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[Illustration: 'Here Is a Very Important Letter']
Pride
One of the Seven Cardinal Sins
By Eugene Sue
Illustrated with Etchings by
Adrian Marcel
In Two Volumes
Dana Estes & Company
Publishers
Boston
_Copyright, 1899_
BY FRANCIS A. NICCOLLS & CO.
THE SEVEN CARDINAL SINS
PRIDE
CONTENTS.
Vol. I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE OLD COMMANDER 13
II. THE BRAVE DUKE 24
III. THE DINNER IN THE ARBOUR 32
IV. THE DUCHESS 41
V. THE LION OF THE BALL 54
VI. THE DUEL 66
VII. THE PRETTY MUSICIAN 73
VIII. THE UNHAPPY SECRET 79
IX. THE PRIVATE INTERVIEW 89
X. REVELATIONS 96
XI. THE PURSE OF MONEY 106
XII. A VAIN INTERVIEW 115
XIII. UNEXPECTED CONSOLATION 125
XIV. THE SOLEMN COMPACT 136
XV. A GLORIOUS DREAM 145
XVI. AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE REFUSAL 154
XVII. PRESUMPTION AND INDIGNATION 161
XVIII. A PURELY BUSINESS TRANSACTION 171
XIX. IN M. DE MORNAND'S STUDY 177
XX. ATTENTIONS TO THE HEIRESS 185
XXI. THE HUNCHBACK MEETS THE HEIRESS 195
XXII. AN ORGY OF SINCERITY 204
XXIII. AN INVOLUNTARY AVERSION 213
XXIV. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 224
XXV. MATRIMONIAL INTENTIONS DISCLOSED 232
XXVI. THE COMMANDER'S ADVICE 242
XXVII. THE ABODE OF THE DUCHESS 251
XXVIII. A SACRED MISSION 261
XXIX. HUMILIATION AND CONSOLATION 273
XXX. AN APOLOGY ACCEPTED 283
XXXI. THE PRIVATE STAIRWAY 293
XXXII. UNBURDENING THE HEART 302
XXXIII. THE THREE RIVALS 310
XXXIV. TORMENTED BY DOUBTS 321
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"'HERE IS A VERY IMPORTANT LETTER'" _Frontispiece_
"RAN HIS BLADE THROUGH HIS ANTAGONIST'S RIGHT ARM" 69
"SHE HELD OUT THE BANK-NOTE" 130
"'I WILL GO AND TRY TO FIND THAT YOUNG COXCOMB'" 278
PRIDE.
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD COMMANDER.
Elle avait un vice, l'orgueil, qui lui tenait lieu de toutes les
qualites.[A]
[A] She had one fault, pride, which, in her, answered in place of all
the virtues.
COMMANDER BERNARD, a resident of Paris, after having served under the
Empire in the Marine Corps, and under the Restoration as a lieutenant in
the navy, was retired about the year 1830, with the brevet rank of
captain.
Honourably mentioned again and again for his daring exploits in the
maritime engagements of the East Indian war, and subsequently recognised
as one of the bravest soldiers in the Russian campaign, M. Bernard, the
most unassuming and upright of men, with the kindest heart in the world,
lived quietly and frugally upon his modest pension, in a little
apartment on one of the least frequented streets of the Batignolles.
An elderly woman, named Madame Barbancon, had kept house for him ten
years or more, and, though really very fond of him, led him a rather
hard life at times, for the worthy female, who had an extremely high
temper and a very despotic disposition, was very fond of reminding her
employer that she had sacrificed an enviable social position to serve
him.
The real truth was, Madame Barbancon had long acted as assistant in the
establishment of a well-known midwife,--an experience which furnished
her with material for an inexhaustible stock of marvellous stories, her
great favourite being her adventure with a masked lady who, with her
assistance, had brought a lovely girl baby into the world, a child
Madame Barbancon had taken care of for two years, but which had been
claimed by a stranger at the expiration of that time.
Four or five years after this memorable event, Madame Barbancon decided
to resign her practice and assume the twofold functions of nurse and
housekeeper.
About this time Commander Bernard, who was suffering greatly from the
reopening of several old wounds, needed a nurse, and was so well pleased
with Madame Barbancon's skill that he asked her to enter his service.
"You will have a pretty easy time of it, Mother Barbancon," the veteran
said to her. "I am not hard to live with, and we shall get along
comfortably together."
Madame Barbancon promptly accepted the offer, elevated herself forthwith
to the position of Commander Bernard's _dame de confiance_, and slowly
but surely became a veritable servant-mistress. Indeed, seeing the
angelic patience with which the commander endured this domestic tyranny,
one would have taken the old naval officer for some meek-spirited
_rentier_, instead of one of the bravest soldiers of the Empire.
Commander Bernard was passionately fond of gardening, and lavished any
amount of care and attention upon a little arbour, constructed by his
own hands and covered with clematis, hop-vines, and honeysuckle, where
he loved to sit after his frugal dinner and smoke his pipe and think of
his campaigns and his former companions in arms. This arbour marked the
limits of the commander's landed possessions, for though very small, the
garden was divided into two parts. The portion claimed by Madame
Barbancon aspired only to be useful; the other, of which the veteran
took entire charge, was intended to please the eye only.
The precise boundaries of these two plats of ground had been, and were
still, the cause of a quiet but determined struggle between the
commander and his housekeeper.
Never did two nations, anxious to extend their frontiers, each at the
expense of the other, resort to more trickery or display greater
cleverness and perseverance in concealing and maintaining their mutual
attempts at invasion.
We must do the commander the justice to say that he fought only for his
rights, having no desire to extend, but merely to preserve his territory
intact,--territory upon which the bold and insatiable housekeeper was
ever trying to encroach by establishing her thyme, savory, parsley, and
camomile beds among her employer's roses, tulips, and peonies.
Another cause of heated controversy between the commander and Madame
Barbancon was the implacable hatred the latter felt for Napoleon, whom
she had never forgiven for the death of a young soldier,--the only lover
she had ever been able to boast of, probably. She carried this rancour
so far, in fact, as to style the Emperor that "Corsican ogre," and even
to deny him the possession of any military genius, an asseveration that
amused the veteran immensely.
Nevertheless, in spite of these diverse political sentiments, and the
ever recurring and annoying question of the boundaries of the two
gardens, Madame Barbancon was, at heart, sincerely devoted to her
employer, and attended assiduously to his every want, while the
veteran, for his part, would have sorely missed his irascible
housekeeper's care and attentions.
The spring of 1844 was fast drawing to a close. The May verdure was
shining in all its freshness; three o'clock in the afternoon had just
sounded; and though the day was warm, and the sun's rays ardent, the
pleasant scent of freshly watered earth, combined with the fragrant
odour of several small clumps of lilacs and syringas, testified to the
faithful care the commander bestowed upon his garden, for from a
frequently and laboriously filled wash-tub sunk in the earth, and
dignified with the name of reservoir, the veteran had just treated his
little domain to a refreshing shower; nor had he, in his generous
impartiality, excluded his housekeeper's vegetable beds and kitchen
herbs from the benefits of his ministrations.
The veteran, in his gardening costume of gray linen jacket and big straw
hat, was now resting from his labours in the arbour, already nearly
covered with a vigorous growth of clematis and honeysuckle. His
sunburned features were characterised by an expression of unusual
frankness and kindness, though a heavy moustache, as white as his
bristling white hair, imparted a decidedly martial air to his
physiognomy.
After wiping the sweat from his forehead with a blue checked
handkerchief and returning it to his pocket, the veteran picked up his
pipe from a table in the arbour, filled and lighted it, then,
establishing himself in an old cane-bottomed armchair, began to smoke
and enjoy the beauty of the day, the stillness of which was broken only
by the occasional twitter of a few birds and the humming of Madame
Barbancon, who was engaged in gathering some lettuce and parsley for the
supper salad. If the veteran had not been blessed with nerves of steel,
his _dolce far niente_ would have been sadly disturbed by the monotonous
refrain of the old-fashioned love song entitled "Poor Jacques," which
the worthy woman was murdering in the most atrocious manner.
"Mais a present que je suis loin de toi,
Je mange de tout sur la terre,"[B]
she sang in a voice as false as it was nasal, and the lugubrious,
heart-broken expression she gave to the words, shaking her head sadly
the while, made the whole thing extremely ludicrous.
[B] Instead of "Je manque de tout sur la terre."
For ten years Commander Bernard had endured this travesty without a
murmur, and without taking the slightest notice of the ridiculous
meaning Madame Barbancon gave to the last line of the chorus.
It is quite possible that to-day the meaning of the words struck him
more forcibly, and that a desire to devour everything upon the surface
of the earth did not seem to him to be the natural consequence of
separation from one's beloved, for, after having lent an impartial and
attentive ear a second time to his housekeeper's doleful ditty, he
exclaimed, laying his pipe on the table:
"What the devil is that nonsense you are singing, Madame Barbancon?"
"It is a very pretty love song called 'Poor Jacques,'" snapped Madame
Barbancon, straightening herself up. "Every one to his taste, you know,
monsieur, and you have a perfect right to make fun of it, if you choose,
of course. This isn't the first time you have heard me sing it, though."
"No, no, you're quite right about that!" responded the commander,
satirically.
"I learned the song," resumed the housekeeper, sighing heavily, "in
days--in days--but enough!" she exclaimed, burying her regrets in her
capacious bosom. "I sang it, I remember, to that masked lady who came--"
"I'd rather hear the song," hastily exclaimed the veteran, seeing
himself threatened with the same tiresome story. "Yes, I much prefer the
song to the story. It isn't so long, but the deuce take me if I
understand you when you say:
"'Mais a present que je suis loin de toi,
Je mange de tout sur la terre.'"
"What, monsieur, you don't understand?"
"No, I don't."
"It is very plain it seems to me, but soldiers are so unfeeling."
"But think a moment, Mother Barbancon; here is a girl who, in her
despair at poor Jacques's absence, sets about eating everything on the
face of the earth."
"Of course, monsieur, any child could understand that."
"But I do not, I must confess."
"What! you can't understand that this unfortunate young girl is so
heart-broken, after her lover's departure, that she is ready to eat
anything and everything--even poison, poor thing! Her life is of so
little value to her,--she is so wretched that she doesn't even know what
she is doing, and so eats everything that happens to be within
reach--and yet, her misery doesn't move you in the least."
The veteran listened attentively to this explanation, which did not seem
to him so entirely devoid of reason, now, after all.
"Yes, yes, I understand," he responded, nodding his head; "but it is
like all love songs--extremely far-fetched."
"'Poor Jacques' far-fetched? The idea!" cried Madame Barbancon,
indignantly.
"'Every one to his taste,' as you remarked a moment ago," answered the
veteran. "I like our old sea songs very much better. A man knows what he
is singing about when he sings them."
And in a voice as powerful as it was discordant, the old captain began
to sing:
"Pour aller a Lorient pecher des sardines,
Pour aller a Lorient pecher des harengs--"
"Monsieur!" exclaimed Madame Barbancon, interrupting her employer, with
a highly incensed and prudish air, for she knew the end of the ditty,
"you forget there are ladies present."
"Is that so?" demanded the veteran, straining his neck to see outside of
the arbour.
"There is no need to make such an effort as that, it seems to me,"
remarked the housekeeper, with great dignity. "You can see me easy
enough, I should think."
"That is true, Mother Barbancon. I always forget that you belong to the
other sex, but for all that I like my song much better than I do yours.
It was a great favourite on the _Armide_, the frigate on which I shipped
when I was only fourteen, and afterwards we sang it many a time on dry
land when I was in the Marine Corps. Oh, those were happy days! I was
young then."
"Yes, and then Bu-u-onaparte"--it is absolutely necessary to spell and
accent the word in this way, to give the reader any idea of the
disdainful and sneering manner in which Mother Barbancon uttered the
name of the great man who had been the cause of her brave soldier boy's
death--"Bu-u-onaparte was your leader."
"Yes, the Emperor, that 'Corsican ogre,' the Emperor you revile so,
wasn't far off, I admit."
"Yes, monsieur, your Emperor was an ogre, and worse than an ogre."
"What! worse than an ogre?"
"Yes, yes, laugh as much as you like, but he was. Do you know, monsieur,
that when that Corsican ogre had the Pope in his power at Fontainebleau,
do you know how grossly he insulted our Holy Father, your beast of a
Bu-u-onaparte?"
"No, Mother Barbancon, I never heard of it, upon my word of honour."
"It is of no use for you to deny it; I heard it from a young man in the
guards--"
"Who must be a pretty old customer by this time, but let us hear the
story."
"Ah, well, monsieur, your Bu-u-onaparte was mean enough, in his longing
to humiliate the Pope, to harness him to the little King of Rome's
carriage, then get into it and make the poor Holy Father drag him across
the park at Fontainebleau, in order that he might go in this fashion to
announce his divorce to the Empress Josephine--that poor, dear, good
woman!"
"What, Mother Barbancon," exclaimed the old sailor, almost choking with
laughter, "that scoundrel of an Emperor made the Pope drag him across
the park in the King of Rome's carriage to tell the Empress Josephine of
his divorce?"
"Yes, monsieur, in order to torment her on account of her religion, just
as he forced her to eat a big ham every Good Friday in the presence of
Roustan, that dreadful mameluke of his, who used to boast of being a
Mussulman and talk about his harem before the priests, just to insult
the clergy, until they blushed with shame. There is nothing to laugh at
in all this, monsieur. At one time, everybody knew and talked about it,
even--"
But, unfortunately, the housekeeper was unable to continue her tirade.
Her recriminations were just then interrupted by a vigorous peal of the
bell, and she hurried off to open the door.
A few words of explanation are necessary before the introduction of a
new character, Olivier Raymond, Commander Bernard's nephew.
The veteran's sister had married a copyist in the Interior Department,
and after several years of wedded life the clerk died, leaving a widow
and one son, then about eight years of age; after which several friends
of the deceased interested themselves in the fatherless boy's behalf,
and secured him a scholarship in a fairly good school.
The widow, left entirely without means, and having no right to a
pension, endeavoured to support herself by her needle, but after a few
years of pinched and laborious existence she left her son an orphan. His
uncle Bernard, his sole relative, was then a lieutenant in command of a
schooner attached to one of our naval stations in the Southern Pacific.
Upon his return to France, the captain found that his nephew's last year
in college was nearing an end. Olivier, though his college course had
been marked by no particularly brilliant triumphs, had at least
thoroughly profited by his gratuitous education, but unfortunately, this
education being, as is often the case, far from practical, his future on
leaving college was by no means assured.
After having reflected long and seriously upon his nephew's precarious
position, and being unable to give him any pecuniary assistance by
reason of the smallness of his own pay, Commander Bernard said to
Olivier:
"My poor boy, there is but one thing for you to do. You are strong,
brave, and intelligent. You have received an education which renders you
superior to most of the poor young men who enlist in the army. The
conscription is almost sure to catch you next year. Get ahead of it.
Enlist. In that case, you will at least be able to select the branch of
the service you will enter. There is fighting in Africa, and in five or
six years you are likely to be made an officer. This will give you some
chance of a career. Still, if the idea of a military life is distasteful
to you, my dear boy, we will try to think of something else. We can get
along on my pay, as a retired officer, until something else offers. Now
think the matter over."
Olivier was not long in making up his mind. Three months afterward he
enlisted, on condition that he should be assigned to the African
Chasseurs. A year later he was a quartermaster's sergeant; one year
afterward a quartermaster. Attacked with one of those stubborn fevers,
which a return to a European climate alone can cure, Olivier,
unfortunately, was obliged to leave Africa just as he had every reason
to expect an officer's epaulettes. After his recovery he was assigned to
a regiment of hussars, and, after eighteen months' service in that, he
had recently come to spend a six months' furlough in Paris, with his
uncle.
The old sailor's flat consisted of a tiny kitchen, into which Madame
Barbancon's room opened, of a sort of hall-way, which served as a
dining-room, and another considerably larger room, in which the
commander and his nephew slept. Olivier, knowing how little his uncle
had to live on, would not consent to remain idle. He wrote a remarkably
good hand, and this, together with the knowledge of accounts acquired
while acting as quartermaster, enabled him to secure several sets of
books to keep among the petty merchants in the neighbourhood; so,
instead of being a burden upon the veteran, the young officer, with
Madame Barbancon's connivance, secretly added his mite to the
forty-eight francs' pay the commander received each month, besides
treating his uncle now and then to agreeable surprises, which both
delighted and annoyed the worthy man, knowing, as he did, the assiduous
labour Olivier imposed upon himself to earn this money.
Accustomed from childhood to privations of every kind, first by his
experience as a charity pupil, and subsequently by the vicissitudes of
army life in Africa, kind-hearted, genial, enthusiastic, and brave,
Olivier had but one fault, that is, if an excessive delicacy in all
money matters, great and small, can be called a fault. As a common
soldier, he even carried his scruples so far that he would refuse the
slightest invitation from his comrades, if he was not allowed to pay
his own score. This extreme sensitiveness having been at first ridiculed
and considered mere affectation, two duels, in which Olivier quite
covered himself with glory, caused this peculiarity in the character of
the young soldier to be both accepted and respected.
Olivier, cheerful, obliging, quick-witted, and delighted with
everything, enlivened his uncle's modest home immensely by his gay
spirits. In his rare moments of leisure the young man cultivated his
taste by reading the great poets, or else he spaded and watered and
gardened with his uncle, after which they smoked their pipes, and talked
of foreign lands and of war. At other times, calling into play the
culinary knowledge acquired in African camps, Olivier initiated Madame
Barbancon into the mysteries of _brochettes de mouton_ and other viands,
the cooking lessons being enlivened with jokes and all sorts of teasing
remarks about Bu-u-onaparte, though the housekeeper scolded and snubbed
Olivier none the less because she loved him with her whole heart. In
short, the young man's presence had cheered the monotonous existence of
the veteran and his housekeeper so much that their hearts quite failed
them when they recollected that two months of Olivier's leave had
already expired.