SOME SCRAPS OF PAPER.
The Marquis de Croisenois was never punctual. He had received a note
asking him to call on Mascarin at eleven o’clock, and twelve had struck
some time before he made his appearance. Faultlessly gloved, his glass
firmly fixed in his eye, and a light walking cane in his hand, and with
that air of half-veiled insolence that is sometimes affected by certain
persons who wish the world to believe that they are of great importance,
the Marquis de Croisenois entered the room.
At the age of twenty-five Henry de Croisenois affected the airs and
manners of a lad of twenty, and so found many who looked upon his
escapades with lenient eyes, ascribing them to the follies of youth.
Under this youthful mask, however he concealed a most astute and cunning
intellect, and had more than once got the better of the women with whom
he had had dealings. His fortune was terribly involved, because he had
insisted on living at the same rate as men who had ten times his income.
Forming one of the recklessly extravagant band of which the Duke de
Saumeine was the head, Croisenois, too, kept his racehorses, which
was certainly the quickest way to wreck the most princely fortune. The
Marquis had found out this, and was utterly involved, when Mascarin
extended a helping hand to him, to which he clung with all the energy of
a drowning man.
Whatever Henry de Croisenois’ anxieties may have been on the day in
question, he did not allow a symptom of them to appear, and on his
entrance negligently drawled, “I have kept you waiting, I fear; but
really my time is not my own. I am quite at your service now, and will
wait until these gentlemen have finished their business with you.” And
as he concluded, he again placed the cigar which he had removed while
saying these words, to his lips.
His manner was very insolent, and yet the amiable Mascarin did not seem
offended, although he loathed the scent of tobacco.
“We had begun to despair of seeing you, Marquis,” answered he politely.
“I say so, because these gentlemen are here to meet you. Permit me to
introduce to you, Dr. Hortebise, M. Catenac of the Parisian bar, and our
secretary,” pointing as he spoke, to Paul.
As soon as Croisenois had taken his seat, Mascarin went straight to the
point, as a bullet to the target. “I do not intend,” began he, “to leave
you in doubt for a moment. Beatings about the bush would be absurd among
persons like ourselves.”
At finding himself thus classed with the other persons present, the
Marquis gave a little start, and then drawled out, “You flatter me,
really.”
“I may tell you, Marquis,” resumed Mascarin, “that your marriage has
been definitely arranged by myself and my associates. All you have to do
is to get the young lady’s consent; for that of the Count and Countess
has already been secured.”
“There will be no difficulty in that,” lisped the Marquis. “I will
promise her the best horsed carriage in the Bois, a box at the opera,
unlimited credit at Van Klopen’s, and perfect freedom. There will be
no difficulty, I assure you. Of course, however, I must be presented by
some one who holds a good position in society.”
“Would the Viscountess de Bois Arden suit you?”
“No one better; she is a relation of the Count de Mussidan.”
“Good; then when you wish, Madame de Bois Arden will introduce you as a
suitor for the young lady’s hand, and praise you up to the skies.”
The Marquis looked very jubilant at hearing this. “All right,” cried he;
“then that decides the matter.”
Paul wondered whether he was awake or dreaming. He too had been promised
a rich wife, and here was another man who was being provided for in the
same manner. “These people,” muttered he, “seem to keep a matrimonial
agency as well as a servants’ registry office!”
“All that is left, then,” said the Marquis, “is to arrange the--shall I
call it the commission?”
“I was about to come to that,” returned Mascarin.
“Well, I will give you a fourth of the dowry, and on the day of my
marriage will hand you a cheque for that amount.”
Paul now imagined that he saw how matters worked. “If I marry Flavia,”
thought he, “I shall have to share her dowry with these highly
respectable gentlemen.”
The offer made by the Marquis did not, however, seem to please Mascarin.
“That is not what we want,” said he.
“No,--well, must I give you more? Say how much.”
Mascarin shook his head.
“Well then, I will give you a third; it is not worth while to give you
more.”
“No, no; I would not take half, nor even the whole of the dowry. You may
keep that as well as what you owe us.”
“Well, but tell me what you _do_ want.”
“I will do so,” answered Mascarin, adjusting his spectacles carefully;
“but before doing so, I feel that I must give you a short account of the
rise and progress of this association.”
At this statement Hortebise and Catenac sprang to their feet in surprise
and terror. “Are you mad?” said they at length, with one voice.
Mascarin shrugged his shoulders.
“Not yet,” answered he gently, “and I beg that you will permit me to go
on.”
“But surely we have some voice in the matter,” faltered Catenac.
“That is enough,” exclaimed Mascarin angrily, “Am not I the head of this
association? Do you think,” he continued in tones of deep sarcasm, “that
we cannot speak openly before the Marquis?”
Hortebise and the lawyer resignedly resumed their seats. Croisenois
thought that a word from him might reassure them.
“Among honest men--” began he.
“We are not honest men,” interrupted Mascarin. “Sir,” added he in a
severe tone, “nor are you either.”
This plain speaking brought a bright flush to the face of the Marquis,
who had half a mind to be angry, but policy restrained him, and he
affected to look on the matter as a joke. “Your joke is a little
personal,” said he.
But Mascarin took no heed of his remark. “Listen to me,” said he, “for
we have no time to waste, and do you,” he added, turning to Paul, “pay
the greatest attention.”
A moment of perfect silence ensued, broken only by the hum of voices in
the outer office.
“Marquis,” said Mascarin, whose whole face blazed with a gleam of
conscious power, “twenty-five years ago I and my associates were young
and in a very different position. We were honest then, and all the
illusions of youth were in full force; we had faith and hope. We all
then tenanted a wretched garret in the Rue de la Harpe, and loved each
other like brothers.”
“That was long, long ago,” murmured Hortebise.
“Yes,” rejoined Mascarin; “and yet the effluxion of times does not
hinder me from seeing things as they then were, and my heart aches as I
compare the hopes of those days with the realities of the present. Then,
Marquis, we were poor, miserably poor, and yet we all had vague hopes of
future greatness.”
Croisenois endeavored to conceal a sneer; the story was not a very
interesting one.
“As I said before, each one of us anticipated a brilliant career.
Catenac had gained a prize by his ‘Treatise on the Transfer of Real
Estate,’ and Hortebise had written a pamphlet regarding which the great
Orfila had testified approval. Nor was I without my successes. Hortebise
had unluckily quarrelled with his family. Catenac’s relatives were poor,
and I, well, I had no family. I stood alone. We were literally starving,
and I was the only one earning money. I prepared pupils for the military
colleges, but as I only earned twenty-five sous a day by cramming a dull
boy’s brain with algebra and geometry, that was not enough to feed us
all. Well, to cut a long story short, the day came when we had not a
coin among us. I forgot to tell you that I was devotedly attached to a
young girl who was dying of consumption, and who had neither food nor
fuel. What could I do? I knew not. Half mad, I rushed from the house,
asking myself if I had better plead for charity or take the money I
required by force from the first passer-by. I wandered along the
quays, half inclined to confide my sorrow to the Seine, when suddenly
I remembered it was a holiday at the Polytechnic School, and that if
I went to the _Café Semblon_ or the Palais Royal, I should most likely
meet with some of my old pupils, who could perhaps lend me a few sous.
Five francs perhaps, Marquis,--that is a very small sum, but in that day
it meant the life of my dear Marie and of my two friends. Have you ever
been hungry, M. de Croisenois?”
De Croisenois started; he had never suffered from hunger, but how could
he tell what the future might bring? for his resources were so nearly
exhausted, that even to-morrow he might be compelled to discard his
fictitious splendor and sink into the abyss of poverty.
“When I reached the _Café Semblon_,” continued Mascarin, “I could not
see a single pupil, and the waiter to whom I addressed my inquiries
looked at me with the utmost contempt, for my clothes were in tatters;
but at length he condescended to inform me that the young gentlemen had
been and gone, but that they would return. I said that I would wait for
them. The man asked me if I would take anything, and when I replied in
the negative, contemptuously pointed to a chair in a distant corner,
where I patiently took my seat. I had sat for some time, when suddenly a
young man entered the _café_, whose face, were I to live for a century,
I shall never forget. He was perfectly livid, his features rigid, and
his eyes wild and full of anguish. He was evidently in intense agony of
mind or body. Evidently, however, it was not poverty that was oppressing
him, for as he cast himself upon a sofa, all the waiters rushed forward
to receive his orders. In a voice that was almost unintelligible,
he asked for a bottle of brandy, and pen, ink, and paper. In some
mysterious manner, the sight of this suffering brought balm to my aching
heart. The order of the young man was soon executed, and pouring out a
tumbler of brandy, he took a deep draught. The effect was instantaneous,
he turned crimson, and for a moment almost fell back insensible. I kept
my eyes on him, for a voice within me kept crying out that there was
some mysterious link connecting this man and myself, and that his life
was in some manner interwoven with mine, and that the influence he would
exercise over me would be for evil. So strongly did this idea become
rooted, that I should have left the _café_, had not my curiosity been so
great. In the meantime the stranger had recovered himself, and seizing
a pen, scrawled a few lines on a sheet of paper. Evidently he was not
satisfied with his composition, for after reading it over, he lit a
match and burnt the paper. He drank more brandy, and wrote a second
letter, which, too, proved a failure, for he tore it to fragments, which
he thrust into his waistcoat pocket. Again he commenced, using
greater care. It was plain that he had forgotten where he was, for he
gesticulated, uttered a broken sentence or two and evidently believed
that he was in his own house. His last letter seemed to satisfy him, and
he recopied it with care. He closed and directed it; then, tearing the
original into pieces, he flung it under the table; then calling the
waiter, he said, ‘Here are twenty francs; take this letter to the
address on the envelope. Bring the answer to my house; here is my card.’
The man ran out of the room, and the nobleman, only waiting to pay his
bill, followed almost immediately. The morsels of white paper beneath
the table had a strange fascination for me; I longed to gather them up,
to put them together, and to learn the secret of the strange drama that
had been acted before me. But, as I have told you, then I was honest and
virtuous, and the meanness of such an act revolted all my instincts; and
I should have overcome this temptation, had it not been for one of those
trifling incidents which too often form the turning-point of a life.
A draught from a suddenly opened door caught one of these morsels of
paper, and wafted it to my feet. I stooped and picked it up, and read
on it the ominous words, ‘blow out my brains!’ I had not been mistaken,
then, and was face to face with some coming tragedy. Having once
yielded, I made no further efforts at self-control. The waiters were
running about; no one paid any attention to me; and creeping to the
place that the unknown had occupied, I obtained possession of two more
scraps of paper. Upon one I read, ‘shame and horror!’ upon the other,
‘one hundred thousand francs by to-night.’ The meaning of these few
words were as clear as daylight to me; but for all that, I managed to
collect every atom of the torn paper, and piecing them together, read
this:--
“‘CHARLES,--‘I must have one hundred thousand francs to-night, and
you are the only one to whom I can apply. The shame and horror of my
position are too much for me. Can you send it me in two hours? As you
act, so I regulate my conduct. I am either saved, or I blow out my
brains.’
“You are probably surprised, Marquis, at the accuracy of my memory, and
even now I can see this scrawl as distinctly as if it were before me. At
the end of this scrawl was a signature, one of the best known commercial
names, which, in common with other financial houses, was struggling
against a panic on the Bourse. My discovery disturbed me very much. I
forgot all my miseries, and thought only of his. Were not our positions
entirely similar? But by degrees a hideous temptation began to creep
into my heart, and, as the minutes passed by, assume more vivid color
and more tangible reality. Why should I not profit by this stolen
secret? I went to the desk and asked for some wafers and a Directory.
Then, returning, I fastened the torn fragments upon a clean sheet of
paper, discovered the address of the writer, and then left the _café_.
The house was situated in the Rue Chaussee d’Autin. For fully half an
hour I paced up and down before his magnificent dwelling-place. Was he
alive? Had the reply of Charles been in the affirmative? I decided at
last to venture, and rang the bell. A liveried domestic appeared at my
summons, and said that his master did not receive visitors at that hour;
besides, he was at dinner. I was exasperated at the man’s insolence,
and replied hotly, ‘If you want to save your master from a terrible
misfortune, go and tell him that a man has brought him the rough draft
of the letter he wrote a little time back at the _Café Semblon_.’ The
man obeyed me without a word, no doubt impressed by the earnestness of
my manner. My message must have caused intense consternation, for in
a moment the footman reappeared, and, in an obsequious manner, said,
‘Follow at once, sir; my master is waiting for you.’ He led me into a
large room, magnificently furnished as a library, and in the centre of
this room stood the man of the _Café Semblon_. His face was deadly pale,
and his eyes blazed with fury. I was so agitated that I could hardly
speak.
“‘You have picked up the scraps of paper I threw away?’ exclaimed he.
“I nodded, and showed him the fragments fastened on to the sheet of
note-paper.
“‘How much do you want for that?’ asked he. ‘I will give you a thousand
francs.’
“I declare to you, gentlemen, that up to this time I had no intention
of making money by the secret. My intention in going had been simply to
say, ‘I bring you this paper, of which some one else might have taken an
undue advantage. I have done you a service; lend me a hundred francs.’
This is what I meant to say, but his behavior irritated me, and I
answered,--
“‘No, I want two thousand francs.’
“He opened a drawer, drew out a bundle of banknotes, and threw them in
my face.
“‘Pay yourself, you villain!’ said he.
“I can, I fear, never make you understand what I felt at this undeserved
insult. I was not myself, and Heaven knows that I was not responsible
for any crime that I might have committed in the frenzy of the moment,
and I was nearly doing so. That man will, perhaps, never see death so
near him, save at his last hour. On his writing table lay one of those
Catalan daggers, which he evidently used as a paper-cutter. I snatched
it up, and was about to strike, when the recollection of Marie dying of
cold and starvation occurred to me. I dashed the knife to the ground,
and rushed from the house in a state bordering on insanity. I went into
that house an honest man, and left it a degraded scoundrel. But I must
finish. When I reached the street, the two banknotes which I had taken
from the packet seemed to burn me like coals of fire. I hastened to a
money-changer, and got coin for them. I think, from my demeanor, he
must have thought that I was insane. With my plunder weighing me down,
I regained our wretched garret in the Rue de la Harpe. Catenac and
Hortebise were waiting for me with the utmost anxiety. You remember that
day, my friends. Marquis, my story is especially intended for you. As
soon as I entered the room, my friends ran up to me, delighted at seeing
me return in safety, but I thrust them aside.
“‘Let me alone!’ cried I; ‘I am no longer fit to take an honest man’s
hand; but we have money, money!’ And I threw the bags upon the table.
One of them burst, and a flood of silver coins rolled to every part of
the room.
“Marie started from her chair with upraised hands. ‘Money!’ she
repeated, ‘money! we shall have food, and I won’t die.’
“My friends, Marquis, were not as they are now, and they started back in
horror, fearing that I had committed some crime.
“‘No,’ said I, ‘I have committed no crime, not one, at least, that will
bring me within the reach of the strong arm of the law. This money is
the price of our honor, but no one will know that fact but ourselves.’
“Marquis, there was no sleeping in the garret all that night; but when
daylight peered through the broken windows, it beamed on a table covered
with empty bottles, and round it were seated three men, who, having cast
aside all honorable scruples, had sworn that they would arrive at wealth
and prosperity by any means, no matter how foul and treacherous they
might be. That is all.”