to his subordinate. "Why, yes--why, yes--it's a genuine miracle. To have
made a good soldier out of a blockhead like that animal. Don't blame any
one but yourself if I entrust the desperate cases to you. I have taken
advantage of your absence to turn over Baudoin to you. He still rides
badly. I commend him to your very particular attention."
"I will attend to him at once," said Landri. "I'll take him alone before
my drill." And when the captain had passed on, he said to the
quartermaster, who was waiting at the door of the riding-school with
several men and horses: "Saddle Panther for me, and call Baudoin."
Ten minutes later the mare he had asked for arrived, all saddled, with a
simple snaffle in her mouth which she was already champing nervously,
and led by the head by a youth of unkempt aspect with very black eyes
glowing like coals in a grayish face. Simply from the way in which he
wore his képi on one side, one divined in him the insolent vagabond;
and from the brusque movement with which he put his hand to it to salute
the officer, the smouldering revolt, the mere brute all ready to sing or
think the obscene quatrain which we must never weary of citing to the
smug optimists who refuse to recognize the ferocities hidden beneath the
humanitarian mirage of socialism--those forerunners of a Terror which
will be worse than the other, being better organized, and more degraded,
being the work of a more degenerate race:--
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales,
À faire de nous des héros,
Ils saurent bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux.[4]
The beautiful beast led by that creature with the face of an Apache of
the faubourgs presented a striking contrast to him by virtue of the
dainty grace of her whole frame. She had the elevated tail, the short
and supple loins, the long shoulder, legs like a stag's, and a small
head. She had been in the regiment five days. The dealer, to improve her
appearance for purposes of sale, had clipped her. The hair on her legs
and that which showed under the flaps of the saddle was of a brown-bay
color; the rest of her body, recently clipped, seemed to be iron-gray.
As soon as she entered the riding-school she began to paw the ground
impatiently.
"Well, mount her, Baudoin," said the officer; "let's see if she'll
behave any better than she did the first day. I kept her for a good
rider; and I know that you're one."
Baudoin, apparently insensible to this compliment, mounted Panther, who
started off at the restrained trot of a beast who does not abdicate her
free will. It was evident that she obeyed neither the pressure of the
heel nor that of the rein. In this way she made the circuit of the ring
four times, turning her head from side to side, making little attempts
to escape when she came near the closed door--a ravishingly beautiful
object in that vast empty space where she seemed to wander almost at
will.
"She doesn't try any tricks," said Landri. "Let's try her at a
gallop.--She won't, eh?--A touch of the whip."
Despite Baudoin's efforts Panther did not even condescend to quicken her
trot. The quartermaster, who had the whip in his hand, begun to run,
shaking it at the mare. Instead of breaking into a gallop she, taking
fright, executed a series of violent sheep-like bounds, in rapid
succession, which unhorsed her rider. He tried to remount. The mare,
sure of her means of defence, started off again at a trot, then repeated
her leaps at a second threat of the lash. Again the man fell. He
remounted. A third fall. This time he was thrown against the wall rather
hard. Anger turned his face green. A brutal exclamation escaped him, and
he said savagely:--
"I don't mount again. I won't ride her any more. I've had enough of
breaking my bones so that the officers can have well-trained horses."
He cast an evil glance at the lieutenant, with his hands in his pockets,
his clothes all covered with sawdust; and he did not brush himself, or
pick up his képi, or follow the mare, who had gone on at a walk, then
stopped. She was nibbling, with the ends of her teeth, a tall post, with
holes bored in it, intended to hold the jumping-bar.
"Well," said Landri pleasantly, as if he had not heard that outburst of
insubordination, "I'll ride her now. You can take her again afterward."
Time to adjust the stirrups to his height, and he was astride the beast,
whom he launched at a trot first, then at a gallop. She tried hard to
unseat him by leaps and bounds even more out of rule than those which
had succeeded so well just before. But Landri had been put in the saddle
at the age of six by M. de Claviers, and he too was of the school of
those who do not recognize divorce, as the marquis would say jocosely.
He held his seat. Panther, the well-named, tried another device. She set
off at a gallop, then turned abruptly, end for end. Landri still held
his seat. More leaps. Another abrupt turn. The rider did not fall. Weary
of the struggle, the mare trots; she gallops; she begins to obey the
leg; she obeys the hand.
"Take her again, Baudoin," said the officer, jumping to the ground. "She
hasn't broken my bones and she won't break yours."
The dragoon flushed. He looked at the lieutenant, who looked him
squarely in the eye, calmly and coolly. Self-esteem aiding, this hint
was efficacious with the rebel. He remounted and the session ended
without further incident. The conquered beast behaved as well with her
new rider as with the other.
"Now," said Landri to the quartermaster, "bring in the others."
"You were in luck," said the quartermaster to Baudoin a few moments
later. "With another man, you'd have had a curry-combing, and a good
one."
"And the other man, too, perhaps," retorted Baudoin with a leer. "But
this one didn't put a gag in my mouth, that's true enough."
"I have not wasted my morning," Landri reflected, as he left the
riding-school. Awaiting the hour for the foot-drill, he entered the
small room used by the officers as a library and gathering-place. It was
very simply furnished, with a divan, a few easy-chairs, and a large
table, all covered with coarse blue stuff with a red border. On two
sides were book-shelves. On the other walls were engravings, some of
which represented the early days of the 32nd Dragoons. First, there was
a Cavalier de Lévis, with the date 1703, in three-cornered hat and
white tunic, with red lapels and trimmings. Another Cavalier de Lévis,
in a very similar uniform, bore this inscription: 1724. Then came two
troopers of the Royal-Normandie, dated 1768 and 1784. They wore blue
tunics with amaranth-colored lapels, and white cockades in their hats. A
trooper of the 19th Cavalry, in a blue coat _à la française_, with a
tri-colored plume in his shako, marked the beginning of modern times.
It needed no more than a glance at those engravings for Landri's
comparative tranquillity of the last hour to come to an abrupt end. The
sight of those uniforms of the old régime recalled the scene of two
days before, M. de Claviers pointing to the portrait of the
lieutenant-general, and his exclamation about the uniforms and the
dandyfied heroism of bygone days. The thought of the marquis recalled
the old gentleman's other outbreak, only the night before, concerning
the inventories, just as the memory of the Parrocel portrait revived the
sensations born of the hideous falsehood of his birth. The associations
of these various ideas resulted in a new idea which, when it had once
entered his mind, could no more be expelled from it than could the
hateful fact with which it was connected. It was only the continuation,
the smoothing-off as it were in the lucid portions of the love-child's
consciousness, of a course of reasoning that he had been working out,
unknowingly, for twelve hours past.
"But have I the right, from this time on, bearing a name that is not my
own, and knowing it, to act with that name as if it were my own?"
On the table lay a newspaper rolled about its stick. The young man took
it up mechanically, and, from more habit, looked for the rubric,
"Military Affairs." Another wave of ideas swept over him. If the
inventories at Hugueville-en-Plaine and Montmartin should be taken, and
if he should have to direct one of them to the point of breaking into
the church, the account would certainly appear under that heading,
printed in that same type. His name would be there, at the top of a
paragraph describing his act. His name? A name is an inheritance, it is
a piece of property, personal and collective at once. It belongs to him
who bears it and to those who have borne and will bear it. All of their
interests are united in him. Against this mutual responsibility Landri
had contended throughout his youth, and no longer ago than the day
before yesterday, when he proclaimed before Madame Olier, and again to
the marquis's face, the right of the heirs of a great name to lead their
individual lives.
It seemed--he himself had thought so at first--that the grievous
discovery of the secret of his birth had finally snapped the
chain, already so worn, of a hateful solidarity between the
Claviers-Grandchamps and himself. True, if he had laid aside their name,
if, realizing that he was not of their family, he had ceased to call
himself by their name. But such an open rupture was impossible. Even if
Landri had not loved the marquis too dearly ever to deal him such a
blow, there was his mother's memory, which forbade him to dishonor her.
But in that case, if he kept the name of Claviers, he was in their debt.
He was no longer a free agent. When people should read, in that
newspaper and in many others, that a Claviers-Grandchamp had dared to do
something so absolutely opposed to all the traditions of the family,
what would his conscience say to him? That he had done his duty? Nay,
since it was not from any thought of duty that he had resolved, if
occasion should require, to execute a task which he himself had called
revolting. His companions had discussed too often in his presence that
question of the limits of discipline, which functionaries no less insane
than criminal have gratuitously raised of late years. He had reflected
upon it too seriously himself not to understand that passive obedience
is a phrase devised by enemies of that great school of praiseworthy
energy that the army really is. He had meditated upon the wise and
judicious terms of the officer's oath, which excludes every degrading
order: "You will obey him in everything that he shall command you to do,
for the good of the service and to carry out the military regulations."
He knew that this problem of obedience to requisitions from the civil
authorities, as it had presented itself in the recent religious
disputes, is of the sort that become tragic in the most upright
consciences. Excellent soldiers have solved it in one way. Excellent
soldiers have solved it in another way. It is a crime, we repeat, on the
part of a government, to place men of spirit in such dilemmas,--a crime
against those who did not enter the army to perform certain tasks,--a
crime against the fatherland, which is by this means robbed of some of
its best leaders.
Landri, as we have seen, had solved the problem in a manner entirely
personal to himself. He had said: "To obey is to remain in the service.
To refuse to obey is to resign. I want to remain in the service. I shall
obey." But now a new element had intervened: the evidence of a felony
committed against the lineage of the Claviers, in which his mere
existence made him an accomplice. His mother's sin had given him a place
in that lineage. What became of his personal convenience when put in the
scale with such usurpation? Did it not bind him on his honor--for he
still had such a thing whatever he may have said in the first shock of
the revelation--never to do any act for which that lineage, now
incarnate in the marquis, could reproach him from its standpoint? The
conclusion was inescapable. At an incident of his military life so
public, so certain to make a noise in the world, as obedience to an
order to proceed against a church, it was not his own opinion that he
should follow, but that of the head of that house in which he himself
occupied a stolen place. This indisputable obligation suddenly imposed
itself on Landri with irresistible force, and for the first time he
recoiled in spirit from the prospect of an occurrence which would place
before him the alternative of making up his mind against the will, so
clearly expressed, of the Marquis de Claviers, or of sacrificing the
profession to which he was at that moment more attached than ever. His
whole thought was bent upon rejecting the probability of that test. He
could not bear to face it now.
"I am crazy. If they employ the dragoons for one of these inventories,
they'll send more than one platoon. A lieutenant won't be in command,
but a captain. I shall be second in command. If there's a door to be
broken in, and the civil authorities don't furnish any men to do it, the
captain will have to give the order, not I."
He harangued himself thus, pacing to and fro in the main courtyard while
the instructors drilled the new recruits, under his superintendence. But
upon whom would that responsibility fall, if Landri's supposition should
be realized? In the absence of the captain commanding the squadron, to
the captain next in seniority, who happened to be that very Despois with
whom he had exchanged so hearty a greeting that morning. Landri at once
remembered the letter written by that officer's wife, which Madame Olier
had given to him. He had read the letter at the time--without reading
it. He remembered nothing about it except Valentine's remark: "She says
so well what I should say so badly." But then Captain Despois, if such
an order should be given to him, would refuse to comply with it? As had
happened before, the command would then devolve upon the officer next
below him, in this case upon Landri! Such was now the young man's
apprehension in respect to an emergency which was still only possible,
and which he had hitherto faced with such firm determination.
He cut the drill short in order to return to his quarters the sooner and
really read Madame Despois' letter. His hands trembled a little as they
unfolded the sheet, which was badly crumpled from its sojourn in his
pocket while he was rolling about in despair on the cushions of the
railway carriage. He found there, near the end, after the narrative of a
really touching interview between the captain and his wife, these lines,
which, although they lessened one element of his anxiety, only
intensified another, alas!
"So my husband has made up his mind," wrote Julie Despois. "He ended the
conversation by repeating poor Captain Magniez' noble declaration: 'I
prefer to be shot rather than commit sacrilege.'--If this thing happens
to us, we shall be very poor, my dear friend. The education of our three
sons will be seriously endangered. But I could do nothing but say to
him: 'You are right. We are Christian folk. We have founded a Christian
family. God help us!'--And you will recognize my dear Despois in this.
His only anxiety is for his officers. He doesn't want to see the
hecatomb at Saint-Servan repeated.--'If they call on me for sappers to
break in the church doors, I shall refuse. I sha'n't give the civil
authorities time to telegraph for further orders. I shall order all my
men to remount, and return to Saint-Mihiel. In this way I shall be sure
of being the only one to be disciplined.'--You see, Valentine, what a
sad time we are passing through, so that we can't turn our minds to any
other subject! In all the officers' families, nothing else is thought
of. We shouldn't talk about anything else if we didn't know that to-day
an orderly may be an informer listened to at headquarters. We are all
wondering when these two inventories will be taken, and to whom they
will be entrusted. Will anything happen or not? God grant that we are
imagining chimæras, and that everything will go off peacefully, as it
has in so many places! Whatever happens, I am writing down these
conversations with my husband so that my sons may have them some day,
when he and I are no more. They will see what sort of man their father
was, and that their mother understood him."
Landri read the last sentence again and again. The captain's magnanimous
determination made it possible for him to have no fear of consequences
if Despois were in command.--But what followed? How could he fail to
make a comparison between that simple-hearted helpmate of a gallant
officer, devoted to her husband, so proud to esteem and admire him,--and
another woman? Between those children who found at their humble fireside
no reason for aught save respect,--and another child? Why had not his
own mother understood the man whose name she bore? Why had she betrayed
him? Why was a son born of that treachery? And why was not that son, who
knew nothing of that horror for so many years, left in ignorance
forever? Upon what trivial chances our destinies depend! Suppose that
the train from Clermont had reached Paris an hour late yesterday?
Doubtless Landri would have found the invalid of Rue de Solferino
unconscious. The physician would not have let him in. He would have
known nothing. He would not have had to undergo this inward agony which
everything renewed--and when would it end? Oh, never! never!
"I am amusing myself with absurd scruples," he said to himself
twenty-four hours later. It was afternoon. He was riding along the
Meuse. He had received a despatch from the marquis to the effect that
Jaubourg's funeral would take place on the following Friday at nine
o'clock, and he had answered, by telegraph, that he could not be there.
He had understood what the selection of that early hour in the morning
meant, as well as a note in the newspapers stating that the deceased had
desired a very simple ceremony, without invitations, and without flowers
or wreaths. This insistence upon effacement after death avoided comments
upon M. de Claviers-Grandchamp's presence behind the bier of his wife's
lover. Therein Landri saw a new proof of the ominous secret. He would
have been no less irritated by a showy funeral. His irritation
manifested itself in a recurrence of the blind and almost savage revolt
of the first moments. This feeling imparted its sombre hue to his
renewed reflections on the possibility of his responsible participation
in one of the inventories--the sole object, as Madame Despois had said,
of the silent meditations of all the officers of the garrison. Three of
his comrades, who were as sure of him as he was of them, had spoken to
him about it in confidence that morning. He had evaded a reply, and he
reproached himself bitterly for it.
"Yes, absurd! With respect to _him_"--he was still unable to name M. de
Claviers in his heart, as he was to name the other elsewhere,--"with
respect to him, I cannot have any duty. The mere fact that I am
breathing is an insult so dishonoring to him that I can never add
anything to it. All that I can do is to avoid contact between us. He
will follow the body to-morrow. I shall not be there. Nobody shall see
us walking side by side. Hereafter it must be so in life. My impulse
yesterday was the best, the wisest one. Yes, if I am ordered to take
part in the expedition to Hugueville or Montmartin, so much the better!
If I have to break into one of those two churches, so much the better!
That will be irreparable. The name of Claviers-Grandchamp will be
dishonored because a soldier has made every other sentiment yield to
discipline. That theory can be supported, too. A proof of it is that
Despois hesitated, and he's a professed Christian. Even Valentine, who
is very religious, but who knows what our profession is, accepts the
idea!--He will condemn me. But he won't be able to despise me, in his
heart. And it will be all over, all over, all over! He will suffer,
suffer terribly. And shall I not suffer when I no longer have him to
call 'father,' when I can no longer live with him in that heart-to-heart
intimacy which was complete,--I realize it now!--despite the differences
in our ideas! I understand them now, those differences which used to
surprise me--they were Race. He is right. There is such a thing as Race.
I hadn't the instincts of a true noble. Nor have I those of a true
bourgeois, either. What a terrible word that is, to which I never gave a
thought--adultery! And how just it is! It is the stranger at the hearth.
It is a forged Race. It is the creation of a hybrid personality like
mine. That is the secret of the vacillations of my nature, of the
contradictions that I never could explain: why I have never loved in my
inmost heart any of the women of my caste, and why, even to-day, I
cannot bring myself to a simple and definite decision. I shall come to
it. My relations with him are impossible. That is the one fact to which
I must cling, firmly, irrevocably. Let the occasion come to dig the
abyss, and I will dig it!"
This second line of reasoning corresponded too nearly with the actual
situation not to prevail in the young man's mind. He retained, none the
less, deep down in his heart, a hope, almost a certainty, that he would
not be required to adapt his conduct to it. One need not have in his
veins blood imbued with contradictory inherited characteristics, to be
subject to such incoherences. It is enough to be passionately attached
to some one from whom one deems it necessary to part forever. So that he
felt a shock that was most painful to him, as he was returning from his
ride, upon meeting, in one of the streets of the town, the colonel of
his regiment, on foot,--the one who did not like "names with currents of
air." He was the son of a petty government official who had reached his
present rank by a combination of energy and shrewdness,--a good officer
with fundamentally false ideas, in whose heart were fermenting those
extraordinary anticlerical and anti-noble passions of which sincere
Jacobinism is made.
The expression of his superior, by whom he knew that he was detested,
froze Landri's blood, it betrayed such ironical and fiendish delight. He
did not mistake its meaning. The supposition hitherto treated as
imaginary was coming true. It began to take shape. The hostile colonel's
face expressed the satisfied hatred of one who knows with certainty that
misfortune is about to befall his enemy. The affair of the inventories
was about to be solved, and he, Landri, was involved in it in some way
or other.
Five minutes later this presentiment became an established fact. As he
dismounted, his orderly handed him a note from Captain Despois, begging
him to come to his quarters about an important matter connected with the
service.
"That's what it is," said Landri to himself. "We are to go."
He found the devout officer, whose most secret thoughts he knew, so
intimate was their confidence, busily writing, in the exceedingly modest
salon that he used as an office. Despois was a man of forty-five, very
tall, with a bony, tanned face, his temples worn smooth by the rubbing
of the helmet, hair already almost white, reddish mustache, and light
greenish-gray eyes. The eyes were clouded with so sad an expression that
Landri was deceived.
"It is he who is ordered to command us," he thought. He remembered the
letter he had read the day before. His heart swelled with pity for that
father who was evidently making ready to sacrifice his military future
to his faith. But from his first words Landri understood that he himself
aroused a like pity on the part of that excellent man, who said as he
handed him two sheets of paper the official size of which betrayed their
source:--
"Will you run your eye over this, my dear Claviers?"