prefer my husband to that."
She returned straight home. In the evening she told Maxime not to come;
she was poorly, she needed repose. And, on the morrow, when she handed
him the fifteen thousand francs for Sylvia's jeweller, she remained
embarrassed in presence of his surprise and his questions. Her husband,
she said, had done a good stroke of business. From that day forth,
however, she became more capricious, she often changed the hour of the
appointments which she gave the young fellow, and even she frequently
watched for him in the conservatory to send him away. He did not worry
himself much about these changes of humour; it pleased him to be an
obedient thing in women's hands. What bored him a great deal more was
the moral turn which their lovers' meetings took at times. She became
quite sad; and it even happened that she had big tears in her eyes.
She left off singing the refrain about the "handsome young man" in the
_Belle Hélène_, she played the hymns she had learnt at school and asked
her lover if he did not think that sin was always punished, sooner or
later.
"She's decidedly growing old," he thought. "It will be the utmost if
she's funny for another year or two."
The truth was that she suffered cruelly. She would now have preferred
to deceive Maxime with Monsieur de Saffré. She had revolted at Madame
Sidonie's, she had given way to instinctive pride, to disgust for such
a low bargain. But on the following days, when she endured the anguish
of adultery, everything in her foundered; and she felt herself so
despicable that she would have surrendered herself to the first man who
pushed open the door of the room containing the pianos. The thought of
her husband had, at times, formerly passed before her, amid her incest,
like a touch of voluptuous horror; but henceforth the husband, the man
himself, entered into it with a brutality that transformed her most
delicate sensations into intolerable sufferings. She, who had enjoyed
the refinement of her sin, and had willingly dreamt of a corner of a
superhuman paradise where the gods partook of their amours together,
was now descending to vulgar debauchery, to being shared by two men.
In vain did she try to derive enjoyment from her infamy. Her lips were
still warm with Saccard's kisses when she offered them to Maxime's. Her
inquisitiveness descended to the depths of these accursed pleasures.
She went as far as to mingle the two affections, and to seek for the
son amid the father's hugs. And she emerged yet more alarmed and more
bruised from this journey into unknown evil, from this ardent darkness
in which she confounded the person of her double lover, with a terror
which was like the death-rattle of her enjoyment.
She kept this drama to herself alone, and increased the suffering it
occasioned by the feverishness of her imagination. She would have
preferred to die rather than own the truth to Maxime. She had an
inward fear that the young man might revolt and leave her; she had
such an absolute belief in the monstrosity of her sin and in eternal
damnation, that she would have more willingly crossed the Parc Monceaux
naked than have confessed her shame aloud. On the other hand, she
still remained the madcap who astonished Paris by her extravagant
conduct. Nervous gaiety seized hold of her, prodigious caprices which
the newspapers talked about, designating her by her initials. It was
at this period that she seriously wished to fight a duel with pistols
with the Duchess de Sternich who had, intentionally, so she said, upset
a glass of punch over her dress. To calm her, it was necessary for
her brother-in-law, the minister, to get angry. On another occasion
she bet with Madame de Lauwerens that she would make the round of the
Longchamps racecourse in less than ten minutes, and it was only a
question of costume that deterred her from doing so. Maxime himself
began to feel afraid of this head, in which madness lurked; and on the
pillow at night-time he thought he could hear all the hubbub of a city
bent on enjoying itself.
One evening they went together to the Théâtre-Italien. They had
not even looked at the bill. They wished to see the great Italian
tragedian, Ristori, who then attracted all Paris, and in whom, by the
command of fashion, they were bound to interest themselves. The play
was _Phèdre_. Maxime remembered his classical repertory sufficiently,
and Renée knew enough Italian to follow the performance. And indeed
they derived an especial emotion from this drama, performed in a
foreign language, the sonority of which seemed to them at times to be a
simple orchestral accompaniment supporting the pantomime of the actors.
Hippolytos was a tall, pale fellow, a very poor actor, who whimpered
his part.
"What a ninny!" muttered Maxime.
However, Ristori, with her broad shoulders shaken by her sobs, with
her tragical face and fat arms, moved Renée deeply. Phædra was of
Pasiphae's blood, and she asked herself of what blood she was, the
incestuous stepmother of modern times. She saw nought of the piece save
this tall woman drawing the ancient crime over the stage. When Phædra
confides her criminal tenderness to Œnone in the first act; when, all
on fire, she declares herself to Hippolytos in the second; and later
on, in the fourth act, when the return of Theseus overwhelms her and
she curses herself, in a crisis of gloomy fury, she filled the house
with such a cry of savage passion, with such a yearning for superhuman
voluptuousness, that the young woman felt every shudder of her desire
and remorse pass through her own flesh.
"Wait," murmured Maxime in her ears, "you are going to hear Theramene's
narrative. The old fellow has a funny head!"
And he muttered in a hollow voice:
"Scarce had we passed the gates of Trezene,
He on his chariot mounted--"
But while the old fellow spoke, Renée neither looked nor listened any
more. The light blinded her, and stifling heat came to her from all the
pale faces stretched out towards the stage. The monologue continued,
interminable. She imagined herself in the conservatory under the
ardent foliage, and she dreamt that her husband came in and surprised
her in the arms of his son. She suffered horribly, she was losing
consciousness, when the death-rattle of Phædra, repentant and dying in
the convulsions caused by the poison, made her open her eyes again. The
curtain fell. Would she have the strength to poison herself some day?
How petty and shameful her drama was beside the ancient epopœia! And
while Maxime fastened her opera cloak under her chin, she still heard,
growling behind her, Ristori's rough voice to which Œnone's complacent
murmur replied.
In the brougham, the young fellow talked on alone. He considered
tragedies sickening as a rule, and preferred the pieces performed at
the Bouffes. However, _Phèdre_ was spicy. He had taken an interest in
it, because--And he pressed Renée's hand to complete his meaning. Then
a funny idea darted through his head, and he gave way to an impulse to
say something witty.
"It was I," he murmured, "who did right not to approach the sea at
Trouville."
Renée, lost in the depths of her painful dream, remained silent. It was
necessary for him to repeat his phrase.
"Why?" asked she, astonished and failing to understand.
"But the monster--"
And he gave vent to a little titter. This joke froze the young woman.
Everything was upset in her head. Ristori was no longer aught, but a
big puppet who tucked up her peplum and poked out her tongue to the
public like Blanche Müller in the third act of the _Belle Hélène_;
Theramene danced the cancan, and Hippolytos eat bread and jam while
stuffing his fingers into his nose.
When a more galling remorse made Renée shudder, she evinced superb
revolt. What was her crime after all, and why should she blush? Did she
not every day tread upon greater infamies? Did she not elbow at the
ministers', at the Tuileries, everywhere in fact, wretches like herself
who had millions on their flesh, and who were adored on both knees! And
she thought of the shameful friendship of Adeline d'Espanet and Suzanne
Haffner, at which one smiled, at times, at the Empress's Mondays.
And she recalled to herself the traffic of Madame de Lauwerens, whom
husbands celebrated for her good conduct, her order, and her exactitude
in settling her tradesmen's bills. She named Madame Daste, Madame
Teissière, the Baroness de Meinhold, those creatures whose luxury was
paid for by their lovers, and who were quoted in society like shares
are quoted upon change. Madame de Guende was so stupid and so well
formed, that she had three superior officers for her lovers at the same
time, and was unable to distinguish them from each other on account of
their uniforms. This made that demon of a Louise say that she first
of all made them strip to their shifts so as to know which of the
three she was talking to. As for the Countess Vanska, she remembered
the courtyards in which she had sung, the side-walks on which people
pretended they had again seen her, dressed in printed calico, and
prowling about like a she-wolf. Each of these women had her shame, her
triumphant, displayed sore. And, overtopping them all, the Duchess de
Sternich rose up, ugly, old, worn out, with the glory of having passed
a night in the Imperial bed; she typified official vice, from which she
derived the majesty of debauchery and a kind of sovereignty over this
band of illustrious hussies.
The incestuous stepmother accustomed herself to her sin, as to a gala
robe the stiffness of which might at first have inconvenienced her. She
followed the fashions of the period, she dressed and undressed herself
in the style of others. She ended by believing that she lived amid a
circle above common morality, in which the senses became more acute and
developed, and in which one was allowed to strip oneself naked for the
joy of all Olympus. Sin became a luxury, a flower set in the hair, a
diamond fastened on the brow. And she again saw, like a justification
and redemption, the Emperor passing on the general's arm, between two
rows of inclined shoulders.
Only one man, Baptiste, her husband's valet, continued to disturb her.
Since Saccard showed himself gallant, this tall, pale, dignified valet,
seemed to walk around her with the solemnity of mute censure. He did
not look at her, his cold glances passed higher, above her chignon,
with the modesty of a beadle who refuses to defile his eyes by letting
them rest on a hair of a sinner. She imagined that he knew everything,
and she would have purchased his silence had she dared. Then feelings
of uneasiness took possession of her, she experienced a kind of
confused respect when she met Baptiste, and said to herself that all
the honesty of her household had withdrawn and hidden itself under this
lackey's dress-coat.
One day she asked Céleste:
"Does Baptiste joke in the servants' hall? Do you know if he has had
any adventure, if he has any mistress?"
"What a question!" was all the maid replied.
"Come, he must have paid you some attentions?"
"Why! he never looks at women. We barely see him. He is always in
master's rooms or in the stables. He says that he is very fond of
horses."
Renée was irritated by this respectability, for she would have liked
to be able to despise her servants. Although she had taken a liking
to Céleste, she would have rejoiced to learn that she was someone's
mistress.
"But you, Céleste," she continued, "don't you think that Baptiste is a
good-looking fellow?"
"I, madame!" cried the chambermaid with the stupefied air of a person
who has just heard something prodigious. "Oh! I've very different ideas
in my head. I don't want a man. I've my plan. You will see later on.
I'm not a fool, no."
Renée could not draw anything more precise from her. Moreover, her
worries were growing. Her noisy life, her mad rambles, met with
numerous obstacles which she had to overcome, and against which she
at times bruised herself. It was thus that Louise de Mareuil rose
up one day between herself and Maxime. Renée was not jealous of the
"hunchback," as she disdainfully called her; she knew her to be
condemned by the doctors, and could not believe that Maxime would ever
marry such an ugly chit, even at the price of a dowry of a million.
In her fall she had retained a middle-class naivete respecting the
people around her; although she despised herself, she readily believed
that they were superior and very estimable. But whilst rejecting the
possibility of a marriage which would have seemed to her a piece of
sinister debauchery and a theft, she suffered from the young folks'
familiarities and friendliness. When she spoke of Louise to Maxime, he
laughed with satisfaction, he repeated the child's sayings to her, and
said:
"The urchin calls me her little man, you know."
And he displayed such freedom of mind that she did not dare to tell him
that this urchin was seventeen, and that their playfulness with their
hands, and their eagerness when they met in drawing-rooms to find out
some shady corner to poke fun at everybody, grieved her and spoilt her
most pleasant evenings.
An incident occurred which imparted a strange character to the
situation. Renée often felt the need of acting boastingly, and she had
whims of brutal boldness. She dragged Maxime behind a curtain, behind a
door, and kissed him at the risk of being seen. One Thursday evening,
when the buttercup drawing-room was full of people, she was seized
with the fine idea of calling the young fellow who was talking with
Louise, she advanced from the depths of the conservatory where she was
to meet him, and abruptly kissed him on the mouth between two clumps of
shrubbery, thinking that she was sufficiently concealed. But Louise had
followed Maxime, and when the lovers raised their heads, they saw her a
few paces off, looking at them with a strange smile, without the least
blush or astonishment, but with the quiet friendly air of a companion
in vice, who is learned enough to understand and appreciate such a kiss.
Maxime felt really frightened that day, and it was Renée who showed
herself indifferent and almost joyful. It was all over. It was now
impossible for the hunchback to take her lover from her. She thought:
"I ought to have done it on purpose. She now knows that her 'little
man' belongs to me."
Maxime felt reassured when he again found Louise as gay and as funny
as before. He considered her to be "very acute and a very good-natured
girl." And that was all.
There was good reason, however, for Renée to be disturbed. For some
little time past Saccard had been thinking of his son's marriage with
Mademoiselle de Mareuil. There was a dowry of a million francs to be
had, which he did not wish to let escape, meaning to get his hands into
this money later on. As Louise remained in bed during nearly three
weeks at the beginning of the winter, he was so afraid of seeing her
die before the projected union was accomplished, that he decided the
children should marry at once. He certainly thought them rather young;
but the doctors feared the month of March for the consumptive girl.
Monsieur de Mareuil on his side was in a delicate position. He had
eventually succeeded in getting himself returned as a deputy at the
last poll. Only the Corps Législatif had just quashed his election,
which had provoked a great scandal when the Chamber deliberated on the
validity of the returns. This election was quite a heroi-comical poem,
on which the newspapers lived for a whole month. Monsieur Hupel de la
Noue, the prefect of the department, had displayed such vigour that
the other candidates had not even been able either to placard their
addresses to the electors, or to distribute their voting papers. At his
advice, Monsieur de Mareuil covered the constituency with tables at
which the peasants ate and drank for a week. He, moreover, promised a
railway line, the erection of a bridge and three churches, and on the
eve of the poll he forwarded to the influential electors the portraits
of the Emperor and Empress, two large engravings covered with glass
and set in gold frames. This gift met with tremendous success, and the
majority in Monsieur de Mareuil's favour was overwhelming. But when
the Chamber, in presence of the bursts of laughter which came from
all France, found itself compelled to send Monsieur de Mareuil back
to his electors, the minister flew into a terrible passion with the
prefect and the unfortunate candidate who had really shown themselves
too "zealous." He even spoke of choosing someone else as the official
candidate. Monsieur de Mareuil was terrified, he had spent three
hundred thousand francs in the department, he owned there some large
estates where he felt bored, and which he would have to sell at a loss.
So he came to beg his dear colleague to appease his brother, and to
promise him in his name a most properly conducted election. It was on
this occasion that Saccard again spoke of the children's marriage and
that the two fathers finally decided upon it.
When Maxime was sounded on the subject he felt embarrassed. Louise
amused him, and the dowry tempted him still more. He said yes, he
accepted all the dates that Saccard named to avoid the worry of a
discussion. But, at heart, he owned to himself that matters would
unfortunately not be arranged with such charming facility. Renée would
never consent, she would cry, she would upbraid him, she was capable
of provoking some great scandal to astonish Paris. It was very
disagreeable. She now frightened him. She watched him with alarming
eyes, and she possessed him so despotically that he thought he could
feel claws digging into his shoulder whenever she laid her white hand
on it. Her turbulence became roughness, and there was a cracked sound
in the depths of her laughter. He really feared that she would go mad
one night in his arms. With her, remorse, fear of being surprised,
the cruel joys of adultery did not manifest themselves as with other
women, by tears and dejection, but by greater extravagance, and a more
irresistible longing for noise. And amid her growing affrightment one
began to hear a rattling, the derangement of this adorable, astonishing
machine which was breaking up.
Maxime passively awaited an occasion which would rid him of this
troublesome mistress. He again said that they had been very stupid. If
their comradeship had at first lent additional voluptuousness to their
love, it now prevented him from breaking off as he would certainly have
done from any other woman. He would not have returned; that was his
mode of bringing his amours to a finish so as to avoid any effort or
any quarrel. But he felt himself incapable of a row, and he still even
willingly forgot himself in Renée's embraces; she behaved maternally,
she paid his expenses, and she would pull him out of embarrassment if
any creditors became angry. Then the thought of Louise, the thought
of the dowry of a million of francs returned to him, and made him
reflect--even amid the young woman's kisses--"that it was all very
charming and nice, but that it wasn't serious and must come to an end."
One night Maxime was so rapidly stumped at the house of a woman where
one often gambled till daylight, that he experienced one of those mute
attacks of anger familiar to the gamester whose pockets are empty.
He would have given everything in the world to have been able to
fling a few more louis on the table. He took up his hat, and with the
mechanical step of a man who is impelled by a fixed idea, he repaired
to the Parc Monceaux, opened the little gate, and found himself in the
conservatory. It was past midnight. Renée had forbidden him to come
that night. When she now closed her door to him she did not even try
to invent an explanation, while he merely thought of profiting of his
holiday. He only clearly remembered the young woman's prohibition when
he was in front of the glass door of the little drawing-room which was
closed. As a rule when he was to come, Renée undid the fastening of
this door in advance.
"Bah!" said he on seeing that the window of the dressing-room was
lighted up, "I will whistle and she will come down. I sha'n't disturb
her; if she has a few louis, I will go off at once."
And he whistled gently. He indeed often employed this signal to
announce his arrival. But that evening he fruitlessly whistled several
times. He grew obstinate, raising the key, and unwilling to abandon
his idea of an immediate loan. At last he saw the glass door opened
with infinite precaution and without his having heard the least sound
of footsteps. In the dim light of the conservatory Renée appeared to
him, with her hair down, and scarcely dressed, as if she were going to
bed. She was barefooted. She pushed him towards one of the arbours,
descending the steps and walking over the gravel of the pathways,
without seeming to feel the cold or the roughness of the ground.
"It's stupid to whistle as loud as that," she muttered with restrained
anger. "I told you not to come. What do you want with me?"
"Eh? Let's go up," said Maxime, surprised by this reception. "I will
tell you upstairs. You will catch cold here."
But as he stepped forward she held him back and he then perceived that
she was horribly pale. Mute fright bent her form. Her clothes, the lace
of her linen, hung down like tragic shreds upon her shuddering skin.
He examined her with growing astonishment:
"What is the matter with you? You are ill?"
And instinctively he raised his eyes and looked through the glass panes
of the conservatory at the window of the dressing-room where he had
seen a light.
"But there's a man in your room," he said suddenly.
"No, no, it isn't true," she stammered, supplicating, distracted.
"Pooh, my dear, I see his shadow."
Then, for a minute they remained there face to face, not knowing what
to say to each other. Renée's teeth chattered with terror, and it
seemed to her as if some one were throwing bucketsful of iced water
over her bare feet. Maxime experienced more irritation than he would
have believed; but he still remained sufficiently possessed to reflect,
and say to himself that the occasion was a good one, and that he would
now break off the connection.
"You won't make me believe that Céleste wears a coat," he continued.
"If the glass panes of the conservatory were not so thick I should
perhaps recognize the gentleman."
She pushed him deeper into the shadow of the foliage, saying, with her
hands clasped, and seized with growing terror:
"I beg of you, Maxime--"
But all the young fellow's teasing faculties were aroused, a ferocious
malice which sought for vengeance. He was too weak to ease himself by
anger. Spite compressed his lips; and, instead of striking her, as
he had at first had the impulse of doing, he sharpened his voice and
rejoined:
"You ought to have told me of it, I shouldn't have come to disturb
you--It happens every day that one no longer cares for one another. I
myself was beginning to have enough of it--Come, don't be impatient.
I will let you go up again; but not before you have told me the
gentleman's name--"
"Never, never!" murmured the young woman, forcing back her tears.
"It isn't to call him out, it's to know--The name, tell me the name,
quick, and off I go."
He had caught hold of her wrists and he looked at her, laughing his
wicked laugh. She struggled, distracted, bent upon not opening her lips
again, so that the name he asked for might not escape from them.
"We shall make a noise, you will be nicely placed then. Why are you
frightened? Aren't we good friends? I want to know who replaces me,
it's legitimate--Come, I will help you--It's Monsieur de Mussy whose
grief has touched you."
She did not answer. She bowed her head beneath such an interrogatory.
"It isn't Monsieur de Mussy? The Duke de Rozan, then? Really, nor he
either? Perhaps the Count de Chibray? Not even he?"
He stopped short, he reflected.
"The devil, I can't think of any one else. It can't be my father after
what you told me--"
Renée quivered as if she had been burnt, and said huskily:
"No. You know very well that he no longer comes. I shouldn't accept, it
would be ignoble."
"Then who is it?"
And he pressed her wrists still more tightly. The poor woman struggled
for a few moments longer.
"Oh, Maxime, if you knew! I can't, however, tell you--"
Then conquered, crushed, looking with affright at the lighted window:
"It is Monsieur de Saffré," she stammered in a very low voice.
Maxime, whom the cruel game had amused, turned extremely pale on
hearing this confession which he had asked for so persistently. He was
irritated by the unexpected pain which this man's name caused him. He
violently threw back Renée's wrists, drawing near to her, and saying to
her full in the face, and with clinched teeth:
"Well, do you want to know you are a ----!"
He said the word. And he was going off, when she hastened to him,
sobbing, taking him in her arms, murmuring tender things, requests for
pardon, swearing that she still adored him, and that she would explain
everything to him on the morrow. But he disengaged himself, and banged
the door of the conservatory, replying:
"No! all's over, I've had quite enough of it."
She remained crushed. She watched him crossing the garden. It seemed
to her that the trees of the conservatory revolved round her. Then
she slowly dragged her bare feet over the gravel of the pathways,
she reascended the steps, her skin discoloured by the cold, and
more tragical than ever amid the disorder of her lace. Upstairs she
answered, in reply to the questions of her husband who was waiting for
her, that she had thought she could recollect where she had dropped a
little note-book she had lost since the morning. And when she was in
bed, she suddenly felt immense despair on reflecting that she ought to
have told Maxime that his father, after returning home with her, had
followed her into her room to talk to her about some money matter.
It was on the morrow that Saccard decided to hasten the finish of the
Charonne matter. His wife belonged to him; he had just felt her, soft
and inert in his hands, like something that surrenders itself. On the
other hand, the line which the Boulevard du Prince Eugène was to follow
was about to be decided upon, and it was necessary that Renée should
be despoiled before the approaching expropriation was noised about.
Saccard displayed an artist's love in all this affair; it was with
devotion that he watched his plan ripen, and he set his traps with the
refinement of a sportsman who prides himself on capturing his game
in skilful fashion. He felt the satisfaction of an expert gamester,
of a man who derives a special enjoyment from stolen gain; he wished
to obtain the ground for a crust of bread, and then to give his wife
a hundred thousand francs' worth of jewellery, amid the joy of the
triumph. The simplest operations grew complicated, became black dramas,
as soon as he dealt with them; he became impassioned, he would have
beaten his father for five francs. But afterwards he scattered gold
in regal fashion. However, before obtaining from Renée the cession of
her share in the property, he prudently went to probe Larsonneau as to
the black-mailing intentions which he had scented in him. His instinct
saved him on this occasion. The expropriation agent had imagined, on
his side, that the fruit was ripe and that he could pluck it. When
Saccard entered the office in the Rue de Rivoli he found his compeer
overcome, and showing signs of the most violent despair.
"Ah! my friend," murmured Larsonneau, taking hold of his hands, "we
are lost. I was about to hasten to your place so that we might consult
together and get out of this horrible scrape."
While he wrung his arms and tried to sob, Saccard noticed that he had
been engaged in signing letters prior to his arrival, and that the
signatures were penned with admirable precision. He accordingly looked
at him quietly, saying:
"Bah! what has befallen us then?"
But the agent did not reply at once; he had thrown himself into his
arm-chair in front of his writing table, and there, with his elbows on
the blotting pad and his brow between his hands, he furiously shook his
head. Finally in a husky voice:
"I have been robbed of the ledger containing the inventory, you know."
And he related that one of his clerks, a scamp worthy of the galleys,
had abstracted a large number of papers among which the famous
inventory figured. The worst was that the thief had realized to what
use he might turn the document in question, and he wished to sell it
back for a hundred thousand francs.
Saccard reflected. The story seemed to him altogether too clumsy.
Plainly enough Larsonneau did not much care at heart whether he was
believed or not. He sought for a simple pretext to make Saccard
understand that he wanted a hundred thousand francs in the Charonne
affair; and indeed, that he would, on this condition, return the
compromising papers which were in his possession. The bargain
seemed too onerous to Saccard. He would willingly have allowed his
ex-colleague a share, but he was irritated by the setting of this
snare, by this pretension to make a dupe of him. On the other hand he
was not without his apprehensions; he knew the personage he had to deal
with, he knew that he was quite capable of taking the documents to his
brother, the minister, who would certainly have paid a price for them
so as to stifle any scandal.
"The devil!" he muttered, sitting down in his turn, "this is a nasty
story. And can one see the scamp in question?"
"I will have him sent for," said Larsonneau. "He lives close by, in the
Rue Jean-Lantier."
Ten minutes had not elapsed when a little young fellow with a squint,
light hair, and a face covered with freckles, stepped softly into the
room, taking care that the door should not make a noise. He wore an
old black frock coat, too large for him and horribly threadbare. He
remained standing at a respectful distance, quietly looking at Saccard
out of the corner of his eye. Larsonneau, who called him Baptistin,
made him undergo an interrogatory, to which he replied in monosyllables
without humbling himself the least in the world; indeed he accepted
with the utmost indifference the epithets of thief, swindler and
scoundrel, which his master thought fit to adjoin to each of his
questions.
Saccard admired this wretched fellow's coolness. At one moment the
expropriation agent sprang from his arm-chair as if to strike him; and
he contented himself with retreating a step, squinting with still more
humility.
"That will do, leave him alone," said the financier. "And so, sir, you
demand a hundred thousand francs for the papers."
"Yes, a hundred thousand francs," replied the young man.
And he went off. Larsonneau seemed unable to calm himself.
"What a blackguard, eh?" he stammered. "Did you see his underhand
looks? Fellows of that stamp have a timid air, but they would murder a
man for twenty francs."
Saccard however interrupted him, saying:
"Pooh! he isn't terrible. I think one will be able to arrange matters
with him--I came to see you about a much more worrying affair--You were
right in mistrusting my wife, my dear friend. Just fancy, she's going
to sell her share of the property to Monsieur Haffner. She needs money,
she says. Her friend Suzanne must have influenced her."
The other abruptly ceased despairing; he listened, rather pale,
readjusting his stick-up collar, which had become bent during his fit
of anger.
"This sale," continued Saccard, "means the ruin of our hopes. If
Monsieur Haffner becomes your fellow-partner, not only will our profits
be compromised, but I am dreadfully afraid that we shall find ourselves
in a most disagreeable position towards that over-scrupulous fellow,
who will want to go over the accounts."
The expropriation agent began walking about with an agitated step, his
patent leather boots creaking on the carpet.
"You see," muttered he, "in what a position one puts oneself to
oblige people! But, my dear fellow, if I were in your place, I should
absolutely prevent my wife from doing anything so foolish. I would beat
her sooner."
"Ah! my friend!" said the financier with a wily smile, "I have no more
power over my wife than you seem to have over that blackguard of a
Baptistin."
Larsonneau stopped short in front of Saccard, who was still smiling,
and gazed at him with a profound air. Then he resumed walking up and
down, but with a slow measured step. He approached a looking glass,
pulled up the bow of his necktie, and then walked on again, regaining
his usual elegant manner. And suddenly:
"Baptistin!" he cried.
The little young fellow who squinted came in, but by another door. He
no longer carried his hat, but twisted a pen between his fingers.
"Go and fetch the ledger," said Larsonneau to him.
And when the clerk was no longer there, the agent discussed the sum
that was to be given him.
"Do it for me," he ended by plainly saying.
Thereupon Saccard consented to give thirty thousand francs out of the
future profits of the Charonne affair. He considered that he still
escaped cheaply from the usurer's gloved hand. The latter had the
promise made out in his name, prolonging the comedy to the end, and
stating that he would be accountable to the young man for the thirty
thousand francs. It was with a laugh of relief that Saccard burnt
the ledger page by page at the fire flaming in the grate. Then, this
operation over, he exchanged vigorous hand shakes with Larsonneau, and
left him saying:
"You are going to Laure's this evening, aren't you? Wait for me there.
I shall have arranged everything with my wife, I we will decide on our
final plans."
Laure d'Aurigny, who often moved, then resided in a large apartment
on the Boulevard Haussmann, in front of the Expiatory Chapel. She had
just fixed one day a week to be at home, like a lady of real society.
It was a manner of assembling on the same occasion, the men who saw
her, one by one, during the week. Aristide Saccard triumphed on Tuesday
evenings; he was the acknowledged protector; and he turned his head
with a vague laugh whenever the mistress of the house betrayed him
between two doors, by giving one of the gentlemen an appointment for
the same night. When he remained there, the last of the set, he lit
another cigar, talked business, and joked about the gentleman who was
dancing attendance in the street, waiting until he left; then after
calling Laure his "dear child," and giving her a little pat on the
cheek, he quietly went off by one door while the gentleman came in by
another. The secret treaty of alliance which had consolidated Saccard's
credit and procured the d'Aurigny two sets of furniture in a month,
still continued to amuse them. But Laure wanted a finish to the comedy.
This finish, a predetermined one, was to consist in a public rupture,
to the profit of some fool who would pay dearly for the right of being
the serious protector, known as such to all Paris. The fool was found.
The Duke de Rozan, tired of uselessly boring the women of the same
social standing as himself, dreamt of acquiring the reputation of a
debauchee, so as to lend some relief to his insipid personality. He was
very assiduous at the Tuesday at homes of Laure, whom he had conquered
by his absolute simplicity. Unfortunately, although thirty-five years
old, he was still dependent upon his mother, to such a point that
he could at the most dispose of merely ten louis at a time. On the
evenings when Laure deigned to take his ten louis, pitying herself,
and talking of the hundred thousand francs she needed, he sighed, and
promised her the amount on the day when he would be the master. It
was then that she had the idea of putting him on friendly terms with
Larsonneau, who was one of her good friends. The two men went to lunch
together at Tortoni's; and at dessert Larsonneau, while relating his
amours with a delicious Spanish beauty, pretended that he knew some
money-lenders; but he strongly advised Rozan never to let himself pass
into their hands. This confidential announcement inflamed the duke,
who ended by wringing from his dear friend a promise that he would
occupy himself about his "little affair." He occupied himself about it
so well that he was to bring the money on the very evening that Saccard
was to meet him at Laure's.
When Larsonneau arrived, the d'Aurigny's large white and gold
drawing-room only contained some five or six women, who took hold of
his hands, and clung to his neck with a furious outburst of affection.
They called him "that big Lar!" a caressing nickname which Laure had
invented. And he in a fluty voice exclaimed:
"There, that'll do, my little kittens; you will crush my hat."
They calmed down, and gathered close around him on a couch, while he
told them about an attack of indigestion which had befallen Sylvia,
with whom he had supped the night before. Then drawing a sweetmeat box
from the pocket of his dress-coat he offered them some burnt almonds.
Meanwhile, Laure came out of her bedroom, and as several gentlemen
arrived, she drew Larsonneau into a boudoir situated at one end of the
drawing-room, from which it was separated by double hangings.
"Have you got the money?" she asked him when they were alone.
Larsonneau, without replying, bowed in a jocular manner and tapped the
inner pocket of his coat.
"Oh! you big Lar!" murmured the delighted young woman.
She took him round the waist and kissed him.
"Wait a bit," she said, "I want the flimsies--Rozan is in my room, I
will go and fetch him."
But he detained her, and, in his turn, kissing her shoulders:
"You know what commission I asked of _you_."
"Why, yes, you big stupid, it's agreed."
She came back bringing Rozan. Larsonneau was dressed more correctly
than the duke, with better fitting gloves, and a more artistic bow
to his necktie. They negligently touched hands, and talked about the
races of two days before, at which one of their friends had had a horse
beaten. Laure stamped impatiently.
"Come, never mind all that, my darling," said she to Rozan. "Big Lar
has the money, you know. The affair had better be settled."
Larsonneau pretended to remember.
"Ah, yes, it's true," he said, "I have the amount--But how much better
you would have done had you listened to me, my dear fellow! To think
that these rogues demanded fifty per cent of me. However I agreed to it
all the same, as you told me that it didn't matter."
Laure d'Aurigny had procured some bill stamps during the day. But when
it was a question of a pen and an inkstand, she looked at the two men
with an air of consternation, doubting whether these objects would be
found in the place. She wanted to go and look in the kitchen, when
Larsonneau drew from his pocket, the pocket containing the sweetmeat
box, two marvels, a silver pen-holder which lengthened by means of
a screw, and a steel and ebony inkstand, of jewel-like finish and
delicacy. And as Rozan sat down:
"Draw the notes to my name," the agent said. "I didn't wish to
compromise you, you understand? We will arrange matters together. Six
notes of twenty-five thousand francs each, eh?"
Laure counted the flimsies on a corner of the table. Rozan did not even
see them. When he had signed and raised his head, they had already
disappeared in the young woman's pocket. However she came to him and
kissed him on both cheeks, which appeared to delight him. Larsonneau
looked at them philosophically while folding the promissory notes, and
replacing the inkstand and pen-holder in his pocket.
The young woman still had her arms round Rozan's neck, when Aristide
Saccard raised a corner of the door-hanging.
"Well, don't disturb yourselves," he said, laughing.
The duke blushed. But Laure went to shake the financier's hand,
exchanging a wink of intelligence with him. She was radiant.
"It's done, my dear," said she. "I warned you of it. You are not too
angry with me?"
Saccard shrugged his shoulders with a good-natured air. He pulled back
the hanging, and drawing aside to allow Laure and the duke to pass, he
cried out in an usher's yelping voice:
"The duke, the duchess!"
This witticism met with tremendous success. On the morrow the
newspapers repeated it, plainly naming Laure d'Aurigny, and designating
the two men, by extremely transparent initials. The rupture between
Aristide Saccard and fat Laure, caused even more of a stir than their
pretended amours had done.
Saccard had let the door curtain fall again amid the burst of gaiety
which his jocularity had occasioned in the drawing-room.
"Ah! what a good girl!" said he, turning towards Larsonneau. "She is
vicious! It's you, you scamp, who no doubt profits by all this. What
are you to have?"
But the agent protested, with smiles, and pulled down his shirt-cuffs,
which had caught up under the sleeves of his coat. At last he went and
sat down near the door, on a couch to which Saccard motioned him:
"Come here, I don't want to confess you, dash it all! Let us now deal
with serious matters, my dear fellow. I have had a long talk with my
wife this evening. Everything is decided."
"She consents to cede her share in the property?" asked Larsonneau.
"Yes, but it wasn't without trouble on my part--Women are so obstinate!
My wife, you know, had promised an old aunt not to sell the ground.
There was no end to her scruples. Luckily, however, I had prepared
quite a decisive story."
He rose up to light a cigar at the candelabrum which Laure had left on
the table, and returning and stretching himself languidly on the couch:
"I told my wife," he continued, "that you were completely ruined--You
had gambled at the Bourse, spent your money with harlots, dabbled in
bad speculations; in fact you are on the point of ending by a frightful
bankruptcy--I even let it be understood that I did not consider you
perfectly honest--Then I explained to her that the Charonne affair
would be wrecked in your fall, and that the best course would be for
her to accept the proposal you had made to me to disengage her, by
buying her share, for a crust of bread, it's true."
"It isn't an able story," muttered the expropriation agent. "Do you
fancy your wife will believe such trash?"
Saccard smiled. He was in a disposition to be communicative.
"You are simple, my dear fellow," he resumed. "The basis of the story
is of little consequence; the details, gestures and tone of voice
are everything. Call Rozan and I bet I will persuade him that it is
broad daylight. My wife has scarcely any more brains than Rozan--I
let her have a glimpse of a precipice. She hasn't the least idea of
the coming expropriation. As she was astonished, that in the midst
of a catastrophe, you could think of taking a still heavier burden
on your shoulders, I told her that no doubt she hampered you in
dealing some ugly blow intended for your creditors. Finally, I advised
the transaction as the only means of avoiding being mixed up in
interminable law suits, and of deriving some money from the ground."
Larsonneau still considered the story somewhat brutal. His method was
less dramatic; each of his operations was concocted and unravelled with
the elegance of a drawing-room comedy.
"I should have imagined something different," he said. "However,
everyone his own system. So all we have to do now is to pay--"
"It is on this point," replied Saccard, "that I want to make
arrangements with you. To-morrow I will take the deed of sale to my
wife, and she will simply have to send you this deed to receive the
stipulated amount. I prefer to avoid any interview."
He had indeed never allowed Larsonneau to visit them on a footing
of intimacy. He did not invite him to his entertainments, and he
accompanied him to Renée's on the days when it was absolutely necessary
that they should meet; this had happened on three occasions at the
utmost. He almost always transacted matters with a power of attorney
from his wife, not wishing to let her see too closely into his affairs.
He now opened his pocket-book, adding:
"Here are the two hundred thousand francs' worth of bills accepted by
my wife; you will give them her in payment, and you will add to them a
hundred thousand francs which I will bring you to-morrow morning. I am
bleeding myself, my dear friend. This business will cost me a fortune."
"But that will only make three hundred thousand francs," remarked the
expropriation agent. "Will the receipt be for that amount?"
"A receipt for three hundred thousand francs!" rejoined Saccard,
laughing. "Ah! in that case we should be nicely placed later on!
According to our inventories, the property must now be estimated at two
millions five hundred thousand francs. The receipt will naturally be
for half that amount."
"Your wife will never sign it."
"Yes, she will. I tell you that it is all agreed. Why, dash it all!
I told her that that was your first condition. You present a pistol
at our heads with your bankruptcy, do you understand? And it was for
that reason that I appeared to doubt your honesty, and accused you
of wanting to dupe your creditors. Do you think my wife understands
anything of all that?"
Larsonneau shook his head, muttering:
"No matter, you ought to have devised something simpler."
"But my story is simplicity itself!" said Saccard, very much
astonished. "How the devil do you find it complicated?"
He was not conscious of the incredible number of devices which he
tacked on to the most ordinary transaction. He derived real enjoyment
from the cock-and-bull story which he had just told Renée; and
what delighted him was the impudence of the lie, the piling up of
impossibilities, the astonishing complicacy of the plot. He would long
since have had the ground if he had not imagined all this drama; but
he would have experienced less enjoyment had he obtained it easily.
Besides, he displayed the utmost simplicity in making the Charonne
speculation quite a financial melodrama.
He rose up, and taking Larsonneau's arm, walked towards the
drawing-room:
"You have perfectly understood me, eh?" he said. "Content yourself with
following my instructions, and you will applaud me later on. Do you
know, my dear fellow, you do wrong to wear yellow gloves, they quite
spoil your hands."
The expropriation agent contented himself with smiling and murmuring:
"Oh! gloves have their value, dear master: one can touch anything
without dirtying oneself."
As they returned into the drawing-room, Saccard was surprised and
somewhat alarmed to find Maxime on the other side of the door curtains.
He was seated on a couch beside a fair-haired woman, who was telling
him, in a monotonous voice, a long story, no doubt her own. The young
fellow had, in point of fact, overheard the conversation between his
father and Larsonneau. The two accomplices seemed to him to be a pair
of sharp blades. Still vexed by Renée's betrayal, he tasted a cowardly
enjoyment in learning the theft of which she was about to be the
victim. It avenged him a little. His father came and shook his hand
with a suspicious air; but Maxime, showing him the fair-haired woman,
whispered in his ear:
"She isn't bad looking, is she? I mean to have her this evening."
Thereupon Saccard attitudinized, and showed himself gallant. Laure
d'Aurigny came and joined them for a moment. She complained that Maxime
scarcely paid her one visit a month. But he pretended that he had been
very much occupied, which statement made everybody laugh. He added that
in future he should be here, there and everywhere.
"I have written a tragedy," said he, "and I only hit on the fifth act
last night--I now mean to rest myself at the abodes of all the pretty
women in Paris."
He laughed and enjoyed his allusions which he alone could understand.
However, the only other persons now remaining in the drawing-room were
Rozan and Larsonneau, on either corner of the mantelpiece. The Saccards
rose up, as well as the fair-haired woman who lived in the house. The
d'Aurigny then went to speak in a low tone to the duke. He seemed
surprised and vexed. Seeing that he did not make up his mind to leave
his arm-chair:
"No, really, not this evening," she said in an undertone, "I've a
headache! To-morrow evening, I promise you."
Rozan had to obey. Laure waited till he was on the landing and then
said quickly in Larsonneau's ear:
"Eh! big Lar, I keep my word. Shove him into his carriage."
When the fair-haired woman took leave of the gentlemen to return to her
rooms on the floor above, Saccard was surprised that Maxime did not
follow her.
"Well?" he asked him.
"Well, no," replied the young fellow. "I've reflected--"
And he had an idea which he thought a very funny one:
"I abandon my rights to you, if you like. Make haste, she hasn't yet
shut her door."
But his father gently shrugged his shoulders, saying: "Thanks,
youngster, I've something better than that for the time being."
The four men went down. Outside, the duke absolutely wished to take
Larsonneau with him in his carriage. His mother lived in the Marais,
and he would have dropped the expropriation agent at his door in the
Rue de Rivoli. The latter refused, however, shut the carriage door
himself, and told the coachman to drive off. And he then lingered on
the side-walk of the Boulevard Haussmann, talking with the two others
instead of going away.
"Ah, poor Rozan!" said Saccard, who suddenly understood the truth.
Larsonneau swore that it was not so, that he didn't care a fig for
all that, that he was a practical man. And as the other two continued
joking, and the cold was very keen, he finished by exclaiming:
"'Pon my word, so much the worse; I'm going to ring! You are
indiscreet, gentlemen."
"Good night!" called Maxime, as the door closed again.
And taking his father's arm he went up the Boulevard with him. It
was one of those clear, frosty nights when it is so agreeable to
walk on the hard ground, in the icy atmosphere. Saccard remarked
that Larsonneau was wrong, that it was preferable to be simply the
d'Aurigny's comrade. He started from this point to declare that the
love of these women was really pernicious. He showed himself moral, and
hit upon sentences and advice of astonishing wisdom.
"You see," said he to his son, "all that only lasts for a time, my good
fellow. A man loses his health at it, and doesn't taste real happiness.
You know that I'm not a puritan. All the same, I've had quite enough of
it; I'm going to settle down."
Maxime chuckled; he stopped his father and gazed at him by the
moonlight, declaring that he had a fine head. But Saccard became still
more grave.
"Joke as much as you like. I repeat to you that there is nothing like
married life to preserve a man and make him happy."
Thereupon he spoke of Louise. And he began walking more slowly so
as to settle that matter, he said, since they were talking of it.
Everything was fully arranged. He even informed Maxime that he and
Monsieur de Mareuil had fixed the signing of the contract for the
Sunday following the Mid-Lent Thursday. On that Thursday there was to
be a grand party at the mansion in the Parc Monceaux, and he could
profit by the occasion to make a public announcement of the marriage.
Maxime considered all this to be very satisfactory. He had rid himself
of Renée, he saw no more obstacles, and he surrendered himself to his
father, as he had surrendered himself to his stepmother.
"Well, it's understood," said he. "Only don't talk about it to Renée.
Her friends would twit and tease me, and I prefer that they should
know the news at the same time as everyone else."
Saccard promised him to keep silent. Then, as they approached the top
of the Boulevard Malesherbes he again gave him a quantity of excellent
advice. He told him how he ought to act to make his home a paradise.
"Above everything never break off with your wife. It's folly. A wife
with whom you no longer have connection costs you a fortune. In
the first place a man has to pay some harlot, hasn't he? Then the
expenditure is much greater at home: there are dresses, madame's
private pleasures, her dear friends, the devil and all his train."
He was in a moment of extraordinary virtue. The success of his Charonne
affair had set idyllic tenderness in his heart.
"I," he continued, "was born to live happy and ignored in the depths
of some village with all my family around me. People don't know me,
my little fellow. I seem to be very flighty. But in reality not at
all, I should adore remaining near my wife, I would willingly abandon
my affairs for a modest income which would enable me to retire to
Plassans. You are about to become rich, make yourself a home with
Louise in which you will live like two turtle-doves. It's so nice! I
will go to see you. It will do me good."
He ended by having sobs in his voice. Meanwhile they had reached
the iron gate of the mansion, and stood talking on the curb of the
side-walk. A sharp north-east wind swept over these Parisian heights.
Not a sound arose in the pale night, white with frost. Maxime,
surprised by his father's sentimentality, had for a moment past had a
question on his lips.
"But you," he said at last, "it seems to me--"
"What?"
"As regards your wife!"
Saccard shrugged his shoulders.
"Eh! quite so! I was a fool. That's why I speak to you by
experience--However we have become husband and wife again, oh! quite
so. It happened nearly six weeks ago. I go and join her of an evening
when I don't return home too late. To-night however the poor ducky must
dispense with me; I have to work till daylight. She has such an awfully
fine figure!"
As Maxime held out his hand to his father the latter detained him, and
added in a lower key, in a confidential tone:
"You know Blanche Müller's figure, well, it's that, but ten times more
supple. And such hips! They have a curve, a delicacy--"
And then he concluded by saying to the young fellow who was going off:
"You are like me, you have a heart, your wife will be happy. Good-bye
youngster!"
When Maxime had at last rid himself of his father, he went rapidly
round the park. What he had just heard surprised him so much, that he
experienced an irresistible desire to see Renée. He wished to ask her
forgiveness for his brutality, to find out why she had lied to him in
naming Monsieur de Saffré, and to learn the story of her husband's
tenderness. He thought of all this confusedly, however, with but
the one distinct wish to smoke a cigar in her room and renew their
comradeship. Providing she were well disposed he would even announce
his marriage to her, so as to make her understand that their amours
must remain dead and buried. When he had opened the little door,
the key of which he had fortunately retained, he ended by saying to
himself that after his father's confidential revelations, his visit was
necessary and quite proper.
In the conservatory he whistled as he had done the night before; but he
did not have to wait. Renée came to open the glass door of the little
drawing-room, and went upstairs before him without speaking a word.
She still wore a dress of white tulle forming puffs and covered with
satin bows; the tails of the satin body were edged with a broad band
of white jet which the light of the candelabra tinged with blue and
pink. When Maxime looked at her upstairs he was touched by her pallor
and the deep emotion which deprived her of her voice. She could not
have been expecting him, she still quivered all over at seeing him
arrive as quietly as usual, with his coaxing air. Céleste returned
from the wardrobe, where she had gone to fetch a night-gown, and the
lovers remained silent, deferring their explanation until the girl
had withdrawn. As a rule they did not inconvenience themselves in her
presence; but the things which they felt upon their lips filled them
with a kind of shame. Renée would have Céleste undress her in the
bedroom, where there was a large fire. The chambermaid removed the
pins, took off each article of finery, one by one, without hurrying
herself. And Maxime, feeling bored, mechanically took up the chemise
which was lying on a chair beside him, and warmed it in front of the
flames, leaning forward with his arms apart. It was he who used to
render Renée this little service in happy times and she felt moved when
she saw him delicately holding the gown to the fire. Then as Céleste
showed no signs of finishing the young fellow asked:
"Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?"
"Oh! no, it's always the same thing you know," answered Renée. "A great
deal too many people, a perfect crush."
[Illustration: MAXIME ASSISTING AT RENÉE'S TOILET FOR THE NIGHT.]
Maxime turned the night-gown, which was now warm on one side.
"What did Adeline wear?" he asked.
"A mauve dress, rather awkwardly devised. Although she is short she is
mad on flounces."
They then talked about the other women. Maxime was now burning his
fingers with the gown.
"But you will scorch it," said Renée whose voice was maternally
caressing.
Céleste took the gown from the young fellow's hands. He rose up, and
went to look at the large pink and grey bed, fixing his eyes upon one
of the bouquets embroidered on the curtains, so as to be able to turn
his head, and not see Renée's bare bosom. It was instinctive. He no
longer considered himself her lover, so he no longer had the right
to look. Then he drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. Renée
had given him permission to smoke in her apartments. At last Céleste
retired, leaving the young woman by the fireside, quite white in her
night attire.
Maxime walked about for a few moments longer, silent, and looking out
of the corner of his eye at Renée who seemed to be again seized with a
shudder. Then stationing himself in front of the mantelpiece with his
cigar between his teeth, he asked in a curt voice:
"Why didn't you tell me that it was my father who was with you last
night?"
She raised her head, his eyes dilated with supreme anguish; then a rush
of blood crimsoned her face, and, overwhelmed with shame, she hid it
with her hands and stammered:
"You know that? you know that?"
Regaining her self-possession she tried to lie:
"It's not true--Who told it you?"
Maxime shrugged his shoulders.
"Why my father himself, who considers you nicely formed, and talked to
me about your hips."
He had allowed a little vexation to show itself while saying this; but
he now began walking about again, continuing in a chiding but friendly
voice, between two puffs of smoke:
"Really now I don't understand you. You are a singular woman. It was
your fault if I was rude yesterday. If you had told me that it was
my father, I should have gone off quietly, you understand? I have no
right--But you go and name Monsieur de Saffré to me!"
She was sobbing, with her hands over her face. He drew near, knelt down
before her, and forcibly drew her hands aside.
"Come, tell me why you named Monsieur de Saffré?" he said.
Then, still averting her head, she answered in a low tone, amid her
tears:
"I thought that you would leave me, if you knew that your father--"
He rose to his feet, took up his cigar which he had laid on a corner of
the mantelshelf, and contented himself with muttering: "You are very
funny, really!"
She no longer cried. The flames of the grate and the fire of her cheeks
were drying her tears. Her astonishment at seeing Maxime so calm in
presence of a revelation which, she had thought, was bound to crush
him, made her forget her shame. She looked at him as he walked about;
she listened to him speaking, as if she had been in a dream. Without
abandoning his cigar, he repeated to her that she was unreasonable,
that it was quite natural she should have connection with her husband,
and that he really could not think of resenting it. But to go and
confess that she had a lover when it was not true! And he constantly
returned to that point, which he could not understand, and which seemed
really monstrous to him. He talked about women's "mad imaginations."
"You are a little bit cracked, my dear," he said, "you must take care."
Then he ended by asking inquisitively:
"But why Monsieur de Saffré rather than anyone else?"
"He courts me," said Renée.
Maxime restrained an impertinent remark; he had been on the point
of saying that she had fancied herself a month older on owning that
Monsieur de Saffré was her lover. However, he merely gave expression
to the evil smile which this spiteful idea prompted, and throwing his
cigar into the fire, he went and sat down on the other side of the
mantelshelf. There he talked reason, and gave Renée to understand
that they ought to remain good friends. The young woman's fixed gaze
certainly embarrassed him somewhat; he did not dare to announce his
marriage to her. She contemplated him for a long time, her eyes still
swollen by her tears. She found him petty, narrow-minded, despicable,
but she still loved him with the same tenderness that she felt for her
lace. He looked pretty in the light of the candelabra placed on the
corner of the mantelshelf beside him. As he threw his head back, the
light of the candles gilded his hair and glided over his face, amid the
soft down of his cheeks, with a charming aurulent effect.
"All the same I must be off," said he several times.
He had quite decided not to stop. Besides, Renée would not have allowed
it. They both thought it, and said it: they were now nothing more than
two friends. When Maxime had at last pressed the young woman's hand,
and was on the point of leaving the room, she detained him for another
moment by speaking to him about his father, upon whom she bestowed
great praise.
"You see, I felt too much remorse," she said. "I prefer that this
should have happened. You don't know your father; I was astonished to
find him so kind, so disinterested. The poor fellow has such great
worries just now!"
Maxime looked at the tips of his boots without replying, and with an
embarrassed air. She dwelt on the subject.
"As long as he did not come into this room, it was all the same to
me. But afterwards--When I saw him here so affectionate, bringing me
money which he must have picked up in all the corners of Paris, ruining
himself for me without a murmur, I felt ill--If you knew how carefully
he has watched over my interests!"
The young fellow returned softly to the mantelpiece, and leant against
it. He remained embarrassed, with bowed head and a smile gradually
rising to his lips.
"Yes," muttered he, "my father is very skilful in watching over
people's interests."
His tone of voice astonished Renée. She looked at him, and he, as if to
defend himself, added:
"Oh! I know nothing. I only say that my father is a skilful man."
"You would do wrong to speak ill of him," she rejoined. "You must
judge him rather superficially. If I acquainted you with all his
worries, if I repeated to you what he confided to me again this
evening, you would see how mistaken people are, when they think he
cares for money."
Maxime could not restrain a shrug of the shoulders. He interrupted his
stepmother with an ironical laugh.
"Ah, I know him, I know him well," he said. "He must have told you some
very pretty things. Relate them to me."
This tone of raillery wounded her. She then enlarged upon her praises;
she considered her husband quite a great man; she talked about the
Charonne affair, that piece of jobbery of which she had understood
nothing, as about a catastrophe in which Saccard's intelligence and
kindness had been revealed to her. She added that she should sign the
deed of cession on the morrow, and that if this affair were really a
disaster, she accepted it in punishment for her sins. Maxime let her go
on, sneering and looking at her slyly; then he said, in an undertone:
"That's it; that's just it."
And raising his voice, and settling his hand on Renée's shoulder:
"Thanks, my dear, but I already know the story. You are of nice
composition!"
He again seemed to be on the point of leaving, but he felt a furious
itching to tell Renée everything. She had exasperated him with her
praises of her husband, and he forgot that he had promised himself not
to speak, so as to avoid anything disagreeable.
"What! what do you mean?" she asked.
"Why, that my father has 'done' you in the prettiest way in the world.
I really pity you--you are too much of a simpleton!"
And he then cowardly, craftily, related to her what he had heard at
Laure's--tasting a secret delight in descending into these infamies. It
seemed to him that he was taking his revenge for a vague insult which
some one had just addressed to him. With his harlot's temperament he
lingered beatifically over this denunciation, over this cruel chatter
of what he had overheard behind a door. He spared Renée nothing,
neither the money which her husband had lent her usuriously nor that
which he meant to steal from her, with the help of ridiculous stories
fit to send children to sleep. The young woman listened to him, very
pale and with clinched teeth. Standing in front of the chimney-piece,
she slightly lowered her head, and looked at the fire. Her night dress,
the gown which Maxime had warmed, spread out, revealing the motionless,
statue-like whiteness of her limbs.
"I tell all this," continued the young man, "so that you may not seem
to be a fool. But you would do wrong to get angry with my father. He
isn't wicked. He has his failings like every one. Till to-morrow, eh?"
He still advanced towards the door. But Renée stopped him with a sudden
gesture:
"Stay!" she cried, imperiously.
And taking hold of him, drawing him to her, almost seating him on her
knees in front of the fire, she kissed him on the lips, saying:
"Ah, well! it would be too stupid to put ourselves to inconvenience
now. Don't you know that my head has no longer seemed to belong to me
since yesterday, since you wanted to break off? I am like an idiot. At
the ball to-night I had a fog before my eyes. It is because I cannot
now live quite without you. When you leave me I shall be done for.
Don't laugh; I tell you what I feel."
She looked at him with infinite tenderness, as if she had not seen him
for a long time.
"You found the word," she continued. "I was a simpleton. Your father
would have made me see stars in broad daylight. Did I know anything
about it? While he was telling me his story, I only heard a loud
buzzing, and I was so crushed that, if he had chosen, he could have
made me go down on my knees to sign his papers. And I fancied to myself
that I felt remorseful--I was really as stupid as that!"
She burst out laughing, and gleams of folly shone in her eyes. Pressing
her lover still more tightly, she went on:
"Do we sin, we two? We love each other, we amuse ourselves as it
pleases us. Everyone has come to that, eh? You see your father doesn't
put himself out. He likes money, and he takes it wherever he finds it.
He's right, it sets me at my ease. In the first place, I sha'n't sign
anything, and then, you will come here every evening. I was afraid that
you wouldn't, you know, on account of what I told you. But as you don't
mind it--Besides, I shall close my door to him now, you understand?"
She rose up and lighted the night-light. Maxime hesitated in despair.
He realised what a piece of folly he had perpetrated, and he harshly
reproached himself for having said too much. How could he announce his
marriage now? It was his fault. The rupture had been accomplished,
there had been no need for him to go up into that room again, or
especially to prove to the young woman that her husband deceived
her. Maxime's anger with himself was increased, as he no longer knew
what feeling he had first obeyed. But if for a moment he thought of
being brutal a second time, of going away, the sight of Renée, who
was letting her slippers fall, lent him invincible cowardice. He felt
frightened. He remained.
On the morrow, when Saccard came to his wife's apartments to make her
sign the deed of cession, she quietly answered him that she should not
do so, that she had reflected. She did not, however, allow herself even
an allusion to the truth; she had sworn that she would be discreet,
for she did not want to create worries for herself, but rather wished
to taste the renewal of her amours in peace. The Charonne affair would
finish as it could; her refusal to sign was merely an act of vengeance;
she did not care a fig for the rest. Saccard was on the point of flying
into a passion. All his dream crumbled. His other affairs were going
from bad to worse. He found himself at the end of his resources, and
merely sustained himself by performing miraculous feats of equilibrity;
that very morning he had been unable to pay his baker's bill. This did
not prevent him, however, from preparing a splendid entertainment for
the Mid-Lent Thursday. In presence of Renée's refusal he experienced
the white rage of a vigorous man impeded in his work by a child's whim.
With the deed of cession once in his pocket, he had relied upon raising
funds pending the award of the indemnity. When he had slightly calmed
down, and his intelligence had become clear again, his wife's sudden
change astonished him; she must, undoubtedly, have been advised. He
scented a lover. This was so clear a presentiment, that he hastened to
his sister's to question her, to ask her if she did not know anything
about Renée's private life. Sidonie showed herself very bitter. She
had not forgiven her sister-in-law for the affront she had given her
by refusing to see Monsieur de Saffré. So when, by her brother's
questions, she understood that the latter accused his wife of having a
lover, she cried out that she was certain of it. And of her own accord
she offered to spy upon "the turtle doves." In that way, the haughty
thing would see who it was she had to deal with. Saccard did not
habitually seek after disagreeable truths; his interest alone compelled
him to open his eyes, which, as a rule, he wisely kept closed. He
accepted his sister's offer.
"Oh! be easy, I shall learn everything," said she to him in a voice
full of compassion. "Ah! my poor brother! Angèle would never have
betrayed you! So good, so generous a husband! These Parisian dolls have
no hearts. And to think that I never cease giving her good advice!"
CHAPTER VI.
There was a fancy dress ball at the Saccards' on the Mid-Lent Thursday.
The great curiosity, however, was the poem of the "Amours of handsome
Narcissus and the nymph Echo" in three _tableaux_, which the ladies
were to perform. For more than a month the author of this poem,
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue, had been travelling from his Prefecture to
the mansion of the Parc Monceaux, so as to superintend the rehearsals,
and give his opinion on the costumes. He had at first thought of
writing his work in verse, but later on he had decided in favour of
_tableaux vivants_; it was more noble, he said, nearer to antique
beauty.
The ladies no longer slept. Some of them changed their costumes no
fewer than three times. There were some interminable conferences,
over which the prefect presided. The personage of Narcissus was at
first discussed at length. Should a man or a woman personate him? At
last, at the instance of Renée, it was decided that the part should be
confided to Maxime, but he was to be the only man in the _tableaux_;
and, indeed, Madame de Lauwerens declared that she would never have
consented to it if "little Maxime had not been so like a real girl."
Renée was to be the nymph Echo. The question of the costumes was far
more complicated. Maxime gave a good lift up to the prefect, who was
quite tired out amid nine women, whose mad imaginations threatened
to grievously impair his conception's purity of lines. If he had
listened to them, his Olympus would have worn powder. Madame d'Espanet
absolutely wished a dress with a long skirt to hide her somewhat large
feet, while Madame Haffner dreamt of dressing herself in a wild beast's
skin. Monsieur Hupel de la Noue was energetic, and he even turned angry
on one occasion; he was convinced, and he said that if he had renounced
versification it was to write his poem "in cleverly combined stuffs and
attitudes selected among the best."
"The harmony, ladies," repeated he at each fresh exigency, "you
forget the harmony. I can't, however, sacrifice the entire work to the
flounces you ask me for."
The conferences took place in the buttercup drawing-room. Entire
afternoons were spent there, deciding on the cut of a skirt. Worms was
summoned several times. At last everything was settled, the costumes
decided on, the positions learnt, and Monsieur Hupel de la Noue
declared himself satisfied. The election of Monsieur de Mareuil had
given him less trouble.
The performance of the "Amours of handsome Narcissus and the nymph
Echo," was to begin at eleven o'clock. The large drawing-room
was already full at half-past ten, and as there was to be a ball
afterwards, the ladies were there in costumes, seated in arm-chairs
ranged in a semi-circle in front of the improvised stage--a platform,
hidden by two broad curtains of red velvet with golden fringe, running
on iron rods. The gentlemen stood behind, or moved to and fro. At ten
o'clock, the upholsterers had struck the last nails home. The platform
rose up at the end of the drawing-room, occupying a portion of this
long gallery. Access to the stage was obtained by the smoking-room,
converted into a green-room for the artistes. In addition, the ladies
had at their disposal several apartments on the first floor, where an
army of maids prepared the costumes of the different _tableaux_.
It was half-past eleven, and the curtains were not yet drawn aside. A
loud buzz filled the drawing-room. The rows of arm-chairs were occupied
by a most astonishing crowd of marchionesses, noble dames, milk-maids,
Spanish beauties, shepherdesses, and sultanas; while the compact
mass of dress-coats set a large dark stain beside the glistening of
light stuffs and bare shoulders, glowing with the bright sparkle of
jewellery. The women alone were in costume. It was already warm. The
three chandeliers lit up the golden sheen of the drawing-room.
At last Monsieur Hupel de la Noue was seen to emerge from an opening on
the left hand side of the platform. He had been assisting the ladies
since eight o'clock in the evening. His dress-coat bore on the left
sleeve the mark of three white fingers--a woman's little hand which had
rested there after dabbling in a box of rice powder. But the prefect
had something else than the mishaps of his attire to think about! He
had huge eyes, and a swollen and somewhat pale face. He did not seem to
see anyone. And advancing towards Saccard, whom he recognised among a
group of grave-looking men, he said to him in an undertone:
"Dash it all! Your wife has lost her girdle of foliage. We are in a
pretty pickle!"
He swore, and felt inclined to beat the people around him. Then,
without waiting for a reply, without looking at anything, he turned his
back, plunged under the draperies again and disappeared. The singular
apparition of this gentleman made the ladies smile.
The group amid which Saccard found himself had gathered behind the last
row of seats. One arm-chair had even been drawn out of the row for
Baron Gouraud whose legs had for some time begun to swell. Monsieur
Toutin-Laroche, whom the Emperor had just raised to the Senate, was
there with Monsieur de Mareuil, whose second election the Chamber had
deigned to accept, and Monsieur Michelin, decorated the day before;
and a little in the rear were Mignon and Charrier, one of whom had a
large diamond on his cravat, while the other displayed a still larger
one on his finger. The gentlemen chatted together. Saccard left them
for a moment to go and exchange a few words with his sister, who had
just come in and seated herself between Louise de Mareuil and Madame
Michelin. Madame Sidonie was dressed as a sorceress; Louise jauntily
wore a page's costume which gave her the air of an urchin; little
Michelin, made up as an alme, smiled in a love-sick manner amid her
veils embroidered with golden threads.
"Do you know anything?" Saccard softly asked his sister.
"No, nothing as yet," she replied. "But the swain must be here. I will
catch them to-night, you may be sure."
"Inform me at once, eh?"
And then Saccard, turning to the right and to the left, complimented
Louise and Madame Michelin. He compared the latter to one of Mahomet's
houris and the former to a mignon of Henri III. His Provençal accent
seemed to make the whole of his spare strident figure sing with
delight. When he returned to the group of grave-looking men, Monsieur
de Mareuil drew him on one side and spoke to him about the marriage
of their children. Nothing was altered, the contract was still to be
signed on the following Sunday.
"Quite so," said Saccard. "I even mean to announce the marriage to our
friends this evening, if you see no impediment--I am only waiting for
my brother, the minister, who has promised to come."
The new deputy was delighted. However, Monsieur Toutin-Laroche was
raising his voice as if he were a prey to lively indignation.
"Yes, gentlemen," he was saying to Monsieur Michelin and the two
contractors who drew nearer, "I was simple enough to let my name be
mixed up in such an affair."
And as Saccard and De Mareuil joined the group, he added:
"I was telling the gentlemen about the deplorable adventure of the
Société Générale of the ports of Morocco, you know, Saccard?"
The latter did not flinch. The company in question had just collapsed
amid a frightful scandal. Over-inquisitive shareholders had wished to
know what progress had been made with the establishment of the famous
commercial stations on the shores of the Mediterranean, and a judicial
inquiry had demonstrated that the ports of Morocco only existed on the
plans of the engineers, very handsome plans, hung on the walls of the
company's offices. Since then, Monsieur Toutin-Laroche cried out even
louder than the shareholders, growing indignant and demanding that his
name should be restored to him spotless. And he made so much noise,
that the government, to calm and rehabilitate this useful man in the
eye of public opinion, had decided to send him to the Senate. It was
thus that he fished up the much-coveted seat, in an affair which had
almost brought him to the police court.
"You are really too good to occupy yourself about that," said Saccard.
"You can show your great work, the Crédit Viticole, an establishment
which has come victorious out of every crisis."
"Yes," murmured De Mareuil, "that is an answer to everything."
Indeed the Crédit Viticole had just emerged from great and skilfully
concealed embarrassments. A minister who was very kindly disposed
towards this financial institution which held the city of Paris by
the throat, had brought about a rise on 'change, which Monsieur
Toutin-Laroche had turned to advantage marvellously well. Nothing
titillated him more than the praise bestowed on the prosperity of the
Crédit Viticole. He usually provoked it. He thanked Monsieur de Mareuil
with a glance, and leaning towards Baron Gouraud, on whose arm-chair he
was familiarly leaning, he asked him:
"You are all right? You are not too warm?"
The baron gave a slight grunt.
"He is breaking up, he breaks up more every day," added Monsieur
Toutin-Laroche turning towards the other gentlemen.
Monsieur Michelin smiled, and from time to time gently lowered his
eyelids to look at his red ribbon. Mignon and Charrier, firmly planted
on their large feet, seemed much more at ease in their dress-coats
since they wore diamonds. However, it was nearly midnight, and the
assemblage was growing impatient; it did not venture to murmur; but the
fans fluttered more nervously, and the noise of conversation increased.
At length, Monsieur Hupel de la Noue reappeared. He had just passed
one shoulder through the narrow opening when he perceived Madame
d'Espanet at length mounting on to the stage; the other ladies already
in position for the first _tableau_ had only been waiting for her. The
prefect turned round, showing the spectators his back, and he could
be seen talking with the marchioness whom the curtains concealed. He
lowered his voice, and making complimentary gestures with the tips of
his fingers, said:
"My congratulations, marchioness, your costume is delicious."
"I have a much prettier one underneath!" cavalierly rejoined the young
woman, who laughed in his face, so funny did she find him, buried in
this manner, among the draperies.
The audacity of this witticism momentarily astonished the gallant
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue; but he recovered himself, and enjoying the
repartee more and more as he gradually fathomed its depths:
"Ah! charming! charming!" he murmured with a delighted air.
He let the corner of the curtain fall, and went to join the group of
grave looking men, wishing to enjoy his work. He was no longer the
scared man running after the nymph Echo's girdle of foliage. He was
radiant and panting, wiping his forehead. He still had the little white
hand marked on the sleeve of his coat; and in addition the glove of
his right hand was stained with red at the tip of the thumb; he had
no doubt dipped his thumb into one of the ladies' pots of colour. He
smiled, fanned himself with his handkerchief and stammered:
"She is adorable, lavishing, stupefying--"
"Who?" asked Saccard.
"The marchioness. Fancy, she just said to me--"
And he repeated the witticism. It was considered extremely smart. The
gentlemen repeated it to one another. Even worthy Monsieur Haffner, who
had approached, could not prevent himself from applauding. However, a
piano which few people had seen, began to play a waltz. There was then
deep silence. The waltz had a capricious, interminable roll; and a very
soft phrase ever ascended the keyboard, finishing in a nightingale's
trill; then deeper notes resounded more slowly. It was very voluptuous.
The ladies smiled with their heads slightly inclined. The piano had,
however, suddenly put a stop to Monsieur Hupel de la Noue's gaiety.
He looked at the red velvet curtains with an anxious air, he said to
himself that he ought to have placed Madame d'Espanet in position as he
had placed the others.
The curtains slowly opened, the piano again began the sensual waltz in
a minor key. A murmur sped through the drawing-room, the ladies leaned
forward, the gentlemen stretched out their necks, whilst admiration
displayed itself here and there by a remark, made in too loud a voice,
by a spontaneous sigh, or a stifled laugh. This lasted for five long
minutes, beneath the blaze of the three chandeliers.
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue, now reassured, smiled beatifically at his
poem. He could not resist the temptation of repeating to the people
around him, what he had already been saying for a month past:
"I thought of doing it in verse. But the lines are more noble, eh?"
Then, while the waltz came and went in an endless lullaby, he gave some
explanations. Mignon and Charrier had drawn near and were listening
attentively.
"You know the subject of course? Handsome Narcissus, son of the river
Cephise and the nymph Liriope, scorns the love of the nymph Echo--Echo
belonging to the suite of Juno whom she amused with her speeches while
Jupiter visited the world--Echo, daughter of the Air and the Earth, as
you know--"
And he went into transports over the poetry of mythology. Then in a
more confidential tone:
"I thought I might give rein to my imagination. The nymph Echo leads
handsome Narcissus before Venus, in a marine grotto, so that the
goddess may inflame him with her fire. But the goddess remains
powerless. The young man indicates by his attitude that he is not
touched."
The explanation was not out of place, for few of the spectators in
the drawing-room understood the real meaning of the groups. When the
prefect had named the personages in an undertone, the admiration
increased. Mignon and Charrier continued staring with wide open eyes.
They had not understood.
[Illustration: THE TABLEAUX VIVANTS AT SACCARD'S MANSION IN THE PARC
MONCEAUX.]
A grotto was shown on the platform, between the red velvet curtains.
The scenery was formed of silk with large irregular plaits imitating
rocky anfractuosities on which shells, fish and large sea plants
were painted. The broken ground rose up like a hillock, covered
with the same silk, on which the scene painter had depicted fine
sand constellated with pearls and silver spangles. It was a fitting
retreat for a goddess. On the summit of the hillock stood Madame de
Lauwerens figuring Venus; somewhat stout, wearing her pink tights
with the dignity of a duchess of Olympus, she depicted the sovereign
of love with large severe, all devouring eyes. Behind her, showing
merely her malicious face, her wings and quiver, little Madame Daste
lent her smile to that amiable personage Cupid. Then, on one side of
the hillock, the three Graces, Mesdames de Guende, Teissière, and de
Meinhold, all in muslin, smiled and entwined each other as in Pradier's
group; whilst on the other side the Marchioness d'Espanet and Madame
Haffner, enveloped in the same flow of lace, their arms round each
other's waists and their hair mingled, lent something suggestive to
the _tableau_, a souvenir of Lesbos which Monsieur Hupel de la Noue
explained in a lower voice and for the gentlemen only, saying that
he had wished by this to show the full extent of the power of Venus.
Below the mound the Countess Vanska personated Voluptuousness; she
stretched herself out, twisted by a last spasm, with her eyes half
closed and languishing, as if weary; very dark, she had unloosened
her black hair, and her tunic, spotted with tawny flames, was cut so
as to allow glimpses of her glowing skin. The scale of colour which
the costumes furnished, from the snowy whiteness of Venus's veil to
the dark red of Voluptuousness's tunic, was soft, generally pink,
and of a fleshy tinge. And under the electric ray, ingeniously cast
upon the stage from one of the garden windows, the gauze, the lace,
all the light transparent stuffs mingled so well with the shoulders
and the lights, that these pinky whitenesses seemed alive, and one no
longer knew whether the ladies had not carried plastic accuracy to
the point of stripping themselves naked. This was but the apotheosis;
the drama was enacted in the foreground. On the left side, Renée, the
nymph Echo, stretched out her arms towards the great goddess, her head
half turned in supplicating fashion in the direction of Narcissus,
as if to invite him to look at Venus, the mere sight of whom kindles
terrible fires; but Narcissus, on the right, made a gesture of refusal,
hid his eyes with his hand and remained icily cold. The costumes of
these two personages, especially had cost Monsieur Hupel de la Noue's
imagination infinite trouble. Narcissus, as a wandering demi-god of
the forests, wore the attire of an ideal huntsman: greenish tights, a
short close-fitting jacket, and a branch of oak in his hair. The dress
of the nymph Echo was a complete allegory in itself alone; it partook
of the high trees and lofty mountains, of the resounding spots where
the voices of the Earth and Air reply to each other; it was a rock by
the white satin of the skirt, a thicket by the foliage of the girdle,
a pure sky by the cloud of blue gauze forming the body. And the groups
retained the stillness of statues, the carnal note of Olympus resounded
in the blaze of the broad ray, while the piano continued its complaint
of acute love.
It was generally considered that Maxime was admirably formed. In
making his gesture of refusal he developed his left hip, which was
much remarked. But all the praises were for Renée's expression of
face. As Monsieur Hupel de la Noue remarked, it typified "the pangs
of unsatisfied desire." Her face; wore an acute smile which tried to
become humble, she begged her prey with the supplication of a hungry
she-wolf who half hides her teeth. The first _tableau_ went off
very well, save that that madcap of an Adeline moved, and only with
difficulty restrained an intense desire to laugh. At last the curtains
closed again and the piano became silent.
Then the audience applauded discreetly and the conversation was
resumed. A great breath of love, of restrained desire, had come from
the nudities of the platform, and darted about the drawing-room where
the women leaned more languidly on their seats, while the men spoke in
low voices in each other's ears, and smiled. There was a whispering as
in an alcove, a semi-silence as suited to good society, a longing for
voluptuousness, barely expressed by a quiver of lips; and in the mute
looks exchanged amid this well-mannered delight, there was the brutal
boldness of love offered and accepted with a glance.
There was no end to the judgments passed on the perfections of the
ladies. Their costumes acquired almost as great importance as their
shoulders. When Mignon and Charrier wished to question Monsieur Hupel
de la Noue, they were greatly surprised to see him no longer beside
them; he had already plunged behind the platform again.
"I was telling you then, my beauty," said Madame Sidonie, resuming a
conversation which the first _tableau_ had interrupted, "that I had
received a letter from London, you know, about the affair of the three
milliards. The person whom I had charged to make inquiries writes to me
that she thinks she has discovered the banker's receipt. England must
have paid in that case. It has made me feel ill all day."
She was indeed more yellow than usual, in her sorceress's robe dotted
with stars. And as Madame Michelin did not listen to her, she continued
in a lower voice, muttering that it was impossible that England could
have paid, and that she should decidedly go to London herself.
"Narcissus's costume is very pretty, isn't it?" said Louise to Madame
Michelin.
The latter smiled. She looked at Baron Gouraud, who seemed quite
cheerful again in his arm-chair. Madame Sidonie, perceiving the
direction of her glance, leant forward and whispered in her ear, so
that the child might not hear:
"Has he kept his engagement?"
"Yes," replied the young woman, languishing, playing the part of an
alme delightfully. "I have chosen the house at Louveciennes, and I have
received the title deeds of it from his man of business. But we have
broken off, I no longer see him."
Louise had particularly sharp ears to catch what one wanted to hide
from her. She looked at Baron Gouraud with a page's boldness, and said
quietly to Madame Michelin:
"Don't you think that the baron is frightful?"
Then bursting out laughing she added:
"I say, he ought to have been entrusted with the part of Narcissus. He
would be delicious in apple-green tights!"
The sight of Venus, of this voluptuous corner of Olympus, had indeed
revived the old senator. He rolled his eyes with delight and turned
half round to compliment Saccard. Amid the buzz which filled the
drawing-room the group of grave-looking men continued talking business
and politics. Monsieur Haffner said that he had just been named
president of a jury charged with settling questions of indemnities.
Then the conversation turned upon the works of Paris, on the Boulevard
du Prince-Eugène, of which the public was beginning to talk seriously.
Saccard seized the opportunity and spoke of a person he knew, a
proprietor who would no doubt be expropriated. The baron softly wagged
his head. Monsieur Toutin-Laroche went so far as to declare that there
was nothing so disagreeable as to be expropriated; Monsieur Michelin
assented, and squinted still more in looking at his decoration.
"The indemnities can never be too high," sententiously concluded
Monsieur de Mareuil who wished to please Saccard.
They had understood each other. But Mignon and Charrier now brought
their private affairs forward. They meant to retire soon, no doubt
to Langres, they said, keeping an occasional lodging in Paris. They
made the gentlemen smile when they related that after completing the
building of their magnificent mansion on the Boulevard Malesherbes,
they had found it so handsome that they had not been able to resist
the desire to sell it. Their diamonds must have been a consolation
which they had offered themselves. Saccard laughed with a bad grace;
his old partners had just realized enormous profits from an affair in
which he had played the part of a dupe. And as the interval between
the _tableau_ grew longer, phrases of praise about Venus's bosom,
and the nymph Echo's dress, were heard amid the conversation of the
grave-looking men.
At the end of a long half hour Monsieur Hupel de la Noue reappeared.
He was on the high road of success and the disorder of his attire
increased. As he regained his seat he met Monsieur de Mussy. He shook
hands with him in passing; and then he retraced his steps to ask him:
"You don't know the marchioness's remark?"
And he related it to him, without waiting for his reply. It penetrated
him more and more; he criticised it, he ended by finding that it was of
exquisite naivete. "I have a much prettier one underneath." It was a
cry from the heart!
But Monsieur de Mussy was not of this opinion. He considered the remark
indecent. He had just been attached to the embassy in England, where,
so the minister had told him, the greatest propriety was necessary. He
refused to lead the cotillon any more, made himself old, and no longer
spoke of his love for Renée, to whom he bowed gravely when he met her.
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue was again joining the group, formed behind
the baron's arm-chair, when the piano struck up a triumphal march. A
loud burst of harmony, produced by bold strokes on the keys, preluded
a melody of great amplitude, amid which a metallic clang resounded at
intervals. Each phrase as soon as finished was repeated in a louder
strain, accentuating the rhythm. It was at once brutal and joyous.
"You will see," muttered Monsieur Hupel de la Noue. "I have, perhaps,
carried poetical licence rather far; but I think that my audacity has
answered. The nymph Echo, seeing that Venus is powerless over the
handsome Narcissus, conducts him to Plutus, the god of wealth and
precious metals. After the temptation of the flesh, the temptation of
gold."
"That's classical," replied the lean Monsieur Toutin-Laroche with an
amiable smile. "You are well acquainted with your period, my dear
prefect."
The curtains parted, the piano played louder. The effect was dazzling.
The electric ray fell upon a flaming splendour, which the spectators
at first thought was a brazier in which bars of gold and precious
stones seemingly melted. A new grotto was presented, but this one was
not the cool retreat of Venus, bathed by the waters which eddied on
fine pearl besprinkled sand; it must have been situated in the bowels
of the earth, in some deep fiery stratum, it seemed a fissure of the
ancient Hades, a crevice amid a mine of liquescent metals inhabited by
Plutus. The silk, simulating the rock, displayed broad metallic lodes,
layers which looked like the veins of the old world, teeming with
incalculable wealth and the eternal life of the soil. On the ground,
by a bold anachronism, which Monsieur Hupel de la Noue had decided
on, there was an avalanche of twenty-franc pieces, louis spread out,
louis piled up, a pullulation of ascending louis. On the summit of this
heap of gold sat Madame de Guende as Plutus, a female Plutus, a Plutus
showing her bosom, amid the broad streaks of her dress imitating all
the metals. Around the god, erect or reclining, united in bunches, or
blooming apart, were grouped the fairy-like efflorescences of this
grotto into which the caliphs of the "Arabian Nights" had seemingly
emptied their treasure. There was Madame Haffner as Gold, with a stiff
skirt as resplendent as the robes of a bishop; Madame d'Espanet as
Silver, shining like moonlight; Madame de Lauwerens in warm blue as a
Sapphire, having beside her little Madame Daste, a smiling Turquoise,
of a tender shade of blue; then were spread out the Emerald, Madame
de Meinhold, and the Topaz, Madame Teissière; and lower down, Countess
Vanska, lending her dark ardour to Coral, was stretched out with her
arms raised and loaded with red drops, similar to some monstrous and
adorable polype, which displayed a woman's flesh amid the pink and
pearly openings of her shell. These ladies wore necklaces, bracelets,
complete sets of jewels formed of the precious stone they represented.
The audience particularly noticed the original jewellery of Mesdames
Haffner and d'Espanet, exclusively composed of little gold and little
silver coins, fresh from the mint. In the foreground the drama remained
the same: the nymph Echo tempted handsome Narcissus who again refused
with a gesture. And the eyes of the spectators grew accustomed with
delight to this yawning cavity opening amid the inflamed entrails of
the earth, to this pile of gold on which the wealth of a world was
wallowing.
This second _tableau_ met with still more success than the first
one. The idea appeared particularly ingenious. The boldness of the
twenty-franc pieces, this stream from some modern safe, which had
fallen into a corner of Grecian mythology, delighted the minds of the
ladies and the financiers who were present. The words, "What a number
of coins! what a quantity of gold!" sped by, amid smiles and long
quivers of satisfaction; and assuredly, each of the ladies, each of
the gentlemen dreamt of having all this money to her or himself, in a
cellar.
"England has paid, those are your milliards," maliciously murmured
Louise in Madame Sidonie's ear.
And Madame Michelin, her mouth slightly parted by delighted desire,
threw back her alme's veil and fondled the gold with a sparkling
glance, while the group of grave-looking men went into transports.
Monsieur Toutin-Laroche, beaming, murmured a few words in the ear of
the baron whose face was becoming spotted with yellow stains. But
Mignon and Charrier, less discreet, said with brutal simplicity:
"Dash it all! there would be enough there to demolish all Paris and
rebuild it."
The remark seemed a profound one to Saccard, who was beginning to think
that Mignon and Charrier trifled with people in passing themselves off
as fools. When the curtains closed again and the piano finished the
triumphal march with a loud noise of notes thrown one upon the other,
like final shovelfuls of crowns, the applause burst forth, louder and
more prolonged.
However, in the middle of the _tableau_, the minister accompanied by
his secretary, Monsieur de Saffré, had appeared at the door of the
drawing-room. Saccard, who was impatiently watching for his brother,
wished to dart to meet him. But the latter requested him by a gesture
not to stir. And he softly approached the group of grave-looking men.
When the curtains had closed again, and people had perceived him, a
long whisper travelled through the drawing-room and all heads were
turned round. The minister counterbalanced the success of the "Amours
of handsome Narcissus and the nymph Echo."
"You are a poet, my dear prefect," he said, smiling to Monsieur Hupel
de la Noue. "You once published a volume of verse, 'The Convolvuli,'
I believe? I see that the cares of office have not exhausted your
imagination."
The prefect detected the point of an epigram in this compliment. The
sudden advent of his superior put him out of countenance, the more
as, on giving himself a glance to see if his attire were correct, he
perceived on his coat sleeve the little white hand which he did not
dare to rub off. He bowed and stammered.
"Really," continued the minister, addressing himself to Monsieur
Toutin-Laroche, Baron Gouraud, and the other personages who were there,
"all that gold was a marvellous spectacle. We should do great things if
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue coined money for us."
In ministerial language, this was the same remark as Mignon's and
Charrier's. Thereupon Monsieur Toutin-Laroche and the others paid their
court, and played on the minister's last phrase: the Empire had already
accomplished marvels; there was no lack of gold, thanks to the great
experience of those in power; France had never occupied such a splendid
position in the eyes of Europe; and the gentlemen ended by becoming
so servile, that the minister himself changed the conversation. He
listened to them with his head erect and the corners of his mouth
slightly raised, whereby an expression of doubt and smiling disdain was
imparted to his fat, carefully shaven, white face.
Saccard, who wished to bring about the announcement of the marriage of
Maxime and Louise, manœuvred so as to find a skilful transition. He
affected great familiarity, and his brother played the good-natured,
and consented to do him the service of seeming to be very fond of him.
He was really a superior man, with his clear look, his evident contempt
of petty rascalities, his broad shoulders which could have overturned
all these folks with a mere shrug. When the marriage at last came into
question he showed himself charming, he let it be understood that he
had his wedding gift ready; he spoke of Maxime's appointment as an
auditor of the Council of State. He went so far as to repeat twice to
his brother, in a tone of good fellowship:
"Tell your son that I wish to be his witness."
Monsieur de Mareuil blushed with delight. Saccard was congratulated.
Monsieur Toutin-Laroche offered himself as a second witness. Then the
group abruptly began talking about divorce. A member of the opposition
had just had "the sad courage," said Monsieur Haffner, to defend
this social shame. And every one protested. Their sense of propriety
furnished them with profound remarks. Monsieur Michelin smiled
delicately at the minister, while Mignon and Charrier observed with
astonishment that the collar of his dress-coat was worn.
In the meantime Monsieur Hupel de la Noue remained embarrassed, leaning
on the arm-chair of Baron Gouraud, who had contented himself with
exchanging a silent hand-shake with the minister. The poet did not
dare to leave the spot. An indefinable feeling, the fear of appearing
ridiculous, the fear of losing the good-will of his superior, detained
him despite his furious desire to go and set the ladies in position
on the stage for the last _tableau_. He waited for some happy remark
to occur to him and reinstate him in favour; but he could think of
nothing, and he was feeling more and more ill at ease when he perceived
Monsieur de Saffré; he took his arm and clung to him as to a saving
plank. The young man had just arrived, he was quite a fresh victim.
"You don't know the marchioness's remark?" the prefect asked him.
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue was so disturbed, however, that he no longer
knew how to present the anecdote in a spicy manner; he floundered:
"I said to her: 'You have a charming costume,' and she answered--"
"'I have a much prettier one underneath,'" quietly added Monsieur de
Saffré. "It's old, my dear fellow, very old."
Monsieur Hupel de la Noue looked at him in consternation. The remark
was old, and he had meant to sift his commentary on the naivete of this
cry from the heart!
"Old, as old as the world," repeated the secretary. "Madame d'Espanet
has said it twice already at the Tuileries."
This was the last blow. After that the prefect no longer cared a fig
for the minister or the whole drawing-room. He was proceeding towards
the platform when the piano began a prelude, in a saddened tone, with
trembling notes which seemed to weep; then the complaint expanded,
dragged on at length, and the curtains parted. Monsieur Hupel de la
Noue, who had already half disappeared, returned into the drawing-room
on hearing the slight grating of the rings. He was pale, exasperated;
he made a violent effort to restrain himself from apostrophizing the
ladies. What! they had taken up their positions unassisted! It must be
that little d'Espanet who had fomented a plot to hasten the change of
costume and dispense with him. That wasn't it, that was worth nothing
at all!
He returned, mumbling indistinct words. He looked on to the platform,
shrugging his shoulders, and murmuring:
"The nymph Echo is too near the edge--And that leg of handsome
Narcissus, nothing noble in its attitude, nothing noble at all."