the picture gallery, races at Tattersall's with Bois-l'Héry, some
gimcrack to go and see, here or there, at the houses of collectors to
whom Schwalbach recommended him, hours passed with trainers, jockeys,
dealers in curiosities, the occupied, varied existence of a bourgeois
gentleman in modern Paris. In all this going and coming he succeeded in
Parisianizing himself a little more each day, was admitted to
Monpavon's club, made welcome in the green-room at the ballet, behind
the scenes at the theatre, and continued to preside at his famous
bachelor breakfasts, the only entertainments possible in his
establishment. His existence was really very full, and yet de Géry
relieved him from the most difficult part of it, the complicated
department of solicitations and contributions.
The young man was now a witness, as he sat at his desk, of all the
audacious and burlesque inventions, all the heroi-comic schemes of that
mendicancy of a great city, organized like a ministerial department and
in numbers like an army, which subscribes to the newspapers and knows
its _Bottin_ by heart. It was his business to receive the fair-haired
lady, young, brazen-faced and already faded, who asks for only a
hundred louis, threatening to throw herself into the water immediately
upon leaving the house if they are not forthcoming, and the stout
matron, with affable, unceremonious manners, who says on entering the
room: "Monsieur, you do not know me. Nor have I the honor of knowing
you; but we shall soon know each other. Be kind enough to sit down and
let us talk." The tradesman in difficulties, on the brink of
insolvency--it is sometimes true--who comes to entreat you to save his
honor, with a pistol all ready for suicide bulging out the pocket of
his coat--sometimes it is only the bowl of his pipe. And oftentimes
cases of genuine distress, prolix and tiresome, of people who do not
even know how to tell how unfitted they are to earn their living.
Besides such instances of avowed mendicancy, there were others in
disguise: charity, philanthropy, good works, encouragement of artists,
house-to-house collections for children's hospitals, parish churches,
penitentiaries, benevolent societies or district libraries. And lastly
those that array themselves in a worldly mask: tickets to concerts,
benefit performances, tickets of all colors, "platform, front row,
reserved sections." The Nabob's orders were that no one should be
refused, and it was a decided gain that he no longer attended to such
matters in person. For a long time he had deluged all this hypocritical
scheming with gold, with lordly indifference, paying five hundred
francs for a ticket to a concert by some Wurtemberg zither-player, or
Languedocian flutist, which would have been quoted at ten francs at the
Tuileries or the Due de Mora's. On some days young de Géry went out
from these sessions actually nauseated. All his youthful honesty rose
in revolt; he attempted to induce the Nabob to institute some reforms;
but he, at the first word, assumed the bored expression characteristic
of weak natures when called upon to give an opinion, or else replied
with a shrug of his great shoulders: "Why this is Paris, my dear child.
Don't you be alarmed, but just let me alone. I know where I'm going and
what I want."
He wanted two things at that time,--a seat in the Chamber of Deputies
and the cross of the Legion of Honor. In his view those were the first
two stages of the long ascent which his ambition impelled him to
undertake. He certainly would be chosen a deputy through the _Caisse
Territoriale_, at the head of which he was. Paganetti from
Porto-Vecchio often said to him:
"When the day comes, the island will rise as one man and vote for you."
But electors were not the only thing it was necessary to have; there
must be a vacant seat in the Chamber, and the delegation from Corsica
was full. One member, however, old Popolasca, being infirm and in no
condition to perform his duties, might be willing to resign on certain
conditions. It was a delicate matter to negotiate, but quite
practicable, for the good man had a large family, estates which
produced almost nothing, a ruined palace at Bastia, where his children
lived on _polenta_, and an apartment at Paris, in a furnished
lodging-house of the eighteenth order. By not haggling over one or two
hundred thousand francs, they might come to terms with that famished
legislator who, when sounded by Paganetti, did not say yes or no, being
allured by the magnitude of the sum but held back by the vainglory of
his office. The affair was in that condition and might be decided any
day.
With regard to the Cross, the prospect was even brighter. The Work of
Bethlehem had certainly created a great sensation at the Tuileries.
Nothing was now wanting but M. de La Perrière's visit and his report,
which could not fail to be favorable, to ensure the appearance on the
list of March 16th, the date of an imperial anniversary, of the
glorious name of Jansoulet. The 16th of March, that is to say, within a
month. What would old Hemerlingue say to that signal distinction?--old
Hemerlingue, who had had to be content with the Nisham for so long. And
the bey, who had been made to believe that Jansoulet was under the ban
of Parisian society, and the old mother, down at Saint-Romans, who was
always so happy over her son's successes! Was not all that worth a few
millions judiciously distributed and strewn by that road leading to
renown, along which the Nabob walked like a child, with no fear of
being devoured at the end? And was there not in these external joys,
these honors, this dearly bought consideration, a measure of
compensation for all the chagrins of that Oriental won back to European
life, who longed for a home and had naught but a caravansary, who
sought a wife and found naught but a Levantine?
VIII.
THE WORK OF BETHLEHEM.
Bethlehem! Why did that legendary name, sweet to the ear, warm as the
straw in the miraculous stable, give you such a cold shudder when you
saw it in gilt letters over that iron gateway? The feeling was due
perhaps to the melancholy landscape, the vast, desolate plain that
stretches from Nanterre to Saint-Cloud, broken only by an occasional
clump of trees or the smoke from some factory chimney. Perhaps, too, in
a measure, to the disproportion between the humble hamlet of Judæa and
that grandiose structure, that villa in the style of Louis XIII., built
of small stones and mortar, and showing pink through the leafless
branches of the park, where there were several large ponds with a
coating of green slime. Certain it is that on passing the place one's
heart contracted. When one entered the grounds it was much worse. An
oppressive, inexplicable silence hovered about the house, where the
faces at the windows had a depressing aspect behind the small
old-fashioned, greenish panes. The she-goats, straying along the paths,
languidly cropped the first shoots of grass, with occasional "baas" in
the direction of their keeper, who seemed as bored as they, and
followed visitors with a listless eye. There was an air of mourning,
the deserted, terrified aspect of a plague-stricken spot. Yet that had
once been an attractive, cheerful property, and there had been much
feasting and revelry there not long before. It had been laid out for
the famous singer who had sold it to Jenkins, and it exhibited traces
of the imaginative genius peculiar to the operatic stage, in the bridge
across the pond, where there was a sunken wherry filled with
water-soaked leaves, and in its summer-house, all of rockwork, covered
with climbing ivy. It had seen some droll sights, had that
summer-house, in the singer's time, and now it saw some sad ones, for
the infirmary was located there.
To tell the truth, the whole establishment was simply one huge
infirmary. The children fell sick as soon as they arrived, languished
and finally died unless their parents speedily removed them to the safe
shelter of their homes. The curé of Nanterre went so often to Bethlehem
with his black vestments and his silver crucifix, the undertaker had so
many orders for coffins for the house, that it was talked about in the
neighborhood, and indignant mothers shook their fists at the model
nursery, but only at a safe distance if they happened to have in their
arms a little pink and white morsel of humanity to shelter from all the
contagions of that spot. That was what gave the miserable place such a
heart-rending look. A house where children die cannot be cheerful; it
is impossible for the trees to bloom there, or the birds to nest, or
the water to flow in laughing ripples of foam.
The institution seemed to be fairly inaugurated. Jenkins' idea,
excellent in theory, was extremely difficult, almost impracticable, in
practice. And yet God knows that the affair had been carried through
with an excess of zeal as to every detail, even the most trifling, and
that all the money and attendants necessary were forthcoming. At the
head of the establishment was one of the most skilful men in the
profession, M. Pondevèz, a graduate of the Paris hospitals; and
associated with him, to take more direct charge of the children, a
trustworthy woman, Madame Polge. Then there were maids and seamstresses
and nurses. And how perfectly everything was arranged and systematized,
from the distribution of the water through fifty faucets, to the
omnibus with its driver in the Bethlehem livery, going to the station
at Rueil to meet every train, with a great jingling of bells. And the
magnificent goats, goats from Thibet, with long silky coats and
bursting udders. Everything was beyond praise in the organization of
the establishment; but there was one point at which everything went to
pieces. This artificial nursing, so belauded in the prospectus, did not
agree with the children. It was a strange obstinacy, as if they
conspired together with a glance, the poor little creatures, for they
were too young to speak--most of them were destined never to speak--"If
you say so, we won't suck the goats." And they did not, they preferred
to die one after another rather than to suck them. Was Jesus of
Bethlehem nursed by a goat in his stable? Did he not, on the contrary,
nestle against a woman's breast, soft and full, on which he fell asleep
when his thirst was satisfied? Who ever saw a goat among the legendary
oxen and asses on that night when the beasts spoke? In that case, why
lie, why call it Bethlehem?
The manager was touched at first by so many deaths. This Pondevèz, a
waif and estray of the life of the Quarter, a twentieth year student
well known in all the fruit-shops of Boulevard Saint-Michel under the
name of Pompon, was not a bad man. When he realized the failure of
artificial nursing, he simply hired four or five buxom nurses in the
neighborhood, and nothing more was needed to revive the children's
appetites. That humane impulse was near costing him his place.
"Nurses at Bethlehem," said Jenkins in a rage, when he came to pay his
weekly visit. "Are you mad? Upon my word! why the goats then, and the
lawns to feed them, and my idea, and the pamphlets about my idea? What
becomes of all these? Why, you're going against my system, you're
stealing the founder's money."
"But, my dear master," the student tried to reply, passing his hands
through his long red beard, "but--as they don't like that food--"
"Very well! let them go hungry, but let the principle of artificial
nursing be respected. Everything depends on that. I don't wish to have
to tell you so again. Send away those horrible nurses. For bringing up
our children we have goat's milk and cow's milk in a great emergency;
but I can't concede anything beyond that."
He added, with his apostolic air:
"We are here to demonstrate a grand philanthropic idea. It must
triumph, even at the cost of some sacrifices. Look to it."
Pondevèz did not insist. After all, it was a good place, near enough to
Paris to permit descents upon Nanterre from the Quarter on Sunday, or a
visit by the manager to his favorite breweries. Madame Polge--whom
Jenkins always called "our intelligent overseer," and whom he had in
fact placed there to oversee everything, the manager first of all--was
not so austere as her duties would lead one to believe, and readily
yielded to the charm of a _petit verre_ or two of "right cognac," or
to a game of bezique for fifteen hundred points. So he dismissed the
nurses and tried to harden himself against whatever might happen. What
did happen? A genuine Massacre of the Innocents. So that the few
parents who were possessed of any means at all, mechanics or tradesmen
of the faubourgs, who had been tempted by the advertisements to part
with their children, speedily took them away, and there remained in the
establishment only the wretched little creatures picked up under
porches or in the fields, or sent by the hospitals, and doomed from
their birth to all manner of ills. As the mortality constantly
increased, even that source of supply failed, and the omnibus that had
departed at full speed for the railway station returned as light and
springy as an empty hearse. How could that state of affairs last? How
long would it take to kill off the twenty-five or thirty little ones
who were left? That is what the manager, or, as he had christened
himself, the register of deaths, Pondevèz, was wondering one morning
after breakfast, as he sat opposite Madame Polge's venerable curls,
taking a hand at that lady's favorite game.
"Yes, my dear Madame Polge, what is to become of us? Things cannot go
on long like this. Jenkins won't give in, the children are as obstinate
as mules. There's no gainsaying it, they'll all pass out of our hands.
There's that little Wallachian--I mark the king, Madame Polge--who may
die any minute. Poor little brat, just think, it's three days since
anything went into his stomach. I don't care what Jenkins says; you
can't improve children, like snails, by starving them. It's a
distressing thing not to be able to save a single one. The infirmary
hasn't unlimited capacity. In all earnestness this is a pitiful
business. Bezique, forty."
Two strokes of the bell at the main entrance interrupted his monologue.
The omnibus was returning from the station and its wheels ground into
the gravel in unaccustomed fashion.
"What an astonishing thing!" said Pondevèz, "the carriage isn't empty."
In truth the vehicle drew up at the steps with a certain pride, and the
man who alighted crossed the threshold at a bound. It was an express
from Jenkins with important news; the doctor would be there in two
hours to inspect the asylum, with the Nabob and a gentleman from the
Tuileries. He gave strict injunctions that everything should be ready
for their reception. The plan was formed so suddenly that he had not
had time to write; but he relied on M. Pondevèz to make the necessary
arrangements.
"Deuce take him and his necessary arrangements! muttered Pondevèz in
dismay. It was a critical situation. That momentous visit came at the
worst possible moment, when the system was rapidly going to pieces.
Poor Pompon, in dire perplexity, tugged at his beard and gnawed the
ends of it.
"Come, come," he said abruptly to Madame Polge, whose long face had
grown still longer between her false curls. "There is only one thing
for us to do. We must clear out the infirmary, carry all the sick ones
into the dormitory. They'll be no better nor worse for spending half a
day there. As for the scrofulous ones, we'll just put them out of
sight. They're too ugly, we won't show them. Come, off we go! all hands
on deck!"
The dinner-bell rang the alarm and everybody hurried to the spot.
Seamstresses, nurses, maid-servants, came running from every side,
jostling one another in the corridors, hurrying across the yards.
Orders flew hither and thither, and there was a great calling and
shouting; but above all the other noises soared the noise of a grand
scrubbing, of rushing water, as if Bethlehem had been surprised by a
conflagration. And the wailing of sick children torn from their warm
beds, all the whimpering little bundles carried through the damp park,
with a fluttering of bedclothes among the branches, strengthened the
impression of a fire. In two hours, thanks to the prodigious activity
displayed, the whole house from top to bottom was ready for the
impending visit, all the members of the staff at their posts, the fire
lighted in the stove, the goats scattered picturesquely through the
park. Madame Polge had put on her green dress, the manager's attire was
a little less slovenly than usual, but so simple as to exclude any idea
of premeditation. Let the Empress's secretary come!
And here he is.
He alights with Jenkins and Jansoulet from a magnificent carriage with
the Nabob's red and gold livery. Feigning the utmost astonishment,
Pondevèz rushes forward to meet his visitors.
"Ah! Monsieur Jenkins, what an honor! What a surprise!"
Salutations are exchanged on the stoop, reverences, handshakings,
introductions. Jenkins, his coat thrown back from his loyal breast,
indulges in his heartiest, most engaging smile; but a meaning furrow
lies across his brow. He is anxious concerning the surprises that the
establishment may have in store, for he knows its demoralized
condition. If only Pondevèz has taken proper precautions! It begins
well, however. The somewhat theatrical aspect of the approach to the
house, the white fleeces gambolling among the shrubbery, have enchanted
M. de La Perrière, who, with his innocent eyes, his straggling white
beard and the constant nodding of his head, is not himself unlike a
goat escaped from its tether.
"First of all, messieurs, the most important room in the house, the
Nursery," says the manager, opening a massive door at the end of the
reception-room. The gentlemen follow him, descend a few steps and find
themselves in an enormous basement room, with tiled floor, formerly the
kitchen of the château. The thing that impresses one on entering is a
huge, high fireplace of the old pattern, in red brick, with two stone
benches facing each other under the mantel, and the singer's crest--an
immense lyre with a roll of music--carved on the monumental pediment.
The effect was striking; but there came from it a terrible blast of
air, which, added to the cold of the floor, to the pale light falling
through the windows on a level with the ground, made one shudder for
the well-being of the children. What would you have? They were obliged
to use that unhealthy apartment for the Nursery because of the
capricious, country-bred nurses who were accustomed to the
unconstrained manners of the stable; one had only to see the pools of
milk, the great reddish spots drying on the floor, to inhale the acrid
odor that assailed your nostrils as you entered, mingled with whey and
moist hair and many other things, to be convinced of that absolute
necessity.
The dark walls of the room were so high that at first the visitors
thought that the Nursery was deserted. They distinguished, however, at
the farther end, a bleating, whining, restless group. Two countrywomen,
with surly, brutish, dirty faces, two "dry-nurses," who well deserved
their name, were sitting on mats with their nurslings in their arms,
each having a large goat before her, with legs apart and distended
udders. The manager seemed to be agreeably surprised:
"On my word, messieurs, this is a lucky chance. Two of our children are
having a little lunch. We will see how nurses and nurslings agree."
"What's the matter with the man? He is mad," said Jenkins to himself,
in dire dismay.
But the manager was very clear-headed, on the contrary, and had himself
shrewdly arranged the scene, selecting two patient, good-natured
beasts, and two exceptional subjects, two little idiots who were
determined to live at any price, and opened their mouths to nourishment
of any sort, like little birds still in the nest.
"Come, messieurs, and see for yourselves."
The cherubs were really nursing. One of them, cuddled under the goat's
belly, went at it so heartily that you could hear the _glou-glou_ of
the warm milk as it went down, down into his little legs, which
quivered with satisfaction. The other, more calm, lay indolently in his
Auvergnat nurse's lap, and required some little encouragement from her.
"Come, suck, I tell you, suck, _bougri_!"
At last, as if he had formed a sudden resolution, he began to drink so
greedily that the woman, surprised by his abnormal appetite, leaned
over him and exclaimed, with a laugh;
"Ah! the scamp, what a mischievous trick! it's his thumb he's sucking
instead of the goat."
He had thought of that expedient, the angel, to induce them to leave
him in peace. The incident produced no ill effect; on the contrary, M.
de La Perrière was much amused at the nurse's idea that the child had
tried to play a trick on them. He left the Nursery highly delighted.
"Positively de-de-delighted," he repeated as they ascended the grand
echoing staircase, decorated with stags' antlers, which led to the
dormitory.
Very light and airy was that great room, occupying the whole of one
side of the house, with numerous windows, cradles at equal intervals,
with curtains as white and fleecy as clouds. Women were passing to and
fro in the broad passage-way in the centre, with piles of linen in
their arms, keys in their hands, overseers or "movers." Here they had
tried to do too much, and the first impression of the visitors was
unfavorable. All that white muslin, that waxed floor, in which the
light shone without blending, the clean window-panes reflecting the
sky, which wore a gloomy look at sight of such things, brought out more
distinctly the thinness, the sickly pallor of those little
shroud-colored, moribund creatures. Alas! the oldest were but six
months, the youngest barely a fortnight, and already, upon all those
faces, those embryotic faces, there was an expression of disgust, an
oldish, dogged look, a precocity born of suffering, visible in the
numberless wrinkles on those little bald heads, confined in linen caps
edged with tawdry hospital lace. From what did they suffer? What
disease had they? They had everything, everything that one can have;
diseases of children and diseases of adults. Offspring of poverty and
vice, they brought into the world when they were born ghastly phenomena
of heredity. One had a cleft palate, another great copper-colored
blotches on his forehead, and all were covered with humor. And then
they were starving to death. Notwithstanding the spoonfuls of milk and
sugared water that were forced into their mouths, and the
sucking-bottle that was used more or less in spite of the prohibition,
they were dying of inanition. Those poor creatures, exhausted before
they were born, needed the freshest, the most strengthening food; the
goats might perhaps have supplied it, but they had sworn not to suck
the goats. And that was what made the dormitory lugubrious and silent,
without any of the little outbursts of anger emphasized by clenched
fists, without any of the shrieks that show the even red gums, whereby
the child makes trial of his strength and of his lungs; only an
occasional plaintive groan, as if the soul were tossing and turning
restlessly in a little diseased body, unable to find a place to rest.
Jenkins and the manager, noticing the unfavorable impression produced
upon their guests by the visit to the dormitory, tried to enliven the
situation by talking very loud, with a good-humored, frank,
well-satisfied manner. Jenkins shook hands warmly with the overseer.
"Well, Madame Polge, are our little pupils getting on?"
"As you see, Monsieur le Docteur," she replied, pointing to the beds.
Very funereal in her green dress was tall Madame Polge, the ideal of
dry nurses; she completed the picture.
But where had the Empress's secretary gone? He was standing by a
cradle, which he was scrutinizing sadly, shaking his head.
"_Bigre de Bigre!_" whispered Pompon to Madame Polge. "It's the
Wallachian."
The little blue card, hanging above the cradle as in hospitals, set
forth the nationality of the child within: "Moldo-Wallachian." What
cursed luck that Monsieur le Secrétaire's eye should happen to light
upon him! Oh! the poor little head lying on the pillow, with cap all
awry, nostrils contracted, lips parted by a short, panting breath, the
breath of those who are just born and of those who are about to die.
"Is he ill?" the secretary softly asked the manager, who had drawn
near.