the road winds, fishermen no larger than sea-mews in
their boats, lying at anchor, which look like nests. Then the road
descends, follows a rapid downward slope along the base of cliffs and
headlands almost perpendicular. The cool breeze from the water reaches
you there, blends with the thousand little bells on the harnesses, while
at the right, on the mountain-side, the pines and green oaks rise tier
above tier, with gnarled roots protruding from the sterile soil, and
cultivated olive-trees in terraces, as far as a broad ravine, white and
rocky, bordered with green plants which tell of the passage of the
waters, the dry bed of a torrent up which toil laden mules, sure of
their footing among the loose shingle, where a washerwoman stoops beside
a microscopic pool, a few drops remaining from the great winter
freshets. From time to time you rumble through the one street of a
village, or rather of a small town of historic antiquity, grown rusty
with too much sunshine, the houses crowded closely together and
connected by dark archways, a network of covered lanes which climb the
sheer cliff with snatches of light from above, openings like the mouths
of mines affording glimpses of broods of children with curly hair like a
halo about their heads, baskets of luscious fruit, a woman descending
the rough pavements with a pitcher on her head or a distaff in her hand.
Then, at a corner of the street, the blue twinkling of the waves,
immensity once more.