He felt a friendly tap on the shoulder as he was moving away, and
turning around he saw Warcolier who, having seen him in the distance,
doubtless came to him to enjoy the simple pleasure of treating him
patronizingly, he who had so long called him _Monsieur le Ministre_.
"Well, my dear Vaudrey, what is the news?" said Warcolier, bearing his
head high and smiling with a silly, but an aggressively benign
expression, with the superior tone of satisfied fools.
"Nothing!" said Sulpice. "I think Verdi's music is superb!"
"Oh! a little Wagnerian," Warcolier replied, repeating what he had
heard. "But what of politics?"
"Ah! politics concerns you now!"
"Well! why," Warcolier replied, "that goes on well. There is a little
relaxation! a ministry more--more--"
"More homogeneous!" said Vaudrey, in a slightly mocking tone.
"Exactly. And, after all, the duty of every good citizen is to defend
the government under which we live."
Ah! assuredly, Vaudrey considered that his former Secretary of State,
now become the vassal of Granet, displayed a rather ridiculous
assurance. He smiled as if he would have laughed in his face and turned
his back upon him.
Warcolier was not annoyed, for he felt certain that he had angered the
former minister, and he was delighted. It was a kick from an ass. The
witticism of a fool.
Vaudrey regained his place, much dissatisfied at having come and furious
at this pretentious imbecile, when, on leaving the wings, he ran against
Lissac who was entering a sort of hall where Louis sat writing the names
of the entrances on the sheet.
Guy flushed slightly on seeing him.
"In order to see you, one has to meet you here," said Sulpice. "Why have
you not called on me? Is it because I am no longer a minister?"
"That would be a reason for seeing me more frequently," said Lissac.
"But it is not that. What do you want me to tell you? You know my
sentiments. I don't care to become a bore, as it is called, or a
ceaseless prater of morality, which is the same thing. Besides, morality
to me is something like the Montyon prize to a harlot! Then, too, I am
keeping in my corner and I shall stick to it hereafter closer than ever.
I have put the brake on. I am getting old, and I shall bury myself in
some suburb and look after my rheumatism."
In Lissac's tone there was an unexpected melancholy.
"Then you will not call on me again?"
"What is the use of worrying you?--Reflect for yourself, my good man!
You don't need me to emphasize your blunders. By the way, you know, our
mad mistress?--She is in the theatre."
"I have seen her!" said Vaudrey, turning very pale.
"She is not yet a duchess, but that will be patched up in four days. If
one were only a rascal, how one could punish the hussy! But what is the
use? And this devilish Rosas, who is mad enough over her to tie himself
to her and to overlook everything he ought to know, would be capable of
marrying her all the same! Much good may it do him!"
"But, tell me," continued Lissac, whose cutting tone suddenly became
serious, "have you read the paper?"
"No! What is there in it?"
They were then in the corridor of the Opéra, and heard the prelude to
the curtain-raising. Guy took the _Soir_ from his pocket and handed it
to Vaudrey:
"Here, see!--That poor Ramel!--You were very fond of him, were you not?"
"Ramel!"
Vaudrey had no need to read. He knew everything as soon as Guy showed
him the paper and mentioned Denis's name in a mournful tone.
Dead!--He died peacefully in his armchair near the window, as if falling
asleep.--"The death is announced," so read the paragraph, "of one of the
oldest members of the Parisian press, Monsieur Denis Ramel, who was
formerly a celebrated man and for a long time directed the _Nation
Française_, once an important journal, now no longer in existence."--Not
a word beyond the brief details of his death. No word of praise or
regret, merely the commonplace statement of a fact. Vaudrey thought it
was a trifling notice for a man who had held so large a place in the
public eye.
"What do you think of it?" he said to Lissac. "People are ungrateful."
"Why, what would you have? Why didn't he write operettas?"
They parted after exchanging almost an ordinary grasp of the hand,
though, perhaps, somewhat sad. Sulpice wished to cast a last look at
Rosas's box. Marianne was standing, her outline clearly defined against
the brightly-lighted background of the box. She was holding a saucer in
her hand, eating an ice. He saw her once more as she stood near the
buffet at Madame Marsy's, stirring her sherbet, a silver-gilt spoon
smoothly gliding over her tongue. He closed his eyes, and with a nervous
start quickly descended the grand stairway, where he found himself
alone.
In order to forget Marianne, he turned his thoughts to Ramel.
Denis had been suffering for a long time. He smiled as he felt the hour
of his departure draw near. He wished to disappear without stir, and in
a civil way as he said, without attracting attention, _à l'Anglaise_.
Poor man! his wish was accomplished.
Vaudrey threw himself into a carriage and was driven to Batignolles. On
the way he thought of the eternal antitheses of Parisian life: the news
of the death of a friend communicated to him at the Opéra while a
waltz-tune was being played!
And thinking to himself:
"_From the Opéra to the Opéra!_ That, moreover, is the history of my
ministry--and that of the Granet administration, probably!"
The portress at Rue Boursault led him to Denis Ramel's apartment. Lying
on his bed with a kindly smile on his face, the old journalist seemed
as if asleep. The cold majesty of death gave a look of power to his
face. One might almost believe at times, from the scintillating light
placed near his bony brow, that its rigid muscles moved.
Denis Ramel! the sure guide of his youth and his counsellor through
life! He recalled his entry on public life, his arrival in Paris, the
first articles brought into the old editorial rooms of the _Nation
Française_! If for a moment he had been one of the heads of the State,
it was due to the man stretched out before him now!
He gently stooped over the corpse and pressed a farewell kiss on the
dead man's brow.
As he turned round, he saw a man whom he had not at first seen and who
had risen.
The man was very pale and greeted him with a timid air.
Vaudrey recognized Garnier, the man whom he had seen previously at
Ramel's, a cough-racked, patient, dying man.
The consumptive had nevertheless outlived the old man.
"It is good of you to have come, monsieur," said the workman. "He loved
you dearly."
"He died suddenly then?"
"Yes, and quite alone, while reading a book. He was found thus. They
thought he was sleeping. It is all over, he is to be buried to-morrow.
Will you come, monsieur?--I did not know who you were when--you know--I
said--In fact, it is kind--let us say no more about it--I beg your
pardon--There will be a vast gathering at Denis Ramel's funeral, if
there are present only a quarter of those whom he has obliged."
Vaudrey was heartbroken the next day. Behind Ramel's coffin, not a
person followed. Himself, Garnier, and one or two old women from the
house on Rue Boursault, who did not go all the way to the cemetery of
Saint-Ouen because it was too far, were all that were present. At the
grave Sulpice Vaudrey stood alone with the grave-digger and the workman
Garnier. They buried Ramel in a newly-opened part close to the foot of a
railway embankment.
For years Ramel had been forgotten, had even forgotten himself, he had
let ambitious men pass beyond him, ingrates succeed and selfish men get
to the top! He no longer existed! And those very men who had entreated
him and called him _dear master_ in the old days, soliciting and
flattering him, now no longer knew his name. Had he disappeared, or did
he still live, that forerunner, a sort of Japanese idol, an ancient, a
useless being who had known neither how to make his fortune nor his
position, while building up that of others? Nobody knew or cared.
Occasionally when circumstances called for it, they laughed at this
romantic figure in politics, living like a porter, poor, lost, and
buried under a mass of unknown individuals, after having made ministers
and unmade governments. Yet, at the news of his death, not one of those
who were indebted to him for everything, not a single politician who was
well in the saddle, and for whom he had held the stirrup, not a comedian
of the Chambers or the theatre who had pleaded with him, urged and
flattered him, was to be found there to pay the most ordinary respects
of memory to the man who had disappeared. That fateful solitude, added
to a keen winter's wind, appeared to Sulpice to be a cruel abandonment
and an act of cowardice. Two men followed the cortége of that maker of
men!
"Follow journalism and you make the fame of others," said Vaudrey,
shaking his head.
"After all," answered Garnier, "there are dupes in every trade, and they
are necessarily the most honest."
When this man, who had been a minister, left the grave above which the
whistling trains passed, a freezing rain was falling and he passed out
of the cemetery in the company of the poor devil who coughed so sadly
within the collar of his overcoat that was tightly drawn up over his
comforter.
Before leaving him, Vaudrey, with a feeling of timidity, desired to ask
him if work was at least fairly good.
"Thanks!" replied Garnier. "I have found a situation--And then--" he
shook his head as he pointed out behind the black trees and the white
graves, the spot where they had lowered Ramel--"One has always a place
when all is over, and that perhaps is the best of all!"
He bowed and Vaudrey left in a gloomy mood. It seemed to him that his
life was crumbling away, that he was sowing, shred by shred, his flesh
on the road. The black hangings of Ramel's coffin--and he smiled sadly
at this new irony--recalled to him the bills of the upholsterers that he
still owed for the furnishing of that fête at the ministry on the last
day of his power and his happiness. The official decorations of Belloir
and the Gobelins were not sufficient for him. He had desired more modern
decorations. He gave the coachman the upholsterer's address, Boulevard
des Capucins. He hardly dared to enter and say: "I have come to pay the
account of the furnishing supplied at the ministry!" It still seemed
like a funeral bill he was paying. This upholsterer's account, paid for
forgotten display, seemed to him a sort of mortuary transaction.
When he paid the upholsterer, the latter seemed to wear a cunning smile.
On finding himself again outside, he felt a sensation of relief; being
cold, he was inclined to walk with a view to warming his chill blood.
On hearing his name spoken by some one, he turned round and perceived
before him his compatriot Jéliotte, the friend of his childhood, the
comrade, who, with a smile, cordially extended his hands toward him.
"I told you that you would always find me when I should not appear
before you as a courtier! Well, then, here I am," said Jéliotte. "Now
you may see me as much as you please!"
"Ah!" said Vaudrey.
Jéliotte took his arm.
"Probably you are going to the Chamber?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Well, I will accompany you!--Ah, since you are no longer minister, my
dear friend, and that one does not appear to be a flatterer or a seeker
of patronage, one can speak to you--You have faults enough!--You are too
confident, too moderate--It is necessary to have a firm hand--And then
that could not last. Those situations are all very fine but they are too
easily destroyed!--They are like glass, my old friend!--A place is
wanted for everybody, is it not?--Bah! must I tell you?--Why, you are
happier! I like you better as it is!"
Vaudrey felt strongly inclined to shake off this pretentious ninny who
was clinging to his arm.
"That is like me!" continued Jéliotte. "I like my friends better when
they are down! What would you have? It is my generous nature. By the
way, do you know that the reason I have not seen you before is because I
have not been in Paris! I have returned from Isère!"
"Ah!" said Vaudrey, thinking of Adrienne.
"Well, you know, I have still some good news for you. If you have had
enough of politics, you can retire at the approaching election!"
"How?" asked Sulpice.
"Why, Thibaudier is stirring up Grenoble. He has got the whole city with
him. He is very much liked and is a model mayor. He is a very
_mère_--mother--that mayor!--Jéliotte laughed heartily, believing that
he was funny.--If there is a list balloted for, and there certainly will
be, Thibaudier will head the list. If they had maintained the _scrutin
d'arrondissement_, he would have been capable of passing muster, all the
same!"
"Against me?"
"Against you. Thibaudier is very popular!--And as firm as a rock!--He
thinks you moderate, too moderate, as everybody else does!"
"He?--He was a member of the Plebiscite Committee under the Empire!"
"Exactly! He is an extreme Republican, just as he was an extreme
Bonapartist. Oh! Thibaudier is a man, there is no concession with him.
Never! He is always the same. He will beat you. Moreover, in Isère, they
want a homogeneous representation--"
"Again!" said Vaudrey, who felt that he was pursued by this word.
After all, what did Thibaudier matter to him, or the deputation, the
election or politics? Denis Ramel had sounded its depths in his grave in
the cemetery of Saint-Ouen.
"Let us drop Thibaudier. By the way," said Jéliotte, "I saw your wife at
Grenoble."
Vaudrey grew pale.