“Doubtless you deceive me,” he said, “and I hope you do. Unhappy
children! you do not know what this rupture may cost you.”
And, instead of returning to his office, he shut himself up in that
little room which he called his study, and only came out of it at
about five o’clock, holding under his arm an enormous bundle of
papers, and saying that it was useless to wait for him for dinner,
as he would not come home until late in the night, if he came home
at all, being compelled to make up for his lost day.
“What is the matter with your father, my poor children?” exclaimed
Mme. Favoral. “I have never seen him in such a state.”
“Doubtless,” replied Maxence, “the rupture with Costeclar is going
to break up some combination.”
But that explanation did not satisfy him any more than it did his
mother. He, too, felt a vague apprehension of some impending
misfortune. But what? He had nothing upon which to base his
conjectures. He knew nothing, any more than his mother, of his
father’s affairs, of his relations, of his interests, or even of
his life, outside the house.
And mother and son lost themselves in suppositions as vain as if
they had tried to find the solution of a problem, without possessing
its terms.
With a single word Mlle. Gilberte thought she might have enlightened
them.
In the unerring certainty of the blow, in the crushing promptness
of the result, she thought she could recognize the hand of Marius
de Tregars.
She recognized the hand of the man who acts, and does not talk.
And the girl’s pride felt flattered by this victory, by this proof
of the powerful energy of the man whom, unknown to all, she had
selected. She liked to imagine Marius de Tregars and M. Costeclar
in presence of each other,--the one as imperious and haughty as
she had seen him meek and trembling; the other more humble still
than he was arrogant with her.
“One thing is certain,” she repeated to herself; “and that is, I
am saved.”
And she wished the morrow to come, that she might announce her
happiness to the very involuntary and very unconscious accomplice
of Marius, the worthy Maestro Gismondo Pulei.
The next day M. Favoral seemed to have resigned himself to the
failure of his projects; and, the following Saturday, he told as a
pleasant joke, how Mlle. Gilberte had carried the day, and had
managed to dismiss her lover.
But a close observer could discover in him symptoms of devouring
cares. Deep wrinkles showed along his temples; his eyes were sunken;
a continued tension of mind contracted his features. Often during
the dinner he would remain motionless for several minutes, his
fork aloft; and then he would murmur, “How is it all going to end?”
Sometimes in the morning, before his departure for his office, M.
Jottras, of the house of Jottras and Brother, and M. Saint Pavin,
the manager of “The Financial Pilot,” came to see him. They
closeted themselves together, and remained for hours in conference,
speaking so low, that not even a vague murmur could be heard
outside the door.
“Your father has grave subjects of anxiety, my children,” said Mme.
Favoral: “you may believe me,--me, who for twenty years have been
trying to guess our fate upon his countenance.”
But the political events were sufficient to explain any amount of
anxiety. It was the second week of July, 1870; and the destinies
of France trembled, as upon a cast of the dice, in the hands of a
few presumptuous incapables. Was it war with Prussia, or was it
peace, that was to issue from the complications of a childishly
astute policy?
The most contradictory rumors caused daily at the bourse the most
violent oscillations, which endangered the safest fortunes. A few
words uttered in a corridor by Emile Ollivier had made a dozen heavy
operators rich, but had ruined five hundred small ones. On all
hands, credit was trembling.
Until one evening when he came home,
“War is declared,” said M. Favoral.
It was but too true; and no one then had any fears of the result
for France. They had so much exalted the French army, they had
so often said that it was invincible, that every one among the
public expected a series of crushing victories.
Alas! the first telegram announced a defeat. People refused to
believe it at first. But there was the evidence. The soldiers had
died bravely; but the chiefs had been incapable of leading them.
From that time, and with a vertiginous rapidity, from day to day,
from hour to hour, the fatal news came crowding on. Like a river
that overflows its banks, Prussia was overrunning France. Bazaine
was surrounded at Metz; and the capitulation of Sedan capped the
climax of so many disasters.
At last, on the 4th of September, the republic was proclaimed.
On the 5th, when the Signor Gismondo Pulei presented himself at Rue
St. Gilles, his face bore such an expression of anguish, that Mlle.
Gilberte could not help asking what was the matter.
He rose on that question, and, threatening heaven with his clinched
fist,
“Implacable fate does not tire to persecute me,” he replied. “I
had overcome all obstacles: I was happy: I was looking forward to
a future of fortune and glory. No, the dreadful war must break out.”
For the worthy maestro, this terrible catastrophe was but a new
caprice of his own destiny.
“What has happened to you?” inquired the young girl, repressing a
smile.
“It happens to me, signora, that I am about to lose my beloved
pupil. He leaves me; he forsakes me. In vain have I thrown myself
at his feet. My tears have not been able to detain him. He is going
to fight; he leaves; he is a soldier!”
Then it was given to Mlle. Gilberte to see clearly within her soul.
Then she understood how absolutely she had given herself up, and to
what extent she had ceased to belong to herself.
Her sensation was terrible, such as if her whole blood had suddenly
escaped through her open arteries. She turned pale, her teeth
chattered; and she seemed so near fainting, that the Signor Gismondo
sprang to the door, crying, “Help, help! she is dying.”
Mme. Favoral, frightened, came running in. But already, thanks to
an all-powerful projection of will, Mlle. Gilberte had recovered,
and, smiling a pale smile,
“It’s nothing, mamma,” she said. “A sudden pain in the head; but
it’s gone already.”
The worthy maestro was in perfect agony. Taking Mme. Favoral aside,
“It is my fault,” he said. “It is the story of my unheard-of
misfortunes that has upset her thus. Monstrous egotist that I am!
I should have been careful of her exquisite sensibility.”
She insisted, nevertheless, upon taking her lesson as usual, and
recovered enough presence of mind to extract from the Signor Gismondo
everything that his much-regretted pupil had confided to him.
That was not much. He knew that his pupil had gone, like anyone
else, to Rue de Cherche Midi; that he had signed an engagement;
and had been ordered to join a regiment in process of formation
near Tours. And, as he went out,
“That is nothing,” said the kind maestro to Mme. Favoral. “The
signora has quite recovered, and is as gay as a lark.”
The signora, shut up in her room, was shedding bitter tears. She
tried to reason with herself, and could not succeed. Never had
the strangeness of her situation so clearly appeared to her. She
repeated to herself that she must be mad to have thus become
attached to a stranger. She wondered how she could have allowed
that love, which was now her very life, to take possession of her
soul. But to what end? It no longer rested with her to undo what
had been done.
When she thought that Marius de Tregars was about to leave Paris
to become a soldier, to fight, to die perhaps, she felt her head
whirl; she saw nothing around her but despair and chaos.
And, the more she thought, the more certain she felt that Marius
could not have trusted solely to the chance gossip of the Signor
Pulei to communicate to her his determination.
“It is perfectly inadmissible,” she thought. “It is impossible that
he will not make an effort to see me before going.”
Thoroughly imbued with the idea, she wiped her eyes, took a seat
by an open window; and, whilst apparently busy with her work, she
concentrated her whole attention upon the street.
There were more people out than usual. The recent events had
stirred Paris to its lowest depths, and, as from the crater of a
volcano in labor, all the social scoriae rose to the surface. Men
of sinister appearance left their haunts, and wandered through the
city. The workshops were all deserted; and people strolled at
random, stupor or terror painted on their countenance. But in vain
did Mlle. Gilberte seek in all this crowd the one she hoped to see.
The hours went by, and she was getting discouraged, when suddenly,
towards dusk, at the corner of the Rue Turenne,
“‘Tis he,” cried a voice within her.
It was, in fact, M. de Tregars. He was walking towards the
Boulevard, slowly, and his eyes raised.
Palpitating, the girl rose to her feet. She was in one of those
moments of crisis when the blood, rushing to the brain, smothers
all judgment. Unconscious, as it were, of her acts, she leaned
over the window, and made a sign to Marius, which he understood very
well, and which meant, “Wait, I am coming down.”
“Where are you going, dear?” asked Mme. Favoral, seeing Gilberte
putting on her bonnet.
“To the shop, mamma, to get a shade of worsted I need.”
Mlle. Gilberte was not in the habit of going out alone; but it
happened quite often that she would go down in the neighborhood on
some little errand.
“Do you wish the girl to go out with you?” asked Mme. Favoral.
“Oh, it isn’t worth while!”
She ran down the stairs; and once out, regardless of the looks that
might be watching her, she walked straight to M. de Tregars, who was
waiting on the corner of the Rue des Minimes.
“You are going away?” she said, too much agitated to notice his own
emotion, which was, however, quite evident.
“I must,” he answered.
“Oh!”
“When France is invaded, the place for a man who bears my name is
where the fighting is.”
“But there will be fighting in Paris too.”
“Paris has four times as many defenders as it needs. It is outside
that soldiers will be wanted.”
They walked slowly, as they spoke thus, along the Rue des Minimes,
one of the least frequented in Paris; and there were only to be
seen at this hour five or six soldiers talking in front of the
barracks gate.
“Suppose I were to beg you not to go,” resumed Mlle. Gilberte.
“Suppose I beseeched you, Marius!”
“I should remain then,” he answered in a troubled voice; “but I
would be betraying my duty, and failing to my honor; and remorse
would weigh upon our whole life. Command now, and I will obey.”
They had stopped; and no one seeing them standing there side by
side affectionate and familiar could have believed that they were
speaking to each other for the first time. They themselves did not
notice it, so much had they come, with the help of all-powerful
imagination, and in spite of separation, to the understanding of
intimacy. After a moment of painful reflection,
“I do not ask you any longer to stay,” uttered the young girl.
He took her hand, and raised it to his lips.
“I expected no less of your courage,” he said, his voice vibrating
with love. But he controlled himself, and, in a more quiet tone,
“Thanks to the indiscretion of Pulei,” he added, “I was in hopes of
seeing you, but not to have the happiness of speaking to you. I
had written--”
He drew from his pocket a large envelope, and, handing it to Mlle.
Gilberte,
“Here is the letter,” he continued, “which I intended for you. It
contains another, which I beg you to preserve carefully, and not to
open unless I do not return. I leave you in Paris a devoted friend,
the Count de Villegre. Whatever may happen to you, apply to him
with all confidence, as you would to myself.”
Mlle. Gilberte, staggering, leaned against the wall.
“When do you expect to leave?” she inquired.
“This very night. Communications may be cut off at any moment.”
Admirable in her sorrow, but also full of energy, the poor girl
looked up, and held out her hand to him.
“Go then,” she said, “O my only friend! go, since honor commands.
But do not forget that it is not your life alone that you are going
to risk.”
And, fearing to burst into sobs, she fled, and reached the Rue St.
Gilles a few moments before her father, who had gone out in quest
of news.
Those he brought home were of the most sinister kind.
Like the rising tide, the Prussians spread and advanced, slowly,
but steadily. Their marches were numbered; and the day and hour
could be named when their flood would come and strike the walls
of Paris.
And so, at all the railroad stations, there was a prodigious rush
of people who wished to leave at any cost, in any way, in the
baggage-car if needs be, and who certainly were not, like Marius,
rushing to meet the enemy.
One after another, M. Favoral had seen nearly every one he knew
take flight.
The Baron and Baroness de Thaller and their daughter had gone to
Switzerland; M. Costeclar was traveling in Belgium; the elder
Jottras was in England, buying guns and cartridge; and if the
younger Jottras, with M. Saint Pavin of “The Financial Pilot,”
remained in Paris, it was because, through the gallant influence
of a lady whose name was not mentioned, they had obtained some
valuable contracts from the government.
The perplexities of the cashier of the Mutual Credit were great.
The day that the Baron and the Baroness de Thaller had left,
“Pack up our trunks,” he ordered his wife. “The bourse is going
to close; and the Mutual Credit can very well get along without me.”
But the next day he became undecided again. What Mlle. Gilberte
thought she could guess, was, that he was dying to start alone, and
leave his family, but dared not do it. He hesitated so long, that
at last, one evening,
“You may unpack the trunks,” he said to his wife. “Paris is
invested; and no one can now leave.”