Planus stepped toward the door.

Risler detained him.

“I forbid you to stir! I ask your pardon, Madame, but we have more

important matters than this to consider. Madame Risler concerns us no

longer. We have to save the honor of the house of Fromont, which alone

is at stake, which alone fills my thoughts at this moment.”

Sigismond put out his hand.

“You are a noble man, Risler. Forgive me for having suspected you.”

Risler pretended not to hear him.

“A hundred thousand francs to pay, you say? How much is there left in

the strong-box?”

He sat bravely down behind the gratin, looking over the books

of account, the certificates of stock in the funds, opening the

jewel-cases, estimating with Planus, whose father had been a jeweller,

the value of all those diamonds, which he had once so admired on his

wife, having no suspicion of their real value.

Meanwhile Claire, trembling from head to foot, looked out through the

window at the little garden, white with snow, where Sidonie’s footsteps

were already effaced by the fast-falling flakes, as if to bear witness

that that precipitate departure was without hope of return.

Up-stairs they were still dancing. The mistress of the house was

supposed to be busy with the preparations for supper, while she was

flying, bare-headed, forcing back sobs and shrieks of rage.

Where was she going? She had started off like a mad woman, running

across the garden and the courtyard of the factory, and under the dark

arches, where the cruel, freezing wind blew in eddying circles. Pere

Achille did not recognize her; he had seen so many shadows wrapped in

white pass his lodge that night.

The young woman’s first thought was to join the tenor Cazaboni, whom

at the last she had not dared to invite to her ball; but he lived at

Montmartre, and that was very far away for her to go, in that garb; and

then, would he be at home? Her parents would take her in, doubtless; but

she could already hear Madame Chebe’s lamentations and the little man’s

sermon under three heads. Thereupon she thought of Delobelle, her old

Delobelle. In the downfall of all her splendors she remembered the man

who had first initiated her into fashionable life, who had given her

lessons in dancing and deportment when she was a little girl, laughed at

her pretty ways, and taught her to look upon herself as beautiful before

any one had ever told her that she was so. Something told her that that

fallen star would take her part against all others. She entered one of

the carriages standing at the gate and ordered the driver to take her to

the actor’s lodgings on the Boulevard Beaumarchais.

For some time past Mamma Delobelle had been making straw hats for

export-a dismal trade if ever there was one, which brought in barely two

francs fifty for twelve hours’ work.

And Delobelle continued to grow fat in the same degree that his “sainted

wife” grew thin. At the very moment when some one knocked hurriedly at

his door he had just discovered a fragrant soup ‘au fromage’, which

had been kept hot in the ashes on the hearth. The actor, who had been

witnessing at Beaumarchais some dark-browed melodrama drenched with gore

even to the illustrated headlines of its poster, was startled by that

knock at such an advanced hour.

“Who is there?” he asked in some alarm.

“It is I, Sidonie. Open the door quickly.”

She entered the room, shivering all over, and, throwing aside her wrap,

went close to the stove where the fire was almost extinct. She began to

talk at once, to pour out the wrath that had been stifling her for an

hour, and while she was describing the scene in the factory, lowering

her voice because of Madame Delobelle, who was asleep close by, the

magnificence of her costume in that poor, bare, fifth floor, the

dazzling whiteness of her disordered finery amid the heaps of coarse

hats and the wisps of straw strewn about the room, all combined to

produce the effect of a veritable drama, of one of those terrible

upheavals of life when rank, feelings, fortunes are suddenly jumbled

together.

“Oh! I never shall return home. It is all over. Free--I am free!”

“But who could have betrayed you to your husband?” asked the actor.

“It was Frantz! I am sure it was Frantz. He wouldn’t have believed it

from anybody else. Only last evening a letter came from Egypt. Oh!

how he treated me before that woman! To force me to kneel! But I’ll be

revenged. Luckily I took something to revenge myself with before I came

away.”

And the smile of former days played about the corners of her pale lips.

The old strolling player listened to it all with deep interest.

Notwithstanding his compassion for that poor devil of a Risler, and

for Sidonie herself, for that matter, who seemed to him, in theatrical

parlance, “a beautiful culprit,” he could not help viewing the affair

from a purely scenic standpoint, and finally cried out, carried away by

his hobby:

“What a first-class situation for a fifth act!”

She did not bear him. Absorbed by some evil thought, which made her

smile in anticipation, she stretched out to the fire her dainty shoes,

saturated with snow, and her openwork stockings.

“Well, what do you propose to do now?” Delobelle asked after a pause.

“Stay here till daylight and get a little rest. Then I will see.”

“I have no bed to offer you, my poor girl. Mamma Delobelle has gone to

bed.”

“Don’t you worry about me, my dear Delobelle. I’ll sleep in that

armchair. I won’t be in your way, I tell you!”

The actor heaved a sigh.

“Ah! yes, that armchair. It was our poor Zizi’s. She sat up many a night

in it, when work was pressing. Ah, me! those who leave this world are

much the happiest.”

He had always at hand such selfish, comforting maxims. He had no sooner

uttered that one than he discovered with dismay that his soup would soon

be stone-cold. Sidonie noticed his movement.

“Why, you were just eating your supper, weren’t you? Pray go on.”

“‘Dame’! yes, what would you have? It’s part of the trade, of the hard

existence we fellows have. For you see, my girl, I stand firm. I haven’t

given up. I never will give up.”

What still remained of Desiree’s soul in that wretched household in

which she had lived twenty years must have shuddered at that terrible

declaration. He never would give up!

“No matter what people may say,” continued Delobelle, “it’s the noblest

profession in the world. You are free; you depend upon nobody. Devoted

to the service of glory and the public! Ah! I know what I would do in

your place. As if you were born to live with all those bourgeois--the

devil! What you need is the artistic life, the fever of success, the

unexpected, intense emotion.”

As he spoke he took his seat, tucked his napkin in his neck, and helped

himself to a great plateful of soup.

“To say nothing of the fact that your triumphs as a pretty woman would

in no wise interfere with your triumph as an actress. By the way, do you

know, you must take a few lessons in elocution. With your voice, your

intelligence, your charms, you would have a magnificent prospect.”

Then he added abruptly, as if to initiate her into the joys of the

dramatic art:

“But it occurs to me that perhaps you have not supped! Excitement makes

one hungry; sit there, and take this soup. I am sure that you haven’t

eaten soup ‘au fromage’ for a long while.”

He turned the closet topsy-turvy to find her a spoon and a napkin; and

she took her seat opposite him, assisting him and laughing a little at

the difficulties attending her entertainment. She was less pale already,

and there was a pretty sparkle in her eyes, composed of the tears of a

moment before and the present gayety.

The strolling actress! All her happiness in life was lost forever:

honor, family, wealth. She was driven from her house, stripped,

dishonored. She had undergone all possible humiliations and disasters.

That did not prevent her supping with a wonderful appetite and joyously

holding her own under Delobelle’s jocose remarks concerning her vocation

and her future triumphs. She felt light-hearted and happy, fairly

embarked for the land of Bohemia, her true country. What more would

happen to her? Of how many ups and downs was her new, unforeseen, and

whimsical existence to consist? She thought about that as she fell

asleep in Desiree’s great easy-chair; but she thought of her revenge,

too--her cherished revenge which she held in her hand, all ready for

use, and so unerring, so fierce!

CHAPTER XXII. THE NEW EMPLOYEE OF THE HOUSE OF FROMONT

It was broad daylight when Fromont Jeune awoke. All night long, between

the drama that was being enacted below him and the festivity in joyous

progress above, he slept with clenched fists, the deep sleep of complete

prostration like that of a condemned man on the eve of his execution or

of a defeated General on the night following his disaster; a sleep from

which one would wish never to awake, and in which, in the absence of all

sensation, one has a foretaste of death.

The bright light streaming through his curtains, made more dazzling

by the deep snow with which the garden and the surrounding roofs were

covered, recalled him to the consciousness of things as they were. He

felt a shock throughout his whole being, and, even before his mind

began to work, that vague impression of melancholy which misfortunes,

momentarily forgotten, leave in their place. All the familiar noises of

the factory, the dull throbbing of the machinery, were in full activity.

So the world still existed! and by slow degrees the idea of his own

responsibility awoke in him.

“To-day is the day,” he said to himself, with an involuntary movement

toward the dark side of the room, as if he longed to bury himself anew

in his long sleep.

The factory bell rang, then other bells in the neighborhood, then the

Angelus.

“Noon! Already! How I have slept!”

He felt some little remorse and a great sense of relief at the thought

that the drama of settling-day had passed off without him. What had they

done downstairs? Why did they not call him?

He rose, drew the curtains aside, and saw Risler and Sigismond talking

together in the garden. And it was so long since they had spoken to each

other! What in heaven’s name had happened? When he was ready to go down

he found Claire at the door of his room.

“You must not go out,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Stay here. I will explain it to you.”

“But what’s the matter? Did any one come from the Bank?”

“Yes, they came--the notes are paid.”

“Paid?”

“Risler obtained the money. He has been rushing about with Planus since

early morning. It seems that his wife had superb jewels. The diamond

necklace alone brought twenty thousand francs. He has also sold their

house at Asnieres with all it contained; but as time was required to

record the deed, Planus and his sister advanced the money.”

She turned away from him as she spoke. He, on his side, hung his head to

avoid her glance.

“Risler is an honorable man,” she continued, “and when he learned from

whom his wife received all her magnificent things--”

“What!” exclaimed Georges in dismay. “He knows?”

“All,” Claire replied, lowering her voice.

The wretched man turned pale, stammered feebly:

“Why, then--you?”

“Oh! I knew it all before Risler. Remember, that when I came home last

night, I told you I had heard very cruel things down at Savigny, and

that I would have given ten years of my life not to have taken that

journey.”

“Claire!”

Moved by a mighty outburst of affection, he stepped toward his wife; but

her face was so cold, so sad, so resolute, her despair was so plainly

written in the stern indifference of her whole bearing, that he dared

not take her in his arms as he longed to do, but simply murmured under

his breath:

“Forgive!--forgive!”

“You must think me strangely calm,” said the brave woman; “but I shed

all my tears yesterday. You may have thought that I was weeping over our

ruin; you were mistaken. While one is young and strong as we are, such

cowardly conduct is not permissible. We are armed against want and can

fight it face to face. No, I was weeping for our departed happiness,

for you, for the madness that led you to throw away your only, your true

friend.”

She was lovely, lovelier than Sidonie had ever been, as she spoke thus,

enveloped by a pure light which seemed to fall upon her from a great

height, like the radiance of a fathomless, cloudless sky; whereas the

other’s irregular features had always seemed to owe their brilliancy,

their saucy, insolent charm to the false glamour of the footlights

in some cheap theatre. The touch of statuesque immobility formerly

noticeable in Claire’s face was vivified by anxiety, by doubt, by all

the torture of passion; and like those gold ingots which have their full

value only when the Mint has placed its stamp upon them, those beautiful

features stamped with the effigy of sorrow had acquired since the

preceding day an ineffaceable expression which perfected their beauty.

Georges gazed at her in admiration. She seemed to him more alive, more

womanly, and worthy of adoration because of their separation and all

the obstacles that he now knew to stand between them. Remorse, despair,

shame entered his heart simultaneously with this new love, and he would

have fallen on his knees before her.

“No, no, do not kneel,” said Claire; “if you knew of what you remind me,

if you knew what a lying face, distorted with hatred, I saw at my feet

last night!”

“Ah! but I am not lying,” replied Georges with a shudder. “Claire, I

implore you, in the name of our child--”

At that moment some one knocked at the door.

“Rise, I beg of you! You see that life has claims upon us,” she said in

a low voice and with a bitter smile; then she asked what was wanted.

Monsieur Risler had sent for Monsieur to come down to the office.

“Very well,” she said; “say that he will come.”

Georges approached the door, but she stopped him.

“No, let me go. He must not see you yet.”

“But--”

“I wish you to stay here. You have no idea of the indignation and wrath

of that poor man, whom you have deceived. If you had seen him last

night, crushing his wife’s wrists!”

As she said it she looked him in the face with a curiosity most cruel to

herself; but Georges did not wince, and replied simply:

“My life belongs to him.”

“It belongs to me, too; and I do not wish you to go down. There has been

scandal enough in my father’s house. Remember that the whole factory is

aware of what is going on. Every one is watching us, spying upon us. It

required all the authority of the foremen to keep the men busy to-day,

to compel them to keep their inquisitive looks on their work.”

“But I shall seem to be hiding.”

“And suppose it were so! That is just like a man. They do not recoil

from the worst crimes: betraying a wife, betraying a friend; but the

thought that they may be accused of being afraid touches them more

keenly than anything. Moreover, listen to what I say. Sidonie has gone;

she has gone forever; and if you leave this house I shall think that you

have gone to join her.”

“Very well, I will stay,” said Georges. “I will do whatever you wish.”

Claire descended into Planus’ office.

To see Risler striding to and fro, with his hands behind his back, as

calm as usual, no one would ever have suspected all that had taken place

in his life since the night before. As for Sigismond, he was fairly

beaming, for he saw nothing in it all beyond the fact that the notes had

been paid at maturity and that the honor of the firm was safe.

When Madame Fromont appeared, Risler smiled sadly and shook his head.

“I thought that you would prefer to come down in his place; but you are

not the one with whom I have to deal. It is absolutely necessary that I

should see Georges and talk with him. We have paid the notes that

fell due this morning; the crisis has passed; but we must come to an

understanding about many matters.”

“Risler, my friend, I beg you to wait a little longer.”

“Why, Madame Chorche, there’s not a minute to lose. Oh! I suspect that

you fear I may give way to an outbreak of anger. Have no fear--let him

have no fear. You know what I told you, that the honor of the house

of Fromont is to be assured before my own. I have endangered it by my

fault. First of all, I must repair the evil I have done or allowed to be

done.”

“Your conduct toward us is worthy of all admiration, my good Risler; I

know it well.”

“Oh! Madame, if you could see him! he’s a saint,” said poor Sigismond,

who, not daring to speak to his friend, was determined at all events to

express his remorse.

“But aren’t you afraid?” continued Claire. “Human endurance has its

limits. It may be that in presence of the man who has injured you so--”

Risler took her hands, gazed into her eyes with grave admiration, and

said:

“You dear creature, who speak of nothing but the injury done to me! Do

you not know that I hate him as bitterly for his falseness to you? But

nothing of that sort has any existence for me at this moment. You see

in me simply a business man who wishes to have an understanding with

his partner for the good of the firm. So let him come down without the

slightest fear, and if you dread any outbreak on my part, stay here with

us. I shall need only to look at my old master’s daughter to be reminded

of my promise and my duty.”

“I trust you, my friend,” said Claire; and she went up to bring her

husband.

The first minute of the interview was terrible. Georges was deeply

moved, humiliated, pale as death. He would have preferred a hundred

times over to be looking into the barrel of that man’s pistol at

twenty paces, awaiting his fire, instead of appearing before him as an

unpunished culprit and being compelled to confine his feelings within

the commonplace limits of a business conversation.

Risler pretended not to look at him, and continued to pace the floor as

he talked:

“Our house is passing through a terrible crisis. We have averted the

disaster for to-day; but this is not the last of our obligations. That

cursed invention has kept my mind away from the business for a long

while. Luckily, I am free now, and able to attend to it. But you must

give your attention to it as well. The workmen and clerks have followed

the example of their employers to some extent. Indeed, they have become

extremely negligent and indifferent. This morning, for the first time in

a year, they began work at the proper time. I expect that you will

make it your business to change all that. As for me, I shall work at my

drawings again. Our patterns are old-fashioned. We must have new ones

for the new machines. I have great confidence in our presses. The

experiments have succeeded beyond my hopes. We unquestionably have

in them a means of building up our business. I didn’t tell you sooner

because I wished to surprise you; but we have no more surprises for each

other, have we, Georges?”

There was such a stinging note of irony in his voice that Claire

shuddered, fearing an outbreak; but he continued, in his natural tone.

“Yes, I think I can promise that in six months the Risler Press will

begin to show magnificent results. But those six months will be very

hard to live through. We must limit ourselves, cut down our expenses,

save in every way that we can. We have five draughtsmen now; hereafter

we will have but two. I will undertake to make the absence of the others

of no consequence by working at night myself. Furthermore, beginning

with this month, I abandon my interest in the firm. I will take my

salary as foreman as I took it before, and nothing more.”

Fromont attempted to speak, but a gesture from his wife restrained him,

and Risler continued:

“I am no longer your partner, Georges. I am once more the clerk that I

never should have ceased to be. From this day our partnership articles

are cancelled. I insist upon it, you understand; I insist upon it. We

will remain in that relation to each other until the house is out of

difficulty and I can--But what I shall do then concerns me alone. This

is what I wanted to say to you, Georges. You must give your attention

to the factory diligently; you must show yourself, make it felt that you

are master now, and I believe there will turn out to be, among all our

misfortunes, some that can be retrieved.”

During the silence that followed, they heard the sound of wheels in the

garden, and two great furniture vans stopped at the door.

“I beg your pardon,” said Risler, “but I must leave you a moment. Those

are the vans from the public auction rooms; they have come to take away

my furniture from upstairs.”

“What! you are going to sell your furniture too?” asked Madame Fromont.

“Certainly--to the last piece. I am simply giving it back to the firm.

It belongs to it.”

“But that is impossible,” said Georges. “I can not allow that.”

Risler turned upon him indignantly.

“What’s that? What is it that you can’t allow?”

Claire checked him with an imploring gesture.

“True--true!” he muttered; and he hurried from the room to escape the

sudden temptation to give vent to all that was in his heart.

The second floor was deserted. The servants, who had been paid and

dismissed in the morning, had abandoned the apartments to the disorder

of the day following a ball; and they wore the aspect peculiar to places

where a drama has been enacted, and which are left in suspense, as it

were, between the events that have happened and those that are still

to happen. The open doors, the rugs lying in heaps in the corners, the

salvers laden with glasses, the preparations for the supper, the table

still set and untouched, the dust from the dancing on all the furniture,

its odor mingled with the fumes of punch, of withered flowers, of

rice-powder--all these details attracted Risler’s notice as he entered.

In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from ‘Orphee

aux Enfers’ on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that

scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one

of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights

of watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at

sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in

every part.

The men began to remove the furniture. Risler watched them at work

with an indifferent air, as if he were in a stranger’s house. That

magnificence which had once made him so happy and proud inspired in him

now an insurmountable disgust. But, when he entered his wife’s bedroom,

he was conscious of a vague emotion.

It was a large room, hung with blue satin under white lace. A veritable

cocotte’s nest. There were torn and rumpled tulle ruffles lying about,

bows, and artificial flowers. The wax candles around the mirror had

burned down to the end and cracked the candlesticks; and the bed, with

its lace flounces and valances, its great curtains raised and drawn

back, untouched in the general confusion, seemed like the bed of a

corpse, a state bed on which no one would ever sleep again.

Risler’s first feeling upon entering the room was one of mad

indignation, a longing to fall upon the things before him, to tear and

rend and shatter everything. Nothing, you see, resembles a woman so much

as her bedroom. Even when she is absent, her image still smiles in

the mirrors that have reflected it. A little something of her, of her

favorite perfume, remains in everything she has touched. Her attitudes

are reproduced in the cushions of her couch, and one can follow her

goings and comings between the mirror and the toilette table in the

pattern of the carpet. The one thing above all others in that room that

recalled Sidonie was an ‘etagere’ covered with childish toys, petty,

trivial knickknacks, microscopic fans, dolls’ tea-sets, gilded shoes,

little shepherds and shepherdesses facing one another, exchanging cold,

gleaming, porcelain glances. That ‘etagere’ was Sidonie’s very soul,

and her thoughts, always commonplace, petty, vain, and empty, resembled

those gewgaws. Yes, in very truth, if Risler, while he held her in his

grasp last night, had in his frenzy broken that fragile little head, a

whole world of ‘etagere’ ornaments would have come from it in place of a

brain.

The poor man was thinking sadly of all these things amid the ringing of

hammers and the heavy footsteps of the furniture-movers, when he heard

an interloping, authoritative step behind him, and Monsieur Chebe

appeared, little Monsieur Chebe, flushed and breathless, with flames

darting from his eyes. He assumed, as always, a very high tone with his

son-in-law.

“What does this mean? What is this I hear? Ah! so you’re moving, are

you?”

“I am not moving, Monsieur Chebe--I am selling out.”

The little man gave a leap like a scalded fish.

“You are selling out? What are you selling, pray?”

“I am selling everything,” said Risler in a hollow voice, without even

looking at him.

“Come, come, son-in-law, be reasonable. God knows I don’t say that

Sidonie’s conduct--But, for my part, I know nothing about it. I never

wanted to know anything. Only I must remind you of your dignity. People

wash their dirty linen in private, deuce take it! They don’t make

spectacles of themselves as you’ve been doing ever since morning. Just

see everybody at the workshop windows; and on the porch, too! Why,

you’re the talk of the quarter, my dear fellow.”

“So much the better. The dishonor was public, the reparation must be

public, too.”

This apparent coolness, this indifference to all his observations,

exasperated Monsieur Chebe. He suddenly changed his tactics, and

adopted, in addressing his son-in-law, the serious, peremptory tone

which one uses with children or lunatics.

“Well, I say that you haven’t any right to take anything away from

here. I remonstrate formally, with all my strength as a man, with all

my authority as a father. Do you suppose I am going to let you drive

my child into the street. No, indeed! Oh! no, indeed! Enough of such

nonsense as that! Nothing more shall go out of these rooms.”

And Monsieur Chebe, having closed the door, planted himself in front of

it with a heroic gesture. Deuce take it! his own interest was at stake

in the matter. The fact was that when his child was once in the gutter

he ran great risk of not having a feather bed to sleep on himself. He

was superb in that attitude of an indignant father, but he did not keep

it long. Two hands, two vises, seized his wrists, and he found himself

in the middle of the room, leaving the doorway clear for the workmen.

“Chebe, my boy, just listen,” said Risler, leaning over him. “I am

at the end of my forbearance. Since this morning I have been making

superhuman efforts to restrain myself, but it would take very little now

to make my anger burst all bonds, and woe to the man on whom it falls! I

am quite capable of killing some one. Come! Be off at once!--”

There was such an intonation in his son-in-law’s voice, and the way that

son-in-law shook him as he spoke was so eloquent, that Monsieur Chebe

was fully convinced. He even stammered an apology. Certainly Risler had

good reason for acting as he had. All honorable people would be on his

side. And he backed toward the door as he spoke. When he reached it, he

inquired timidly if Madame Chebe’s little allowance would be continued.

“Yes,” was Risler’s reply, “but never go beyond it, for my position here

is not what it was. I am no longer a partner in the house.”

Monsieur Chebe stared at him in amazement, and assumed the idiotic

expression which led many people to believe that the accident that had

happened to him--exactly like that of the Duc d’Orleans, you know--was

not a fable of his own invention; but he dared not make the slightest

observation. Surely some one had changed his son-in-law. Was this really

Risler, this tiger-cat, who bristled up at the slightest word and talked

of nothing less than killing people?

He took to his heels, recovered his self-possession at the foot of the

stairs, and walked across the courtyard with the air of a conqueror.

When all the rooms were cleared and empty, Risler walked through them

for the last time, then took the key and went down to Planus’s office to

hand it to Madame Georges.

“You can let the apartment,” he said, “it will be so much added to the

income of the factory.”

“But you, my friend?”

“Oh! I don’t need much. An iron bed up under the eaves. That’s all a

clerk needs. For, I repeat, I am nothing but a clerk from this time on.

A useful clerk, by the way, faithful and courageous, of whom you will

have no occasion to complain, I promise you.”

Georges, who was going over the books with Planus, was so affected

at hearing the poor fellow talk in that strain that he left his seat

precipitately. He was suffocated by his sobs. Claire, too, was deeply

moved; she went to the new clerk of the house of Fromont and said to

him:

“Risler, I thank you in my father’s name.”

At that moment Pere Achille appeared with the mail.

Risler took the pile of letters, opened them tranquilly one by one, and

passed them over to Sigismond.

“Here’s an order for Lyon. Why wasn’t it answered at Saint-Etienne?”

He plunged with all his energy into these details, and he brought to

them a keen intelligence, due to the constant straining of the mind

toward peace and forgetfulness.

Suddenly, among those huge envelopes, stamped with the names of business

houses, the paper of which and the manner of folding suggested the

office and hasty despatch, he discovered one smaller one, carefully

sealed, and hidden so cunningly between the others that at first he

did not notice it. He recognized instantly that long, fine, firm

writing,--To Monsieur Risler--Personal. It was Sidonie’s writing!

When he saw it he felt the same sensation he had felt in the bedroom

upstairs.

All his love, all the hot wrath of the betrayed husband poured back

into his heart with the frantic force that makes assassins. What was she

writing to him? What lie had she invented now? He was about to open the

letter; then he paused. He realized that, if he should read that,

it would be all over with his courage; so he leaned over to the old

cashier, and said in an undertone:

“Sigismond, old friend, will you do me a favor?”

“I should think so!” said the worthy man enthusiastically. He was so

delighted to hear his friend speak to him in the kindly voice of the old

days.

“Here’s a letter someone has written me which I don’t wish to read now.

I am sure it would interfere with my thinking and living. You must keep

it for me, and this with it.”

He took from his pocket a little package carefully tied, and handed it

to him through the grating.

“That is all I have left of the past, all I have left of that woman.

I have determined not to see her, nor anything that reminds me of her,

until my task here is concluded, and concluded satisfactorily,--I need

all my intelligence, you understand. You will pay the Chebes’ allowance.

If she herself should ask for anything, you will give her what she

needs. But you will never mention my name. And you will keep this

package safe for me until I ask you for it.”

Sigismond locked the letter and the package in a secret drawer of

his desk with other valuable papers. Risler returned at once to his

correspondence; but all the time he had before his eyes the slender

English letters traced by a little hand which he had so often and so

ardently pressed to his heart.

CHAPTER XXIII. CAFE CHANTANT

What a rare, what a conscientious clerk did that new employe of the

house of Fromont prove himself!

Every day his lamp was the first to appear at, and the last to disappear

from, the windows of the factory. A little room had been arranged for

him under the eaves, exactly like the one he had formerly occupied with

Frantz, a veritable Trappist’s cell, furnished with an iron cot and a

white wooden table, that stood under his brother’s portrait. He led the

same busy, regular, quiet life as in those old days.

He worked constantly, and had his meals brought from the same little

creamery. But, alas! the disappearance forever of youth and hope

deprived those memories of all their charm. Luckily he still had Frantz

and Madame “Chorche,” the only two human beings of whom he could think

without a feeling of sadness. Madame “Chorche” was always at hand,

always trying to minister to his comfort, to console him; and Frantz

wrote to him often, without mentioning Sidonie, by the way. Risler

supposed that some one had told Frantz of the disaster that had befallen

him, and he too avoided all allusion to the subject in his letters.

“Oh! when I can send for him to come home!” That was his dream, his sole

ambition: to restore the factory and recall his brother.

Meanwhile the days succeeded one another, always the same to him in the

restless activity of business and the heartrending loneliness of his

grief. Every morning he walked through the workshops, where the profound

respect he inspired and his stern, silent countenance had reestablished

the orderly conditions that had been temporarily disturbed. In the

beginning there had been much gossip, and various explanations of

Sidonie’s departure had been made. Some said that she had eloped with

a lover, others that Risler had turned her out. The one fact that upset

all conjectures was the attitude of the two partners toward each other,

apparently as unconstrained as before. Sometimes, however, when they

were talking together in the office, with no one by, Risler would

suddenly start convulsively, as a vision of the crime passed before his

eyes.

Then he would feel a mad longing to spring upon the villain, seize him

by the throat, strangle him without mercy; but the thought of

Madame “Chorche” was always there to restrain him. Should he be less

courageous, less master of himself than that young wife? Neither Claire,

nor Fromont, nor anybody else suspected what was in his mind. They could

barely detect a severity, an inflexibility in his conduct, which were

not habitual with him. Risler awed the workmen now; and those of them

upon whom his white hair, blanched in one night, his drawn, prematurely

old features did not impose respect, quailed before his strange glance-a

glance from eyes of a bluish-black like the color of a gun-barrel.

Whereas he had always been very kind and affable with the workmen, he

had become pitilessly severe in regard to the slightest infraction of

the rules. It seemed as if he were taking vengeance upon himself for

some indulgence in the past, blind, culpable indulgence, for which he

blamed himself.

Surely he was a marvellous employe, was this new officer in the house of

Fromont.

Thanks to him, the factory bell, notwithstanding the quavering of its

old, cracked voice, had very soon resumed its authority; and the man who

guided the whole establishment denied himself the slightest recreation.

Sober as an apprentice, he left three-fourths of his salary with Planus

for the Chebes’ allowance, but he never asked any questions about them.

Punctually on the last day of the month the little man appeared to

collect his little income, stiff and formal in his dealings with

Sigismond, as became an annuitant on duty. Madame Chebe had tried to

obtain an interview with her son-in-law, whom she pitied and loved; but

the mere appearance of her palm-leaf shawl on the steps put Sidonie’s

husband to flight.

In truth, the courage with which he armed himself was more apparent than

real. The memory of his wife never left him. What had become of her?

What was she doing? He was almost angry with Planus for never mentioning

her. That letter, above all things, that letter which he had had the

courage not to open, disturbed him. He thought of it continually. Ah!

had he dared, how he would have liked to ask Sigismond for it!

One day the temptation was too strong. He was alone in the office. The

old cashier had gone out to luncheon, leaving the key in his drawer, a

most extraordinary thing. Risler could not resist. He opened the

drawer, moved the papers, and searched for his letter. It was not there.

Sigismond must have put it away even more carefully, perhaps with a

foreboding of what actually happened. In his heart Risler was not sorry

for his disappointment; for he well knew that, had he found the letter,

it would have been the end of the resigned and busy life which he

imposed upon himself with so much difficulty.

Through the week it was all very well. Life was endurable, absorbed by

the innumerable duties of the factory, and so fatiguing that, when night

came, Risler fell on his bed like a lifeless mass. But Sunday was long

and sad. The silence of the deserted yards and workshops opened a far

wider field to his thoughts. He tried to busy himself, but he missed

the encouragement of the others’ work. He alone was busy in that great,

empty factory whose very breath was arrested. The locked doors, the

closed blinds, the hoarse voice of Pere Achille playing with his dog

in the deserted courtyard, all spoke of solitude. And the whole

neighborhood also produced the same effect. In the streets, which seemed

wider because of their emptiness, and where the passers-by were few

and silent, the bells ringing for vespers had a melancholy sound,

and sometimes an echo of the din of Paris, rumbling wheels, a belated

hand-organ, the click of a toy-peddler’s clappers, broke the silence, as

if to make it even more noticeable.

Risler would try to invent new combinations of flowers and leaves, and,

while he handled his pencil, his thoughts, not finding sufficient food

there, would escape him, would fly back to his past happiness, to his

hopeless misfortunes, would suffer martyrdom, and then, on returning,

would ask the poor somnambulist, still seated at his table: “What have

you done in my absence?” Alas! he had done nothing.

Oh! the long, heartbreaking, cruel Sundays! Consider that, mingled with

all these perplexities in his mind, was the superstitious reverence

of the common people for holy days, for the twenty-four hours of rest,

wherein one recovers strength and courage. If he had gone out, the sight

of a workingman with his wife and child would have made him weep, but

his monastic seclusion gave him other forms of suffering, the despair

of recluses, their terrible outbreaks of rebellion when the god to whom

they have consecrated themselves does not respond to their sacrifices.

Now, Risler’s god was work, and as he no longer found comfort or

serenity therein, he no longer believed in it, but cursed it.

Often in those hours of mental struggle the door of the draughting-room

would open gently and Claire Fromont would appear. The poor man’s

loneliness throughout those long Sunday afternoons filled her with

compassion, and she would come with her little girl to keep him

company, knowing by experience how contagious is the sweet joyousness of

children. The little one, who could now walk alone, would slip from

her mother’s arms to run to her friend. Risler would hear the little,

hurrying steps. He would feel the light breath behind him, and instantly

he would be conscious of a soothing, rejuvenating influence. She would

throw her plump little arms around his neck with affectionate warmth,

with her artless, causeless laugh, and a kiss from that little mouth

which never had lied. Claire Fromont, standing in the doorway, would

smile as she looked at them.

“Risler, my friend,” she would say, “you must come down into the garden

a while,--you work too hard. You will be ill.”

“No, no, Madame,--on the contrary, work is what saves me. It keeps me

from thinking.”

Then, after a long pause, she would continue:

“Come, my dear Risler, you must try to forget.”

Risler would shake his head.

“Forget? Is that possible? There are some things beyond one’s strength.

A man may forgive, but he never forgets.”

The child almost always succeeded in dragging him down to the garden.

He must play ball, or in the sand, with her; but her playfellow’s

awkwardness and lack of enthusiasm soon impressed the little girl. Then

she would become very sedate, contenting herself with walking gravely

between the hedges of box, with her hand in her friend’s. After a moment

Risler would entirely forget that she was there; but, although he did

not realize it, the warmth of that little hand in his had a magnetic,

softening effect upon his diseased mind.

A man may forgive, but he never forgets!

Poor Claire herself knew something about it; for she had never

forgotten, notwithstanding her great courage and the conception she

had formed of her duty. To her, as to Risler; her surroundings were a

constant reminder of her sufferings. The objects amid which she lived

pitilessly reopened the wound that was ready to close. The staircase,

the garden, the courtyard, all those dumb witnesses of her husband’s

sin, assumed on certain days an implacable expression. Even the careful

precaution her husband took to spare her painful reminders, the way in

which he called attention to the fact that he no longer went out in the

evening, and took pains to tell her where he had been during the

day, served only to remind her the more forcibly of his wrong-doing.

Sometimes she longed to ask him to forbear,--to say to him: “Do not

protest too much.” Faith was shattered within her, and the horrible

agony of the priest who doubts, and seeks at the same time to remain

faithful to his vows, betrayed itself in her bitter smile, her cold,

uncomplaining gentleness.

Georges was wofully unhappy. He loved his wife now. The nobility of her

character had conquered him. There was admiration in his love, and--why

not say it?--Claire’s sorrow filled the place of the coquetry which was

contrary to her nature, the lack of which had always been a defect in

her husband’s eyes. He was one of that strange type of men who love to

make conquests. Sidonie, capricious and cold as she was, responded to

that whim of his heart. After parting from her with a tender farewell,

he found her indifferent and forgetful the next day, and that continual

need of wooing her back to him took the place of genuine passion.

Serenity in love bored him as a voyage without storms wearies a sailor.

On this occasion he had been very near shipwreck with his wife, and the

danger had not passed even yet. He knew that Claire was alienated

from him and devoted entirely to the child, the only link between them

thenceforth. Their separation made her seem lovelier, more desirable,

and he exercised all his powers of fascination to recapture her. He

knew how hard a task it would be, and that he had no ordinary, frivolous

nature to deal with. But he did not despair. Sometimes a vague gleam in

the depths of the mild and apparently impassive glance with which she

watched his efforts, bade him hope.

As for Sidonie, he no longer thought of her. Let no one be astonished at

that abrupt mental rupture. Those two superficial beings had nothing to

attach them securely to each other. Georges was incapable of receiving

lasting impressions unless they were continually renewed; Sidonie, for

her part, had no power to inspire any noble or durable sentiment. It was

one of those intrigues between a cocotte and a coxcomb, compounded of

vanity and of wounded self-love, which inspire neither devotion nor

constancy, but tragic adventures, duels, suicides which are rarely

fatal, and which end in a radical cure. Perhaps, had he seen her again,

he might have had a relapse of his disease; but the impetus of flight

had carried Sidonie away so swiftly and so far that her return was

impossible. At all events, it was a relief for him to be able to live

without lying; and the new life he was leading, a life of hard work

and self-denial, with the goal of success in the distance, was not

distasteful to him. Luckily; for the courage and determination of both

partners were none too much to put the house on its feet once more.

The poor house of Fromont had sprung leaks on all sides. So Pere Planus

still had wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing

and the ominous vision of the little blue man. But, by strict economy,

they always succeeded in paying.

Soon four Risler Presses were definitively set up and used in the work

of the factory. People began to take a deep interest in them and in

the wall-paper trade. Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the

industry, were much disturbed concerning that marvellous “rotary and

dodecagonal” machine. One fine day the Prochassons appeared, and offered

three hundred thousand francs simply for an interest in the patent

rights.

“What shall we do?” Fromont Jeune asked Risler Aine.

The latter shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“Decide for yourself. It doesn’t concern me. I am only an employe.”

The words, spoken coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont’s

bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity of a situation which he

was always on the point of forgetting.

But when he was alone with his dear Madame “Chorche,” Risler advised her

not to accept the Prochassons’ offer.

“Wait,--don’t be in a hurry. Later you will have a better offer.”

He spoke only of them in that affair in which his own share was so

glorious. She felt that he was preparing to cut himself adrift from

their future.

Meanwhile orders came pouring in and accumulated on their hands. The

quality of the paper, the reduced price because of the improved methods

of manufacture, made competition impossible. There was no doubt that a

colossal fortune was in store for the house of Fromont. The factory had

resumed its former flourishing aspect and its loud, business-like hum.

Intensely alive were all the great buildings and the hundreds of workmen

who filled them. Pere Planus never raised his nose from his desk; one

could see him from the little garden, leaning over his great ledgers,

jotting down in magnificently molded figures the profits of the Risler

press.

Risler still worked as before, without change or rest. The return of

prosperity brought no alteration in his secluded habits, and from the

highest window on the topmost floor of the house he listened to the

ceaseless roar of his machines. He was no less gloomy, no less silent.

One day, however, it became known at the factory that the press, a

specimen of which had been sent to the great Exposition at Manchester,

had received the gold medal, whereby its success was definitely

established. Madame Georges called Risler into the garden at the

luncheon hour, wishing to be the first to tell him the good news.

For the moment a proud smile relaxed his prematurely old, gloomy

features. His inventor’s vanity, his pride in his renown, above all, the

idea of repairing thus magnificently the wrong done to the family by his

wife, gave him a moment of true happiness. He pressed Claire’s hands and

murmured, as in the old days:

“I am very happy! I am very happy!”

But what a difference in tone! He said it without enthusiasm,

hopelessly, with the satisfaction of a task accomplished, and nothing

more.

The bell rang for the workmen to return, and Risler went calmly upstairs

to resume his work as on other days.

In a moment he came down again. In spite of all, that news had excited

him more than he cared to show. He wandered about the garden, prowled

around the counting-room, smiling sadly at Pere Planus through the

window.

“What ails him?” the old cashier wondered. “What does he want of me?”

At last, when night came and it was time to close the office, Risler

summoned courage to go and speak to him.

“Planus, my old friend, I should like--”

He hesitated a moment.

“I should like you to give me the--letter, you know, the little letter

and the package.”

Sigismond stared at him in amazement. In his innocence, he had imagined

that Risler never thought of Sidonie, that he had entirely forgotten

her.

“What--you want--?”

“Ah! I have well earned it; I can think of myself a little now. I have

thought enough of others.”

“You are right,” said Planus. “Well, this is what we’ll do. The letter

and package are at my house at Montrouge. If you choose, we will go

and dine together at the Palais-Royal, as in the good old times. I will

stand treat. We’ll water your medal with a bottle of wine; something

choice! Then we’ll go to the house together. You can get your trinkets,

and if it’s too late for you to go home, Mademoiselle Planus, my sister,

shall make up a bed for you, and you shall pass the night with us. We

are very comfortable there--it’s in the country. To-morrow morning at

seven o’clock we’ll come back to the factory by the first omnibus. Come,

old fellow, give me this pleasure. If you don’t, I shall think you still

bear your old Sigismond a grudge.”

Risler accepted. He cared little about celebrating the award of his

medal, but he desired to gain a few hours before opening the little

letter he had at last earned the right to read.

He must dress. That was quite a serious matter, for he had lived in a

workman’s jacket during the past six months. And what an event in the

factory! Madame Fromont was informed at once.

“Madame, Madame! Monsieur Risler is going out!”

Claire looked at him from her window, and that tall form, bowed by

sorrow, leaning on Sigismond’s arm, aroused in her a profound, unusual

emotion which she remembered ever after.

In the street people bowed to Risler with great interest. Even their

greetings warmed his heart. He was so much in need of kindness! But the

noise of vehicles made him a little dizzy.

“My head is spinning,” he said to Planus:

“Lean hard on me, old fellow-don’t be afraid.”

And honest Planus drew himself up, escorting his friend with the

artless, unconventional pride of a peasant of the South bearing aloft

his village saint.

At last they arrived at the Palais-Royal.

The garden was full of people. They had come to hear the music, and were

trying to find seats amid clouds of dust and the scraping of chairs. The

two friends hurried into the restaurant to avoid all that turmoil. They

established themselves in one of the large salons on the first floor,

whence they could see the green trees, the promenaders, and the water

spurting from the fountain between the two melancholy flower-gardens.

To Sigismond it was the ideal of luxury, that restaurant, with gilding

everywhere, around the mirrors, in the chandelier and even on the

figured wallpaper. The white napkin, the roll, the menu of a table

d’hote dinner filled his soul with joy. “We are comfortable here, aren’t

we?” he said to Risler.

And he exclaimed at each of the courses of that banquet at two francs

fifty, and insisted on filling his friend’s plate.

“Eat that--it’s good.”

The other, notwithstanding his desire to do honor to the fete, seemed

preoccupied and gazed out-of-doors.

“Do you remember, Sigismond?” he said, after a pause.

The old cashier, engrossed in his memories of long ago, of Risler’s

first employment at the factory, replied:

“I should think I do remember--listen! The first time we dined together

at the Palais-Royal was in February, ‘forty-six, the year we put in the

planches-plates at the factory.”

Risler shook his head.

“Oh! no--I mean three years ago. It was in that room just opposite that

we dined on that memorable evening.”

And he pointed to the great windows of the salon of Cafe Vefour,

gleaming in the rays of the setting sun like the chandeliers at a

wedding feast.

“Ah! yes, true,” murmured Sigismond, abashed. What an unlucky idea of

his to bring his friend to a place that recalled such painful things!

Risler, not wishing to cast a gloom upon their banquet, abruptly raised

his glass.

“Come! here’s your health, my old comrade.”

He tried to change the subject. But a moment later he himself led the

conversation back to it again, and asked Sigismond, in an undertone, as

if he were ashamed:

“Have you seen her?”

“Your wife? No, never.”

“She hasn’t written again?”

“No--never again.”

“But you must have heard of her. What has she been doing these six

months? Does she live with her parents?”

“No.”

Risler turned pale.

He hoped that Sidonie would have returned to her mother, that she would

have worked, as he had worked, to forget and atone. He had often thought

that he would arrange his life according to what he should learn of

her when he should have the right to speak of her; and in one of those

far-off visions of the future, which have the vagueness of a dream, he

sometimes fancied himself living in exile with the Chebes in an unknown

land, where nothing would remind him of his past shame. It was not a

definite plan, to be sure; but the thought lived in the depths of his

mind like a hope, caused by the need that all human creatures feel of

finding their lost happiness.

“Is she in Paris?” he asked, after a few moments’ reflection.

“No. She went away three months ago. No one knows where she has gone.”

Sigismond did not add that she had gone with her Cazaboni, whose name

she now bore, that they were making the circuit of the provincial cities

together, that her mother was in despair, never saw her, and heard

of her only through Delobelle. Sigismond did not deem it his duty to

mention all that, and after his last words he held his peace.

Risler, for his part, dared ask no further questions.

While they sat there, facing each other, both embarrassed by the long

silence, the military band began to play under the trees in the garden.

They played one of those Italian operatic overtures which seem to have

been written expressly for public open-air resorts; the swiftly-flowing

notes, as they rise into the air, blend with the call of the swallows

and the silvery plash of the fountain. The blaring brass brings out in

bold relief the mild warmth of the closing hours of those summer days,

so long and enervating in Paris; it seems as if one could hear nothing

else. The distant rumbling of wheels, the cries of children playing, the

footsteps of the promenaders are wafted away in those resonant, gushing,

refreshing waves of melody, as useful to the people of Paris as the

daily watering of their streets. On all sides the faded flowers, the

trees white with dust, the faces made pale and wan by the heat, all the

sorrows, all the miseries of a great city, sitting dreamily, with bowed

head, on the benches in the garden, feel its comforting, refreshing

influence. The air is stirred, renewed by those strains that traverse

it, filling it with harmony.

Poor Risler felt as if the tension upon all his nerves were relaxed.

“A little music does one good,” he said, with glistening eyes. “My heart

is heavy, old fellow,” he added, in a lower tone; “if you knew--”

They sat without speaking, their elbows resting on the window-sill,

while their coffee was served.

Then the music ceased, the garden became deserted. The light that had

loitered in the corners crept upward to the roofs, cast its last rays

upon the highest windowpanes, followed by the birds, the swallows, which

saluted the close of day with a farewell chirp from the gutter where

they were huddled together.

“Now, where shall we go?” said Planus, as they left the restaurant.

“Wherever you wish.”

On the first floor of a building on the Rue Montpensier, close at hand,

was a cafe chantant, where many people entered.

“Suppose we go in,” said Planus, desirous of banishing his friend’s

melancholy at any cost, “the beer is excellent.”

Risler assented to the suggestion; he had not tasted beer for six

months.

It was a former restaurant transformed into a concert-hall. There were

three large rooms, separated by gilded pillars, the partitions having

been removed; the decoration was in the Moorish style, bright red, pale

blue, with little crescents and turbans for ornament.

Although it was still early, the place was full; and even before

entering one had a feeling of suffocation, simply from seeing the crowds

of people sitting around the tables, and at the farther end, half-hidden

by the rows of pillars, a group of white-robed women on a raised

platform, in the heat and glare of the gas.

Our two friends had much difficulty in finding seats, and had to be

content with a place behind a pillar whence they could see only half of

the platform, then occupied by a superb person in black coat and yellow

gloves, curled and waxed and oiled, who was singing in a vibrating

voice--

Mes beaux lions aux crins dores,

Du sang des troupeaux alteres,

Halte la!--Je fais sentinello!

[My proud lions with golden manes

Who thirst for the blood of my flocks,

Stand back!--I am on guard!]

The audience--small tradesmen of the quarter with their wives and

daughters-seemed highly enthusiastic: especially the women. He

represented so perfectly the ideal of the shopkeeper imagination, that

magnificent shepherd of the desert, who addressed lions with such an

air of authority and tended his flocks in full evening dress. And

so, despite their bourgeois bearing, their modest costumes and their

expressionless shop-girl smiles, all those women, made up their little

mouths to be caught by the hook of sentiment, and cast languishing

glances upon the singer. It was truly comical to see that glance at the

platform suddenly change and become contemptuous and fierce as it fell

upon the husband, the poor husband tranquilly drinking a glass of beer

opposite his wife: “You would never be capable of doing sentry duty

in the very teeth of lions, and in a black coat too, and with yellow

gloves!”

And the husband’s eye seemed to reply:

“Ah! ‘dame’, yes, he’s quite a dashing buck, that fellow.”

Being decidedly indifferent to heroism of that stamp, Risler and

Sigismond were drinking their beer without paying much attention to the

music, when, at the end of the song, amid the applause and cries and

uproar that followed it, Pere Planus uttered an exclamation:

“Why, that is odd; one would say--but no, I’m not mistaken. It is he,

it’s Delobelle!”

It was, in fact, the illustrious actor, whom he had discovered in the

front row near the platform. His gray head was turned partly away from

them. He was leaning carelessly against a pillar, hat in hand, in his

grand make-up as leading man: dazzlingly white linen, hair curled with

the tongs, black coat with a camellia in the buttonhole, like the

ribbon of an order. He glanced at the crowd from time to time with a

patronizing air: but his eyes were most frequently turned toward the

platform, with encouraging little gestures and smiles and pretended

applause, addressed to some one whom Pere Planus could not see from his

seat.

There was nothing very extraordinary in the presence of the illustrious

Delobelle at a cafe concert, as he spent all his evenings away from

home; and yet the old cashier felt vaguely disturbed, especially when he

discovered in the same row a blue cape and a pair of steely eyes. It was

Madame Dobson, the sentimental singing-teacher. The conjunction of those

two faces amid the pipe-smoke and the confusion of the crowd, produced

upon Sigismond the effect of two ghosts evoked by a bad dream. He was

afraid for his friend, without knowing exactly why; and suddenly it

occurred to him to take him away.

“Let us go, Risler. The heat here is enough to kill one.”

Just as they rose--for Risler was no more desirous to stay than to

go--the orchestra, consisting of a piano and several violins, began a

peculiar refrain. There was a flutter of curiosity throughout the room,

and cries of “Hush! hush! sit down!”

They were obliged to resume their seats. Risler, too, was beginning to

be disturbed.

“I know that tune,” he said to himself. “Where have I heard it?”

A thunder of applause and an exclamation from Planus made him raise his

eyes.

“Come, come, let us go,” said the cashier, trying to lead him away.

But it was too late.

Risler had already seen his wife come forward to the front of the stage

and curtsey to the audience with a ballet-dancer’s smile.

She wore a white gown, as on the night of the ball; but her whole

costume was much less rich and shockingly immodest.

The dress was barely caught together at the shoulders; her hair floated

in a blond mist low over her eyes, and around her neck was a necklace of

pearls too large to be real, alternated with bits of tinsel. Delobelle

was right: the Bohemian life was better suited to her. Her beauty

had gained an indefinably reckless expression, which was its most

characteristic feature, and made her a perfect type of the woman who

has escaped from all restraint, placed herself at the mercy of every

accident, and is descending stage by stage to the lowest depths of the

Parisian hell, from which nothing is powerful enough to lift her and

restore her to the pure air and the light.

And how perfectly at ease she seemed in her strolling life! With what

self-possession she walked to the front of the stage! Ah! could she have

seen the desperate, terrible glance fixed upon her down there in

the hall, concealed behind a pillar, her smile would have lost

that equivocal placidity, her voice would have sought in vain those

wheedling, languorous tones in which she warbled the only song Madame

Dobson had ever been able to teach her:

Pauv’ pitit Mamz’elle Zizi,

C’est l’amou, l’amou qui tourne

La tete a li.

Risler had risen, in spite of Planus’s efforts. “Sit down! sit down!”

the people shouted. The wretched man heard nothing. He was staring at

his wife.

C’est l’amou, l’amou qui tourne

La tete a li,

Sidonie repeated affectedly.

For a moment he wondered whether he should not leap on the platform

and kill her. Red flames shot before his eyes, and he was blinded with

frenzy.

Then, suddenly, shame and disgust seized upon him and he rushed from

the hall, overturning chairs and tables, pursued by the terror and

imprecations of all those scandalized bourgeois.

CHAPTER XXIV. SIDONIE’S VENGEANCE

Never had Sigismond Planus returned home so late without giving his

sister warning, during the twenty years and more that he had lived at

Montrouge. Consequently Mademoiselle Planus was greatly worried. Living

in community of ideas and of everything else with her brother, having

but one mind for herself and for him, the old maid had felt for several

months the rebound of all the cashier’s anxiety and indignation; and

the effect was still noticeable in her tendency to tremble and

become agitated on slight provocation. At the slightest tardiness on

Sigismond’s part, she would think:

“Ah! mon Dieu! If only nothing has happened at the factory!”

That is the reason why on the evening in question, when the hens and

chickens were all asleep on their perches, and the dinner had been

removed untouched, Mademoiselle Planus was sitting in the little

ground-floor living-room, waiting, in great agitation.

At last, about eleven o’clock, some one rang. A timid, melancholy ring,

in no wise resembling Sigismond’s vigorous pull.

“Is it you, Monsieur Planus?” queried the old lady from behind the door.

It was he; but he was not alone. A tall, bent old man accompanied him,

and, as they entered, bade her good-evening in a slow, hesitating voice.

Not till then did Mademoiselle Planus recognize Risler Aine, whom she

had not seen since the days of the New Year’s calls, that is to say,

some time before the dramas at the factory. She could hardly restrain an

exclamation of pity; but the grave taciturnity of the two men told her

that she must be silent.

“Mademoiselle Planus, my sister, you will put clean sheets on my bed.

Our friend Risler does us the honor to pass the night with us.”

The sister hastened away to prepare the bedroom with an almost

affectionate zeal; for, as we know, beside “Monsieur Planus, my

brother,” Risler was the only man excepted from the general reprobation

in which she enveloped the whole male sex.

Upon leaving the cafe concert, Sidonie’s husband had had a moment of

frantic excitement. He leaned on Planus’s arm, every nerve in his body

strained to the utmost. At that moment he had no thought of going to

Montrouge to get the letter and the package.

“Leave me--go away,” he said to Sigismond. “I must be alone.”

But the other knew better than to abandon him thus to his despair.

Unnoticed by Risler, he led him away from the factory, and as his

affectionate heart suggested to the old cashier what he had best say to

his friend, he talked to him all the time of Frantz, his little Frantz

whom he loved so dearly.

“That was genuine affection, genuine and trustworthy. No treachery to

fear with such hearts as that!”

While they talked they left behind them the noisy streets of the centre

of Paris. They walked along the quays, skirted the Jardin des Plantes,

plunged into Faubourg Saint-Marceau. Risler followed where the other

led. Sigismond’s words did him so much good!

In due time they came to the Bievre, bordered at that point with

tanneries whose tall drying-houses with open sides were outlined in blue

against the sky; and then the ill-defined plains of Montsouris, vast

tracts of land scorched and stripped of vegetation by the fiery breath

that Paris exhales around its daily toil, like a monstrous dragon, whose

breath of flame and smoke suffers no vegetation within its range.

From Montsouris to the fortifications of Montrouge is but a step. When

they had reached that point, Planus had no great difficulty in taking

his friend home with him. He thought, and justly, that his tranquil

fireside, the spectacle of a placid, fraternal, devoted affection, would

give the wretched man’s heart a sort of foretaste of the happiness that

was in store for him with his brother Frantz. And, in truth, the charm

of the little household began to work as soon as they arrived.

“Yes, yes, you are right, old fellow,” said Risler, pacing the floor of

the living-room, “I mustn’t think of that woman any more. She’s like

a dead woman to me now. I have nobody left in the world but my little

Frantz; I don’t know yet whether I shall send for him to come home, or

go out and join him; the one thing that is certain is that we are going

to stay together. Ah! I longed so to have a son! Now I have found one.

I want no other. When I think that for a moment I had an idea of killing

myself! Nonsense! it would make Madame What-d’ye-call-her, yonder, too

happy. On the contrary, I mean to live--to live with my Frantz, and for

him, and for nothing else.”

“Bravo!” said Sigismond, “that’s the way I like to hear you talk.”

At that moment Mademoiselle Planus came to say that the room was ready.

Risler apologized for the trouble he was causing them.

“You are so comfortable, so happy here. Really, it’s too bad to burden

you with my melancholy.”

“Ah! my old friend, you can arrange just such happiness as ours for

yourself,” said honest Sigismond with beaming face. “I have my sister,

you have your brother. What do we lack?”

Risler smiled vaguely. He fancied himself already installed with Frantz

in a quiet little quakerish house like that.

Decidedly, that was an excellent idea of Pere Planus.

“Come to bed,” he said triumphantly. “We’ll go and show you your room.”

Sigismond Planus’s bedroom was on the ground floor, a large room simply

but neatly furnished; with muslin curtains at the windows and the bed,

and little squares of carpet on the polished floor, in front of the

chairs. The dowager Madame Fromont herself could have found nothing to

say as to the orderly and cleanly aspect of the place. On a shelf or

two against the wall were a few books: Manual of Fishing, The Perfect

Country Housewife, Bayeme’s Book-keeping. That was the whole of the

intellectual equipment of the room.

Pere Planus glanced proudly around. The glass of water was in its place

on the walnut table, the box of razors on the dressing-case.

“You see, Risler. Here is everything you need. And if you should want

anything else, the keys are in all the drawers--you have only to turn

them. Just see what a beautiful view you get from here. It’s a little

dark just now, but when you wake up in the morning you’ll see; it is

magnificent.”

He opened the widow. Great drops of rain were beginning to fall, and

lightning flashes rending the darkness disclosed the long, silent

line of the fortifications, with telegraph poles at intervals, or the

frowning door of a casemate. Now and then the footsteps of a patrol

making the rounds, the clash of muskets or swords, reminded them that

they were within the military zone.

That was the outlook so vaunted by Planus--a melancholy outlook if ever

there were one.

“And now good-night. Sleep well!”

But, as the old cashier was leaving the room, his friend called him

back:

“Sigismond.”

“Here!” said Sigismond, and he waited.

Risler blushed slightly and moved his lips like a man who is about to

speak; then, with a mighty effort, he said:

“No, no-nothing. Good-night, old man.”

In the dining-room the brother and sister talked together a long while

in low tones. Planus described the terrible occurrence of the evening,

the meeting with Sidonie; and you can imagine the--“Oh! these

women!” and “Oh! these men?” At last, when they had locked the little

garden-door, Mademoiselle Planus went up to her room, and Sigismond made

himself as comfortable as possible in a small cabinet adjoining.

About midnight the cashier was aroused by his sister calling him in a

terrified whisper:

“Monsieur Planus, my brother?”

“What is it?”

“Did you hear?”

“No. What?”

“Oh! it was awful. Something like a deep sigh, but so loud and so sad!

It came from the room below.”

They listened. Without, the rain was falling in torrents, with the

dreary rustling of leaves that makes the country seem so lonely.

“That is only the wind,” said Planus.

“I am sure not. Hush! Listen!”

Amid the tumult of the storm, they heard a wailing sound, like a sob, in

which a name was pronounced with difficulty:

“Frantz! Frantz!”

It was terrible and pitiful.

When Christ on the Cross sent up to heaven His despairing cry: ‘Eli,

eli, lama sabachthani’, they who heard him must have felt the same

species of superstitious terror that suddenly seized upon Mademoiselle

Planus.

“I am afraid!” she whispered; “suppose you go and look--”

“No, no, we will let him alone. He is thinking of his brother. Poor

fellow! It’s the very thought of all others that will do him the most

good.”

And the old cashier went to sleep again.

The next morning he woke as usual when the drums beat the reveille

in the fortifications; for the little family, surrounded by barracks,

regulated its life by the military calls. The sister had already risen

and was feeding the poultry. When she saw Sigismond she came to him in

agitation.

“It is very strange,” she said, “I hear nothing stirring in Monsieur

Risler’s room. But the window is wide open.”

Sigismond, greatly surprised, went and knocked at his friend’s door.

“Risler! Risler!”

He called in great anxiety:

“Risler, are you there? Are you asleep?”

There was no reply. He opened the door.

The room was cold. It was evident that the damp air had been blowing

in all night through the open window. At the first glance at the

bed, Sigismond thought: “He hasn’t been in bed”--for the clothes were

undisturbed and the condition of the room, even in the most trivial

details, revealed an agitated vigil: the still smoking lamp, which he

had neglected to extinguish, the carafe, drained to the last drop by

the fever of sleeplessness; but the thing that filled the cashier with

dismay was to find the bureau drawer wide open in which he had carefully

bestowed the letter and package entrusted to him by his friend.

The letter was no longer there. The package lay on the table, open,

revealing a photograph of Sidonie at fifteen. With her high-necked

frock, her rebellious hair parted over the forehead, and the embarrassed

pose of an awkward girl, the little Chebe of the old days, Mademoiselle

Le Mire’s apprentice, bore little resemblance to the Sidonie of to-day.

And that was the reason why Risler had kept that photograph, as a

souvenir, not of his wife, but of the “little one.”

Sigismond was in great dismay.

“This is my fault,” he said to himself. “I ought to have taken away the

keys. But who would have supposed that he was still thinking of her? He

had sworn so many times that that woman no longer existed for him.”

At that moment Mademoiselle Planus entered the room with consternation

written on her face.

“Monsieur Risler has gone!” she exclaimed.

“Gone? Why, wasn’t the garden-gate locked?”

“He must have climbed over the wall. You can see his footprints.”

They looked at each other, terrified beyond measure.

“It was the letter!” thought Planus.

Evidently that letter from his wife must have made some extraordinary

revelation to Risler; and, in order not to disturb his hosts, he had

made his escape noiselessly through the window, like a burglar. Why?

With what aim in view?

“You will see, sister,” said poor Planus, as he dressed with all haste,

“you will see that that hussy has played him still another trick.” And

when his sister tried to encourage him, he recurred to his favorite

refrain:

“I haf no gonfidence!”

As soon as he was dressed, he darted out of the house.

Risler’s footprints could be distinguished on the wet ground as far as

the gate of the little garden. He must have gone before daylight, for

the beds of vegetables and flowers were trampled down at random by deep

footprints with long spaces between; there were marks of heels on the

garden-wall and the mortar was crumbled slightly on top. The brother and

sister went out on the road skirting the fortifications. There it was

impossible to follow the footprints. They could tell nothing more than

that Risler had gone in the direction of the Orleans road.

“After all,” Mademoiselle Planus ventured to say, “we are very foolish

to torment ourselves about him; perhaps he has simply gone back to the

factory.”

Sigismond shook his head. Ah! if he had said all that he thought!

“Return to the house, sister. I will go and see.”

And with the old “I haf no gonfidence” he rushed away like a hurricane,

his white mane standing even more erect than usual.

At that hour, on the road near the fortifications, was an endless

procession of soldiers and market-gardeners, guard-mounting, officers’

horses out for exercise, sutlers with their paraphernalia, all the

bustle and activity that is seen in the morning in the neighborhood

of forts. Planus was striding along amid the tumult, when suddenly he

stopped. At the foot of the bank, on the left, in front of a small,

square building, with the inscription.

CITY OF PARIS,

ENTRANCE TO THE QUARRIES,

On the rough plaster, he saw a crowd assembled, and soldiers’ and

custom-house officers’ uniforms, mingled with the shabby, dirty blouses

of barracks-loafers. The old man instinctively approached. A customs

officer, seated on the stone step below a round postern with iron bars,

was talking with many gestures, as if he were acting out his narrative.

“He was where I am,” he said. “He had hanged himself sitting, by pulling

with all his strength on the rope! It’s clear that he had made up his

mind to die, for he had a razor in his pocket that he would have used in

case the rope had broken.”

A voice in the crowd exclaimed: “Poor devil!” Then another, a tremulous

voice, choking with emotion, asked timidly:

“Is it quite certain that he’s dead?”

Everybody looked at Planus and began to laugh.

“Well, here’s a greenhorn,” said the officer. “Don’t I tell you that

he was all blue this morning, when we cut him down to take him to the

chasseurs’ barracks!”

The barracks were not far away; and yet Sigismond Planus had the

greatest difficulty in the world in dragging himself so far. In vain

did he say to himself that suicides are of frequent occurrence in Paris,

especially in those regions; that not a day passes that a dead body

is not found somewhere along that line of fortifications, as upon

the shores of a tempestuous sea,--he could not escape the terrible

presentiment that had oppressed his heart since early morning.

“Ah! you have come to see the man that hanged himself,” said the

quartermaster-sergeant at the door of the barracks. “See! there he is.”

The body had been laid on a table supported by trestles in a sort of

shed. A cavalry cloak that had been thrown over it covered it from head

to foot, and fell in the shroud-like folds which all draperies assume

that come in contact with the rigidity of death. A group of officers

and several soldiers in duck trousers were looking on at a distance,

whispering as if in a church; and an assistant-surgeon was writing a

report of the death on a high window-ledge. To him Sigismond spoke.

“I should like very much to see him,” he said softly.

“Go and look.”

He walked to the table, hesitated a minute, then, summoning courage,

uncovered a swollen face, a tall, motionless body in its rain-soaked

garments.

“She has killed you at last, my old comrade!” murmured Planus, and fell

on his knees, sobbing bitterly.

The officers had come forward, gazing curiously at the body, which was

left uncovered.

“Look, surgeon,” said one of them. “His hand is closed, as if he were

holding something in it.”

“That is true,” the surgeon replied, drawing nearer. “That sometimes

happens in the last convulsions.

“You remember at Solferino, Commandant Bordy held his little daughter’s

miniature in his hand like that? We had much difficulty in taking it

from him.”

As he spoke he tried to open the poor, tightly-closed dead hand.

“Look!” said he, “it is a letter that he is holding so tight.”

He was about to read it; but one of the officers took it from his hands

and passed it to Sigismond, who was still kneeling.

“Here, Monsieur. Perhaps you will find in this some last wish to be

carried out.”

Sigismond Planus rose. As the light in the room was dim, he walked with

faltering step to the window, and read, his eyes filled with tears:

“Well, yes, I love you, I love you, more than ever and forever! What

is the use of struggling and fighting against fate? Our sin is stronger

than we...”

It was the letter which Frantz had written to his sister-in-law a year

before, and which Sidonie had sent to her husband on the day following

their terrible scene, to revenge herself on him and his brother at the

same time.

Risler could have survived his wife’s treachery, but that of his brother

had killed him.

When Sigismond understood, he was petrified with horror. He stood

there, with the letter in his hand, gazing mechanically through the open

window.

The clock struck six.

Yonder, over Paris, whose dull roar they could hear although they could

not see the city, a cloud of smoke arose, heavy and hot, moving slowly

upward, with a fringe of red and black around its edges, like the

powder-smoke on a field of battle. Little by little, steeples, white

buildings, a gilded cupola, emerged from the mist, and burst forth in a

splendid awakening.

Then the thousands of tall factory chimneys, towering above that sea of

clustered roofs, began with one accord to exhale their quivering vapor,

with the energy of a steamer about to sail. Life was beginning anew.

Forward, ye wheels of time! And so much the worse for him who lags

behind!

Thereupon old Planus gave way to a terrible outburst of wrath.

“Ah! harlot-harlot!” he cried, shaking his fist; and no one could say

whether he was addressing the woman or the city of Paris.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

A man may forgive, but he never forgets

Abundant details which he sometimes volunteered

Affectation of indifference

Always smiling condescendingly

Charm of that one day’s rest and its solemnity

Clashing knives and forks mark time

Convent of Saint Joseph, four shoes under the bed!

Deeming every sort of occupation beneath him

Dreams of wealth and the disasters that immediately followed

Exaggerated dramatic pantomime

Faces taken by surprise allow their real thoughts to be seen

He fixed the time mentally when he would speak

Little feathers fluttering for an opportunity to fly away

Make for themselves a horizon of the neighboring walls and roofs

No one has ever been able to find out what her thoughts were

Pass half the day in procuring two cakes, worth three sous

She was of those who disdain no compliment

Such artificial enjoyment, such idiotic laughter

Superiority of the man who does nothing over the man who works

Terrible revenge she would take hereafter for her sufferings

The poor must pay for all their enjoyments

The groom isn’t handsome, but the bride’s as pretty as a picture

Void in her heart, a place made ready for disasters to come

Wiping his forehead ostentatiously

Word “sacrifice,” so vague on careless lips

Would have liked him to be blind only so far as he was concerned

End of Project Gutenberg’s Fromont and Risler, Complete, by Alphonse Daudet