HEM.

Below as a postscript, a very small hand had written very legibly:

“A religious picture, as good as possible.”

What was he to think of this letter? Was there real good-will in it,

or polite evasion? In any case hesitation was no longer possible. Time

pressed. Jansoulet made a bold effort, then--for he was very frightened

of Le Merquier--and called on him one morning.

Our strange Paris, alike in its population and its aspects, seems a

specimen map of the whole world. In the Marais there are narrow streets,

with old sculptured worm-eaten doors, with overhanging gables

and balconies, which remind you of old Heidelberg. The Faubourg

Saint-Honore, lying round the Russian church with its white minarets and

golden domes, seems a part of Moscow. On Montmartre I know a picturesque

and crowded corner which is simply Algiers. Little, low, clean houses,

each with its brass plate and little front garden, are English streets

between Neuilly and the Champs-Elysees while all behind the apse of

Saint-Sulpice, the Rue Feron, the Rue Cassette, lying peaceably in the

shadow of its great towers, roughly paved, their doors each with its

knocker, seem lifted out of some provincial and religious town--Tours

or Orleans, for example--in the district of the cathedral or the palace,

where the great over-hanging trees in the gardens rock themselves to the

sound of the bells and the choir.

It was there, in the neighbourhood of the Catholic Club--of which he

had just been made honorary president--that M. Le Merquier lived. He was

_avocat_, deputy for Lyons, business man of all the great communities of

France; and Hemerlingue, moved by a deep-seated instinct, had intrusted

him with the affairs of his firm.

He arrived before nine o’clock at an old mansion of which the ground

floor was occupied by a religious bookshop, asleep in the odour of the

sacristy, and of the thick gray paper on which the stories of miracles

are printed for hawkers, and mounted the great whitewashed convent

stairway. Jansoulet was touched by this provincial and Catholic

atmosphere, in which revived the souvenirs of his past in the south,

impressions of infancy still intact, thanks to his long absence from

home; and since his arrival at Paris he had had neither the time nor the

occasion to call them in question. Fashionable hypocrisy had presented

itself to him in all its forms save that of religious integrity, and

he refused now to believe in the venality of a man who lived in such

surroundings. Introduced into the _avocat’s_ waiting-room--a vast

parlour with fine white muslin curtains, having for its sole ornament

a large and beautiful copy of Tintoretto’s Dead Christ--his doubt and

trouble changed into indignant conviction. It was not possible! He had

been deceived as to Le Merquier. There was surely some bold slander in

it, such as so easily spreads in Paris--or perhaps it was one of those

ferocious snares among which he had stumbled for six months. No, this

stern conscience, so well known in Parliament and the courts, this cold

and austere personage, could not be treated like those great swollen

pashas with loosened waist-belts and floating sleeves open to conceal

the bags of gold. He would only expose himself to a scandalous refusal,

to the legitimate revolt of outraged honour, if he attempted such means

of corruption.

The Nabob told himself all this, as he sat on the oak bench which ran

round the room, a bench polished with serge dresses and the rough cloth

of cassocks. In spite of the early hour several persons were waiting

there with him. A Dominican, ascetic and serene, walking up and down

with great strides; two sisters of charity, buried under their caps,

counting long rosaries which measured their time of waiting; priests

from Lyons, recognisable by the shape of their hats; others reserved and

severe in air, sitting at the great ebony table which filled the middle

of the room, and turning over some of those pious journals printed at

Fouvieres, just above Lyons, the _Echo of Purgatory_, the _Rose-bush

of Mary_, which give as a present to all yearly subscribers pontifical

indulgences and remissions of future sins. Some muttered words, a

stifled cough, the light whispered prayers of the sisters, recalled to

Jansoulet the distant and confused sensation of the hours of waiting in

the corner of his village church round the confessional on the eves of

the great festivals of the Church.

At last his turn came, and if a doubt as to M. Le Merquier had remained,

he doubted no longer when he saw this great office, simple and severe,

yet a little more ornate than the waiting-room, a fitting frame for

the austerity of the lawyer’s principles, and for his thin form, tall,

stooping, narrow-shouldered, squeezed into a black coat too short in

the sleeves, from which protruded two black fists, broad and flat,

two sticks of Indian ink with hieroglyphs of great veins. The clerical

deputy had, with the leaden hue of a Lyonnese grown mouldy between his

two rivers, a certain life of expression which he owed to his double

look--sometimes sparkling, but impenetrable behind the glass of his

spectacles; more often, vivid, mistrustful, and dark, above these same

glasses, surrounded by the shadow which a lifted eye and a stooping head

gives the eyebrow.

After a greeting almost cordial in comparison with the cold bow which

the two colleagues exchanged at the Chamber, an “I was expecting you” in

which perhaps an intention showed itself, the lawyer pointed the Nabob

into a seat near his desk, told the smug domestic in black not to come

till he was summoned, arranged a few papers, after which, sinking into

his arm-chair with the attitude of a man ready to listen, who becomes

all ears, his legs crossed, he rested his chin on his hand, with his

eyes fixed on a great rep curtain falling to the ground in front of him.

The moment was decisive, the situation embarrassing. Jansoulet did not

hesitate. It was one of the poor Nabob’s pretensions to know men as

well as Mora. And this instinct, which, said he, had never deceived

him, warned him that he was at that moment dealing with a rigid and

unshakable honesty, a conscience in hard stone, untouchable by pick-axe

or powder. “My conscience!” Suddenly he changed his programme, threw to

the winds the tricks and equivocations which embarrassed his open and

courageous disposition, and, head high and heart open, held to this

honest man a language he was born to understand.

“Do not be astonished, my dear colleague,”--his voice trembled, but soon

became firm in the conviction of his defence--“do not be astonished if

I am come to find you here instead of asking simply to be heard by

the third committee. The explanation which I have to make to you is so

delicate and confidential that it would have been impossible to make it

publicly before my colleagues.”

Maitre Le Merquier, above his spectacles, looked at the curtain with a

disturbed air. Evidently the conversation was taking an unexpected turn.

“I do not enter on the main question,” said the Nabob. “Your report, I

am assured, is impartial and loyal, such as your conscience has dictated

to you. Only there are some heart-breaking calumnies spread about me to

which I have not answered, and which have perhaps influenced the opinion

of the committee. It is on this subject that I wish to speak to you. I

know the confidence with which you are honoured by your colleagues, M.

Le Merquier, and that, when I shall have convinced you, your word will

be enough without forcing me to lay bare my distress to them all. You

know the accusation--the most terrible, the most ignoble. There are so

many people who might be deceived by it. My enemies have given names,

dates, addresses. Well, I bring you the proofs of my innocence. I lay

them bare before you--you only--for I have grave reasons for keeping the

whole affair secret.”

Then he showed the lawyer a certificate from the Consulate of Tunis,

that during twenty years he had only left the principality twice--the

first time to see his dying father at Bourg-Saint Andeol; the second,

to make, with the Bey, a visit of three days to his chateau of

Saint-Romans.

“How comes it, then, that with a document so conclusive in my hands

I have not brought my accusers before the courts to contradict and

confound them? Alas, monsieur, there are cruel responsibilities in

families. I have a brother, a poor fellow, weak and spoiled, who has for

long wallowed in the mud of Paris, who has left there his intelligence

and his honour. Has he descended to that degree of baseness which I, in

his name, am accused of? I have not dared to find out. All I can say

is, that my poor father, who knew more than any one in the family of

it, whispered to me in dying, ‘Bernard, it is your elder brother who has

killed me. I die of shame, my child.’”

He paused, compelled by his suppressed emotion; then:

“My father is dead, Maitre Le Merquier, but my mother still lives, and

it is for her sake, for her peace, that I have held back, that I hold

back still, before the scandal of my justification. Up to now, in fact,

the mud thrown at me has not touched her; it only comes from a certain

class, in a special press, a thousand leagues away from the poor woman.

But law courts, a trial--it would be proclaiming our misfortune from

one end of France to the other, the articles of the official paper

reproduced by all the journals, even those of the little district where

my mother lives. The calumny, my defence, her two children covered

with shame by the one stroke, the name--the only pride of the old

peasant--forever disgraced. It would be too much for her. It would be

enough to kill her. And truly, I find it enough, too. That is why I

have had the courage to be silent, to weary, if I could, my enemies by

silence. But I need some one to answer for me in the Chamber. It must

not have the right to expel me for reasons which would dishonour me, and

since it has chosen you as the chairman of the committee, I am come to

tell you everything, as to a confessor, to a priest, begging you not to

divulge anything of this conversation, even in the interests of my case.

I only ask you, my dear colleague, absolute silence; for the rest, I

rely on your justice and your loyalty.”

He rose, ready to go, and Le Merquier did not move, still asking the

green curtain in front of him, as if seeking inspiration for his answer

there. At last he said:

“It shall be as you desire, my dear colleague. This confidence shall

remain between us. You have told me nothing, I have heard nothing.”

The Nabob, still heated with his burst of confidence, which demanded,

it seemed to him, a cordial response, a pressure of the hand, was seized

with a strange uneasiness. This coolness, this absent look, so unnerved

him that he was at the door with the awkward bow of one who feels

himself importunate, when the other stopped him.

“Wait, then, my dear colleague. What a hurry you are in to leave me! A

few moments, I beg of you. I am too happy to have a chat with a man like

you. Besides, we have more than one common bond. Our friend Hemerlingue

has told me that you, too, are much interested in pictures.”

Jansoulet trembled. The two words--“Hemerlingue,” “pictures”--meeting

in the same phrase so unexpectedly, restored all his doubts, all his

perplexities. He did not give himself away yet, however, and let Le

Merquier advance, word by word, testing the ground for his stumbling

advances. People had told him often of the collection of his honourable

colleague. “Would it be indiscreet to ask the favour of being admitted,

to--”

“On the contrary, I should feel much honoured,” said the Nabob, tickled

in the most sensible--since the most costly--point of his vanity; and

looking round him at the walls of the room, he added with the tone of a

connoisseur, “You have some fine things, too.”

“Oh,” said the other modestly, “just a few canvases. Painting is so dear

now, it is a taste so difficult to satisfy, a true passion _de luxe_--a

passion for a Nabob,” said he, smiling, with a furtive look over his

glasses.

They were two prudent players, face to face; but Jansoulet was a little

astray in this new situation, where he who only knew how to be bold, had

to be on his guard.

“When I think,” murmured the lawyer, “that I have been ten years

covering these walls, and that I have still this panel to fill.”

In fact, at the most conspicuous place on the wall there was an empty

place, emptied rather, for a great gold-headed nail near the ceiling

showed the visible, almost clumsy, trace of a snare laid for the poor

simpleton, who let himself be taken in it so foolishly.

“My dear M. Le Merquier,” said he with his engaging, good-natured voice,

“I have a Virgin of Tintoretto’s just the size of your panel.”

Impossible to read anything in the eyes of the lawyer, this time hidden

under their overhanging brows.

“Permit me to hang it there, opposite your table. That will help you to

think sometimes of me.”

“And to soften the severities of my report, too, sir?” cried Le

Merquier, formidable and upright, his hand on the bell. “I have seen

many shameless things in my life, but never anything like this. Such

offers to me, in my own house!”

“But, my dear colleague, I swear to you----”

“Show him out,” said the lawyer to the hang-dog servant who had just

entered; and from the middle of his office, whose door remained open,

before all the waiting-room, where the paternosters were silent, he

pursued Jansoulet--who slunk off murmuring excuses to the door--with

these terrible words:

“You have outraged the honour of the Chamber in my person, sir. Our

colleagues shall be informed of it this very day; and, this crime coming

after your others, you will learn to your cost that Paris is not the

East, and that here we do not make shameless traffic of the human

conscience.”

Then, after having chased the seller from the temple, the just man

closed his door, and approaching the mysterious green curtain, said in a

tone that sounded soft amidst his pretended anger:

“Is that what you wanted, Baroness Marie?”