As M. Joyeuse had told the Juge d’Instruction, Paul de Gery returned
from Tunis after three weeks’ absence. Three interminable weeks spent
in struggling among intrigues, and traps secretly laid by the powerful
hatred of the Hemerlingues--in wandering from hall to hall, from
ministry to ministry through the immense palace of the Bardo, which
gathered within one enclosure, bristling with culverins, all the
departments of the State, as much under the master’s eye as his stables
and harem. On his arrival, Paul had learned that the Chamber of Justice
was preparing secretly Jansoulet’s trial--a derisive trial, lost
beforehand; and the closed offices of the Nabob on the Marine Quay, the
seals on his strong boxes, his ships moored to the Goulette, a guard
round his palace, seemed to speak of a sort of civil death, of a
disputed succession of which the spoils would not long remain to be
shared.
There was not a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious crowd; the
French colony itself appeared satisfied with the fall of a courtier who
had so long monopolized the roads to favour. To attempt to snatch this
prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph at the Assembly, was
not to be thought of. All that de Gery could hope for was to save some
shreds of his fortune, and this only if he hurried, for he was expecting
day by day to learn of his friend’s complete ruin.
He set himself to work, therefore, hurried on his business with
an activity which nothing could discourage, neither Oriental
discursiveness--that refined fair-spoken politeness, under which is
hidden ferocity--nor coolly indifferent smiles, nor averted looks,
invoking divine fatalism when human lies fail. The self-possession of
this southerner, in whom was condensed, as it were, all the exuberance
of his compatriots, served him as well as his perfect knowledge of
French law, of which the Code of Tunis is only a disfigured copy.
By his diplomacy and discretion, in spite of the intrigues of
Hemerlingue’s son--who was very influential at the Bardo--he succeeded
in withdrawing from confiscation the money lent by the Nabob some
months before, and to snatch ten millions out of fifteen from Mohammed’s
rapacity. The very morning of the day on which the money was to be paid
over, he received from Paris the news of the unseating of Jansoulet. He
hurried at once to the Palace to arrive there before the news, and on
his return with the ten millions in bills on Marseilles secure in his
pocket-book, he passed young Hemerlingue’s carriage, with his three
mules at full gallop. The thin owl’s face was radiant. De Gery
understood that if he remained many hours at Tunis his bills ran the
risk of being confiscated, so took his place at once on an Italian
packet which was sailing next morning for Genoa, passed the night on
board, and was only easy in his mind when he saw far behind him white
Tunis with her gulf and the rocks of Cape Carthage spread out before
her. On entering Genoa, the steamer while making for the quay passed
near a great yacht with the Tunisian flag flying. De Gery felt greatly
excited, and for a moment believed that she had come in pursuit of him,
and that on landing he might be seized by the Italian police like a
common thief. But the yacht was swinging peacefully at anchor, her
sailors cleaning the deck or repainting the red siren of her figurehead,
as if they were expecting someone of importance. Paul had not the
curiosity to ask who this personage was. He crossed the marble city, and
returned by the coast railway from Genoa to Marseilles--that marvellous
route where one passes suddenly from the blackness of the tunnels to the
dazzling light of the blue sea.
At Savona the train stopped, and the passengers were told that they
could go no farther, as one of the little bridges over the torrents
which rush from the mountains to the sea had been broken during the
night. They must wait for the engineer and the break-down gang, already
summoned by telegraph; wait perhaps a half day. It was early morning.
The Italian town was waking in one of those veiled dawns which forecast
great heat for the day. While the dispersed travellers took refuge in
the hotels, installed themselves in the _cafes_, and others visited the
town, de Gery, chafing at the delay, tried to think of some means of
saving these few hours. He thought of poor Jansoulet, to whom the money
he was bringing might save honour and life, of his dear Aline, her whose
remembrance had not quitted him a single day of his journey, no more
than the portrait which she had given him. Then he was inspired to hire
one of those four-horse _calesinos_ which run from Genoa to Nice, along
the Italian Corniche--an adorable trip which foreigners, lovers, and
winners at Monaco often enjoy. The driver guaranteed that he would be
at Nice early; and even if he arrived no earlier than the train, his
impatient spirit felt the comfort of movement, of feeling at each turn
of the wheel the distance from his desire decrease.
On a fine morning in June, when one is young and in love, it is a
delicious intoxication to tear behind four horses over the white
Corniche road. To the left, a hundred feet below, the sea sparkling with
foam, from the rounded rocks of the shore to those vapoury distances
where the blue of the waves and of the heavens mingle; red or white
sails are scattered over it like wings, steamers leaving behind them
their trail of smoke; and on the sands, fishermen no larger than birds,
in their anchored boats like nests. Then the road descends, follows a
rapid declivity along the rocks and sharp promontories. The fresh wind
from the waves shakes the little harness bells; while on the right, on
the side of the mountain, the rows of pine-trees, the green oaks with
roots capriciously leaving the arid soil, and olive-trees growing on
their terraces, up to a wide and white pebbly ravine, bordered with
grass, marking the passage of the waters. This is really a dried-up
water-course, which the loaded mules ascend with firm foot among the
shingle, and a washer-woman stoops near a microscopic pond--the few
drops that remained of the great inundation of winter. From time to time
one crosses the street of some village, or little town rather, grown
rusty through too much sun, of historic age, the houses closely packed
and joined by dark arcades--a network of vaulted courts which clamber
the hillside with glimpses of the upper daylight, here and there letting
one see crowds of children with aureoles of hair, baskets of brilliant
fruit, a woman coming down the road, her water-pot on her head and her
distaff on her arm. Then at a corner of the street, the blue sparkle of
the waves and the immensity of nature.
But as the day advanced, the sun rising in the heavens spread over
the sea--now escaped from its mists, still with the transparence
of quartz--thousands of rays striking the water like arrow-heads, a
dazzling sight made doubly so by the whiteness of the rocks and of
the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the dust in
a whirlwind on the road. They were coming to the hottest and most
sheltered places of the Corniche--a true exotic temperature, scattering
dates, cactus, and aloes. Seeing these thin trunks, this fantastic
vegetation in the white hot air, feeling the blinding dust crackle under
the wheels like snow, de Gery, his eyes half closed, dreaming in this
leaden noon, thought he was once more on that fatiguing road from Tunis
to the Bardo, in a singular medley of Levantine carriages with brilliant
liveries, of long-necked camels, of caparisoned mules, of young donkeys,
of Arabs in rags, of half-naked negroes, of officials in full-dress with
their guard of honour. Should he find there, where the road ran through
the gardens of palm-trees, the strange and colossal architecture of the
Bey’s palace, its barred windows with closed lattices, its marble gates,
its balconies in carved wood painted in bright colours?--It was not the
Bardo, but the lovely country of Bordighera, divided, like all those
on the coast, into two parts--the sea town lying on the shore; and the
upper town, joined to it by a forest of motionless palm-trees, with
upright stem and falling crown--like green rockets, springing into the
blue with their thousand feathers.
The insupportable heat, the overtired horses, forced the traveller to
stop for a couple of hours at one of those great hotels which line the
road, and bring every November into this little town, so marvellously
sheltered, the luxurious life and cosmopolitan animation of an
aristocratic wintering place. But at this time of year there was no one
in the sea town of Bordighera but fishermen, invisible at this hour. The
villas and hotels seemed dead, their blinds and shutters closed.
They took Paul through long, cool, and silent passages to a great
drawing-room facing north, which seemed to be part of the suites let
for the season, whose doors communicated with the other rooms. White
curtains, a carpet, the comfort demanded by the English even when
travelling, and outside the windows, which the hotel-keeper opened
wide to tempt the traveller to a longer stay, a splendid view of the
mountain. An astonishing quiet reigned in this great deserted inn, with
neither manager, nor cook, nor waiters--the whole staff coming only
in the winter--and given up for domestic needs to a local spoil-sauce,
expert at a _stoffato_, a _risotto_; also to two stablemen, who clothed
themselves at meal-time with the dress-coat and white tie of office.
Happily, de Gery was only going to remain there for an hour or two, to
rest his eyes from the overpowering light, his head from the dolorous
grip of the sun.
From the divan where he lay, the admirable landscape, diversified with
light and trembling leaves, seemed to descend to his window by stages
of different greens, where scattered villas shone white, and among
them that of Maurice Trott, the banker, recognisable by its capricious
architecture and the height of its palms.
The Levantine house, whose gardens came up to the windows of the hotel,
had sheltered for some months an artistic celebrity, the sculptor
Brehat, who was dying of consumption, and owed the prolonging of his
existence to this princely hospitality. The neighbourhood of this dying
celebrity--of which the hotel-keeper was proud, and which he would have
liked to charge in the bill--the name of Brehat, which de Gery had so
often heard pronounced with admiration in Felicia Ruys’s studio, brought
back his thoughts to the beautiful face, with its pure lines, which he
had last seen in the Bois de Boulogue, leaning on Mora’s shoulder. What
had become of this unfortunate girl when this prop had failed her?
Would this lesson be of use to her in the future? And, by a strange
coincidence, while he was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white
greyhound was bounding up an alley of green trees on the slopes of the
neighbouring garden. It was like Kadour--the same short hair, the same
mouth, red, fierce, and delicate. Paul, before his open window, was
assailed in a moment by all sorts of visions, sad or charming. Perhaps
the beauty of the scene before his eyes made his thoughts wander. Under
the orange-trees and lemon-trees in rows, laden with their golden
fruit, stretched immense fields of violets in regular and packed beds,
separated by little irrigation canals, whose white stone cut up the
exuberant verdure.
An exquisite ordour of violets dried in the sun was rising--a hot
boudoir scent, enervating, enfeebling, which called up for de Gery
feminine visions--Aline, Felicia--permeating the fairy-like landscape,
in this blue-charged atmosphere, this heavenly day, which one might have
called the perfume become visible of so many open flowers. The creaking
of a door made him open his eyes. Some one had just gone into the next
room. He heard the rustle of a dress against the thin partition, a leaf
turned in a book which could not be very interesting, for a long sigh
turning into a yawn made him start. Was he still sleeping, dreaming? Had
he not heard the cry of the “jackal in the desert,” so much in keeping
with the burning temperature out of doors? No--nothing more. He fell
asleep again, and this time all the confused images which pursued him
fixed themselves in a dream--a very pleasant dream.
He was on his honeymoon with Aline. She was a delicious wife, her clear
eyes full of love and faith, which only knew, only looked at him. In
this very room, on the other side of the partition, she was sitting in
white morning dress, which smelt of violets and of the fine lace of her
trousseau. They were having breakfast--one of those solitary breakfasts
of a honeymoon, served in their bedroom, opposite the blue sea, and the
clear sky, which tinge with azure the glass in which one drinks, the
eyes where one sees one’s self, the future--life--the distant horizon.
Oh! how good it was; what a divine youth-giving light; how happy they
were!
And all at once, in the delight of their kisses, Aline became sad. Her
eyes filled with tears. She said to him: “Felicia is there. You will
love me no longer.” And he laughed, “Felicia here? What an idea!” “Yes,
yes; she is there.” Trembling she pointed to the next room, from
which came angry barks, and the voice of Felicia: “Here, Kadour! Here,
Kadour!” the low, concentrated, furious voice of some one who is hiding
and suddenly discovered.
Wide awake, the lover, disenchanted, found himself in his empty room,
before an empty table, his dream, fled through the window to the great
hillside. But he heard very distinctly in the next room the bark of a
dog, and hurried knocks on the door.
“Open the door! It is I--it is Jenkins.”
Paul sat up on his divan, stupefied. Jenkins here? How was that? To whom
was he speaking? What voice was going to answer him? No one answered. A
light step went to the door, and the lock creaked nervously.
“Here you are at last,” said the Irishman, entering.
And truly if he had not taken care to announce himself, Paul would
never have taken this brutal, violent, hoarse voice heard through the
partition for the doctor’s with his sugary manners.
“At last I have found you after a week of searching, of mad rushing from
Genoa to Nice, from Nice to Genoa. I knew that you had not gone, because
the yacht was in the harbour, and I was going to inspect all the inns on
the coast, when I remembered Brehat. I have just come from him. It was
he who told me you were here.”
But to whom was he speaking? Who was so singularly obstinate? At last a
beautiful, sad voice, which Paul well knew, made the hot afternoon air
vibrate.
“Well, yes, Jenkins, here I am. What is the matter?”
Through the wall Paul could see the disdainful mouth, turned down with
disgust.
“I have come to prevent you from going--from doing this foolish thing.”
“What foolish thing? I have some work at Tunis. I must go there.”
“But you don’t think, my dear child, that--”
“Oh, enough of your fatherly airs, Jenkins. We know what lies underneath
it. Speak to me as you did just now. I prefer the bull-dog to the
spaniel. I fear it less.”
“Well, I tell you that you must be mad to go over there alone, young and
beautiful as you are.”
“And am I not always alone? Would you like me to take Constance, at her
age?”
“Or me?”
“You!” She pronounced the word with an ironical laugh. “And what about
Paris? And your patients--deprive society of its Cagliostro? Never, on
any account.”
“I have, however, made up my mind to follow you wherever you go,” said
Jenkins resolutely.
There was an instant of silence. Paul asked himself if it was worthy
of him to listen to this conversation which was full of terrible
revelations. But in spite of his fatigue an invincible curiosity nailed
him to the spot. It seemed to him that the enigma which had so long been
perplexing and troubling him was going to be solved at last, to show the
woman sad or perverse, concealed by the fashionable artist. He remained
there, still holding his breath, needlessly, however; for the two,
believing themselves to be alone in the hotel, let their passions and
their voices rise without constraint.
“Well, what do you want of me?”
“I want you.”
“Jenkins!”
“Yes, yes, I know; you have forbidden me to say such words before you,
but other men than I have said them, and nearer still.”
“And if it were so, wretch! If I have not been able to protect myself
from disgust and boredom, if I have lost my pride, is it for you to say
a word? As if you were not the cause of it; as if you had not forever
saddened and darkened my life for me!”
And these burning and rapid words revealed to the terrified Paul de
Gery the horrible meaning of this apparently affectionate guardianship,
against which the mind, the thought, the dreams of the young girl had
had to struggle so long, and which had left her the incurable sadness of
precocious regret, the heart-break of a life hardly begun.
“I loved you! I love you still! Passion excuses everything,” answered
Jenkins in a hollow voice.
“Love me, then, if that amuses you. As for me, I hate you not only for
the wrong you have done me, all the beliefs and energy you have killed
in me, but because you represent what is most execrable, most hideous
under the sun--hypocrisy and lies. This society masquerade, this heap of
falsity, of grimaces, of cowardly and unclean conventions have sickened
me to such an extent, that I am running away exiling myself so as to see
them no longer; rather than them I would have the prison, the sewer, the
streets. And yet it is your deceit, O sublime Jenkins, which horrifies
me most. You have mingled our French hypocrisy, all smiles and
politeness, with your large English shakes of the hand, with your
cordial and demonstrative loyalty. They have all been caught by it. They
said, ‘The good Jenkins; the worthy, honest Jenkins.’ But I--I knew you,
and in spite of your fine motto on the envelopes of your letters,
on your seal, your sleeve-links, your hat-bands, the doors of your
carriage, I always saw the rascal you are.”
Her voice hissed through her teeth, clinched by an incredible ferocity
of expression, and Paul expected some furious revolt of Jenkins under so
many insults. But this hate and contempt of the woman he loved must have
given him more sorrow than anger, for he answered softly, in a tone of
wounded gentleness:
“Oh! you are cruel. If you knew the pain you are giving me! Hypocrite!
yes, it is true; but I was not born like that. One is forced into it by
the difficulties of life. When one has the wind against one, and wishes
to advance, one tacks. I have tacked. Lay the blame on my miserable
beginnings, my false entry into existence, and agree at least that one
thing in me has never lied--my passion! Nothing has been able to kill
it--neither your disdain, nor your abuse, nor all that I have read in
your eyes, which for so many years have not once smiled at me. It is
still my passion which gives me the strength, even after what I have
just heard, to tell you why I am here. Listen! You told me once that you
wanted a husband--some one who would watch over you during your work,
who would take over some of the duties of the poor Crenmitz. Those were
your own words, which wounded me then because I was not free. Now all
that is changed. Will you marry me, Felicia?”
“And your wife?” cried the young girl, while Paul was asking himself the
same question.
“My wife is dead.”
“Dead? Mme. Jenkins? Is it true?”
“You never knew her of whom I speak. The other was not my wife. When
I met her I was already married in Ireland--years before. A horrible
forced marriage. My dear, when I was twenty-five I was confronted with
this alternative: a debtor’s prison or Miss Strang, an ugly and gouty
old maid, sister of the usurer who had lent me five hundred pounds to
pay for my medical studies. I preferred the prison; but after weeks and
months I came to the end of my courage, and I married Miss Strang, who
brought me for dowry--my note of hand. You can guess what my life was
between these two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, impotent
wife. The brother spied on me, following me everywhere. I should have
gone away, but one thing kept me there. The usurer was said to be very
rich. I wished to have some return for my cowardice. You see, I tell you
all. Come now, I have been punished. Old Strang died insolvent; he used
to gamble, had ruined himself without saying a word. Then I put my wife
and her rheumatism in a hospital, and came to France. I had to begin
existence again, more struggles and misery. But I had experience on my
side, hatred and contempt for men, and my newly conquered liberty, for I
did not dream that the horrible weight of this cursed union was going to
hinder my getting on, at that distance. Happily, it is over--I am free.”
“Yes, Jenkins, free. But why do you not make your wife the poor creature
who has shared your life so long, so humble and devoted as she is?”
“Oh!” said he, with an outburst of sincerity, “between my two prisons
I would prefer the other, where I could be frankly indifferent. But the
atrocious comedy of conjugal love, of unwearying happiness, when for
so long I had loved you and thought of you alone! There is not such a
torture on earth. If I can guess, the poor woman must have uttered a cry
of relief and happiness at the separation. It is the only adieu I hoped
for from her.”
“But who forced you to such a thing?”
“Paris, society, the world. Married by its opinion, we were held by it.”
“And now you are held no longer?”
“Now something comes before all--it is the idea of losing you, of seeing
you no longer. Oh! when I learned of your flight, when I saw the bill
over your door TO LET, I felt sure that it was all up with poses and
grimaces, that I had nothing else to do but to set out, to run quickly
after my happiness, which you were taking away. You were leaving
Paris--I have left it. Everything of yours was being sold; everything of
mine will be sold.”
“And she?” said Felicia trembling. “She, the irreproachable companion,
the honest woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will she go?
What will she do? And it is her place you have just offered me. A stolen
place, think what a hell! Well, and your motto, good Jenkins, virtuous
Jenkins, what shall we do with it? ‘_Le bien sans esperance_,’ eh!”
At this sneer, cutting his face like a whip, the wretch answered
panting:
“That will do! Do not sneer at me so. It is too horrible now. Does it
not touch you, then, to be loved as I love you in sacrificing everything
to you--fortune, honour, respect? See, look at me. I have snatched my
mask off for you, I have snatched if off before all. And now, see, here
is the hypocrite.”
He heard the muffled noise of two knees falling on the floor. And
stammering, distracted with love, weak before her, he begged her
to consent to this marriage, to give him the right to follow her
everywhere, to defend her. Then the words failed him, stifled in a
passionate sob, so deep, so lacerating that it should have touched any
heart, above all among this splendid impassible scenery in this perfumed
heat. But Felicia was not touched. “Let us have done, Jenkins,” said
she brusquely. “What you ask is impossible. We have nothing to hide from
each other, and after your confidences just now, I wish to make one to
you, which humbles my pride, but your degradation makes you worthy. I
was Mora’s mistress.”
Paul knew this. And yet it was so sad to hear this beautiful, pure voice
laden with such a confession, in the midst of the intoxicating air, that
he felt his heart contract.
“I knew it,” answered Jenkins in a low voice, “I have the letters you
wrote to him.”
“My letters?”
“Oh, I will give them to you--here. I know them by heart. I have read
and reread them. It is that which hurts one, when one loves. But I
have suffered other tortures. When I think that it was I--” He stopped
himself. He choked. “I who had to furnish fuel for your flames, warm
this frozen lover, send him to you ardent and young--Ah! he has devoured
my pearls--I might refuse over and over again, he was always taking
them. At last I was mad. You wish to burn, wretched woman. Well, burn,
then!”
Paul rose to his feet in terror. Was he going to hear the confession
of a crime? But the shame of hearing more was not inflicted on him.
A violent knocking, this time on his own door, warned him that his
_calesino_ was ready.
“Is the French gentleman ready?”
In the next room there was silence, then a whisper.--There had been some
one near who had heard them.--Paul de Gery hurried downstairs. He must
get out of this room to escape the weight of so much infamy.
As the post-chaise swayed, he saw among the common white curtains, which
float at all the windows in the south, a pale figure with the hair of
a goddess, and great burning eyes fixed on him. But a glance at Aline’s
portrait quickly dispelled this disturbing vision, and forever cured
of his old love, he travelled until evening through the magic landscape
with the lovely bride of the _dejeuner_, who carried in the folds of her
modest robe and mantle all the violets of Bordighera.