scattered its beams over the sea just emerging from its mists, heavy
with sleep, dazed, motionless, with a quartz-like transparence, and
myriads of rays fell upon the water as if arrow-points had pricked it,
making a dazzling reflection, doubled in intensity by the whiteness of
the cliffs and the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the
dust in a spiral column as the carriage passed. They reached the
hottest, the most sheltered portions of the Corniche,--a genuinely
tropical temperature, where dates, cactus, the aloe, with its tall,
candelabra-like branches, grow in the fields. When he saw those slender
trunks, that fantastic vegetation shooting up in the white, hot air,
when he felt the blinding dust crunching under the wheels like snow, de
Gery, his eyes partly closed, half-dreaming in that leaden noonday
heat, fancied that he was making once more the tiresome journey from
Tunis to the Bardo, which he had made so often in a strange medley of
Levantine chariots, brilliant liveries, _meahris_ with long neck and
hanging lip, gayly-caparisoned mules, young asses, Arabs in rags,
half-naked negroes, great functionaries in full dress, with their
escorts of honor. Should he find yonder, where the road skirts gardens
of palm-trees, the curious, colossal architecture of the bey's palace,
its close-meshed window gratings, its marble doors, its _moucharabies_
cut out of wood and painted in vivid colors? It was not the Bardo, but
the pretty village of Bordighera, divided like all those on the coast
into two parts, the _Marine_ lying along the shore, and the upper town,
connected by a forest of statuesque palms with slender stalks and
drooping tops,--veritable rockets of verdure, showing stripes of blue
through their innumerable regular clefts.
The unendurable heat and the exhaustion of the horses compelled the
traveller to halt for two or three hours at one of the great hotels that
line the road and, from early in November, bring to that wonderfully
sheltered little village all the luxurious life and animation of an
aristocratic winter resort. But at that time of year the _Marine_ of
Bordighera was deserted, save for a few fishermen, who were invisible at
that hour. The villas and hotels seemed dead, all their blinds and
shades being closely drawn. The new arrival was led through long, cool,
silent passages, to a large salon facing north, evidently a part of one
of the full suites which are generally let for the season, as it was
connected with other rooms on either side by light doors. White
curtains, a carpet, the semi-comfort demanded by the English even when
travelling, and in front of the windows, which the innkeeper threw wide
open as a lure to the visitor, to induce him to make a more extended
halt, the magnificent view of the mountain. An astonishing calm reigned
in that huge, deserted inn, with no steward, no cook, no
attendants,--none of the staff arrived until the first cool days,--and
given over to the care of a native spoil-sauce, an expert in _stoffatos_
and _risottos_, and to two stable-boys, who donned the regulation black
coat, white cravat and pumps at meal hours. Luckily, de Gery proposed to
remain there only an hour or two,--long enough to breathe, to rest his
eyes from the glare of burnished silver and to free his heavy head from
the helmet with the painful chin-strap that the sun had placed upon it.
From the couch on which he lay, the beautiful landscape, terraces of
light, quivering olive-trees, orange-groves of darker hue, their leaves
gleaming as if wet in the moving rays, seemed to come down to his window
in tiers of verdure of different shades, amid which the scattered villas
stood forth in dazzling whiteness, among them Maurice Trott, the
banker's, recognizable by the capricious richness of its architecture
and the height of its palm-trees. The Levantine's palace, whose gardens
extended to the very windows of the hotel, had sheltered for several
months past an artistic celebrity, the sculptor Brehat, who was dying of
consumption and owed the prolongation of his life to that princely
hospitality. This proximity of a famous moribund, of which the landlord
was very proud and which he would have been glad to charge in his
bill,--the name of Brehat, which de Gery had so often heard mentioned
with admiration in Felicia Ruys' studio, led his thoughts back to the
lovely face with the pure outlines, which he had seen for the last time
in the Bois de Boulogne, leaning upon Mora's shoulder. What had become
of the unfortunate girl when that support had failed her? Would the
lesson profit her in the future? And, by a strange coincidence, while he
was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white grey-hound went frisking
along a tree-lined avenue in the sloping garden before him. One would
have said that it was Kadour himself,--the same short hair, the same
fierce, slender red jaws. Paul, at his open window, was assailed in an
instant by all sorts of visions, sweet and depressing. Perhaps the
superb scenery before him, the lofty mountain up which a blue shadow was
running, tarrying in all the inequalities of the ground, assisted the
vagabondage of his thought. Under the orange and lemon trees, set out in
straight lines for cultivation, stretched vast fields of violets in
close, regular clusters, traversed by little irrigating canals, whose
walls of white stone made sharp breaks in the luxuriant verdure.
An exquisite odor arose, of violets fermented in the sun, a hot boudoir
perfume, enervating, weakening, which called up before de Gery's eyes
feminine visions, Aline, Felicia, gliding across the enchanted
landscape, in that blue-tinted atmosphere, that elysian light which
seemed to be the visible perfume of such a multitude of flowers in full
bloom. A sound of doors closing made him open his eyes. Some one had
entered the adjoining room. He heard a dress brushing against the thin
partition, the turning of leaves in a book in which the reader seemed to
feel no absorbing interest; for he was startled by a long sigh ending in
a yawn. Was he still asleep, still dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of
the "jackal in the desert," so thoroughly in harmony with the heavy,
scorching temperature without? No. Nothing more. He dozed again; and
this time all the confused images that haunted him took definite shape
in a dream, a very lovely dream.
He was taking his wedding journey with Aline. A fascinating bride she
was. Bright eyes, overflowing with love and faith, which knew only him,
looked at none but him. In that same hotel parlor, on the other side of
the centre table, the sweet girl was sitting in a white _neglige_
morning costume which smelt of violets and of the dainty lace of the
trousseau. One of those wedding-journey breakfasts, served immediately
after rising, in sight of the blue sea and the clear sky which tinge
with azure the glass from which you drink, the eyes into which you gaze,
the future, life and the vast expanse of space. Oh! what superb
weather, what a divine, youth-renewing light, and how happy they were!
And suddenly, amid their kisses, their intoxicating bliss, Aline became
sad. Her lovely eyes were dimmed with tears. "Felicia is there," she
said, "you will not love me any more." And he laughed at her:
"Felicia,--here? What an idea!" "Yes, yes, she is there." Trembling, she
pointed to the adjoining room, where he heard Felicia's voice, mingled
with fierce barking. "Here, Kadour! Here, Kadour!" the low,
concentrated, indignant voice of one who seeks to remain concealed and
suddenly finds that she is discovered.
Awakened with a start, the lover, disenchanted, found himself in the
empty room, beside a table at which no one else was sitting, his lovely
dream flown away through the window to the great hillside which filled
the whole field of vision and seemed to stoop toward the house. But he
really heard the barking of a dog in the adjoining room and repeated
blows on the door.
"Open the door. It is I--Jenkins."
Paul sat up on his couch in speechless amazement. Jenkins in that house?
How could that be? To whom was he talking? What voice was about to reply
to him? There was no reply. A light step walked to the door and the bolt
was nervously drawn back.
"At last I have found you," said the Irishman, entering the room.
And in truth, if he had not taken pains to announce himself, Paul,
hearing it through the partition, would never have attributed that
brutal, hoarse, savage tone to the oily-mannered doctor.
"At last I have found you, after eight days of searching, of rushing
frantically from Genoa to Nice, from Nice to Genoa. I knew that you
hadn't gone, as the yacht was still in the roads. And I was on the point
of investigating all the hotels along the shore when I remembered
Brehat. I thought that you would want to stop and see him as you passed.
So I came here. It was he who told me that you were at this house."
To whom was he speaking? What extraordinary obstinacy the person showed
in not replying! At last a rich, melancholy voice, which Paul knew well,
made the heavy resonant air of the hot afternoon vibrate in its turn.
"Well! yes, Jenkins, here I am. What of it, pray?"
Paul could see through the wall the disdainful, drooping mouth, curled
in disgust.
"I have come to prevent you from going, from perpetrating this folly."
"What folly? I have work to do in Tunis. I must go there."
"Why, you can't think of such a thing, my dear child."
"Oh! enough of your paternal airs, Jenkins. I know what is hidden
underneath. Pray talk to me as you did just now. I prefer you as the
bulldog, rather than as the fawning cur. I'm less afraid of you."
"Very good! I tell you that you must be mad to go to that country all
alone, young and lovely as you are."
"Why, am I not always alone? Would you have me take Constance, at her
age?"
"What about me?"
"You?" She emphasized the word with a most satirical laugh. "And Paris?
and your patients? Deprive Paris of its Cagliostro! No, indeed, never!"
"I am thoroughly resolved, however, to follow you wherever you go," said
Jenkins, with decision.
There was a moment's pause. Paul wondered if it were very dignified in
him to listen to this discussion, which seemed pregnant with terrible
disclosures. But, in addition to his fatigue, an unconquerable curiosity
glued him to his place. It seemed to him that the engrossing enigma by
which he had been so long puzzled and disturbed, to which his mind still
held by the end of its veil of mystery, was about to speak at last, to
reveal itself, to disclose the woman, sorrowful or perverse, hidden
beneath the shell of the worldly artist. So he remained perfectly still,
holding his breath, but with no need to listen closely; for the others,
believing themselves alone in the hotel, allowed their passions and
their voices to rise without restraint.
"After all, what do you want of me?"
"I want you."
"Jenkins!"
"Yes, yes, I know; you have forbidden me ever to utter such words before
you; but others than I have said them to you and more too--"
Two nervous steps brought her nearer to the apostle, placed the
breathless contempt of her retort close to his broad sensual face.
"And if that were true, villain! If I were unable to defend myself
against disgust and ennui, if I did lose my pride, is it for you to
mention it? As if you were not the cause of it, as if you had not
withered and saddened my life forever."
And three swift, burning words revealed to the horrified Paul de Gery
the shocking scene of that assault disguised by loving guardianship,
against which the girl's spirit and mind and dreams had had to struggle
so long, and which had left her the incurable depression of premature
sorrow, a loathing for life almost before it had begun, and that curl at
the corner of the lip like the visible wreck of a smile.
"I loved you,--I love you. Passion carries everything before it,"
Jenkins replied in a hollow voice.
"Very well, love me, if it amuses you. For my part, I hate you, not only
because of the injury you have done me and all the beliefs and laudable
enthusiasms that you killed in me, but because you represent what are
the most execrable and hideous things under the sun to me, hypocrisy and
falsehood. Yes, in that worldly masquerade, that mass of false
pretences, of grimaces, of cowardly, indecent conventions which have
sickened me so thoroughly that I am running away, exiling myself in
order to avoid seeing them, that I prefer to them the galleys, the
gutter, or to walk the street as a prostitute, your mask, O sublime
Jenkins, is the one that inspires the greatest horror in me. You have
complicated our French hypocrisy, which consists mainly in smiles and
courtesies, with your effusive English handshakes, your cordial and
demonstrative loyalty. Everybody is taken in by it. People speak of
'honest Jenkins,' 'excellent, worthy Jenkins.' But I know you, my man,
and for all your fine motto, so insolently displayed on your envelopes,
on your seal, your cuff-buttons, your hat-buckles and the panels of your
carriages, I always see the knave that you are, showing everywhere
around the edges of your disguise."
Her voice hissed between her clenched teeth with an indescribably savage
intonation; and Paul expected some frantic outburst on the part of
Jenkins, rebelling against such a storm of insults. But no. That
exhibition of hatred and contempt on the part of the woman he loved
evidently caused him more sorrow than anger; for he answered low, in a
tone of heart-broken gentleness:--
"Ah! you are cruel. If you knew how you hurt me! Hypocrite, yes, it is
true; but a man isn't born that way, he becomes so perforce, in face of
the harsh vicissitudes of life. When you have the wind against you and
want to go ahead, you tack. I tacked. Charge it to my miserable
beginnings, to an unsuccessful entrance on the stage, and agree at least
that one thing in me has never lied: my passion! Nothing has succeeded
in repelling it, neither your contempt, nor your insults, nor all that
I read in your eyes, which have never once smiled on me in all these
years. And it is my passion which gives me strength, even after what I
have just heard, to tell you why I am here. Listen. You informed me one
day that you needed a husband, some one to watch over you while you were
at work, to relieve poor, worn-out Crenmitz from sentry duty. Those were
your own words, which tore my heart then because I was not free. Now
everything is changed. Will you marry me, Felicia?"
"What about your wife?" cried the girl, while Paul asked himself the
same question.
"My wife is dead."
"Dead? Madame Jenkins? Is that true?"
"You never knew the one to whom I refer. The other was not my wife. When
I met her, I was already married, in Ireland. Years ago. A horrible
marriage, entered into with a rope around my neck. My dear, at
twenty-five this alternative was presented to me: imprisonment for debt
or Miss Strang, a pimply-faced, gouty old maid, the sister of a
money-lender who had advanced me five hundred francs to pay for my
medical studies. I preferred the jail; but weeks and months of it
exhausted my courage and I married Miss Strang, who brought me as her
dowry--my note of hand. You can imagine what my life was between those
two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, sterile wife. The brother
spying upon me, following me everywhere. I might have fled. But one
thing detained me. The money-lender was said to be enormously rich. I
proposed at all events to secure the profits of my cowardice. You see, I
tell you everything. However, I was well punished. Old Strang died
insolvent; he was a gambler, and had ruined himself without saying a
word. Thereupon I placed my wife's rheumatism in an asylum and came to
France. I had to begin life anew, to struggle with poverty once more.
But I had on my side experience, hatred and contempt for mankind, and
freedom, for I did not suspect that the horrible ball and chain of that
infernal union would continue to impede my steps at a distance. Luckily
it's all over, and I am free at last."
"Yes, Jenkins, free. But why doesn't it occur to you to marry the poor
creature who has shared your life so long, humble and devoted to you as
we have all seen her?"
"Oh!" he said with a burst of sincere feeling, "between my two galleys I
believe I preferred the other, where I could show my indifference or my
hatred without restraint. But the ghastly comedy of conjugal love, of
unwearying happiness, when for so many years I have loved no one but
you, thought of no one but you! There's no such torture on earth. If I
can judge by my own experience, the poor woman must have shouted with
relief and joy when we separated. That is the only farewell greeting I
hoped for from her."
"But who forced you to use such restraint."
"Paris, society, the world. Being married according to public opinion,
we were bound by it."
"And now you are no longer so bound?"
"Now there is one thing that overshadows everything else, the thought of
losing you, of seeing you no more. Oh! when I learned of your flight,
when I saw the sign: TO LET, on your door, I felt that the time for
poses and grimaces had gone by, that there was nothing for me to do but
to pack up and rush after my happiness, which you were carrying away.
You left Paris, I did the same. Everything in your house was sold;
everything in my house is to be sold."
"And she?" rejoined Felicia, with a shudder. "She, the irreproachable
companion, the virtuous woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will
she go? what will she do? And you have come to propose to me to take her
place? A stolen place, and in what a hell! Aha! And our motto, honest
Jenkins, virtuous Jenkins, what are we to do with that? 'Do good without
hope,' old man!"
At that sneer, stinging as a blow from a whip, which must have left its
mark in red on his face, the wretch rejoined, gasping for breath:
"Enough, enough; do not mock me so. It is too horrible, after all that
has gone. In God's name doesn't it touch you to be loved as I love you,
sacrificing everything to you, wealth, honor, reputation? Come, look at
me. However carefully applied my mask may have been, I have torn it off
for you, I have torn it off before all the world. And now, look! here is
the hypocrite!"
There was a dull sound as of two knees falling upon the floor. And mad
with love, stammering, humbling himself before her, he implored her to
consent to marry him, to give him the right to go everywhere with her,
to defend her; then words failed him, his voice was choked by a
passionate sob, so deep, so heart-rending, that it might well have
touched any heart, especially in presence of that gorgeous scenery lying
impassive in the perfumed, enervating heat. But Felicia was not moved,
and her manner was still haughty as she said brusquely: "Enough of this,
Jenkins, what you ask is impossible. We have nothing to conceal from
each other; and after your confidences of a moment ago, I propose to
tell you something which it wounds my pride to tell, but which your
persistence seems to me to deserve. I was Mora's mistress."
Paul was not unprepared for that. And yet that sweet voice burdened with
such a confession was so sad amid the intoxicating aromas of that lovely
blue atmosphere, that his heart was sorely oppressed, and he had in his
mouth the taste of tears left by an unavowed regret.
"I knew it," replied Jenkins in a hollow voice. "I have here the letters
you wrote him."
"My letters?"
"Oh! I will give them back to you; take them. I know them by heart, by
dint of reading and re-reading them. That is the kind of thing that
hurts when one is in love. But I have undergone other tortures. When I
think that it was I--" he paused, he was suffocating--"I who was
destined to furnish combustion for your flames, to warm that frozen
lover, to send him to you, ardent and rejuvenated! Ah! he made away with
the pearls, I tell you. It was of no use for me to say no, he always
wanted more. At last I went mad. 'You want to burn, villain. Well,
burn!'"
* * * * *
Paul sprang to his feet in dismay. Was he about to hear the confession
of a crime?
But he had not to undergo the shame of listening further.
A sharp knock, on his door this time, warned him that the _calesino_ was
ready.
"Hallo! Signor Francese."
There was profound silence in the adjoining room, then a hurried
whispering. There was somebody close by, who was listening to
them!--Paul de Gery rushed downstairs. He longed to be far away from
that hotel parlor, to escape the haunting memory of the horrors that had
been disclosed to him.
As the post-chaise started, he saw, between the cheap white curtains
that hang at every window in the South, a pale face with the hair of a
goddess and great blazing eyes, watching for him to pass. But a glance
at Aline's portrait soon banished that disturbing vision, and, cured
forever of his former passion, he travelled until evening through an
enchanted country with the pretty bride of the breakfast, who carried
away in the folds of her modest dress, of her maidenly cloak, all the
violets of Bordighera.
[Illustration: "_The First Night of 'Revolte.'_"]
CHAPTER XXV
THE FIRST NIGHT OF "REVOLTE."
"Ready for the first act!"
That cry from the stage manager, standing, with his hands at his mouth
like a trumpet, at the foot of the actors' stairway, soars upward in its
lofty well, rolls hither and thither, loses itself in the recesses of
passage-ways filled with the noise of closing doors and hurried
footsteps, of despairing calls to the wig-maker and the dressers, while
on the landings of the different floors, slowly and majestically,
holding their heads perfectly still for fear of disarranging the
slightest detail of their costumes, all the characters of the first act
of _Revolte_ appear one by one, clad in elegant modern ball costumes,
with much creaking of new shoes, rustling of silk trains, and clanking
of handsome bracelets pushed up by the gloves in process of being
buttoned. They all seem excited, nervous, pale under their paint, and
little shivers pass in waves of shadow over the skilfully prepared
velvety flesh of shoulders drenched with white lead. They talk but
little, their mouths are dry. The most self-assured, while affecting to
smile, have in their eyes and their voices the hesitation of
absent-mindedness, that feeling of apprehension of the battle before the
footlights which will always be one of the most potent attractions of
the actor's profession, its piquancy, its ever-recurring springtime.
On the crowded stage, where scene-shifters and machinists are running
hither and thither, jostling one another in the soft, snowy light from
the wings, soon to give place, when the curtain rises, to the brilliant
light from the theatre, Cardailhac in black coat and white cravat, his
hat cocked over one ear, casts a last glance over the arrangement of the
scenery, hastens the workmen, compliments the _ingenue_, humming a tune
the while, radiant and superb. To see him, no one would ever suspect the
terrible anxieties by which his mind is beset. As he was involved with
all the others in the Nabob's downfall, in which his stock company was
swallowed up, he is staking his little all on the play to be given this
evening, and will be forced--if it does not succeed--to leave this
marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard,
unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce
take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that
feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely
new on the posters, flatters the gambler's superstitions.
Andre Maranne is not so confident. As the time for the performance draws
near, he loses faith in his work, dismayed by the sight of the crowded
hall, which he surveys through a hole in the curtain as through the
small end of a stereoscope.