Ver.07/27/01*END*
This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
FROMONT AND RISLER
By ALPHONSE DAUDET
With a Preface by LECONTE DE LISLE, of the French Academy
BOOK 1.
ALPHONSE DAUDET
Nominally Daudet, with the Goncourts and Zola, formed a trio representing
Naturalism in fiction. He adopted the watchwords of that school, and by
private friendship, no less than by a common profession of faith, was one
of them. But the students of the future, while recognizing an obvious
affinity between the other two, may be puzzled to find Daudet's name
conjoined with theirs.
Decidedly, Daudet belonged to the Realistic School. But, above all, he
was an impressionist. All that can be observed--the individual picture,
scene, character--Daudet will render with wonderful accuracy, and all his
novels, especially those written after 1870, show an increasing firmness
of touch, limpidity of style, and wise simplicity in the use of the
sources of pathetic emotion, such as befit the cautious Naturalist.
Daudet wrote stories, but he had to be listened to. Feverish as his
method of writing was--true to his Southern character he took endless
pains to write well, revising every manuscript three times over from
beginning to end. He wrote from the very midst of the human comedy; and
it is from this that he seems at times to have caught the bodily warmth
and the taste of the tears and the very ring of the laughter of men and
women. In the earlier novels, perhaps, the transitions from episode to
episode or from scene to scene are often abrupt, suggesting the manner of
the Goncourts. But to Zola he forms an instructive contrast, of the same
school, but not of the same family. Zola is methodical, Daudet
spontaneous. Zola works with documents, Daudet from the living fact.
Zola is objective, Daudet with equal scope and fearlessness shows more
personal feeling and hence more delicacy. And in style also Zola is
vast, architectural; Daudet slight, rapid, subtle, lively, suggestive.
And finally, in their philosophy of life, Zola may inspire a hate of vice
and wrong, but Daudet wins a love for what is good and true.
Alphonse Daudet was born in Nimes, Provence, May 13, 1840. His father
had been a well-to-do silk manufacturer, but, while Alphonse was still a
child, lost his property. Poverty compelled the son to seek the wretched
post of usher (pion) in a school at Alais. In November, 1857, he settled
in Paris and joined his almost equally penniless brother Ernest. The
autobiography, 'Le Petit Chose' (1868), gives graphic details about this
period. His first years of literary life were those of an industrious
Bohemian, with poetry for consolation and newspaper work for bread. He
had secured a secretaryship with the Duc de Morny, President of the Corps
Legislatif, and had won recognition for his short stories in the
'Figaro', when failing health compelled him to go to Algiers. Returning,
he married toward that period a lady (Julia Allard, born 1847), whose
literary talent comprehended, supplemented, and aided his own. After the
death of the Duc de Morny (1865) he consecrated himself entirely to
literature and published 'Lettres de mon Moulin' (1868), which also made
his name favorably known. He now turned from fiction to the drama, and
it was not until after 1870 that he became fully conscious of his
vocation as a novelist, perhaps through the trials of the siege of Paris
and the humiliation of his country, which deepened his nature without
souring it. Daudet's genial satire, 'Tartarin de Tarascon', appeared in
1872; but with the Parisian romance 'Fromont jeune et Risler aine',
crowned by the Academy (1874), he suddenly advanced into the foremost
rank of French novelists; it was his first great success, or, as he puts
it, "the dawn of his popularity."
How numberless editions of this book were printed, and rights of
translations sought from other countries, Daudet has told us with natural
pride. The book must be read to be appreciated. "Risler, a self-made,
honest man, raises himself socially into a society against the
corruptness of which he has no defence and from which he escapes only by
suicide. Sidonie Chebe is a peculiarly French type, a vain and heartless
woman; Delobelle, the actor, a delectable figure; the domestic simplicity
of Desiree Delobelle and her mother quite refreshing."
Success followed now after success. 'Jack (1876); Le Nabab (1877); Les
Rois en exil (1879); Numa Roumestan (1882); L'Evangeliste (1883); Sapho
(1884); Tartarin sur des Alces (1886); L'Immortel (1888); Port Tarascon
(1890); Rose et Ninette (1892); La petite Parvisse (1895); and Soutien de
Famille (1899)'; such is the long list of the great life-artist. In Le
Nabab we find obvious traces of Daudet's visits to Algiers and Corsica-
Mora is the Duc de Morny. Sapho is the most concentrated of his novels,
with never a divergence, never a break, in its development. And of the
theme--legitimate marriage contra common-law--what need be said except
that he handled it in a manner most acceptable to the aesthetic and least
offensive to the moral sense?
L'Immortel is a satire springing from personal reasons; L'Evangeliste and
Rose et Ninette--the latter on the divorce problem--may be classed as
clever novels; but had Daudet never written more than 'Fromont et
Risler', 'Tartarin sur les Alces', and 'Port Tarascon', these would keep
him in lasting remembrance.
We must not omit to mention also many 'contes' and his 'Trente ans de
Paris (A travers ma vie et mes livres), Souvenirs d'un Homme de lettres
(1888), and Notes sur la Vie (1899)'.
Alphonse Daudet died in Paris, December 16, 1897
LECONTE DE LISLE
de l'Academie Francaise.
FROMONT AND RISLER
CHAPTER I
A WEDDING-PARTY AT THE CAFE VEFOUR
"Madame Chebe!"
"My boy--"
"I am so happy!"
This was the twentieth time that day that the good Risler had said that
he was happy, and always with the same emotional and contented manner,
in the same low, deep voice-the voice that is held in check by emotion
and does not speak too loud for fear of suddenly breaking into violent
tears.
Not for the world would Risler have wept at that moment--imagine a newly-
made husband giving way to tears in the midst of the wedding-festival!
And yet he had a strong inclination to do so. His happiness stifled him,
held him by the throat, prevented the words from coming forth. All that
he could do was to murmur from time to time, with a slight trembling of
the lips, "I am happy; I am happy!"
Indeed, he had reason to be happy.
Since early morning the poor man had fancied that he was being whirled
along in one of those magnificent dreams from which one fears lest he may
awake suddenly with blinded eyes; but it seemed to him as if this dream
would never end. It had begun at five o'clock in the morning, and at ten
o'clock at night, exactly ten o'clock by Vefour's clock, he was still
dreaming.
How many things had happened during that day, and how vividly he
remembered the most trivial details.
He saw himself, at daybreak, striding up and down his bachelor quarters,
delight mingled with impatience, clean-shaven, his coat on, and two pairs
of white gloves in his pocket. Then there were the wedding-coaches, and
in the foremost one--the one with white horses, white reins, and a yellow
damask lining--the bride, in her finery, floated by like a cloud. Then
the procession into the church, two by two, the white veil in advance,
ethereal, and dazzling to behold. The organ, the verger, the cure's
sermon, the tapers casting their light upon jewels and spring gowns, and
the throng of people in the sacristy, the tiny white cloud swallowed up,
surrounded, embraced, while the bridegroom distributed hand-shakes among
all the leading tradesmen of Paris, who had assembled to do him honor.
And the grand crash from the organ at the close, made more solemn by the
fact that the church door was thrown wide open, so that the whole street
took part in the family ceremony--the music passing through the vestibule
at the same time with the procession--the exclamations of the crowd, and
a burnisher in an ample lute-string apron remarking in a loud voice, "The
groom isn't handsome, but the bride's as pretty as a picture." That is
the kind of thing that makes you proud when you happen to be the
bridegroom.
And then the breakfast at the factory, in a workroom adorned with
hangings and flowers; the drive in the Bois--a concession to the wishes
of his mother-in-law, Madame Chebe, who, being the petty Parisian
bourgeoise that she was, would not have deemed her daughter legally
married without a drive around the lake and a visit to the Cascade.
Then the return for dinner, as the lamps were being lighted along the
boulevard, where people turned to look after the wedding-party, a typical
well-to-do bourgeois wedding-party, as it drove up to the grand entrance
at Vefour's with all the style the livery horses could command.
Risler had reached that point in his dream.
And now the worthy man, dazed with fatigue and well-being, glanced
vaguely about that huge table of twenty-four covers, curved in the shape
of a horseshoe at the ends, and surrounded by smiling, familiar faces,
wherein he seemed to see his happiness reflected in every eye. The
dinner was drawing near its close. The wave of private conversation
flowed around the table. Faces were turned toward one another, black
sleeves stole behind waists adorned with bunches of asclepias, a childish
face laughed over a fruit ice, and the dessert at the level of the
guests' lips encompassed the cloth with animation, bright colors, and
light.
Ah, yes! Risler was very happy.
Except his brother Frantz, everybody he loved was there. First of all,
sitting opposite him, was Sidonie--yesterday little Sidonie, to-day his
wife. For the ceremony of dinner she had laid aside her veil; she had
emerged from her cloud. Now, above the smooth, white silk gown, appeared
a pretty face of a less lustrous and softer white, and the crown of hair-
beneath that other crown so carefully bestowed--would have told you of a
tendency to rebel against life, of little feathers fluttering for an
opportunity to fly away. But husbands do not see such things as those.
Next to Sidonie and Frantz, the person whom Risler loved best in the
world was Madame Georges Fromont, whom he called "Madame Chorche," the
wife of his partner and the daughter of the late Fromont, his former
employer and his god. He had placed her beside him, and in his manner of
speaking to her one could read affection and deference. She was a very
young woman, of about the same age as Sidonie, but of a more regular,
quiet and placid type of beauty. She talked little, being out of her
element in that conglomerate assemblage; but she tried to appear affable.
On Risler's other side sat Madame Chebe, the bride's mother, radiant and
gorgeous in her green satin gown, which gleamed like a shield. Ever
since the morning the good woman's every thought had been as brilliant as
that robe of emblematic hue. At every moment she said to herself: "My
daughter is marrying Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, of Rue des Vieilles
Haudriettes!" For, in her mind, it was not Risler alone whom her
daughter took for her husband, but the whole sign of the establishment,
illustrious in the commercial annals of Paris; and whenever she mentally
announced that glorious event, Madame Chebe sat more erect than ever,
stretching the silk of the bodice until it almost cracked.
What a contrast to the attitude of Monsieur Chebe, who was seated at a
short distance. In different households, as a general rule, the same
causes produce altogether different results. That little man, with the
high forehead of a visionary, as inflated and hollow as a ball, was as
fierce in appearance as his wife was radiant. That was nothing unusual,
by the way, for Monsieur Chebe was in a frenzy the whole year long.
On this particular evening, however, he did not wear his customary woe-
begone, lack-lustre expression, nor the full-skirted coat, with the
pockets sticking out behind, filled to repletion with samples of oil,
wine, truffles, or vinegar, according as he happened to be dealing in one
or the other of those articles. His black coat, new and magnificent,
made a fitting pendant to the green gown; but unfortunately his thoughts
were of the color of his coat. Why had they not seated him beside the
bride, as was his right? Why had they given his seat to young Fromont?
And there was old Gardinois, the Fromonts' grandfather, what business had
he by Sidonie's side? Ah! that was how it was to be! Everything for
the Fromonts and nothing for the Chebes! And yet people are amazed that
there are such things as revolutions!
Luckily the little man had by his side, to vent his anger upon, his
friend Delobelle, an old, retired actor, who listened to him with his
serene and majestic holiday countenance.
Strangely enough, the bride herself had something of that same
expression. On that pretty and youthful face, which happiness enlivened
without making glad, appeared indications of some secret preoccupation;
and, at times, the corners of her lips quivered with a smile, as if she
were talking to herself.
With that same little smile she replied to the somewhat pronounced
pleasantries of Grandfather Gardinois, who sat by her side.
"This Sidonie, on my word!" said the good man, with a laugh. "When I
think that not two months ago she was talking about going into a convent.
We all know what sort of convents such minxes as she go to! As the
saying is in our province: The Convent of Saint Joseph, four shoes under
the bed!"
And everybody at the table laughed heartily at the rustic jests of the
old Berrichon peasant, whose colossal fortune filled the place of
manliness, of education, of kindness of heart, but not of wit; for he had
plenty of that, the rascal--more than all his bourgeois fellow-guests
together. Among the very rare persons who inspired a sympathetic feeling
in his breast, little Chebe, whom he had known as an urchin, appealed
particularly to him; and she, for her part, having become rich too
recently not to venerate wealth, talked to her right-hand neighbor with a
very perceptible air of respect and coquetry.
With her left-hand-neighbor, on the contrary, Georges Fromont, her
husband's partner, she exhibited the utmost reserve. Their conversation
was restricted to the ordinary courtesies of the table; indeed there was
a sort of affectation of indifference between them.
Suddenly there was that little commotion among the guests which indicates
that they are about to rise: the rustling of silk, the moving of chairs,
the last words of conversations, the completion of a laugh, and in that
half-silence Madame Chebe, who had become communicative, observed in a
very loud tone to a provincial cousin, who was gazing in an ecstasy of
admiration at the newly made bride's reserved and tranquil demeanor, as
she stood with her arm in Monsieur Gardinois's:
"You see that child, cousin--well, no one has ever been able to find out
what her thoughts were."
Thereupon the whole party rose and repaired to the grand salon.
While the guests invited for the ball were arriving and mingling with the
dinner-guests, while the orchestra was tuning up, while the cavaliers,
eyeglass in position, strutted before the impatient, white-gowned
damsels, the bridegroom, awed by so great a throng, had taken refuge with
his friend Planus--Sigismond Planus, cashier of the house of Fromont for
thirty years--in that little gallery decorated with flowers and hung with
a paper representing shrubbery and clambering vines, which forms a sort
of background of artificial verdure to Vefour's gilded salons.
"Sigismond, old friend--I am very happy."
And Sigismond too was happy; but Risler did not give him time to say so.
Now that he was no longer in dread of weeping before his guests, all the
joy in his heart overflowed.
"Just think of it, my friend!--It's so extraordinary that a young girl
like Sidonie would consent to marry me. For you know I'm not handsome.
I didn't need to have that impudent creature tell me so this morning to
know it. And then I'm forty-two--and she such a dear little thing!
There were so many others she might have chosen, among the youngest and
the richest, to say nothing of my poor Frantz, who loved her so. But,
no, she preferred her old Risler. And it came about so strangely. For a
long time I noticed that she was sad, greatly changed. I felt sure there
was some disappointment in love at the bottom of it. Her mother and I
looked about, and we cudgelled our brains to find out what it could be.
One morning Madame Chebe came into my room weeping, and said, 'You are
the man she loves, my dear friend!'--And I was the man--I was the man!
Bless my soul! Whoever would have suspected such a thing? And to think
that in the same year I had those two great pieces of good fortune--
a partnership in the house of Fromont and married to Sidonie--Oh!"
At that moment, to the strains of a giddy, languishing waltz, a couple
whirled into the small salon. They were Risler's bride and his partner,
Georges Fromont. Equally young and attractive, they were talking in
undertones, confining their words within the narrow circle of the waltz.
"You lie!" said Sidonie, slightly pale, but with the same little smile.
And the other, paler than she, replied:
"I do not lie. It was my uncle who insisted upon this marriage. He was
dying--you had gone away. I dared not say no."
Risler, at a distance, gazed at them in admiration.
"How pretty she is! How well they dance!"
But, when they spied him, the dancers separated, and Sidonie walked
quickly to him.
"What! You here? What are you doing? They are looking everywhere for
you. Why aren't you in there?"
As she spoke she retied his cravat with a pretty, impatient gesture.
That enchanted Risler, who smiled at Sigismond from the corner of his
eye, too overjoyed at feeling the touch of that little gloved hand on his
neck, to notice that she was trembling to the ends of her slender
fingers.
"Give me your arm," she said to him, and they returned together to the
salons. The white bridal gown with its long train made the badly cut,
awkwardly worn black coat appear even more uncouth; but a coat can not be
retied like a cravat; she must needs take it as it was. As they passed
along, returning the salutations of all the guests who were so eager to
smile upon them, Sidonie had a momentary thrill of pride, of satisfied
vanity. Unhappily it did not last. In a corner of the room sat a young
and attractive woman whom nobody invited to dance, but who looked on at
the dances with a placid eye, illumined by all the joy of a first
maternity. As soon as he saw her, Risler walked straight to the corner
where she sat and compelled Sidonie to sit beside her. Needless to say
that it was Madame "Chorche." To whom else would he have spoken with
such affectionate respect? In what other hand than hers could he have
placed his little Sidonie's, saying: "You will love her dearly, won't
you? You are so good. She needs your advice, your knowledge of the
world."
"Why, my dear Risler," Madame Georges replied, "Sidonie and I are old
friends. We have reason to be fond of each other still."
And her calm, straightforward glance strove unsuccessfully to meet that
of her old friend.
With his ignorance of women, and his habit of treating Sidonie as a
child, Risler continued in the same tone:
"Take her for your model, little one. There are not two people in the
world like Madame Chorche. She has her poor father's heart. A true
Fromont!"
Sidonie, with her eyes cast down, bowed without replying, while an
imperceptible shudder ran from the tip of her satin shoe to the topmost
bit of orange-blossom in her crown. But honest Risler saw nothing.
The excitement, the dancing, the music, the flowers, the lights made
him drunk, made him mad. He believed that every one breathed the same
atmosphere of bliss beyond compare which enveloped him. He had no
perception of the rivalries, the petty hatreds that met and passed one
another above all those bejewelled foreheads.
He did not notice Delobelle, standing with his elbow on the mantel, one
hand in the armhole of his waistcoat and his hat upon his hip, weary of
his eternal attitudinizing, while the hours slipped by and no one thought
of utilizing his talents. He did not notice M. Chebe, who was prowling
darkly between the two doors, more incensed than ever against the
Fromonts. Oh! those Fromonts!--How large a place they filled at that
wedding! They were all there with their wives, their children, their
friends, their friends' friends. One would have said that one of
themselves was being married. Who had a word to say of the Rislers or
the Chebes? Why, he--he, the father, had not even been presented!--
And the little man's rage was redoubled by the attitude of Madame Chebe,
smiling maternally upon one and all in her scarab-hued dress.
Furthermore, there were at this, as at almost all wedding-parties, two
distinct currents which came together but without mingling. One of the
two soon gave place to the other. The Fromonts, who irritated Monsieur
Chebe so much and who formed the aristocracy of the ball, the president
of the Chamber of Commerce, the syndic of the solicitors, a famous
chocolate-manufacturer and member of the Corps Legislatif, and the old
millionaire Gardinois, all retired shortly after midnight. Georges
Fromont and his wife entered their carriage behind them. Only the Risler
and Chebe party remained, and the festivity at once changed its aspect,
becoming more uproarious.
The illustrious Delobelle, disgusted to see that no one called upon him
for anything, decided to call upon himself for something, and began in a
voice as resonant as a gong the monologue from Ruy Blas: "Good appetite,
Messieurs!" while the guests thronged to the buffet, spread with
chocolate and glasses of punch. Inexpensive little costumes were
displayed upon the benches, overjoyed to produce their due effect at
last; and here and there divers young shop-clerks, consumed with conceit,
amused themselves by venturing upon a quadrille.
The bride had long wished to take her leave. At last she disappeared
with Risler and Madame Chebe. As for Monsieur Chebe, who had recovered
all his importance, it was impossible to induce him to go. Some one must
be there to do the honors, deuce take it! And I assure you that the
little man assumed the responsibility! He was flushed, lively,
frolicsome, noisy, almost seditious. On the floor below he could be
heard talking politics with Vefour's headwaiter, and making most
audacious statements.
Through the deserted streets the wedding-carriage, the tired coachman
holding the white reins somewhat loosely, rolled heavily toward the
Marais.
Madame Chebe talked continuously, enumerating all the splendors of that
memorable day, rhapsodizing especially over the dinner, the commonplace
menu of which had been to her the highest display of magnificence.
Sidonie mused in the darkness of the carriage, and Risler, sitting
opposite her, even though he no longer said, "I am very happy," continued
to think it with all his heart. Once he tried to take possession of a
little white hand that rested against the closed window, but it was
hastily withdrawn, and he sat there without moving, lost in mute
admiration.
They drove through the Halles and the Rue de Rambuteau, thronged with
kitchen-gardeners' wagons; and, near the end of the Rue des Francs-
Bourgeois, they turned the corner of the Archives into the Rue de Braque.
There they stopped first, and Madame Chebe alighted at her door, which
was too narrow for the magnificent green silk frock, so that it vanished
in the hall with rustlings of revolt and with all its folds muttering.
A few minutes later, a tall, massive portal on the Rue des Vieilles-
Haudriettes, bearing on the escutcheon that betrayed the former family
mansion, beneath half-effaced armorial bearings, a sign in blue letters,
Wall Papers, was thrown wide open to allow the wedding-carriage to pass
through.
Thereupon the bride, hitherto motionless and like one asleep, seemed to
wake suddenly, and if all the lights in the vast buildings, workshops or
storehouses, which surrounded the courtyard, had not been extinguished,
Risler might have seen that pretty, enigmatical face suddenly lighted by
a smile of triumph. The wheels revolved less noisily on the fine gravel
of a garden, and soon stopped before the stoop of a small house of two
floors. It was there that the young Fromonts lived, and Risler and his
wife were to take up their abode on the floor above. The house had an
aristocratic air. Flourishing commerce avenged itself therein for the
dismal street and the out-of-the-way quarter. There was a carpet on the
stairway leading to their apartment, and on all sides shone the gleaming
whiteness of marble, the reflection of mirrors and of polished copper.
While Risler was parading his delight through all the rooms of the new
apartment, Sidonie remained alone in her bedroom. By the light of the
little blue lamp hanging from the ceiling, she glanced first of all at
the mirror, which gave back her reflection from head to foot, at all her
luxurious surroundings, so unfamiliar to her; then, instead of going to
bed, she opened the window and stood leaning against the sill, motionless
as a statue.
The night was clear and warm. She could see distinctly the whole
factory, its innumerable unshaded windows, its glistening panes, its tall
chimney losing itself in the depths of the sky, and nearer at hand the
lovely little garden against the ancient wall of the former mansion. All
about were gloomy, miserable roofs and squalid streets. Suddenly she
started. Yonder, in the darkest, the ugliest of all those attics
crowding so closely together, leaning against one another, as if
overweighted with misery, a fifth-floor window stood wide open, showing
only darkness within. She recognized it at once. It was the window of
the landing on which her parents lived.
The window on the landing!
How many things the mere name recalled! How many hours, how many days
she had passed there, leaning on that damp sill, without rail or balcony,
looking toward the factory. At that moment she fancied that she could
see up yonder little Chebe's ragged person, and in the frame made by that
poor window, her whole child life, her deplorable youth as a Parisian
street arab, passed before her eyes.