was a relief to Boyer, who in his embarrassment suddenly feared that
it would look as if he had come, thus early, in order to be asked to
stay for luncheon. But his classmate's welcome was so cordial that he
had no scruples about suggesting that he should walk with him. As he
ascended Raymond's stairs he felt an almost painful apprehension over
the means he should employ in his quest. The pretext was furnished to
him by his friend, who, not content with asking him about his work,
wished to know how he had got along at Combes. Boyer took occasion to
sketch in a few words the characters of the Prince, his five daughters,
and the maiden aunt. With a lump in his throat at the thought of what
he might be about to learn he continued: "This is all I have seen of
the family. But there is another branch, the younger, now represented
by the Duchesse d'Ivrea"--he looked for a sign of intelligence in his
friend's face. "Who is she?"--"The Duchesse d'Ivrea," replied Raymond.
"I do not know her."
"But she belongs to your world," said Alfred naively; then giving way
to the morbid curiosity that had been goading him on ever since he had
read the will, he added: "You surely must know some people who know
her. I can not explain the matter to you, but I have a strong interest
in knowing why she is at odds with her relatives. The matter concerns
the entire future of my work, perhaps. In fact, I ask you as a great
service--understand me, a very great service indeed--to try to find out
about her for me."
He spoke in so serious a tone, his face expressed so much anxiety, that
Raymond was deeply impressed. He thought that probably these "Mémoires
of Frédet" had started one of those disagreements between relatives
that sometimes prevent for many years the publication of books of this
sort.
"If you are so bent upon it," replied his comrade, "I shall try to find
out. I am lunching to-day with one of my cousins, who belongs to all
the clubs and has Paris at his fingers' ends. If your Duchesse d'Ivrea
broke with her family for any reasons that have been talked about, my
cousin will know them. I will drop you a line about it this evening,
but I do not promise you success. In any event, give me your address."
Although this chance of seeing a little more clearly into the relations
that existed between the celebrated marshal's heirs was very dubious,
it was a chance, and for the time being the prospect calmed the
agitation into which the morning's episode had thrown Boyer. He had
a few errands to do relative to his work. He attended to them all
carefully, and about six o'clock he found himself at the door of his
lodgings in the Rue de Bourgogne. He asked if his patron were in. On
the concièrge's reply that the Prince had not gone out during the
afternoon, Alfred was again seized with the feverish curiosity of the
morning.
Raymond had left no letter for him, from which he concluded that the
inquiry of the cousin had been useless, and he ascended the stairs a
prey to an uneasiness that reached a climax when he found himself
face to face with the Prince. Evidently the unhappy man was at the
end of his mental resources. He paced to and fro from one extremity
to the other of the two narrow chambers like a wild beast in a cage.
The luncheon that he had ordered had not been touched and was still on
the table, and at the first glance Alfred could see that the envelope
that contained the will had not been moved from its place. It still
rested under the book on the marble mantel. It had been beyond the
Prince's strength even to touch it. Alas, the temptation had begun to
work in him. Alfred had proof of it immediately in the words that were
addressed to him as soon as he appeared.
"I have had news from the Rue de Grenelle," said the Prince. "It
seems that she has had a severe attack since we left her, and almost
succumbed to it. The doctor is not sure that she will live through
the day. You see, we did well to come when we did for the letters to
Moreau. Apropos of these letters, perhaps it would be well to publish
them separately. We will talk it over. What I have been having a
day-dream about is a library made up of works concerning the men of
the First Empire who had relations with the Prince, all his papers
well classified, and all his memoirs, and all of this installed in the
d'Ivrea house where we were this morning. I can see the house now,
stripped of the tawdry gewgaws that spoil it, and restored to the exact
condition in which it was in the marshal's time. It would be very
easy--we have the inventories at Combes. I would like to make it a
museum to the glory of the "Grande Armée," with rooms consecrated to
all the companions in arms whom he loved--a Ney room, a Masséna room,
a Davoust room, a Macdonald room--what do you say to this project, my
dear Boyer, with you as perpetual curator at some small emolument? Do
not say no to it; you deserve the place. Do you imagine that I do not
know the difference between purely mercenary work and that which you
have devoted to the "Mémoires"? But your devotion shall not be lost.
It is a pity that you could not be in Paris with your time your own,
all your time, to devote to some great historical work. You shall have
it. It is also a pity--do you not think so?--that so many objects
of interest in the history of the Empire should be hidden away at
Combes and that no one should know them? The portraits, for instance;
they must be brought here; they must be--and it is the same with my
daughters. I wish them to be here; I wish them to be married--well and
happily married." For a long time he continued in this vein without any
response from the young man. The Prince busied himself with the future
employment of the fortune that had suddenly fallen into his possession,
putting almost a kind of fever into his projects. He reveled in
anticipatory visions of the noble end to which he would devote his
wealth--always provided he accepted it, for his ardor in justifying the
acceptance in advance clearly proved that he had not yet decided, as
did also the painful hesitation in his voice, in his gestures, in the
sound of his footsteps on the floor, and still more in his obstinacy
in not returning to the house of his dying sister-in-law. Against
what idea was he struggling so violently? Against what apprehension of
remorse? Why did this flood of imaginative confidences--since there
was no question yet but of possibilities--roll forth while the real
confidence, that which concerned the will, never appeared?
Alfred saw the whiteness of the envelope standing out against the
gray on the marble mantel, and as he listened his heart became more
oppressed with each new phrase, for each was a fresh sign that the
Prince considered the acceptance of the conditions contained in that
envelope as an indelicacy, worse than that, as a crime. A crime?
Against whom? Against whom, if not against this ancestor? What image
obsessed him, passing and repassing in all these words? that of the
marshal. It was as if by making promises to that great figure he wished
to disarm the anger of its shade, to expiate in advance an outrage on
its memory that he was about to commit, that he had already committed
in not at once spurning a certain offer.
How long might this strange monologue have continued, in which the
grandson of the illustrious soldier concealed the fever of a terrible
indecision by thinking aloud before a witness whose cognizance of the
facts he did not suspect? Would Alfred Boyer have given way to the
passionate longing he felt to interrupt this half confession with his
own complete confession by crying out to the Prince: "I have read the
will!" Would he, on the other hand, have continued to listen to this
discourse, seeking to solve an enigma of which the answer had not yet
been given?
An incident he had not hoped for suddenly extricated him from his
uncertainty, all at once giving frightful distinctness to what had
until then been only a vague guess. The servant came to tell him that
Monsieur de Contay was waiting to see him.
"I got some information, as I thought I would, from my cousin," said
Raymond after the other had flown downstairs four steps at a time in
his haste to know. "I was not able to bring it to you before, and I
have only a minute." He pointed to the carriage which was waiting for
him in the street. "Here it is. The present Duchesse d'Ivrea has never
been received, either by the family or by any one else. She was a fast
woman, who had formerly been on the stage. She was then called Leona
d'Asti. After living a very gay life, she married an old swindler on
his deathbed, a confessed thief named Audry, who left her a very large
fortune. Once a widow, she married d'Ivrea, a poor devil, who, it
seems, had eaten and drunk up everything he had--a most shameful union
for one of his name. Now you know as much as I do."...
Next morning, when the Prince of Augsbourg awoke from a sleep broken by
all the nightmares by which intense moral anguish pursues us even in
our rest, his first glance was toward the ill-fated envelope that his
fingers had not touched since he had placed it under the book. Had he
been dreaming? Had all the internal tempest of which he had been the
victim been a hallucination, a stroke of madness? The envelope was not
there. He jumped out of bed and went to the mantel; he lifted up the
book. Nothing! Immediately the whole series of events came back to
him. No; he had not been mad. The scenes of the preceding day arose in
his mind with a certainty that left no room for doubt; his visit to his
sister-in-law, his return to his lodgings, Alfred Boyer handing to him
the envelope and what had followed, his afternoon spent in struggling
against temptation, Alfred's return, then his going out again, the note
that the young man had afterward sent him and in which he said that he
would dine out with a friend. The Prince had spent the evening alone,
eating his heart out over the evil action that had such a horrible
attraction for him. He had gone to bed early, without having been able
to eat anything, in order to try to forget this ill-fated will, to
forget himself. He had heard his neighbor come in about midnight--then
all was a blank. He had fallen asleep, and now this mystery, this
envelope missing. But how? Stolen--by whom?
He began to dress, a prey to the superstitious fear that sometimes
lays hold of the most energetic men in face of an absolutely
incomprehensible fact, and little by little his ideas began to
coordinate in his mind. Of the two doors of his chamber, one, that
which opened upon the stairs, was fastened with a bolt; he had
neglected to turn the key on that which led to Alfred Boyer's room.
The thief, then, must have come in by that door during his sleep. But
he had remained awake until the young man had come in. Suddenly the
Prince recalled the latter's face at the time of the discovery of the
will; how he had flushed and avoided his eyes. He remembered also the
expression on that transparent face while, late in the afternoon,
he had been developing those projects, all of which presupposed a
change in the condition of his fortune. As in a flash of lightning the
whole thing was clear to him. He sank half dressed upon a chair. He
sat there motionless, a prey to a tumult of so many contradictory and
violent emotions that his whole body trembled; disillusionment as to
this fortune, suddenly snatched away, if the young man had actually
destroyed the will; shame at having been seen by him, tempted and
giving way to the temptation, anger at Alfred's audacity in having
interfered, and by what right? Through his veneration for the marshal's
memory, remorse that this veneration had been stronger in an outsider
than in himself, and, in spite of all, a sort of sorrowful joy at this
deliverance, if the will no longer really existed, with its shameful
conditions, which were, indeed, less shameful than the origin of
ignoble money. Again the d'Ivrea house rose before his mind's eye; he
saw the great door hung with black draperies, with his coat-of-arms,
the bier upon which that miserable creature, that public woman enriched
by a swindler, who had dishonored his brother, should lie, himself
behind her conducting this sinister mourning; and the tomb, the tomb!
Wildly, as the prisoner who escapes from his cell through broken bars
stained with his blood, but sustained, intoxicated by the freedom of
liberty, he burst into the room where Alfred sat at his table. His
bed had not been disturbed. He had not slept, and his pale face, his
burning eyes, betrayed in what agony he had spent the sleepless hours.
Ever since he had glided into the Prince's bedroom to take the will and
burn it he had been awaiting the terrible moment when his patron should
awake, determined this time not to make any denial and to suffer the
consequences of his act, whatever they might be.
"Boyer," said the Prince, "when you gave me that envelope yesterday,
had you read the paper that it contained?"
"Yes," replied the young man.
"Did you know who the person was that wrote that paper?"
"I have learned since."
"And it was you who destroyed the will?"
"It was I."
"It was you!" cried the Prince; "you!" Then, bursting into sobs: "Let
me embrace you and thank you in his name!" and he pointed with his
hand to the thin sheets on the table in which was to be recognized
the proud, delicate writing of "Catinat of the Grande Armée," of "the
Black Lion," as the old soldiers of the First Empire had called him
to distinguish him from his brother in arms, Ney, "the Red Lion."
Tears streamed down his face, so like that of his glorious ancestor,
while he pressed Alfred to his breast, and both of them, the old man
and the young, felt that exquisite emotion that floods our souls with
melancholy and an almost supernatural serenity when we have paid a
sacred debt to the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] "Demi-hipnose," writes Paul Bourget
WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY
BY HENRI LÉON ÉMILE LAVEDAN
[Illustration]
_Henri Lavedan stands for the bright side of Parisian life of
to-day--for the witty dialogue and the delicate sentiment. He
has created a language of his own, sound, racy, with all the
abruptness and unexpected drollery of the boulevards._
_He was born at Orléans in 1859, and began his literary career
by contributing to the journals satiric pictures of the manners
and customs of the Paris world. Those written between 1885 and
1892 form a series of chronicles, which he has gathered into
several volumes. Most of his works, however, are written for
the theatre. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Academy._
[Illustration]
WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY
BY HENRI LAVEDAN
Translated by Katharine Vincent. Copyright, 1902, by The Current
Literature Publishing Company.
Madame de Précy said to her husband: "You wish to know what is the
matter? Oh! I will tell you, if for a few moments you will condescend
to lend me your attention."
In an icy tone he answered: "I will not lend, I will give it to you."
"Well, then, the matter is"--and a trembling voice betrayed her
excitement--"that life with you has become unbearable and that I have
resolved no longer to try to endure it. You are, I admit, an honorable
man, and have, I believe, been a faithful husband. I, on my side, have
never forgotten my marriage vows. Here we stand on the same ground.
The trouble is that we are uncongenial. Everything I do annoys you,
and to me all your ways are insufferable. What I say always vexes you,
and your laugh drives me crazy. Even when silent, we provoke each
other. About the merest trifles we have frightful scenes--about a
hat, a dress, whether it will be best to carry a cane or an umbrella,
or whether the meat is overdone or not--in short, everything--and
everything makes us quarrel! Then, at home, either you talk so much
that I can not put in a word or else you do not open your lips, and
you look about as cheerful as a mortuary chapel. I must be happy when
you are happy, sad when you are sad. Your temper is changeable, odd,
quick; you do not allow the slightest contradiction; if I begin to
speak of something which does not interest you, I am not allowed to
finish my sentence. For me to express an opinion suffices to make you
take an opposite view. You insist that you understand music, and that
I know nothing about politics, while, in point of fact, the contrary
is the truth. You scold my maid until she cries, and your disgusting
valet drinks all the wine in my cellar. You forbid me to smoke, and
insist that my dresses shall not be cut too low. And when we quarrel,
even about some very ordinary matter, instead of its being over in five
minutes, it lasts for hours, and we try to outdo each other in saying
bitter things which neither of us forgets. In short, everything about
me is disagreeable to you. I feel it, and I know it; you hate the tone
of my voice, the sound of my step, my gestures, even my clothes; do not
deny it, at this very moment I can read in your face that you would
like to pitch me out of the window.
"Therefore?" said Monsieur de Précy.
"Therefore I conclude that it is wiser for us not to prolong our
experience of married life. Its having proved a failure is neither your
fault nor mine, or rather it is the fault of both; at any rate it is
a fact. We were not made to live together; until we cease to do so,
neither of us will be happy. After all, there is nothing to prevent us
from amicably parting. Fortunately there is no child to quarrel about,
we have each an ample fortune, so I really can not see why we should
any longer remain on the same perch, pulling out each other's feathers.
As for me, I have had enough of it, and you have had too much. I am
quite sure you will be happy; sometimes in the morning, while you are
shaving, you will think of me; and for my part I shall always remember
you as a perfectly honorable, thoroughly disagreeable man. But for that
I bear you no ill-will, because it is in your blood, all the Précys are
so, and your own father and mother, as you have often told me, could
never contrive, for more than ten days at a time, to remain together.
However, I will waste no more breath in talking about the matter, but
will now, Monsieur, retire to my own rooms, where until to-morrow I
shall pass my time in thinking over the most practical way in which to
arrange our separation."
Monsieur de Précy had in silence received this avalanche of reproaches,
but his lips twitched, once or twice he sighed, deeply sighed, and
toward the middle of the discourse he had begun to pace the floor.
When his wife ceased speaking he stopped before her, and, looking
at her with an expression which he strove to render as dignified as
possible, said in a sad, somewhat victimized, tone of voice: "Have
you finished?"--"I have finished, and it is finished."--"So be it, my
dear; the book is closed, and I, like you, think it best not again
to open it. As you wish it, we will to-morrow separate and each try
solitude."--"Oh, I permit you to enliven it!"--"Thanks, and I forbid
you to do so."--"Gracious! I do not dream of such a thing. When I
leave you, it is to become my own mistress, not to change masters.
You can be quite easy; to marry again would be a folly I shall never
commit. Have you anything more to say?"--"No, except that if we take
this step without knowing to what it may lead...."--"Oh! I know.
First to peace, then to old age, finally to Père Lachaise."--"Do not
joke, but please allow me to finish. We will do as we wish, but it is
not necessary that the world should be at once enlightened as to our
disagreements. That is my opinion, and I think you will agree with
me."--"I do not know, because, of course, people can not long remain
ignorant...."--"Yes, but for a time. Later the same objections will
not exist. In short, this is what I ask: before taking any measures
to obtain a divorce, let us by all means separate, but under special
conditions which will save appearances, and excite no suspicions in the
minds of our friends."--"What, then, is your idea?"--"As you wish to
leave to-morrow, do so; but instead of taking refuge with some friend
in the country or abroad, as is probably your intention, go to Meneaux,
my château in Brittany, and as long as you can endure it--two months,
if you have the courage--remain there. Madame Bénard, my parents' old
housekeeper, who brought me up, is in charge. She will receive you, and
in every way look after your comfort. You can tell her that I will soon
join you."--"That, I imagine, will not be the truth."--"No, but you
had better say so. The house is well furnished, pretty, and not more
than four miles from Guérande. Under the pretext that Brittany is too
far away from Paris, you have always avoided setting foot upon this
family estate where my childhood was passed. This, before we each go
our own way in life, is a good opportunity to look at it. If you let
this chance escape, you will never have another. Now can I count upon
you? Do you consent?"--"You have made your request with civility, and
I consent. I will go to Meneaux, and will remain there for two months.
You may send a telegram to Madame Bénard."
Then a few words more were exchanged with a coldness too intense to be
quite genuine.--"Thanks--good night--good-by!--yes, good-by!"--Their
voices did not tremble, oh no; but their hearts, their poor hearts,
ached! Each one privately thought: "What? Can it be true we are to
part--and forever? That is what we shall see, my wife! I'm not quite
sure about that, my husband!"
But, nevertheless, Madame de Précy the next day departed.
* * * * *
On a clear, fresh May morning the young woman arrived at Meneaux.
It is at the seaside, a delightful moment when spring, like a tiny
child on its uncertain legs, hesitatingly treads there. The sparse,
backward vegetation is more rugged than elsewhere; the blue of the sky
has a deeper tint, and in the salt air there is something bracing and
healthful which brings red to the cheek and peace to the soul.
For Madame de Précy's occupation, Madame Bénard had prepared, on the
second floor, a large bedchamber, wainscoted in oak and hung with old
sulphur-colored damask, which on one side overlooked a wide expanse of
flat country, broken only here and there by a rock or a thin cluster of
reeds; and on the other a pine wood ceaselessly murmuring in the breeze.
After she had emptied her trunks and made herself at home in her room,
Madame de Précy found plenty of time for reflection. Nature offers to
those who at a moral crisis fly to her, many consolations. By a sort of
reflex action, she deadens pain, soothes and cheers. Her immutability,
her apparent egotism, are good advisers. Before her who does not pass
away one learns to see that everything else will do so, our little
happinesses as well as our great sorrows; and the order which in
everything she observes incites us to order also our hearts and minds.
Madame de Précy began to think, and more seriously than for many and
many a long day before. She reviewed her entire past life, beginning
with the first white pages of cradle, dolls, first communion, long
skirts and balls, next turning to the chapter of marriage. Her life had
not been a romance, scarcely even a story, but very ordinary, without
great joys, great catastrophes, or anything striking. Every night she
had gone to bed with the secret hope that the next day something might
happen. During the nine years of her married life, the sun had risen
many times, but never had anything happened. Little by little she and
her husband had become embittered, and perhaps he also, without being
willing to admit it, had suffered from that monotony to some beings
so irritating--monotony of things, hours, events, crimes, heroisms,
vices, seasons, rain, sun, admirations, and anticipations. Her husband
was not a man to be despised: cultivated, distinguished, honorable,
sometimes (only sometimes) tender-hearted--in fact, admirable--yet
impossible to live with. So, while deploring her fate, in the bloom of
youth finding herself thus alone and in a false position, she did not,
however, regret the impulse to which she had yielded. She would not
know happiness, but she could have peace. One can not expect everything
at once. Without feeling that her dignity was compromised, she gladly
accepted the society of Madame Bénard, the old housekeeper in charge
of the château, and yet, as a rule, she was haughty. But Madame Bénard
had brought up Monsieur de Précy, and then the country equalizes; its
solitude brings together human beings, raising a little those who are
below, and lowering a little those who are above, so that Madame de
Précy and the good old lady--for a lady she really was--soon became
friends.