The sails hung motionless, clinging to the masts; the sea was as smooth
as glass; the heat was stifling and the calm discouraging.
During a sea voyage the resources of amusement open to passengers on
board ship are soon exhausted. Anyone who has spent four months together
in a wooden house of one hundred and twenty feet in length knows this
fact, alas! only too well. When you see the first lieutenant coming
towards you you know that he will first begin talking about Rio de
Janeiro, from whence he came; then of the famous Essling Bridge, which
he saw made by the Marine Guards to which he belonged. After the
fifteenth day you know exactly the expressions he is fond of, even the
punctuation of his sentences and the different intonations of his voice.
When did he ever miss dwelling sadly on the word "emperor" when he
pronounced it for the first time in his recital?... He invariably added,
"If you had only seen him then!!!" (three exclamation marks to denote
his admiration). And the incident of the trumpeter's horse, and the ball
that rebounded and carried away a cartridge-box which contained seven
thousand five hundred francs in money and jewellery, etc., etc.! The
second lieutenant is a great politician; he makes critical remarks every
day on the last number of the _Constitutionnel_ which he brought from
Brest, or, if he leaves the sublime heights of politics to descend to
literature, he sets you to rights on the last vaudeville he saw played.
Good Lord! The Commissioner of the Navy has a very interesting story to
relate. How he enchanted us the first time he told us his escape from
the pontoon at Cadiz, but, by the twentieth repetition, upon my word, it
is barely endurable!... And the ensigns and the midshipmen!... The
recollection of their conversation makes my hair stand on end. Generally
speaking, the captain is the least tedious person on board. In his
position of despotic commander he is in a state of secret hostility
against the whole staff; he annoys and oppresses at times, but there is
a certain amount of pleasure to be gained by inveighing against him. If
he is furiously angry with some of his subordinates, his superior tone
is a pleasure to listen to, which is some slight consolation.
On board the vessel on which I was sailing the officers were the best
fellows going, all good company, liking each other as brothers, but
bored of each other all the same. The captain was the gentlest of men,
and, what is very rare, was nothing of a busybody. He was always
unwilling to exercise his authoritative power. But, in spite of all, the
voyage seemed terribly long, especially when the calm set in which
overtook us a few days only before we made land!...
One day, after dinner, which want of employment had made us spin out as
long as it was humanly possible, we were all assembled on the bridge,
watching the monotonous but ever majestic spectacle of a sunset over the
sea. Some were smoking, others were re-reading for the twentieth time
one of the thirty volumes which comprised our wretched library; all were
yawning till the tears ran down their cheeks. One ensign, who was
sitting by me, was amusing himself, with the gravity worthy of a serious
occupation, by letting the poniard, worn ordinarily by naval officers in
undress, fall, point downwards, on the planks of the deck. It was as
amusing as anything else on board, and required skill to throw the point
so that it should stick in the wood quite perpendicularly. I wanted to
follow the ensign's example, and, not having a poniard with me, I tried
to borrow the captain's, but he refused it me. He was singularly
attached to that weapon, and it would have vexed him to see it put to
such a futile use. It had formerly belonged to a brave officer who had
been mortally wounded in the last war. I guessed a story would be
forthcoming, nor was I mistaken. The captain began before he was asked
for it, but the officers, who stood round us, and who knew the
misfortunes of Lieutenant Roger by heart, soon beat a circumspect
retreat. Here is the captain's story almost in his own words:
Roger was three years older than I when I first knew him; he was a
lieutenant and I was an ensign. He was quite one of the best officers on
our staff; he was, moreover, good-natured, talented, quick and well
educated; in a word, he was a fascinating young fellow. But
unfortunately he was rather proud and sensitive; this arose, I think,
from the fact of his being an illegitimate child, and his fear that his
birth might make people look down upon him; but, to tell the truth, the
greatest of all his faults was a passionate and ever-present desire to
take the lead wherever he was. His father, whom he had never seen, made
him an allowance which would have been more than enough for his needs,
had he not been the soul of generosity. All that he had was at the
service of his friends. When he drew his quarter's pay, and met a friend
with a sad and anxious face, he would say--
"Why, mate, what's the matter? You look as though you had difficulty in
making your pockets jingle when you slap them; come, here is my purse,
take what you want, and have dinner with me."
A very pretty young actress came to Brest named Gabrielle, and she
quickly made conquest among the naval and army officers. She was not a
perfect beauty, but she had a good figure, fine eyes, a small foot and a
pleasant, saucy manner; these chings are all very delightful when one is
voyaging between the latitudes of twenty and twenty-five years of age.
She was, in addition, the most capricious of her sex, and her style of
playing did not belie this reputation. Sometimes she played
enchantingly, and one would have called her a _comédienne_ of the
highest order; on the following day she would be cold and lifeless in
the very same piece: she would deliver her part as a child recites its
catechism. But more than all else it was the story told of her which I
am about to relate that interested our young men. It seems she had been
kept in sumptuous style by a Parisian senator, who, it was said,
committed all sorts of follies for her sake. One day this man put his
hat on in her house; she begged him to take it off, and even complained
that he showed a want of respect towards her. The senator burst out
laughing, shrugged his shoulders and said, as he elaborately settled
himself in his chair, "The least I can do is to make myself at home in
the house of a girl whom I keep." Gabrielle's white hand smacked his
face as soundly as though she had a navvy's hand, and she also paid him
back for his words by throwing his hat to the other end of the room.
From that moment there was a complete rupture between them. Bankers and
generals made considerable offers to the lady, but she refused them all
and became an actress, so that she could, as she expressed it, live
independently.
When Roger saw her and learnt her history, he decided that she was--must
be his, and with the somewhat uncouth freedom with which we sailors are
credited, he took the following methods to show her how much he was
affected by her charms. He bought the rarest and loveliest flowers to be
found in Brest, had them made into a bouquet which he tied with a
beautiful rose-coloured ribbon, and in the knot he carefully placed a
roll of twenty-five napoleons, all he possessed for the time being. I
remember accompanying him behind the scenes during an interval between
the acts. He paid Gabrielle a brief compliment upon the grace with which
she wore her costume, offered her the bouquet and asked leave to call
upon her. He managed to get through all this in about three words.
Whilst Gabrielle only saw the flowers and the handsome youth who offered
them to her, she smiled upon him, accompanying her smile with a most
gracious bow; but when she held the bouquet between her hands and felt
the weight of the gold, her face changed more rapidly than the surface
of the sea when roused by a tropical hurricane; and certainly it could
scarcely have looked more evil, for she hurled the bouquet and the
napoleons with all her strength at my poor friend's head, so that he
carried the marks of it on his face for more than a week after. The
manager's bell rang and Gabrielle went on and played wildly.
Covered with confusion, Roger picked up his bouquet and packet of gold,
went to a café, offered the bouquet (but not the money) to the girl at
the desk, and tried to forget his cruel mistress in a glass of punch.
But he did not succeed, and, in spite of his vexation at not being able
to show himself without a black eye, he fell madly in love with the
enraged Gabrielle. He wrote her twenty letters a day, and such
letters!--abject, tender, full of obsequious phrases that might have
been addressed to a princess. The first were returned to him unopened,
and the rest received no answer. Roger, however, kept up hope, until he
discovered that the theatre orange-seller wrapped up his oranges in
Roger's love-letters, which Gabrielle, with the very refinement of
maliciousness, had given him. This was a terrible blow to our friend's
pride; but his passion did not die out. He talked of asking the actress
to marry him, and threatened to blow his brains out when we told him
that the Minister for Marine Affairs would never give his consent.
While all this was going on the officers of a regiment of the line in
the garrison at Brest wished to make Gabrielle repeat a vaudeville
couplet, and she refused the encore out of pure caprice. The officers
and the actress both remained so obstinate that it came to the former
hooting until the curtain had to be dropped and the latter left the
stage. You know what the pit of a garrison town is like. The officers
plotted together to hiss her without intermission the next day and for a
few days after, and not allow her to play a single part unless she made
humble amends for her bad behaviour. Roger had taken no part in these
proceedings; but he heard of the scandal which put the whole theatre in
an uproar that very night, and also the plans for revenge which were
being hatched for the morrow. He immediately made up his mind what he
would do.
When Gabrielle made her appearance the next night an ear-splitting noise
of hooting and catcalls rose from the officers' seats. Roger, who had
purposely placed himself near the roisterers, got up and harangued the
noisiest in such scathing language that the whole of their fury was soon
turned on himself. He then drew his notebook from his pocket, and, with
the utmost _sang-froid_, wrote down the names cried out to him from all
sides; he would have arranged to fight with the whole regiment if a
great many naval officers had not come up, out of loyalty to their
order, and taken part against his adversaries. The hubbub was something
frightful.
The whole garrison was confined for several days, but when we regained
liberty, there was a terrible score to settle. There were threescore of
us at the rendez-vous. Roger, alone, fought three officers in
succession; he pilled one, and badly wounded the other two without
receiving a scratch. I, as luck would have it, came off less
fortunately; a cursed lieutenant, who had been a fencing master, gave me
a neat thrust through the chest which nearly finished me. The duel, or
rather battle, was a fine sight, I can tell you. The naval officers had
gained the victory, and the regiment was obliged to leave Brest.
You may guess that our superior officers did not overlook the author of
the quarrel. They placed a guard outside his door for a fortnight.
When his term of arrest was over I came out of hospital and went to see
him. Judge my surprise when I entered his room and found him sitting at
breakfast tête-à-tête with Gabrielle. They seemed to have been on
friendly terms for some time, and already called each other thee and
thou, and drank out of the same glass. Roger introduced me to his
mistress as his dearest friend, and told her I had been wounded in the
slight skirmish on her behalf. This charming young girl then
condescended to kiss me, for all her sympathies were with fighters.
They spent three months together in perfect happiness, and never left
each other for a moment. Gabrielle seemed to love him to distraction,
and Roger declared that he had never known love before he met
Gabrielle.
One day a Dutch frigate came into harbour. The officers gave us a
dinner, and we drank deeply of all sorts of wines; but when the cloth
was removed, we did not know what to do, for these gentlemen spoke very
bad French. We began to play. The Dutchmen seemed to have plenty of
money; and their first lieutenant especially offered to play such high
stakes that none of us cared to take a hand with him. But Roger, who did
not play as a rule, felt it incumbent upon him to uphold the honour of
his country in the matter. So he played for the stakes that the Dutch
lieutenant fixed. At first he gained, then he lost, and after several
ups and downs of gaining and losing they stopped without anything having
been done on either side. We returned this dinner, and invited the Dutch
officers. Again we played, and Roger and the lieutentant set to work
afresh. In short, they played for several days, meeting either in cafés
or on board ship; they tried all kinds of games, backgammon more than
any, always increasing their wagers until they came to the point of
playing for twenty-five napoleons each game. It was an enormous sum for
poverty-stricken officers like us--more than two months' pay! At the
week's end Roger had lost every penny he possessed, and more than three
or four thousand francs which he had borrowed on all sides.
You will gather that Roger and Gabrielle had ended by sharing household
and purse in common, that is to say that Roger, who had just received a
large payment on account of his allowance, contributed ten or twenty
times more than the actress. He always considered that this sum, large
as was his share in it, belonged chiefly to his mistress, and he had
only kept back for his own expenses about fifty napoleons. He was,
however, obliged to draw from this reserve to go on playing, and
Gabrielle did not make the slightest objection.
The house-keeping money went the same way as his pocket money. Very soon
Roger was reduced to playing his last twenty-five napoleons. The game
was long and hotly contested, and it was horrible to see the intense
efforts Roger made to gain it. The moment came when Roger, who held the
dice-box, had only one more chance left to win; I think he wanted to get
six, four. The night was far advanced, and an officer who had been
looking at their play had fallen asleep in an armchair. The Dutchman was
tired out and drowsy; moreover, he had drunk too much punch. Roger alone
was wide awake and a prey to the depths of despair. He trembled as he
threw the dice. He threw them so roughly upon the board that the shock
knocked a candle over on to the floor. The Dutchman turned his head
first towards the candle, which had covered his new trousers with wax,
then he looked at the dice. They showed six and four. Roger, who was as
pale as death, received his twenty-five napoleons, and they went on
playing. Chance again favoured my unlucky friend, who, however, made
blunder upon blunder, and secured points as though he wanted to lose.
The Dutch lieutenant lost his head, and doubled and quadrupled his
stakes; he lost every time. I can see him now--a tall, fair man of a
phlegmatic nature, whose face seemed made of wax. At last he got up,
after he lost forty thousand francs, and paid it without his features
betraying the least trace of emotion.
"We will not take into account what we have played for to-night," said
Roger. "You were more than half asleep. I do not want your money."
"You are joking," replied the phlegmatic Dutchman; "I played well, but
the dice were against me. I am quite capable of winning off you always.
Good evening!"
And he went out.
We learnt next day that, made desperate by his losses, he had blown out
his brains in his room, after drinking a bowl of punch.
The forty thousand francs that Roger had won from him were spread out on
the table, and Gabrielle gazed at them with a smile of satisfaction.
"See how rich we are!" she said. "What shall we do with all this money?"
Roger did not answer her; he seemed stunned since the Dutchman's death.
"We can do a thousand delicious things," she went on. "Money gained so
easily ought to be spent as lightly. Let us set up a carriage, and snap
our fingers at the Maritime Prefect and his wife. I want some diamonds
and some Cashmere shawls. Ask for a holiday, and let us go to Paris; we
could never spend so much money here!"
She stopped to look at Roger, whose eyes were fixed on the ceiling; his
head was leant on his hand, and he had not heard a word; he seemed to be
a prey to the most miserable thoughts.
"What on earth's wrong with you, Roger?" she cried, leaning her hand on
his shoulder. "You will make me pull faces at you presently. I cannot
get a word out of you."
"I am very unhappy," he said at length, with a smothered sigh.
"Unhappy! Why, I do believe you regret having pinked that big
_mynheer_."
He raised his head and looked at her with haggard eyes.
"What does it matter?" she went on. "Why mind if he did take the thing
tragically and blew out his few brains? I don't pity losing players; and
his money is better in our hands than in his. He would have wasted it in
drinking and smoking, whilst we will do a thousand lovely things with
it, each one nicer than the last."
Roger walked about the room with his head bent on his breast, his eyes
half closed and filled with tears. "You would have been sorry for him if
you had seen him."
"Don't you know," said Gabrielle to him, "that people who do not know
how romantically sensitive you are might imagine you had been cheating?"
"And if it were the truth?" he cried in hollow tones, stopping before
her.
"Bah!" she answered, smiling; "you are not clever enough to cheat at
play."
"Yes, I cheated, Gabrielle; I cheated--wretch that I am!"
She understood from his agitation of mind that he spoke but too truly.
She sat down on a couch and remained speechless for some time.
"I would much rather you had killed ten men than cheated at cards," she
said at length in a very troubled voice.
There was a deathlike silence for half an hour. They both sat on the
same sofa, and never looked at each other once. Roger got up first and
wished her good night in a calm voice.
"Good night," she replied in cold and hard tones.
Roger has since told me that he would have killed himself that very day
if he had not been afraid that his comrades would have guessed the
reason for his suicide. He did not wish his memory to be disgraced.
Gabrielle was as gay as usual next day. She seemed, already, to have
forgotten the confidences of the previous evening. But Roger became
gloomy, capricious and morose. He avoided his friends, and scarcely left
his rooms, often passing a whole day without saying a word to his
mistress. I attributed his melancholy to an honourable, but excessive
sensitiveness, and tried several times to console him; but he put me at
a distance by affecting a supreme indifference towards his unhappy
partner. One day he even inveighed against the Dutch nation in violent
terms, and tried to make me believe that there was not a single
honourable man in Holland. All the same, he tried secretly to find out
the Dutch lieutenant's relatives; but no one could give him any
information about them.
Six weeks after that unlucky game of backgammon Roger found a note in
Gabrielle's rooms, written by an admirer who thanked her for the kind
feeling she had shown him. Gabrielle was the very personification of
untidiness, and the note in question had been left by her on her
mantelpiece. I do not know whether she was unfaithful to Roger or not,
but he believed her to be so, and his anger was frightful. His love and
a remnant of pride were the only feelings which still attached him to
life, and the strongest of these sentiments was thus suddenly destroyed.
He overwhelmed the proud actress with insults; and was so violent that I
do not know how he refrained from striking her.
"No doubt," he said to her, "this puppy gave you lots of money. It is
the only thing you love. You would give yourself to the dirtiest of our
sailors if he had anything to pay you with."
"Why not?" retorted the actress icily. "Yes, I would take payment from a
sailor; but _I should not have stolen it!_"
Roger uttered a cry of rage. He tremblingly drew his sword, and for one
second looked at Gabrielle with the eyes of a madman; then he collected
himself with a tremendous effort, threw the weapon at her feet, and
rushed from the room to prevent himself yielding to the temptation which
beset him.
That same evening I passed his lodging at a late hour, and, seeing his
light burning, I went in to borrow a book. I found him busy, writing. He
did not disturb himself, and scarcely seemed to notice my presence in
his room. I sat down by his desk and studied his features; they were so
much altered that anyone else but I would hardly have recognised him.
All at once I noticed a letter already sealed on his desk, addressed to
myself. I immediately opened it. In it Roger announced to me his
intention to put an end to himself, and gave me various instructions to
carry out. While I read this, he went on writing the whole time without
noticing me. He was bidding farewell to Gabrielle. You can judge of my
astonishment, and of what I felt bound to say to him. I was
thunderstruck by his decision.
"What! you want to kill yourself when you are so happy?"
"My friend," he said, as he hid his letter, "you know nothing about it;
you do not know me; I am a rascal; I am so guilty that a prostitute has
power to insult me; and I am so aware of my baseness that I have no
power to strike her."
He then related the story of the game of backgammon, and all that you
already know. As I listened I was as moved as he was. I did not know
what to say to him; with tears in my eyes I pressed his hands, but I
could not speak. Then the idea came to me to try and show him that he
need not reproach himself with having intentionally caused the ruin of
the Dutchman, and that, after all, he had only made him lose, by his ...
cheating ... twenty-five napoleons.
"Then," he cried, with bitter irony, "I am a petty thief and not a great
one. I, who was so ambitious, to be nothing but a scurvy little
scoundrel!"
He shrieked with laughter.