toward the door, and conversation ceased for a moment. Paul de Géry
drew a long breath. The words he had just overheard had oppressed his
heart. He felt as if he himself were spattered, sullied by the mud
unsparingly thrown upon the ideal he had formed for himself of that
glorious youth, ripened in the sun of art and endowed with such
penetrating charm. He moved away a little, changed his position. He
dreaded to hear some other calumny. Madame Jenkins' voice did him good,
a voice famous in Parisian salons, a voice that, with all its
brilliancy, was in no sense theatrical, but seemed like speech,
thrilling with emotion, striking resonant, unfamiliar chords. The
singer, a woman of from forty to forty-five years of age, had
magnificent hair of the color of ashes, refined, somewhat weak
features, and an expression of great amiability. Still beautiful, she
was dressed with the costly taste of a woman who has not abandoned the
idea of pleasing. Nor had she abandoned it; she and the doctor--she was
then a widow--had been married some ten years, and they seemed still to
be enjoying the first months of their joint happiness. While she sang a
Russian folk-song, as wild and sweet as the smile of a Slav, Jenkins
artlessly manifested his pride without attempt at concealment, his
broad face beamed expansively; and she, every time that she leaned
forward to take breath, turned in his direction a timid, loving glance
which sought him out over the music she held in her hand. And when she
had finished, amid a murmur of delight and admiration, it was touching
to see her secretly press her husband's hand, as if to reserve for
herself a little corner of private happiness amid that great triumph.
Young de Géry was taking comfort in the sight of that happy couple,
when suddenly a voice murmured by his side--it was not the same voice
that had spoken just before:
"You know what people say--that the Jenkinses are not married."
"What nonsense!"
"True, I assure you--it seems that there's a genuine Madame Jenkins
somewhere, but not this one who has been exhibited to us. By the way,
have you noticed--"
The conversation continued in an undertone. Madame Jenkins approached,
bowing and smiling, while the doctor, stopping a salver as it passed,
brought her a glass of bordeaux with the zeal of a mother, an
impresario, a lover. Slander, slander, ineffaceable stain! Now Jenkins'
attentions seemed overdone to the provincial. He thought that there was
something affected, studied in them, and at the same time he fancied
that he noticed in the thanks she expressed to her husband in a low
tone a dread, a submissiveness derogatory to the dignity of a lawful
wife, happy and proud in an unassailable position. "Why, society is a
hideous thing!" said de Géry to himself in dismay, his hands as cold as
ice. The smiles that encompassed him seemed to him like mere grimacing.
He was ashamed and disgusted. Then suddenly his soul rose in revolt:
"Nonsense! it isn't possible!" And, as if in answer to that
exclamation, the voice of slander behind him continued carelessly:
"After all, you know, I am not sure. I simply repeat what I hear. Look,
there's Baronne Hemerlingue. He has all Paris here, this Jenkins."
The baroness came forward on the doctor's arm; he had rushed forward to
meet her, and, despite his perfect control over his features, he seemed
a little perturbed and disconcerted. It had occurred to the excellent
Jenkins to take advantage of his party to make peace between his friend
Hemerlingue and his friend Jansoulet, his two wealthiest patients, who
embarrassed him seriously with their internecine warfare. The Nabob
asked nothing better. He bore his former chum no malice. Their rupture
had come about as a result of Hemerlingue's marriage with one of the
favorites of the former bey. "A woman's row, in fact," said Jansoulet;
and he would be very glad to see the end of it, for any sort of
ill-feeling was burdensome to that exuberant nature. But it seemed that
the baron was not anxious for a reconciliation; for, notwithstanding
the promise he had given Jenkins, his wife appeared alone, to the
Irishman's great chagrin.
She was a tall, thin, fragile personage, with eyebrows like a bird's
feathers, a youthful, frightened manner, thirty years striving to seem
twenty, with a head-dress of grasses and grain drooping over jet black
hair thickly strewn with diamonds. With her long lashes falling over
white cheeks of the wax-like tint of women who have lived long in the
seclusion of a cloister, a little embarrassed in her Parisian garb, she
bore less resemblance to a former occupant of a harem than to a nun who
had renounced her vows and returned to the world. A touch of devotion,
of sanctity in her carriage, a certain ecclesiastical trick of walking
with downcast eyes, elbows close to the sides and hands folded, manners
which she had acquired in the ultra-religious environment in which she
had lived since her conversion and her recent baptism, completed the
resemblance. And you can imagine whether worldly curiosity was rampant
around that ex-odalisque turned fervent Catholic, as she entered the
room, escorted by a sacristan-like figure with a livid face and
spectacles, Maître Le Merquier, Deputy for Lyon, Hemerlingue's man of
business, who attended the baroness when the baron was "slightly
indisposed," as upon this occasion.
When they entered the second salon, the Nabob walked forward to meet
her, expecting to descry in her wake the bloated face of his old
comrade, to whom it was agreed that he should offer his hand. The
baroness saw him coming and became whiter than ever. A steely gleam
shot from under her long lashes. Her nostrils dilated, rose and fell,
and as Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her pace, holding her head erect
and rigid, letting fall from her thin lips a word in Arabic which no
one else could understand, but in which the poor Nabob, for his part,
understood the bitter insult; for when he raised his head his swarthy
face was of the color of terra-cotta when it comes from the oven. He
stood for a moment speechless, his great fists clenched, his lips
swollen with anger. Jenkins joined him, and de Géry, who had watched
the whole scene from a distance, saw them talking earnestly together
with a preoccupied air.
The attempt had miscarried. The reconciliation, so cleverly planned,
would not take place. Hemerlingue did not want it. If only the duke did
not break his word! It was getting late. La Wauters, who was to sing
the "Night" aria from the _Magic Flute_, after the performance at
her theatre, had just arrived all muffled up in her lace hood.
And the minister did not come.
But it was a promise and everything was understood. Monpavon was to
take him up at the club. From time to time honest Jenkins drew his
watch, as he tossed an absent-minded _bravo_ to the bouquet of limpid
notes that gushed from La Wauters' fairy lips, a bouquet worth three
thousand francs, and absolutely wasted, in common with the other
expenses of the festivity, if the duke did not come.
Suddenly both wings of the folding-doors were thrown open:
"His Excellency the Duc de Mora!"
A prolonged thrill of excitement greeted him, respectful curiosity
drawn up in a double row, instead of the brutal crowding that had
impeded the passage of the Nabob.
No one could be more skilled than he in the art of making his
appearance in society, of walking gravely across a salon, ascending the
tribune with smiling face, imparting solemnity to trifles and treating
serious matters lightly; it was a résumé of his attitude in life, a
paradoxical distinction. Still handsome, despite his fifty-six
years,--a beauty attributable to refined taste and perfect proportion,
in which the grace of the dandy was intensified by something of a
soldierly character in the figure and the haughty expression of the
face,--he appeared to admirable advantage in the black coat, whereon,
in Jenkins' honor, he had placed a few of his decorations, which he
never displayed except on days of official functions. The sheen of the
linen and the white cravat, the unpolished silver of the decorations,
the softness of the thin, grayish hair, gave added pallor to the face,
the most bloodless of all the bloodless faces assembled that evening
under the Irishman's roof.
He led such a terrible life! Politics, gambling in every form, on the
Bourse and at baccarat, and the reputation of a lady-killer which he
must maintain at any price. Oh! he was a typical patient of Jenkins,
and he certainly owed that visit in princely state to the inventor of
the mysterious Pearls, which gave to his eyes that glance of flame, to
his whole being that extraordinary pulsing vivacity.
[Illustration: "'_His Excellency, the Due de Mora!_'"]
"My dear duke, allow me to present to you--"
Monpavon, solemn of face, with padded calves, attempted to make the
introduction so anxiously expected; but His Excellency, in his
preoccupation, did not hear and kept on toward the large salon, borne
onward by one of those electric currents that break the monotony of
social life. As he passed, and while he paid his respects to the fair
Madame Jenkins, the women leaned forward with alluring glances, soft
laughter, intent upon making a favorable impression. But he saw only
one, Felicia, who stood in the centre of a group of men, holding forth
as if in her own studio, and tranquilly sipping a sherbet as she
watched the duke's approach. She welcomed him with perfect naturalness.
Those who stood by discreetly withdrew. But, in spite of what de Géry
had overheard concerning their alleged relations, there seemed to be
only a good-fellowship entirely of the mind between them, a playful
familiarity.
"I called at your house, Mademoiselle, on my way to the Bois."
"So I understood. You even went into the studio."
"And I saw the famous group--my group."
"Well?"
"It is very fine. The greyhound runs like a mad dog. The fox is
admirably done. But I didn't quite understand. You told me that it was
the story of us two."
"And so it is! Look carefully. It's a fable that I read in--You don't
read Rabelais, Monsieur le Duc?"
"Faith, no. He is too vulgar."
"Well, I have learned to read him. Very ill-bred, you know! Oh! very.
My fable, then, is taken from Rabelais. This is it: Bacchus has made a
wonderful fox that cannot possibly be overtaken. Vulcan, for his part,
has given a dog of his making the power to overtake any animal that he
pursues. 'Now,' as my author says, 'suppose that they meet.' You see
what a wild and interminable race will result. It seems to me, my dear
duke, that destiny has brought us face to face in like manner, endowed
with contrary qualities, you, who have received from the gods the gift
of reaching all hearts, and I, whose heart will never be taken."
She said this, looking him fairly in the face, almost laughing, but
slim and erect in her white tunic, which seemed to protect her person
against the liberties of his wit. He, the conqueror, the irresistible,
had never met one of that audacious, self-willed race. So he enveloped
her in all the magnetic currents of his seductive charm, while around
them the murmur of the fête, the flute-like laughter, the rustling of
satins and strings of pearls played an accompaniment to that duet of
worldly passion and juvenile irony.
In a moment he rejoined:
"But how did the gods extricate themselves from that scrape?"
"By changing the two coursers to stone."
"By heaven," said he, "that is a result which I refuse to accept. I
defy the gods to turn my heart to stone."
A flame darted from his eyes, extinguished instantly at the thought
that people were looking at them.
In truth many people were looking at them, but no one with such deep
interest as Jenkins, who prowled around them, impatient and chafing, as
if he were angry with Felicia for monopolizing the important guest of
the evening. The girl laughingly remarked upon the fact to the duke:
"They will say that I am appropriating you."
She pointed to Monpavon standing expectantly by the Nabob, who, from
afar, bestowed upon His Excellency the submissive, imploring gaze of a
great faithful dog. Thereupon the Minister of State remembered what had
brought him there. He bowed to Felicia and returned to Monpavon, who
was able at last to present "his honorable friend, Monsieur Bernard
Jansoulet." His Excellency bowed; the parvenu humbled himself lower
than the earth; then they conversed for a moment.
It was an interesting group to watch. Jansoulet, tall and strongly
built, with his vulgar manners, his tanned skin, his broad back, bent
as if it had become rounded for good and all in the salaams of Oriental
sycophancy, his short fat hands bursting through his yellow gloves, his
abundant pantomime, his Southern exuberance causing him to cut off his
words as if with a machine. The other, of noble birth, a thorough man
of the world, elegance itself, graceful in the least of his gestures,
which were very rare by the way, negligently letting fall incomplete
sentences, lighting up his grave face with a half smile, concealing
beneath the most perfect courtesy his boundless contempt for men and
women; and that contempt was the main element of his strength. In an
American parlor the antithesis would have been less offensive. The
Nabob's millions would have established equilibrium and even turned the
scale in his favor. But Paris does not as yet place money above all the
other powers, and, to be convinced of that fact, one had only to see
that stout merchant frisking about with an amiable smile before the
great nobleman, and spreading beneath his feet, like the courtier's
ermine cloak, his dense parvenu's pride.
From the corner in which he had taken refuge, de Géry was watching the
scene with interest, knowing what importance his friend attached to
this presentation, when chance, which had so cruelly given the lie all
the evening to his artless neophyte's ideas, brought to his ears this
brief dialogue, in that sea of private conversations in which every one
hears just the words that are of interest to him:
"The least that Monpavon can do is to introduce him to some decent
people. He has introduced him to so many bad ones. You know that he's
just tossed Paganetti and his whole crew into his arms."
"The poor devil! Why, they'll devour him."
"Pshaw! it's only fair to make him disgorge a little. He stole so much
down there among the Turks."
"Really, do you think so?"
"Do I think so! I have some very precise information on that subject
from Baron Hemerlingue, the banker who negotiated the last Tunisian
loan. He knows some fine stories about this Nabob. Just fancy--"
And the stream of calumny began to flow. For fifteen years Jansoulet
had plundered the late bey shamefully. They mentioned the names of
contractors and cited divers swindles characterized by admirable
coolness and effrontery; for instance, the story of a musical
frigate--yes, it really played tunes--intended as a dining-room
ornament, which he bought for two hundred thousand francs and sold
again for ten millions; a throne sold to the bey for three millions,
whereas the bill could be seen on the books of a house furnisher of
Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and amounted to less than a hundred thousand
francs; and the most comical part of it was that the bey's fancy
changed and the royal seat, having fallen into disgrace before it had
even been unpacked, was still in its packing-case at the custom-house
in Tripoli.
Furthermore, aside from these outrageous commissions on the sale of the
most trivial playthings, there were other far more serious accusations,
but equally authentic, as they all came from the same source. In
addition to the seraglio there was a harem of European women, admirably
equipped for His Highness by the Nabob, who should be a connoisseur in
such matters, as he had been engaged in the most extraordinary
occupations in Paris before his departure for the Orient: ticket
speculator, manager of a public ball at the barrier, and of a house of
much lower reputation. And the whispering terminated in a stifled
laugh,--the coarse laugh of two men in private conversation.
The young provincial's first impulse, on hearing those infamous
slanders, was to turn and cry out:
"You lie!"
A few hours earlier he would have done it without hesitation, but since
he had been there he had learned to be suspicious, sceptical. He
restrained himself therefore and listened to the end, standing in the
same spot, having in his heart an unconfessed desire to know more of
the man in whose service he was. As for the Nabob, the perfectly
unconscious subject of that ghastly chronicle, he was quietly playing a
game of écarté with the Due de Mora in a small salon to which the blue
hangings and two shaded lamps imparted a meditative air.
O wonderful magic of the galleon! The son of the dealer in old iron
alone at a card-table with the first personage of the Empire! Jansoulet
could hardly believe the Venetian mirror in which were reflected his
resplendent, beaming face and that august cranium, divided by a long
bald streak. So it was that, in order to show his appreciation of that
great honor, he strove to lose as many thousand-franc notes as he
decently could, feeling that he was the winner none the less, and proud
as Lucifer to see his money pass into those aristocratic hands, whose
every movement he studied while they were cutting, dealing, or holding
the cards.
A circle formed around them, but at a respectful distance, the ten
paces required for saluting a prince; that was the audience of the
triumph at which the Nabob was present as if in a dream, intoxicated by
the fairy-like strains slightly muffled in the distance, the songs that
reached his ears in detached phrases, as if they passed over a resonant
sheet of water, the perfume of the flowers that bloom so strangely
toward the close of Parisian balls, when the late hour, confusing all
notions of time, and the weariness of the sleepless night communicate
to brains which have become more buoyant in a more nervous atmosphere a
sort of youthful giddiness. The robust nature of Jansoulet, that
civilized savage, was more susceptible than another to these strange
refinements; and he had to exert all his strength to refrain from
inaugurating with a joyful hurrah an unseasonable out-pouring of words
and gestures, from giving way to the impulse of physical buoyancy which
stirred his whole being; like the great mountain dogs which are thrown
into convulsions of epileptic frenzy by inhaling a single drop of a
certain essence.
* * *
"It is a fine night and the sidewalks are dry. If you like, my dear
boy, we will send away the carriage and go home on foot," said
Jansoulet to his companion as they left Jenkins' house.
De Géry eagerly assented. He needed to walk, to shake off in the sharp
air the infamies and lies of that society comedy which left his heart
cold and oppressed, while all his life-blood had taken refuge in his
temples, of whose swollen veins he could hear the beating. He walked
unsteadily, like a poor creature who has been operated on for cataract
and in the first terror of recovered vision dares not put one foot
before the other. But with what a brutal hand the operation had been
performed! And so that great artist with the glorious name, that pure,
wild beauty, the mere sight of whom had agitated him like a
supernatural apparition, was simply a courtesan. Madame Jenkins, that
imposing creature, whose manner was at once so proud and so sweet, was
not really Madame Jenkins. That illustrious scientist, so frank of
feature and so hospitable, had the impudence to live publicly in
shameless concubinage. And Paris suspected it, yet that did not prevent
Paris from attending their parties. Last of all, this Jansoulet, so
kind-hearted and generous, for whom he felt such a burden of gratitude
in his heart, had to his knowledge fallen into the hands of a crew of
bandits, being himself a bandit, and quite worthy of the scheme devised
to make him disgorge his millions.
Was it possible; must he believe it?
A sidelong glance at the Nabob, whose huge frame filled the whole
sidewalk, suddenly revealed to him something low and common that he had
not before noticed in that gait to which the weight of the money in his
pockets gave a decided lurch. Yes, he was the typical adventurer from
the South, moulded of the slime that covers the quays of Marseille,
trodden hard by all the vagabonds who wander from seaport to seaport.
Kind-hearted, generous, forsooth! as prostitutes are, and thieves. And
the gold that flowed into that luxurious and vicious receptacle,
spattering everything, even the walls, seemed to him now to bring with
it all the dregs, all the filth of its impure and slimy source. That
being so, there was but one thing for him, de Géry, to do, and that was
to go, to leave as soon as possible the place where he ran the risk of
compromising his name, all that there was of his patrimony. Of course.
But there were the two little brothers down yonder in the
provinces,--who would pay for their schooling? Who would keep up the
modest home miraculously restored by the handsome salary of the oldest
son, the head of the family? The words "head of the family" cast him at
once into one of those inward combats in which self-interest and
conscience are the contending parties--the one strong, brutal,
attacking fiercely with straight blows, the other retreating, breaking
the measure by suddenly withdrawing its weapon--while honest Jansoulet,
the unconscious cause of the conflict, strode along beside his young
friend, inhaling the fresh air delightedly with the lighted end of his
cigar.
He had never been so happy that he was alive. And that evening at
Jenkins', his own début in society as well as Paul's, had left upon him
an impression of arches erected as if for a triumph, of a curious
crowd, of flowers thrown in his path. So true is it that things exist
only through the eyes that see them. What a success! The duke, just as
they parted, urging him to come and see his gallery; which meant that
the doors of the hôtel de Mora would be open to him within a week.
Felicia Ruys consenting to make a bust of him, so that at the next
exposition the junk-dealer's son would have his portrait in marble by
the same great artist whose name was appended to that of the Minister
of State. Was not this the gratification of all his childish vanities?
Revolving thus their thoughts, cheerful or sinister, they walked on
side by side, preoccupied, distraught, so that Place Vendôme, silent
and flooded by a cold, blue light, rang beneath their feet before they
had spoken a word.
"Already!" said the Nabob. "I would have liked to walk a little
farther. What do you say?" And as they walked around the square two or
three times, he emitted in puffs the exuberant joy with which he was
full to overflowing.
"How fine it is! What pleasure to breathe! God's thunder! I wouldn't
give up my evening for a hundred thousand francs. What a fine fellow
that Jenkins is! Do you like Felicia Ruys' type of beauty? For my part,
I dote on it. And the duke, what a perfect great nobleman! so simple,
so amiable. That is fashionable Paris, eh, my son?"
"It's too complicated for me--it frightens me," said Paul de Géry in a
low voice.
"Yes, yes, I understand," rejoined the other, with adorable conceit.
"You aren't used to it yet, but one soon gets into it, you know! See
how perfectly at my ease I am after only a month."
"That's because you had been in Paris before. You used to live here."
"I? Never in my life. Who told you that?"
"Why, I thought so," replied the young man, and added, as a multitude
of thoughts came crowding into his mind:
"What have you ever done to this Baron Hemerlingue? There seems to be a
deadly hatred between you."
The Nabob was taken aback for a moment. That name Hemerlingue, suddenly
obtruded upon his joy, reminded him of the only unpleasant episode of
the evening.