He, absorbed by his fever, felt intimidated directly he crossed the

threshold. He could at first distinguish nothing, but fancied he was

entering some place of mourning, a shadowy spot where human forms seemed

to melt away, and voices were never raised above a whisper. Then, on

perceiving the persons present, he felt yet more out of his element, for

they seemed so sad, so far removed from the world whence he had just

come, and whither he was about to return. And when the Countess had made

him sit down beside her in front of the chimney-piece, it was in a low

voice that he told her the lamentable story of Laveuve, and asked her

support to secure the man’s admittance to the Asylum for the Invalids of

Labour.

“Ah! yes,” said she, “that enterprise which my son wished me to belong

to. But, Monsieur l’Abbe, I have never once attended the Committee

meetings. So how could I intervene, having assuredly no influence

whatever?”

Again had the figures of Eve and Gerard arisen before her, for it was at

this asylum that the pair had first met. And influenced by her sorrowful

maternal love she was already weakening, although it was regretfully that

she had lent her name to one of those noisy charitable enterprises, which

people abused to further their selfish interests in a manner she

condemned.

“But, madame,” Pierre insisted, “it is a question of a poor starving old

man. I implore you to be compassionate.”

Although the priest had spoken in a low voice the General drew near.

“It’s for your old revolutionary that you are running about, is it not,”

said he. “Didn’t you succeed with the manager, then? The fact is that

it’s difficult to feel any pity for fellows who, if they were the

masters, would, as they themselves say, sweep us all away.”

M. de Larombiere jerked his chin approvingly. For some time past he had

been haunted by the Anarchist peril. But Pierre, distressed and

quivering, again began to plead his cause. He spoke of all the frightful

misery, the homes where there was no food, the women and children

shivering with cold, and the fathers scouring muddy, wintry Paris in

search of a bit of bread. All that he asked for was a line on a visiting

card, a kindly word from the Countess, which he would at once carry to

Baroness Duvillard to prevail on her to set the regulations aside. And

his words fell one by one, tremulous with stifled tears, in that mournful

_salon_, like sounds from afar, dying away in a dead world where there

was no echo left.

Madame de Quinsac turned towards M. de Morigny, but he seemed to take no

interest in it all. He was gazing fixedly at the fire, with the haughty

air of a stranger who was indifferent to the things and beings in whose

midst an error of time compelled him to live. But feeling that the glance

of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him he raised his head; and

then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite

gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.

“_Mon Dieu_!” said she, “I know your merits, Monsieur l’Abbe, and I won’t

refuse my help to one of your good works.”

Then she went off for a moment, and returned with a card on which she had

written that she supported with all her heart Monsieur l’Abbe Froment in

the steps he was taking. And he thanked her and went off delighted, as if

he carried yet a fresh hope of salvation from that drawing-room where, as

he retired, gloom and silence once more seemed to fall on that old lady

and her last faithful friends gathered around the fire, last relics of a

world that was soon to disappear.

Once outside, Pierre joyfully climbed into his cab again, after giving

the Princess de Harn’s address in the Avenue Kleber. If he could also

obtain her approval he would no longer doubt of success. However, there

was such a crush on the Concorde bridge, that the driver had to walk his

horse. And, on the foot-pavement, Pierre again saw Duthil, who, with a

cigar between his lips, was smiling at the crowd, with his amiable

bird-like heedlessness, happy as he felt at finding the pavement dry and

the sky blue on leaving that worrying sitting of the Chamber. Seeing how

gay and triumphant he looked, a sudden inspiration came to the priest,

who said to himself that he ought to win over this young man, whose

report had had such a disastrous effect. As it happened, the cab having

been compelled to stop altogether, the deputy had just recognized him and

was smiling at him.

“Where are you going, Monsieur Duthil?” Pierre asked.

“Close by, in the Champs Elysees.”

“I’m going that way, and, as I should much like to speak to you for a

moment, it would be very kind of you to take a seat beside me. I will set

you down wherever you like.”

“Willingly, Monsieur l’Abbe. It won’t inconvenience you if I finish my

cigar?”

“Oh! not at all.”

The cab found its way out of the crush, crossed the Place de la Concorde

and began to ascend the Champs Elysees. And Pierre, reflecting that he

had very few minutes before him, at once attacked Duthil, quite ready for

any effort to convince him. He remembered what a sortie the young deputy

had made against Laveuve at the Baron’s; and thus he was astonished to

hear him interrupt and say quite pleasantly, enlivened as he seemed by

the bright sun which was again beginning to shine: “Ah, yes! your old

drunkard! So you didn’t settle his business with Fonsegue? And what is it

you want? To have him admitted to-day? Well, you know I don’t oppose it?”

“But there’s your report.”

“My report, oh, my report! But questions change according to the way one

looks at them. And if you are so anxious about your Laveuve I won’t

refuse to help you.”

Pierre looked at him in astonishment, at bottom extremely well pleased.

And there was no further necessity even for him to speak.

“You didn’t take the matter in hand properly,” continued Duthil, leaning

forward with a confidential air. “It’s the Baron who’s the master at

home, for reasons which you may divine, which you may very likely know.

The Baroness does all that he asks without even discussing the point; and

this morning,--instead of starting on a lot of useless visits, you only

had to gain his support, particularly as he seemed to be very well

disposed. And she would then have given way immediately.” Duthil began to

laugh. “And so,” he continued, “do you know what I’ll do? Well, I’ll gain

the Baron over to your cause. Yes, I am this moment going to a house

where he is, where one is certain to find him every day at this time.”

Then he laughed more loudly. “And perhaps you are not ignorant of it,

Monsieur l’Abbe. When he is there you may be certain he never gives a

refusal. I promise you I’ll make him swear that he will compel his wife

to grant your man admission this very evening. Only it will, perhaps, be

rather late.”

Then all at once, as if struck by a fresh idea, Duthil went on: “But why

shouldn’t you come with me? You secure a line from the Baron, and

thereupon, without losing a minute, you go in search of the Baroness. Ah!

yes, the house embarrasses you a little, I understand it. Would you like

to see only the Baron there? You can wait for him in a little _salon_

downstairs; I will bring him to you.”

This proposal made Duthil altogether merry, but Pierre, quite scared,

hesitated at the idea of thus going to Silviane d’Aulnay’s. It was hardly

a place for him. However, to achieve his purpose, he would have descended

into the very dwelling of the fiend, and had already done so sometimes

with Abbe Rose, when there was hope of assuaging wretchedness. So he

turned to Duthil and consented to accompany him.

Silviane d’Aulnay’s little mansion, a very luxurious one, displaying,

too, so to say, the luxury of a temple, refined but suggestive of

gallantry, stood in the Avenue d’Antin, near the Champs Elysees. The

inmate of this sanctuary, where the orfrays of old dalmaticas glittered

in the mauve reflections from the windows of stained-glass, had just

completed her twenty-fifth year. Short and slim she was, of an adorable,

dark beauty, and all Paris was acquainted with her delicious, virginal

countenance of a gentle oval, her delicate nose, her little mouth, her

candid cheeks and artless chin, above all which she wore her black hair

in thick, heavy bands, which hid her low brow. Her notoriety was due

precisely to her pretty air of astonishment, the infinite purity of her

blue eyes, the whole expression of chaste innocence which she assumed

when it so pleased her, an expression which contrasted powerfully with

her true nature, shameless creature that she really was, of the most

monstrous, confessed, and openly-displayed perversity; such as, in fact,

often spring up from the rotting soil of great cities. Extraordinary

things were related about Silviane’s tastes and fancies. Some said that

she was a door-keeper’s, others a doctor’s, daughter. In any case she had

managed to acquire instruction and manners, for when occasion required

she lacked neither wit, nor style, nor deportment. She had been rolling

through the theatres for ten years or so, applauded for her beauty’s

sake, and she had even ended by obtaining some pretty little successes in

such parts as those of very pure young girls or loving and persecuted

young women. Since there had been a question, though, of her entering the

Comedie Francaise to play the _role_ of Pauline in “Polyeucte,” some

people had waxed indignant and others had roared with laughter, so

ridiculous did the idea appear, so outrageous for the majesty of classic

tragedy. She, however, quiet and stubborn, wished this thing to be, was

resolved that it should be, certain as she was that she would secure it,

insolent like a creature to whom men had never yet been able to refuse

anything.

That day, at three o’clock, Gerard de Quinsac, not knowing how to kill

the time pending the appointment he had given Eve in the Rue Matignon,

had thought of calling at Silviane’s, which was in the neighbourhood. She

was an old caprice of his, and even nowadays he would sometimes linger at

the little mansion if its pretty mistress felt bored. But he had this

time found her in a fury; and, reclining in one of the deep armchairs of

the _salon_ where “old gold” formed the predominant colour, he was

listening to her complaints. She, standing in a white gown, white indeed

from head to foot like Eve herself at the _dejeuner_, was speaking

passionately, and fast convincing the young man, who, won over by so much

youth and beauty, unconsciously compared her to his other flame, weary

already of his coming assignation, and so mastered by supineness, both

moral and physical, that he would have preferred to remain all day in the

depths of that armchair.

“You hear me, Gerard!” she at last exclaimed, “I’ll have nothing whatever

to do with him, unless he brings me my nomination.”

Just then Baron Duvillard came in, and forthwith she changed to ice and

received him like some sorely offended young queen who awaits an

explanation; whilst he, who foresaw the storm and brought moreover

disastrous tidings, forced a smile, though very ill at ease. She was the

stain, the blemish attaching to that man who was yet so sturdy and so

powerful amidst the general decline of his race. And she was also the

beginning of justice and punishment, taking all his piled-up gold from

him by the handful, and by her cruelty avenging those who shivered and

who starved. And it was pitiful to see that feared and flattered man,

beneath whom states and governments trembled, here turn pale with

anxiety, bend low in all humility, and relapse into the senile, lisping

infancy of acute passion.

“Ah! my dear friend,” said he, “if you only knew how I have been rushing

about. I had a lot of worrying business, some contractors to see, a big

advertisement affair to settle, and I feared that I should never be able

to come and kiss your hand.”

He kissed it, but she let her arm fall, coldly, indifferently, contenting

herself with looking at him, waiting for what he might have to say to

her, and embarrassing him to such a point that he began to perspire and

stammer, unable to express himself. “Of course,” he began, “I also

thought of you, and went to the Fine Arts Office, where I had received a

positive promise. Oh! they are still very much in your favour at the Fine

Arts Office! Only, just fancy, it’s that idiot of a minister, that

Taboureau,* an old professor from the provinces who knows nothing about

our Paris, that has expressly opposed your nomination, saying that as

long as he is in office you shall not appear at the Comedie.”

* Taboureau is previously described as Minister of Public

Instruction. It should be pointed out, however, that

although under the present Republic the Ministries of

Public Instruction and Fine Arts have occasionally been

distinct departments, at other times they have been

united, one minister, as in Taboureau’s case, having

charge of both.--Trans.

Erect and rigid, she spoke but two words: “And then?”

“And then--well, my dear, what would you have me do? One can’t after all

overthrow a ministry to enable you to play the part of Pauline.”

“Why not?”

He pretended to laugh, but his blood rushed to his face, and the whole of

his sturdy figure quivered with anguish. “Come, my little Silviane,” said

he, “don’t be obstinate. You can be so nice when you choose. Give up the

idea of that _debut_. You, yourself, would risk a great deal in it, for

what would be your worries if you were to fail? You would weep all the

tears in your body. And besides, you can ask me for so many other things

which I should be so happy to give you. Come now, at once, make a wish

and I will gratify it immediately.”

In a frolicsome way he sought to take her hand again. But she drew back

with an air of much dignity. “No, you hear me, my dear fellow, I will

have nothing whatever to do with you--nothing, so long as I don’t play

Pauline.”

He understood her fully, and he knew her well enough to realise how

rigorously she would treat him. Only a kind of grunt came from his

contracted throat, though he still tried to treat the matter in a jesting

way. “Isn’t she bad-tempered to-day!” he resumed at last, turning towards

Gerard. “What have you done to her that I find her in such a state?”

But the young man, who kept very quiet for fear lest he himself might be

bespattered in the course of the dispute, continued to stretch himself

out in a languid way and gave no answer.

But Silviane’s anger burst forth. “What has he done to me? He has pitied

me for being at the mercy of such a man as you--so egotistical, so

insensible to the insults heaped upon me. Ought you not to be the first

to bound with indignation? Ought you not to have exacted my admittance to

the Comedie as a reparation for the insult? For, after all, it is a

defeat for you; if I’m considered unworthy, you are struck at the same

time as I am. And so I’m a drab, eh? Say at once that I’m a creature to

be driven away from all respectable houses.”

She went on in this style, coming at last to vile words, the abominable

words which, in moments of anger, always ended by returning to her

innocent-looking lips. The Baron, who well knew that a syllable from him

would only increase the foulness of the overflow, vainly turned an

imploring glance on the Count to solicit his intervention. Gerard, with

his keen desire for peace and quietness, often brought about a

reconciliation, but this time he did not stir, feeling too lazy and

sleepy to interfere. And Silviane all at once came to a finish, repeating

her trenchant, severing words: “Well, manage as you can, secure my

_debut_, or I’ll have nothing more to do with you, nothing!”

“All right! all right!” Duvillard at last murmured, sneering, but in

despair, “we’ll arrange it all.”

However, at that moment a servant came in to say that M. Duthil was

downstairs and wished to speak to the Baron in the smoking-room.

Duvillard was astonished at this, for Duthil usually came up as though

the house were his own. Then he reflected that the deputy had doubtless

brought him some serious news from the Chamber which he wished to impart

to him confidentially at once. So he followed the servant, leaving Gerard

and Silviane together.

In the smoking-room, an apartment communicating with the hall by a wide

bay, the curtain of which was drawn up, Pierre stood with his companion,

waiting and glancing curiously around him. What particularly struck him

was the almost religious solemnness of the entrance, the heavy hangings,

the mystic gleams of the stained-glass, the old furniture steeped in

chapel-like gloom amidst scattered perfumes of myrrh and incense. Duthil,

who was still very gay, tapped a low divan with his cane and said: “She

has a nicely-furnished house, eh? Oh! she knows how to look after her

interests.”

Then the Baron came in, still quite upset and anxious. And without even

perceiving the priest, desirous as he was of tidings, he began: “Well,

what did they do? Is there some very bad news, then?”

“Mege interpellated and applied for a declaration of urgency so as to

overthrow Barroux. You can imagine what his speech was.”

“Yes, yes, against the _bourgeois_, against me, against you. It’s always

the same thing--And then?”

“Then--well, urgency wasn’t voted, but, in spite of a very fine defence,

Barroux only secured a majority of two votes.”

“Two votes, the devil! Then he’s down, and we shall have a Vignon

ministry next week.”

“That’s what everybody said in the lobbies.”

The Baron frowned, as if he were estimating what good or evil might

result to the world from such a change. Then, with a gesture of

displeasure, he said: “A Vignon ministry! The devil! that would hardly be

any better. Those young democrats pretend to be virtuous, and a Vignon

ministry wouldn’t admit Silviane to the Comedie.”

This, at first, was his only thought in presence of the crisis which made

the political world tremble. And so the deputy could not refrain from

referring to his own anxiety. “Well, and we others, what is our position

in it all?”

This brought Duvillard back to the situation. With a fresh gesture, this

time a superbly proud one, he expressed his full and impudent confidence.

“We others, why we remain as we are; we’ve never been in peril, I

imagine. Oh! I am quite at ease. Sagnier can publish his famous list if

it amuses him to do so. If we haven’t long since bought Sagnier and his

list, it’s because Barroux is a thoroughly honest man, and for my part I

don’t care to throw money out of the window--I repeat to you that we fear

nothing.”

Then, as he at last recognised Abbe Froment, who had remained in the

shade, Duthil explained what service the priest desired of him. And

Duvillard, in his state of emotion, his heart still rent by Silviane’s

sternness, must have felt a covert hope that a good action might bring

him luck; so he at once consented to intervene in favour of Laveuve’s

admission. Taking a card and a pencil from his pocket-book he drew near

to the window. “Oh! whatever you desire, Monsieur l’Abbe,” he said, “I

shall be very happy to participate in this good work. Here, this is what

I have written: ‘My dear, please do what M. l’Abbe Froment solicits in

favour of this unfortunate man, since our friend Fonsegue only awaits a

word from you to take proper steps.’”

At this moment through the open bay Pierre caught sight of Gerard, whom

Silviane, calm once more, and inquisitive no doubt to know why Duthil had

called, was escorting into the hall. And the sight of the young woman

filled him with astonishment, so simple and gentle did she seem to him,

full of the immaculate candour of a virgin. Never had he dreamt of a lily

of more unobtrusive yet delicious bloom in the whole garden of innocence.

“Now,” continued Duvillard, “if you wish to hand this card to my wife at

once, you must go to the Princess de Harn’s, where there is a

_matinee_--”

“I was going there, Monsieur le Baron.”

“Very good. You will certainly find my wife there; she is to take the

children there.” Then he paused, for he too had just seen Gerard; and he

called him: “I say, Gerard, my wife said that she was going to that

_matinee_, didn’t she? You feel sure--don’t you?--that Monsieur l’Abbe

will find her there?”

Although the young man was then going to the Rue Matignon, there to wait

for Eve, it was in the most natural manner possible that he replied: “If

Monsieur l’Abbe makes haste, I think he will find her there, for she was

certainly going there before trying on a corsage at Salmon’s.”

Then he kissed Silviane’s hand, and went off with the air of a handsome,

indolent man, who knows no malice, and is even weary of pleasure.

Pierre, feeling rather embarrassed, was obliged to let Duvillard

introduce him to the mistress of the house. He bowed in silence, whilst

she, likewise silent, returned his bow with modest reserve, the tact

appropriate to the occasion, such as no _ingenue_, even at the Comedie,

was then capable of. And while the Baron accompanied the priest to the

door, she returned to the _salon_ with Duthil, who was scarcely screened

by the door-curtain before he passed his arm round her waist.

When Pierre, who at last felt confident of success, found himself, still

in his cab, in front of the Princess de Harn’s mansion in the Avenue

Kleber, he suddenly relapsed into great embarrassment. The avenue was

crowded with carriages brought thither by the musical _matinee_, and such

a throng of arriving guests pressed round the entrance, decorated with a

kind of tent with scallopings of red velvet, that he deemed the house

unapproachable. How could he manage to get in? And how in his cassock

could he reach the Princess, and ask for a minute’s conversation with

Baroness Duvillard? Amidst all his feverishness he had not thought of

these difficulties. However, he was approaching the door on foot, asking

himself how he might glide unperceived through the throng, when the sound

of a merry voice made him turn: “What, Monsieur l’Abbe! Is it possible!

So now I find you here!”

It was little Massot who spoke. He went everywhere, witnessed ten sights

a day,--a parliamentary sitting, a funeral, a wedding, any festive or

mourning scene,--when he wanted a good subject for an article. “What!

Monsieur l’Abbe,” he resumed, “and so you have come to our amiable

Princess’s to see the Mauritanians dance!”

He was jesting, for the so-called Mauritanians were simply six Spanish

dancing-girls, who by the sensuality of their performance were then

making all Paris rush to the Folies-Bergere. For drawing-room

entertainments these girls reserved yet more indecorous dances--dances of

such a character indeed that they would certainly not have been allowed

in a theatre. And the _beau monde_ rushed to see them at the houses of

the bolder lady-entertainers, the eccentric and foreign ones like the

Princess, who in order to draw society recoiled from no “attraction.”

But when Pierre had explained to little Massot that he was still running

about on the same business, the journalist obligingly offered to pilot

him. He knew the house, obtained admittance by a back door, and brought

Pierre along a passage into a corner of the hall, near the very entrance

of the grand drawing-room. Lofty green plants decorated this hall, and in

the spot selected Pierre was virtually hidden. “Don’t stir, my dear

Abbe,” said Massot, “I will try to ferret out the Princess for you. And

you shall know if Baroness Duvillard has already arrived.”

What surprised Pierre was that every window-shutter of the mansion was

closed, every chink stopped up so that daylight might not enter, and that

every room flared with electric lamps, an illumination of supernatural

intensity. The heat was already very great, the atmosphere heavy with a

violent perfume of flowers and _odore di femina_. And to Pierre, who felt

both blinded and stifled, it seemed as if he were entering one of those

luxurious, unearthly Dens of the Flesh such as the pleasure-world of

Paris conjures from dreamland. By rising on tiptoes, as the drawing-room

entrance was wide open, he could distinguish the backs of the women who

were already seated, rows of necks crowned with fair or dark hair. The

Mauritanians were doubtless executing their first dance. He did not see

them, but he could divine the lascivious passion of the dance from the

quiver of all those women’s necks, which swayed as beneath a great gust

of wind. Then laughter arose and a tempest of bravos, quite a tumult of

enjoyment.

“I can’t put my hand on the Princess; you must wait a little,” Massot

returned to say. “I met Janzen and he promised to bring her to me. Don’t

you know Janzen?”

Then, in part because his profession willed it, and in part for

pleasure’s sake, he began to gossip. The Princess was a good friend of

his. He had described her first _soiree_ during the previous year, when

she had made her _debut_ at that mansion on her arrival in Paris. He knew

the real truth about her so far as it could be known. Rich? yes, perhaps

she was, for she spent enormous sums. Married she must have been, and to

a real prince, too; no doubt she was still married to him, in spite of

her story of widowhood. Indeed, it seemed certain that her husband, who

was as handsome as an archangel, was travelling about with a vocalist. As

for having a bee in her bonnet that was beyond discussion, as clear as

noonday. Whilst showing much intelligence, she constantly and suddenly

shifted. Incapable of any prolonged effort, she went from one thing that

had awakened her curiosity to another, never attaching herself anywhere.

After ardently busying herself with painting, she had lately become

impassioned for chemistry, and was now letting poetry master her.

“And so you don’t know Janzen,” continued Massot. “It was he who threw

her into chemistry, into the study of explosives especially, for, as you

may imagine, the only interest in chemistry for her is its connection

with Anarchism. She, I think, is really an Austrian, though one must

always doubt anything she herself says. As for Janzen, he calls himself a

Russian, but he’s probably German. Oh! he’s the most unobtrusive,

enigmatical man in the world, without a home, perhaps without a name--a

terrible fellow with an unknown past. I myself hold proofs which make me

think that he took part in that frightful crime at Barcelona. At all

events, for nearly a year now I’ve been meeting him in Paris, where the

police no doubt are watching him. And nothing can rid me of the idea that

he merely consented to become our lunatic Princess’s lover in order to

throw the detectives off the scent. He affects to live in the midst of

_fetes_, and he has introduced to the house some extraordinary people,

Anarchists of all nationalities and all colours--for instance, one

Raphanel, that fat, jovial little man yonder, a Frenchman he is, and his

companions would do well to mistrust him. Then there’s a Bergaz, a

Spaniard, I think, an obscure jobber at the Bourse, whose sensual,

blobber-lipped mouth is so disquieting. And there are others and others,

adventurers and bandits from the four corners of the earth!... Ah! the

foreign colonies of our Parisian pleasure-world! There are a few spotless

fine names, a few real great fortunes among them, but as for the rest,

ah! what a herd!”

Rosemonde’s own drawing-room was summed up in those words: resounding

titles, real millionaires, then, down below, the most extravagant medley

of international imposture and turpitude. And Pierre thought of that

internationalism, that cosmopolitanism, that flight of foreigners which,

ever denser and denser, swooped down upon Paris. Most certainly it came

thither to enjoy it, as to a city of adventure and delight, and it helped

to rot it a little more. Was it then a necessary thing, that

decomposition of the great cities which have governed the world, that

affluxion of every passion, every desire, every gratification, that

accumulation of reeking soil from all parts of the world, there where, in

beauty and intelligence, blooms the flower of civilisation?

However, Janzen appeared, a tall, thin fellow of about thirty, very fair

with grey, pale, harsh eyes, and a pointed beard and flowing curly hair

which elongated his livid, cloudy face. He spoke indifferent French in a

low voice and without a gesture. And he declared that the Princess could

not be found; he had looked for her everywhere. Possibly, if somebody had

displeased her, she had shut herself up in her room and gone to bed,

leaving her guests to amuse themselves in all freedom in whatever way

they might choose.

“Why, but here she is!” suddenly said Massot.

Rosemonde was indeed there, in the vestibule, watching the door as if she

expected somebody. Short, slight, and strange rather than pretty, with

her delicate face, her sea-green eyes, her small quivering nose, her

rather large and over-ruddy mouth, which was parted so that one could see

her superb teeth, she that day wore a sky-blue gown spangled with silver;

and she had silver bracelets on her arms and a silver circlet in her pale

brown hair, which rained down in curls and frizzy, straggling locks as

though waving in a perpetual breeze.

“Oh! whatever you desire, Monsieur l’Abbe,” she said to Pierre as soon as

she knew his business. “If they don’t take your old man in at our asylum,

send him to me, I’ll take him, I will; I will sleep him somewhere here.”

Still, she remained disturbed, and continually glanced towards the door.

And on the priest asking if Baroness Duvillard had yet arrived, “Why no!”

she cried, “and I am much surprised at it. She is to bring her son and

daughter. Yesterday, Hyacinthe positively promised me that he would

come.”

There lay her new caprice. If her passion for chemistry was giving way to

a budding taste for decadent, symbolical verse, it was because one

evening, whilst discussing Occultism with Hyacinthe, she had discovered

an extraordinary beauty in him: the astral beauty of Nero’s wandering

soul! At least, said she, the signs of it were certain.

And all at once she quitted Pierre: “Ah, at last!” she cried, feeling

relieved and happy. Then she darted forward: Hyacinthe was coming in with

his sister Camille.

On the very threshold, however, he had just met the friend on whose

account he was there, young Lord George Eldrett, a pale and languid

stripling with the hair of a girl; and he scarcely condescended to notice

the tender greeting of Rosemonde, for he professed to regard woman as an

impure and degrading creature. Distressed by such coldness, she followed

the two young men, returning in their rear into the reeking, blinding

furnace of the drawing-room.

Massot, however, had been obliging enough to stop Camille and bring her

to Pierre, who at the first words they exchanged relapsed into despair.

“What, mademoiselle, has not madame your mother accompanied you here?”

The girl, clad according to her wont in a dark gown, this time of

peacock-blue, was nervous, with wicked eyes and sibilant voice. And as

she ragefully drew up her little figure, her deformity, her left shoulder

higher than the right one, became more apparent than ever. “No,” she

rejoined, “she was unable. She had something to try on at her

dressmaker’s. We stopped too long at the Exposition du Lis, and she

requested us to set her down at Salmon’s door on our way here.”

It was Camille herself who had skilfully prolonged the visit to the art

show, still hoping to prevent her mother from meeting Gerard. And her

rage arose from the ease with which her mother had got rid of her, thanks

to that falsehood of having something to try on.

“But,” ingenuously said Pierre, “if I went at once to this person Salmon,

I might perhaps be able to send up my card.”

Camille gave a shrill laugh, so funny did the idea appear to her. Then

she retorted: “Oh! who knows if you would still find her there? She had

another pressing appointment, and is no doubt already keeping it!”

“Well, then, I will wait for her here. She will surely come to fetch you,

will she not?”

“Fetch us? Oh no! since I tell you that she has other important affairs

to attend to. The carriage will take us home alone, my brother and I.”

Increasing bitterness was infecting the girl’s pain-fraught irony. Did he

not understand her then, that priest who asked such naive questions which

were like dagger-thrusts in her heart? Yet he must know, since everybody

knew the truth.

“Ah! how worried I am,” Pierre resumed, so grieved indeed that tears

almost came to his eyes. “It’s still on account of that poor man about

whom I have been busying myself since this morning. I have a line from

your father, and Monsieur Gerard told me--” But at this point he paused

in confusion, and amidst all his thoughtlessness of the world, absorbed

as he was in the one passion of charity, he suddenly divined the truth.

“Yes,” he added mechanically, “I just now saw your father again with

Monsieur de Quinsac.”

“I know, I know,” replied Camille, with the suffering yet scoffing air of

a girl who is ignorant of nothing. “Well, Monsieur l’Abbe, if you have a

line from papa for mamma, you must wait till mamma has finished her

business. You might come to the house about six o’clock, but I doubt if

you’ll find her there, as she may well be detained.”

While Camille thus spoke, her murderous eyes glistened, and each word she

uttered, simple as it seemed, became instinct with ferocity, as if it

were a knife, which she would have liked to plunge into her mother’s

breast. In all certainty she had never before hated her mother to such a

point as this in her envy of her beauty and her happiness in being loved.

And the irony which poured from the girl’s virgin lips, before that

simple priest, was like a flood of mire with which she sought to submerge

her rival.

Just then, however, Rosemonde came back again, feverish and flurried as

usual. And she led Camille away: “Ah, my dear, make haste. They are

extraordinary, delightful, intoxicating!”

Janzen and little Massot also followed the Princess. All the men hastened

from the adjoining rooms, scrambled and plunged into the _salon_ at the

news that the Mauritanians had again begun to dance. That time it must

have been the frantic, lascivious gallop that Paris whispered about, for

Pierre saw the rows of necks and heads, now fair, now dark, wave and

quiver as beneath a violent wind. With every window-shutter closed, the

conflagration of the electric lamps turned the place into a perfect

brazier, reeking with human effluvia. And there came a spell of rapture,

fresh laughter and bravos, all the delight of an overflowing orgy.

When Pierre again found himself on the footwalk, he remained for a moment

bewildered, blinking, astonished to be in broad daylight once more.

Half-past four would soon strike, but he had nearly two hours to wait

before calling at the house in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What should he

do? He paid his driver; preferring to descend the Champs Elysees on foot,

since he had some time to lose. A walk, moreover, might calm the fever

which was burning his hands, in the passion of charity which ever since

the morning had been mastering him more and more, in proportion as he

encountered fresh and fresh obstacles. He now had but one pressing

desire, to complete his good work, since success henceforth seemed

certain. And he tried to restrain his steps and walk leisurely down the

magnificent avenue, which had now been dried by the bright sun, and was

enlivened by a concourse of people, while overhead the sky was again

blue, lightly blue, as in springtime.

Nearly two hours to lose while, yonder, the wretched Laveuve lay with

life ebbing from him on his bed of rags, in his icy den. Sudden feelings

of revolt, of well-nigh irresistible impatience ascended from Pierre’s

heart, making him quiver with desire to run off and at once find Baroness

Duvillard so as to obtain from her the all-saving order. He felt sure

that she was somewhere near, in one of those quiet neighbouring streets,

and great was his perturbation, his grief-fraught anger at having to wait

in this wise to save a human life until she should have attended to those

affairs of hers, of which her daughter spoke with such murderous glances!

He seemed to hear a formidable cracking, the family life of the

_bourgeoisie_ was collapsing: the father was at a hussy’s house, the

mother with a lover, the son and daughter knew everything; the former

gliding to idiotic perversity, the latter enraged and dreaming of

stealing her mother’s lover to make a husband of him. And meantime the

splendid equipages descended the triumphal avenue, and the crowd with its

luxury flowed along the sidewalks, one and all joyous and superb,

seemingly with no idea that somewhere at the far end there was a gaping

abyss wherein everyone of them would fall and be annihilated!

When Pierre got as far as the Summer Circus he was much surprised at

again seeing Salvat, the journeyman engineer, on one of the avenue seats.

He must have sunk down there, overcome by weariness and hunger, after

many a vain search. However, his jacket was still distended by something

he carried in or under it, some bit of bread, no doubt, which he meant to

take home with him. And leaning back, with his arms hanging listlessly,

he was watching with dreamy eyes the play of some very little children,

who, with the help of their wooden spades, were laboriously raising

mounds of sand, and then destroying them by dint of kicks. As he looked

at them his red eyelids moistened, and a very gentle smile appeared on

his poor discoloured lips. This time Pierre, penetrated by disquietude,

wished to approach and question him. But Salvat distrustfully rose and

went off towards the Circus, where a concert was drawing to a close; and

he prowled around the entrance of that festive edifice in which two

thousand happy people were heaped up together listening to music.

V. FROM RELIGION TO ANARCHY

AS Pierre was reaching the Place de la Concorde he suddenly remembered

the appointment which Abbe Rose had given him for five o’clock at the

Madeleine, and which he was forgetting in the feverishness born of his

repeated steps to save Laveuve. And at thought of it he hastened on, well

pleased at having this appointment to occupy and keep him patient.

When he entered the church he was surprised to find it so dark. There

were only a few candles burning, huge shadows were flooding the nave, and

amidst the semi-obscurity a very loud, clear voice spoke on with a

ceaseless streaming of words. All that one could at first distinguish of

the numerous congregation was a pale, vague mass of heads, motionless

with extreme attention. In the pulpit stood Monseigneur Martha, finishing

his third address on the New Spirit. The two former ones had re-echoed

far and wide, and so what is called “all Paris” was there--women of

society, politicians, and writers, who were captivated by the speaker’s

artistic oratory, his warm, skilful language, and his broad, easy

gestures, worthy of a great actor.

Pierre did not wish to disturb the solemn attention, the quivering

silence above which the prelate’s voice alone rang out. Accordingly he

resolved to wait before seeking Abbe Rose, and remained standing near a

pillar. A parting gleam of daylight fell obliquely on Monseigneur Martha,

who looked tall and sturdy in his white surplice, and scarcely showed a

grey hair, although he was more than fifty. He had handsome features:

black, keen eyes, a commanding nose, a mouth and chin of the greatest

firmness of contour. What more particularly struck one, however, what

gained the heart of every listener, was the expression of extreme

amiability and anxious sympathy which ever softened the imperious

haughtiness of the prelate’s face.

Pierre had formerly known him as Cure, or parish priest, of Ste.

Clotilde. He was doubtless of Italian origin, but he had been born in

Paris, and had quitted the seminary of St. Sulpice with the best possible

record. Very intelligent and very ambitious, he had evinced an activity

which even made his superiors anxious. Then, on being appointed Bishop of

Persepolis, he had disappeared, gone to Rome, where he had spent five

years engaged in work of which very little was known. However, since his

return he had been astonishing Paris by his brilliant propaganda, busying

himself with the most varied affairs, and becoming much appreciated and

very powerful at the archiepiscopal residence. He devoted himself in

particular, and with wonderful results, to the task of increasing the

subscriptions for the completion of the basilica of the Sacred Heart. He

recoiled from nothing, neither from journeys, nor lectures, nor

collections, nor applications to Government, nor even endeavours among

Israelites and Freemasons. And at last, again enlarging his sphere of

action, he had undertaken to reconcile Science with Catholicism, and to

bring all Christian France to the Republic, on all sides expounding the

policy of Pope Leo XIII., in order that the Church might finally triumph.

However, in spite of the advances of this influential and amiable man,

Pierre scarcely liked him. He only felt grateful to him for one thing,

the appointment of good Abbe Rose as curate at St. Pierre de Montmartre,

which appointment he had secured for him no doubt in order to prevent

such a scandal as the punishment of an old priest for showing himself too

charitable. On thus finding and hearing the prelate speak in that

renowned pulpit of the Madeleine, still and ever pursuing his work of

conquest, Pierre remembered how he had seen him at the Duvillards’ during

the previous spring, when, with his usual _maestria_, he had achieved his

greatest triumph--the conversion of Eve to Catholicism. That church, too,

had witnessed her baptism, a wonderfully pompous ceremony, a perfect gala

offered to the public which figures in all the great events of Parisian

life. Gerard had knelt down, moved to tears, whilst the Baron triumphed

like a good-natured husband who was happy to find religion establishing

perfect harmony in his household. It was related among the spectators

that Eve’s family, and particularly old Justus Steinberger, her father,

was not in reality much displeased by the affair. The old man sneeringly

remarked, indeed, that he knew his daughter well enough to wish her to

belong to his worst enemy. In the banking business there is a class of

security which one is pleased to see discounted by one’s rivals. With the

stubborn hope of triumph peculiar to his race, Justus, consoling himself

for the failure of his first scheme, doubtless considered that Eve would

prove a powerful dissolving agent in the Christian family which she had

entered, and thus help to make all wealth and power fall into the hands

of the Jews.

However, Pierre’s vision faded. Monseigneur Martha’s voice was rising

with increase of volume, celebrating, amidst the quivering of the

congregation, the benefits that would accrue from the New Spirit, which

was at last about to pacify France and restore her to her due rank and

power. Were there not certain signs of this resurrection on every hand?

The New Spirit was the revival of the Ideal, the protest of the soul

against degrading materialism, the triumph of spirituality over filthy

literature; and it was also Science accepted, but set in its proper

place, reconciled with Faith, since it no longer pretended to encroach on

the latter’s sacred domain; and it was further the Democracy welcomed in

fatherly fashion, the Republic legitimated, recognised in her turn as

Eldest Daughter of the Church. A breath of poetry passed by. The Church

opened her heart to all her children, there would henceforth be but

concord and delight if the masses, obedient to the New Spirit, would give

themselves to the Master of love as they had given themselves to their

kings, recognising that the Divinity was the one unique power, absolute

sovereign of both body and soul.

Pierre was now listening attentively, wondering where it was that he had

previously heard almost identical words. And suddenly he remembered; and

could fancy that he was again at Rome, listening to the last words of

Monsignor Nani, the Assessor of the Holy Office. Here, again, he found

the dream of a democratic Pope, ceasing to support the compromised

monarchies, and seeking to subdue the masses. Since Caesar was down, or

nearly so, might not the Pope realise the ancient ambition of his

forerunners and become both emperor and pontiff, the sovereign, universal

divinity on earth? This, too, was the dream in which Pierre himself, with

apostolic naivete, had indulged when writing his book, “New Rome”: a

dream from which the sight of the real Rome had so roughly roused him. At

bottom it was merely a policy of hypocritical falsehood, the priestly

policy which relies on time, and is ever tenacious, carrying on the work

of conquest with extraordinary suppleness, resolved to profit by

everything. And what an evolution it was, the Church of Rome making

advances to Science, to the Democracy, to the Republican _regimes_,

convinced that it would be able to devour them if only it were allowed

the time! Ah! yes, the New Spirit was simply the Old Spirit of

Domination, incessantly reviving and hungering to conquer and possess the

world.

Pierre thought that he recognised among the congregation certain deputies

whom he had seen at the Chamber. Wasn’t that tall gentleman with the fair

beard, who listened so devoutly, one of Monferrand’s creatures? It was

said that Monferrand, once a devourer of priests, was now smilingly

coquetting with the clergy. Quite an underhand evolution was beginning in

the sacristies, orders from Rome flitted hither and thither; it was a

question of accepting the new form of government, and absorbing it by

dint of invasion. France was still the Eldest Daughter of the Church, the

only great nation which had sufficient health and strength to place the

Pope in possession of his temporal power once more. So France must be

won; it was well worth one’s while to espouse her, even if she were

Republican. In the eager struggle of ambition the bishop made use of the

minister, who thought it to his interest to lean upon the bishop. But

which of the two would end by devouring the other? And to what a _role_

had religion sunk: an electoral weapon, an element in a parliamentary

majority, a decisive, secret reason for obtaining or retaining a

ministerial portfolio! Of divine charity, the basis of religion, there

was no thought, and Pierre’s heart filled with bitterness as he

remembered the recent death of Cardinal Bergerot, the last of the great

saints and pure minds of the French episcopacy, among which there now

seemed to be merely a set of intriguers and fools.

However, the address was drawing to a close. In a glowing peroration,

which evoked the basilica of the Sacred Heart dominating Paris with the

saving symbol of the Cross from the sacred Mount of the Martyrs,*

Monseigneur Martha showed that great city of Paris Christian once more

and master of the world, thanks to the moral omnipotence conferred upon

it by the divine breath of the New Spirit. Unable to applaud, the

congregation gave utterance to a murmur of approving rapture, delighted

as it was with this miraculous finish which reassured both pocket and

conscience. Then Monseigneur Martha quitted the pulpit with a noble step,

whilst a loud noise of chairs broke upon the dark peacefulness of the

church, where the few lighted candles glittered like the first stars in

the evening sky. A long stream of men, vague, whispering shadows, glided

away. The women alone remained, praying on their knees.

* Montmartre.

Pierre, still in the same spot, was rising on tip-toes, looking for Abbe

Rose, when a hand touched him. It was that of the old priest, who had

seen him from a distance. “I was yonder near the pulpit,” said he, “and I

saw you plainly, my dear child. Only I preferred to wait so as to disturb

nobody. What a beautiful address dear Monseigneur delivered!”

He seemed, indeed, much moved. But there was deep sadness about his

kindly mouth and clear childlike eyes, whose smile as a rule illumined

his good, round white face. “I was afraid you might go off without seeing

me,” he resumed, “for I have something to tell you. You know that poor

old man to whom I sent you this morning and in whom I asked you to

interest yourself? Well, on getting home I found a lady there, who

sometimes brings me a little money for my poor. Then I thought to myself

that the three francs I gave you were really too small a sum, and as the

thought worried me like a kind of remorse, I couldn’t resist the impulse,

but went this afternoon to the Rue des Saules myself.”

He lowered his voice from a feeling of respect, in order not to disturb

the deep, sepulchral silence of the church. Covert shame, moreover,

impeded his utterance, shame at having again relapsed into the sin of

blind, imprudent charity, as his superiors reproachfully said. And,

quivering, he concluded in a very low voice indeed: “And so, my child,

picture my grief. I had five francs more to give the poor old man, and I

found him dead.”

Pierre suddenly shuddered. But he was unwilling to understand: “What,

dead!” he cried. “That old man dead! Laveuve dead?”

“Yes, I found him dead--ah! amidst what frightful wretchedness, like an

old animal that has laid itself down for the finish on a heap of rags in

the depths of a hole. No neighbours had assisted him in his last moments;

he had simply turned himself towards the wall. And ah! how bare and cold

and deserted it was! And what a pang for a poor creature to go off like

that without a word, a caress. Ah! my heart bounded within me and it is

still bleeding!”

Pierre in his utter amazement at first made but a gesture of revolt

against imbecile social cruelty. Had the bread left near the unfortunate

wretch, and devoured too eagerly, perhaps, after long days of abstinence,

been the cause of his death? Or was not this rather the fatal

_denouement_ of an ended life, worn away by labour and privation?

However, what did the cause signify? Death had come and delivered the

poor man. “It isn’t he that I pity,” Pierre muttered at last; “it is

we--we who witness all that, we who are guilty of these abominations.”

But good Abbe Rose was already becoming resigned, and would only think of

forgiveness and hope. “No, no, my child, rebellion is evil. If we are all

guilty we can only implore Providence to forget our faults. I had given

you an appointment here hoping for good news; and it’s I who come to tell

you of that frightful thing. Let us be penitent and pray.”

Then he knelt upon the flagstones near the pillar, in the rear of the

praying women, who looked black and vague in the gloom. And he inclined

his white head, and for a long time remained in a posture of humility.

But Pierre was unable to pray, so powerfully did revolt stir him. He did

not even bend his knees, but remained erect and quivering. His heart

seemed to have been crushed; not a tear came to his ardent eyes. So

Laveuve had died yonder, stretched on his litter of rags, his hands

clenched in his obstinate desire to cling to his life of torture, whilst

he, Pierre, again glowing with the flame of charity, consumed by

apostolic zeal, was scouring Paris to find him for the evening a clean

bed on which he might be saved. Ah! the atrocious irony of it all! He

must have been at the Duvillards’ in the warm _salon_, all blue and

silver, whilst the old man was expiring; and it was for a wretched corpse

that he had then hastened to the Chamber of Deputies, to the Countess de

Quinsac’s, to that creature Silviane’s, and to that creature Rosemonde’s.

And it was for that corpse, freed from life, escaped from misery as from

prison, that he had worried people, broken in upon their egotism,

disturbed the peace of some, threatened the pleasures of others! What was

the use of hastening from the parliamentary den to the cold _salon_ where

the dust of the past was congealing; of going from the sphere of

middle-class debauchery to that of cosmopolitan extravagance, since one

always arrived too late, and saved people when they were already dead?

How ridiculous to have allowed himself to be fired once more by that

blaze of charity, that final conflagration, only the ashes of which he

now felt within him? This time he thought he was dead himself; he was

naught but an empty sepulchre.

And all the frightful void and chaos which he had felt that morning at

the basilica of the Sacred Heart after his mass became yet deeper,

henceforth unfathomable. If charity were illusory and useless the Gospel

crumbled, the end of the Book was nigh. After centuries of stubborn

efforts, Redemption through Christianity failed, and another means of

salvation was needed by the world in presence of the exasperated thirst

for justice which came from the duped and wretched nations. They would

have no more of that deceptive paradise, the promise of which had so long

served to prop up social iniquity; they demanded that the question of

happiness should be decided upon this earth. But how? By means of what

new religion, what combination between the sentiment of the Divine and

the necessity for honouring life in its sovereignty and its fruitfulness?

Therein lay the grievous, torturing problem, into the midst of which

Pierre was sinking; he, a priest, severed by vows of chastity and

superstition from the rest of mankind.

He had ceased to believe in the efficacy of alms; it was not sufficient

that one should be charitable, henceforth one must be just. Given

justice, indeed, horrid misery would disappear, and no such thing as

charity would be needed. Most certainly there was no lack of

compassionate hearts in that grievous city of Paris; charitable

foundations sprouted forth there like green leaves at the first warmth of

springtide. There were some for every age, every peril, every misfortune.

Through the concern shown for mothers, children were succoured even

before they were born; then came the infant and orphan asylums lavishly

provided for all sorts of classes; and, afterwards, man was followed

through his life, help was tendered on all sides, particularly as he grew

old, by a multiplicity of asylums, almshouses, and refuges. And there

were all the hands stretched out to the forsaken ones, the disinherited

ones, even the criminals, all sorts of associations to protect the weak,

societies for the prevention of crime, homes that offered hospitality to

those who repented. Whether as regards the propagation of good deeds, the

support of the young, the saving of life, the bestowal of pecuniary help,

or the promotion of guilds, pages and pages would have been needed merely

to particularise the extraordinary vegetation of charity that sprouted

between the paving-stones of Paris with so fine a vigour, in which

goodness of soul was mingled with social vanity. Still that could not

matter, since charity redeemed and purified all. But how terrible the

proposition that this charity was a useless mockery! What! after so many

centuries of Christian charity not a sore had healed. Misery had only

grown and spread, irritated even to rage. Incessantly aggravated, the

evil was reaching the point when it would be impossible to tolerate it

for another day, since social injustice was neither arrested nor even

diminished thereby. And besides, if only one single old man died of cold

and hunger, did not the social edifice, raised on the theory of charity,

collapse? But one victim, and society was condemned, thought Pierre.

He now felt such bitterness of heart that he could remain no longer in

that church where the shadows ever slowly fell, blurring the sanctuaries

and the large pale images of Christ nailed upon the Cross. All was about

to sink into darkness, and he could hear nothing beyond an expiring

murmur of prayers, a plaint from the women who were praying on their

knees, in the depths of the shrouding gloom.

At the same time he hardly liked to go off without saying a word to Abbe

Rose, who in his entreaties born of simple faith left the happiness and

peace of mankind to the good pleasure of the Invisible. However, fearing

that he might disturb him, Pierre was making up his mind to retire, when

the old priest of his own accord raised his head. “Ah, my child,” said

he, “how difficult it is to be good in a reasonable manner. Monseigneur

Martha has scolded me again, and but for the forgiveness of God I should

fear for my salvation.”

For a moment Pierre paused under the porticus of the Madeleine, on the

summit of the great flight of steps which, rising above the railings,

dominates the Place. Before him was the Rue Royale dipping down to the

expanse of the Place de la Concorde, where rose the obelisk and the pair

of plashing fountains. And, farther yet, the paling colonnade of the

Chamber of Deputies bounded the horizon. It was a vista of sovereign

grandeur under that pale sky over which twilight was slowly stealing, and

which seemed to broaden the thoroughfares, throw back the edifices, and

lend them the quivering, soaring aspect of the palaces of dreamland. No

other capital in the world could boast a scene of such aerial pomp, such

grandiose magnificence, at that hour of vagueness, when falling night

imparts to cities a dreamy semblance, the infinite of human immensity.

Motionless and hesitating in presence of the opening expanse, Pierre

distressfully pondered as to whither he should go now that all which he

had so passionately sought to achieve since the morning had suddenly

crumbled away. Was he still bound for the Duvillard mansion in the Rue

Godot-de-Mauroy? He no longer knew. Then the exasperating remembrance,

with its cruel irony, returned to him. Since Laveuve was dead, of what

use was it for him to kill time and perambulate the pavements pending the

arrival of six o’clock? The idea that he had a home, and that the most

simple course would be to return to it, did not even occur to him. He

felt as if there were something of importance left for him to do, though

he could not possibly tell what it might be. It seemed to him to be

everywhere and yet very far away, to be so vague and so difficult of

accomplishment that he would certainly never be in time or have

sufficient power to do it. However, with heavy feet and tumultuous brain

he descended the steps and, yielding to some obstinate impulse, began to

walk through the flower-market, a late winter market where the first

azaleas were opening with a little shiver. Some women were purchasing

Nice roses and violets; and Pierre looked at them as if he were

interested in all that soft, delicate, perfumed luxury. But suddenly he

felt a horror of it and went off, starting along the Boulevards.

He walked straight before him without knowing why or whither. The falling

darkness surprised him as if it were an unexpected phenomenon. Raising

his eyes to the sky he felt astonished at seeing its azure gently pale

between the slender black streaks of the chimney funnels. And the huge

golden letters by which names or trades were advertised on every balcony

also seemed to him singular in the last gleams of the daylight. Never

before had he paid attention to the motley tints seen on the

house-fronts, the painted mirrors, the blinds, the coats of arms, the

posters of violent hues, the magnificent shops, like drawing-rooms and

boudoirs open to the full light. And then, both in the roadway and along

the foot-pavements, between the blue, red or yellow columns and kiosks,

what mighty traffic there was, what an extraordinary crowd! The vehicles

rolled along in a thundering stream: on all sides billows of cabs were

parted by the ponderous tacking of huge omnibuses, which suggested lofty,

bright-hued battle-ships. And on either hand, and farther and farther,

and even among the wheels, the flood of passengers rushed on incessantly,

with the conquering haste of ants in a state of revolution. Whence came

all those people, and whither were all those vehicles going? How

stupefying and torturing it all was.

Pierre was still walking straight ahead, mechanically, carried on by his

gloomy reverie. Night was coming, the first gas-burners were being

lighted; it was the dusk of Paris, the hour when real darkness has not

yet come, when the electric lights flame in the dying day. Lamps shone

forth on all sides, the shop-fronts were being illumined. Soon, moreover,

right along the Boulevards the vehicles would carry their vivid starry

lights, like a milky way on the march betwixt the foot-pavements all

glowing with lanterns and cordons and girandoles, a dazzling profusion of

radiance akin to sunlight. And the shouts of the drivers and the jostling

of the foot passengers re-echoed the parting haste of the Paris which is

all business or passion, which is absorbed in the merciless struggle for

love and for money. The hard day was over, and now the Paris of Pleasure

was lighting up for its night of _fete_. The cafes, the wine shops, the

restaurants, flared and displayed their bright metal bars, and their

little white tables behind their clear and lofty windows, whilst near

their doors, by way of temptation, were oysters and choice fruits. And

the Paris which was thus awaking with the first flashes of the gas was

already full of the gaiety of enjoyment, already yielding to an unbridled

appetite for whatsoever may be purchased.

However, Pierre had a narrow escape from being knocked down. A flock of

newspaper hawkers came out of a side street, and darted through the crowd

shouting the titles of the evening journals. A fresh edition of the “Voix

du Peuple” gave rise, in particular, to a deafening clamour, which rose

above all the rumbling of wheels. At regular intervals hoarse voices

raised and repeated the cry: “Ask for the ‘Voix du Peuple’--the new

scandal of the African Railway Lines, the repulse of the ministry, the

thirty-two bribe-takers of the Chamber and the Senate!” And these

announcements, set in huge type, could be read on the copies of the

paper, which the hawkers flourished like banners. Accustomed as it was to

such filth, saturated with infamy, the crowd continued on its way without

paying much attention. Still a few men paused and bought the paper, while

painted women, who had come down to the Boulevards in search of a dinner,

trailed their skirts and waited for some chance lover, glancing

interrogatively at the outside customers of the cafes. And meantime the

dishonouring shout of the newspaper hawkers, that cry in which there was

both smirch and buffet, seemed like the last knell of the day, ringing

the nation’s funeral at the outset of the night of pleasure which was

beginning.

Then Pierre once more remembered his morning and that frightful house in

the Rue des Saules, where so much want and suffering were heaped up. He

again saw the yard filthy like a quagmire, the evil-smelling staircases,

the sordid, bare, icy rooms, the families fighting for messes which even

stray dogs would not have eaten; the mothers, with exhausted breasts,

carrying screaming children to and fro; the old men who fell in corners

like brute beasts, and died of hunger amidst filth. And then came his

other hours with the magnificence or the quietude or the gaiety of the

_salons_ through which he had passed, the whole insolent display of

financial Paris, and political Paris, and society Paris. And at last he

came to the dusk, and to that Paris-Sodom and Paris-Gomorrah before him,

which was lighting itself up for the night, for the abominations of that

accomplice night which, like fine dust, was little by little submerging

the expanse of roofs. And the hateful monstrosity of it all howled aloud

under the pale sky where the first pure, twinkling stars were gleaming.

A great shudder came upon Pierre as he thought of all that mass of

iniquity and suffering, of all that went on below amid want and crime,

and all that went on above amid wealth and vice. The _bourgeoisie_,

wielding power, would relinquish naught of the sovereignty which it had

conquered, wholly stolen, while the people, the eternal dupe, silent so

long, clenched its fists and growled, claiming its legitimate share. And

it was that frightful injustice which filled the growing gloom with

anger. From what dark-breasted cloud would the thunderbolt fall? For

years he had been waiting for that thunderbolt which low rumbles

announced on all points of the horizon. And if he had written a book full

of candour and hope, if he had gone in all innocence to Rome, it was to

avert that thunderbolt and its frightful consequences. But all hope of

the kind was dead within him; he felt that the thunderbolt was

inevitable, that nothing henceforth could stay the catastrophe. And never

before had he felt it to be so near, amidst the happy impudence of some,

and the exasperated distress of others. And it was gathering, and it

would surely fall over that Paris, all lust and bravado, which, when

evening came, thus stirred up its furnace.

Tired out and distracted, Pierre raised his eyes as he reached the Place

de l’Opera. Where was he then? The heart of the great city seemed to beat

on this spot, in that vast expanse where met so many thoroughfares, as if

from every point the blood of distant districts flowed thither along

triumphal avenues. Right away to the horizon stretched the great gaps of

the Avenue de l’Opera, the Rue du Quatre-Septembre, and the Rue de la

Paix, still showing clearly in a final glimpse of daylight, but already

starred with swarming sparks. The torrent of the Boulevard traffic poured

across the Place, where clashed, too, all that from the neighbouring

streets, with a constant turning and eddying which made the spot the most

dangerous of whirlpools. In vain did the police seek to impose some

little prudence, the stream of pedestrians still overflowed, wheels

became entangled and horses reared amidst all the uproar of the human

tide, which was as loud, as incessant, as the tempest voice of an ocean.

Then there was the detached mass of the opera-house, slowly steeped in

gloom, and rising huge and mysterious like a symbol, its lyre-bearing

figure of Apollo, right aloft, showing a last reflection of daylight

amidst the livid sky. And all the windows of the house-fronts began to

shine, gaiety sprang from those thousands of lamps which coruscated one

by one, a universal longing for ease and free gratification of each

desire spread with the increasing darkness; whilst, at long intervals,

the large globes of the electric lights shone as brightly as the moons of

the city’s cloudless nights.

But why was he, Pierre, there, he asked himself, irritated and wondering.

Since Laveuve was dead he had but to go home, bury himself in his nook,

and close up door and windows, like one who was henceforth useless, who

had neither belief nor hope, and awaited naught save annihilation. It was

a long journey from the Place de l’Opera to his little house at Neuilly.

Still, however great his weariness, he would not take a cab, but retraced

his steps, turning towards the Madeleine again, and plunging into the

scramble of the pavements, amidst the deafening uproar from the roadway,

with a bitter desire to aggravate his wound and saturate himself with

revolt and anger. Was it not yonder at the corner of that street, at the

end of that Boulevard, that he would find the expected abyss into which

that rotten world, whose old society he could hear rending at each step,

must soon assuredly topple?

However, when Pierre wished to cross the Rue Scribe a block in the

traffic made him halt. In front of a luxurious cafe two tall,

shabbily-clad and very dirty fellows were alternately offering the “Voix

du Peuple” with its account of the scandals and the bribe-takers of the

Chamber and the Senate, in voices so suggestive of cracked brass that

passers-by clustered around them. And here, in a hesitating, wandering

man, who after listening drew near to the large cafe and peered through

its windows, Pierre was once again amazed to recognise Salvat. This time

the meeting struck him forcibly, filled him with suspicion to such a

point that he also stopped and resolved to watch the journeyman engineer.

He did not expect that one of such wretched aspect, with what seemed to

be a hunk of bread distending his old ragged jacket, would enter and seat

himself at one of the cafe’s little tables amidst the warm gaiety of the

lamps. However, he waited for a moment, and then saw him wander away with

slow and broken steps as if the cafe, which was nearly empty, did not

suit him. What could he have been seeking, whither had he been going,

since the morning, ever on a wild, solitary chase through the Paris of

wealth and enjoyment while hunger dogged his steps? It was only with

difficulty that he now dragged himself along, his will and energy seemed

to be exhausted. As if quite overcome, he drew near to a kiosk, and for a

moment leant against it. Then, however, he drew himself up again, and

walked on further, still as it were in search of something.

And now came an incident which brought Pierre’s emotion to a climax. A

tall sturdy man on turning out of the Rue Caumartin caught sight of

Salvat, and approached him. And just as the new comer without false pride

was shaking the workman’s hand, Pierre recognised him as his brother

Guillaume. Yes, it was indeed he, with his thick bushy hair already white

like snow, though he was but seven and forty. However, his heavy

moustaches had remained quite dark without one silver thread, thus

lending an expression of vigorous life to his full face with its lofty

towering brow. It was from his father that he had inherited that brow of

impregnable logic and reason, similar to that which Pierre himself

possessed. But the lower part of the elder brother’s countenance was

fuller than that of his junior; his nose was larger, his chin was square,

and his mouth broad and firm of contour. A pale scar, the mark of an old

wound, streaked his left temple. And his physiognomy, though it might at

first seem very grave, rough, and unexpansive, beamed with masculine

kindliness whenever a smile revealed his teeth, which had remained

extremely white.

While looking at his brother, Pierre remembered what Madame Theodore had

told him that morning. Guillaume, touched by Salvat’s dire want, had

arranged to give him a few days’ employment. And this explained the air

of interest with which he now seemed to be questioning him, while the

engineer, whom the meeting disturbed, stamped about as if eager to resume

his mournful ramble. For a moment Guillaume appeared to notice the

other’s perturbation, by the embarrassed answers which he obtained from

him. Still, they at last parted as if each were going his way. Then,

however, almost immediately, Guillaume turned round again and watched the

other, as with harassed stubborn mien he went off through the crowd. And

the thoughts which had come to Guillaume must have been very serious and

very pressing, for he all at once began to retrace his steps and follow

the workman from a distance, as if to ascertain for certain what

direction he would take.

Pierre had watched the scene with growing disquietude. His nervous

apprehension of some great unknown calamity, the suspicions born of his

frequent and inexplicable meetings with Salvat, his surprise at now

seeing his brother mingled with the affair, all helped to fill him with a

pressing desire to know, witness, and perhaps prevent. So he did not

hesitate, but began to follow the others in a prudent way.

Fresh perturbation came upon him when first Salvat and then Guillaume

suddenly turned into the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What destiny was thus

bringing him back to that street whither a little time previously he had

wished to return in feverish haste, and whence only the death of Laveuve

had kept him? And his consternation increased yet further when, after

losing sight of Salvat for a moment, he saw him standing in front of the

Duvillard mansion, on the same spot where he had fancied he recognised

him that morning. As it happened the carriage entrance of the mansion was

wide open. Some repairs had been made to the paving of the porch, and

although the workmen had now gone off, the doorway remained gaping, full

of the falling night. The narrow street, running from the glittering

Boulevard, was steeped in bluish gloom, starred at long intervals by a

few gas-lamps. Some women went by, compelling Salvat to step off the

foot-pavement. But he returned to it again, lighted the stump of a cigar,

some remnant which he had found under a table outside a cafe, and then

resumed his watch, patient and motionless, in front of the mansion.

Disturbed by his dim conjectures, Pierre gradually grew frightened, and

asked himself if he ought not to approach that man. The chief thing that

detained him was the presence of his brother, whom he had seen disappear

into a neighbouring doorway, whence he also was observing the engineer,

ready to intervene. And so Pierre contented himself with not losing sight

of Salvat, who was still waiting and watching, merely taking his eyes

from the mansion in order to glance towards the Boulevard as though he

expected someone or something which would come from that direction. And

at last, indeed, the Duvillards’ landau appeared, with coachman and

footman in livery of green and gold--a closed landau to which a pair of

tall horses of superb build were harnessed in stylish fashion.

Contrary to custom, however, the carriage, which at that hour usually

brought the father and mother home, was only occupied that evening by the

son and daughter, Hyacinthe and Camille. Returning from the Princess de

Harn’s _matinee_, they were chatting freely, with that calm immodesty by

which they sought to astonish one another. Hyacinthe, influenced by his

perverted ideas, was attacking women, whilst Camille openly counselled

him to respond to the Princess’s advances. However, she was visibly

irritated and feverish that evening, and, suddenly changing the subject,

she began to speak of their mother and Gerard de Quinsac.

“But what can it matter to you?” quietly retorted Hyacinthe; and, seeing

that she almost bounded from the seat at this remark, he continued: “Are

you still in love with him, then? Do you still want to marry him?”

“Yes, I do, and I will!” she cried with all the jealous rage of an

uncomely girl, who suffered so acutely at seeing herself spurned whilst

her yet beautiful mother stole from her the man she wanted.

“You will, you will!” resumed Hyacinthe, well pleased to have an

opportunity of teasing his sister, whom he somewhat feared. “But you

won’t unless _he_ is willing--And he doesn’t care for you.”

“He does!” retorted Camille in a fury. “He’s kind and pleasant with me,

and that’s enough.”

Her brother felt afraid as he noticed the blackness of her glance, and

the clenching of her weak little hands, whose fingers bent like claws.

And after a pause he asked: “And papa, what does he say about it?”

“Oh, papa! All that he cares about is the other one.”

Then Hyacinthe began to laugh.

But the landau, with its tall horses trotting on sonorously, had turned

into the street and was approaching the house, when a slim fair-haired

girl of sixteen or seventeen, a modiste’s errand girl with a large

bandbox on her arm, hastily crossed the road in order to enter the arched

doorway before the carriage. She was bringing a bonnet for the Baroness,

and had come all along the Boulevard musing, with her soft blue eyes, her

pinky nose, and her mouth which ever laughed in the most adorable little

face that one could see. And it was at this same moment that Salvat,

after another glance at the landau, sprang forward and entered the

doorway. An instant afterwards he reappeared, flung his lighted cigar

stump into the gutter; and without undue haste went off, slinking into

the depths of the vague gloom of the street.

And then what happened? Pierre, later on, remembered that a dray of the

Western Railway Company in coming up stopped and delayed the landau for a

moment, whilst the young errand girl entered the doorway. And with a

heart-pang beyond description he saw his brother Guillaume in his turn

spring forward and rush into the mansion as though impelled to do so by

some revelation, some sudden certainty. He, Pierre, though he understood

nothing clearly, could divine the approach of some frightful horror. But

when he would have run, when he would have shouted, he found himself as

if nailed to the pavement, and felt his throat clutched as by a hand of

lead. Then suddenly came a thunderous roar, a formidable explosion, as if

the earth was opening, and the lightning-struck mansion was being

annihilated. Every window-pane of the neighbouring houses was shivered,

the glass raining down with the loud clatter of hail. For a moment a

hellish flame fired the street, and the dust and the smoke were such that

the few passers-by were blinded and howled with affright, aghast at

toppling, as they thought, into that fiery furnace.

And that dazzling flare brought Pierre enlightenment. He once more saw

the bomb distending the tool-bag, which lack of work had emptied and

rendered useless. He once more saw it under the ragged jacket, a

protuberance caused, he had fancied, by some hunk of bread, picked up in

a corner and treasured that it might be carried home to wife and child.

After wandering and threatening all happy Paris, it was there that it had

flared, there that it had burst with a thunder-clap, there on the

threshold of the sovereign _bourgeoisie_ to whom all wealth belonged. He,

however, at that moment thought only of his brother Guillaume, and flung

himself into that porch where a volcanic crater seemed to have opened.

And at first he distinguished nothing, the acrid smoke streamed over all.

Then he perceived the walls split, the upper floor rent open, the paving

broken up, strewn with fragments. Outside, the landau which had been on

the point of entering, had escaped all injury; neither of the horses had

been touched, nor was there even a scratch on any panel of the vehicle.

But the young girl, the pretty, slim, fair-haired errand girl, lay there

on her back, her stomach ripped open, whilst her delicate face remained

intact, her eyes clear, her smile full of astonishment, so swiftly and

lightning-like had come the catastrophe. And near her, from the fallen

bandbox, whose lid had merely come unfastened, had rolled the bonnet, a

very fragile pink bonnet, which still looked charming in its flowery

freshness.

By a prodigy Guillaume was alive and already on his legs again. His left

hand alone streamed with blood, a projectile seemed to have broken his

wrist. His moustaches moreover had been burnt, and the explosion by

throwing him to the ground had so shaken and bruised him that he shivered

from head to feet as with intense cold. Nevertheless, he recognised his

brother without even feeling astonished to see him there, as indeed often

happens after great disasters, when the unexplained becomes providential.

That brother, of whom he had so long lost sight, was there, naturally

enough, because it was necessary that he should be there. And Guillaume,

amidst the wild quivers by which he was shaken, at once cried to him

“Take me away! take me away! To your house at Neuilly, oh! take me away!”

Then, for sole explanation, and referring to Salvat, he stammered: “I

suspected that he had stolen a cartridge from me; only one, most

fortunately, for otherwise the whole district would have been blown to

pieces. Ah! the wretched fellow! I wasn’t in time to set my foot upon the

match.”

With perfect lucidity of mind, such as danger sometimes imparts, Pierre,

neither speaking nor losing a moment, remembered that the mansion had a

back entrance fronting the Rue Vignon. He had just realised in what

serious peril his brother would be if he were found mixed up in that

affair. And with all speed, when he had led him into the gloom of the Rue

Vignon, he tied his handkerchief round his wrist, which he bade him press

to his chest, under his coat, as that would conceal it.

But Guillaume, still shivering and haunted by the horror he had

witnessed, repeated: “Take me away--to your place at Neuilly--not to my

home.”

“Of course, of course, be easy. Come, wait here a second, I will stop a

cab.”

In his eagerness to procure a conveyance, Pierre had brought his brother

down to the Boulevard again. But the terrible thunderclap of the

explosion had upset the whole neighbourhood, horses were still rearing,

and people were running demented, hither and thither. And numerous

policemen had hastened up, and a rushing crowd was already blocking the

lower part of the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy, which was now as black as a pit,

every light in it having been extinguished; whilst on the Boulevard a

hawker of the “Voix du Peuple” still stubbornly vociferated: “The new

scandal of the African Railway Lines! The thirty-two bribe-takers of the

Chamber and the Senate! The approaching fall of the ministry!”

Pierre was at last managing to stop a cab when he heard a person who ran

by say to another, “The ministry? Ah, well! that bomb will mend it right

enough!”

Then the brothers seated themselves in the cab, which carried them away.

And now, over the whole of rumbling Paris black night had gathered, an

unforgiving night, in which the stars foundered amidst the mist of crime

and anger that had risen from the house-roofs. The great cry of justice

swept by amidst the same terrifying flapping of wings which Sodom and

Gomorrah once heard bearing down upon them from all the black clouds of

the horizon.