“Good-bye, Mazure,” said he; “don’t be just, and do be merciful. I wish
you a very happy New Year.”
M. Bergeret looked through the dirty window of the hall to see if there
were any letter or paper in the box; he still took an interest in
letters from a distance or in literary reviews. But to-day there were
only visiting-cards, which suggested to him nothing more interesting
than personalities as shadowy and pale as the cards themselves, and a
bill from Mademoiselle Rose, the modiste of the Tintelleries. As his
eyes fell on this, the thought suddenly occurred to him that Madame
Bergeret was becoming extravagant and that the house was stuffy. He
could feel the weight of it on his shoulders, and as he stood in the
hall, he seemed to be bearing on his back the whole flooring of his
flat, in addition to the drawing-room piano and that terrible wardrobe
that swallowed up his little store of money and yet was always empty.
Thus weighted with domestic troubles, M. Bergeret grasped the iron
handrail with its ample curves of florid metal-work, and began, with
bent head and short breath, to climb the stone steps. These were now
blackened, worn, cracked, patched, and ornamented with worn bricks and
squalid paving-stones, but once, in the bygone days of their early
youth, they had known the tread of fine gentlemen and pretty girls,
hurrying to pay rival court to Pauquet, the revenue-tax farmer who had
enriched himself by the spoils of a whole province. For it was in the
mansion of Pauquet de Sainte-Croix that M. Bergeret lived, now fallen
from its glory, despoiled of its splendour and degraded by a plaster
top-storey which had taken the place of its graceful gable and majestic
roof. Now the building was darkened by tall houses built all round
it, on ground where once there were gardens with a thousand statues,
ornamental waters and a park, and even on the main courtyard where
Pauquet had erected an allegorical monument to his king, who was in the
habit of making him disgorge his booty every five or six years, after
which he was left for another term to stuff himself again with gold.
This courtyard, which was flanked by a splendid Tuscan portico, had
vanished in 1857 when the Rue des Tintelleries was widened. Now Pauquet
de Sainte-Croix’s mansion was nothing but an ugly tenement-house badly
neglected by two old caretakers, Gaubert by name, who despised M.
Bergeret for his quietness and had no sense of his true generosity,
because it was that of a man of moderate means. Yet whatever M. Raynaud
gave they regarded with respect, although he gave little when he was
well able to give much: to the Gauberts, his hundred-sou piece was
valuable because it came from great wealth.
M. Raynaud, who owned the land near the new railway station, lived
on the first storey. Over the doorway of this there was a bas-relief
which, as usual, caught M. Bergeret’s eye as he passed. It depicted old
Silenus on his ass surrounded by a group of nymphs. This was all that
remained of the interior decoration of the mansion which, belonging
to the reign of Louis XV, had been built at a period when the French
style was aiming at the classic, but, lucky in missing its aim, had
acquired that note of chastity, stability and noble elegance which
one associates more especially with Gabriel’s designs. As a matter of
fact Pauquet de Sainte-Croix’s mansion had actually been designed by a
pupil of that great architect. Since then it had been systematically
disfigured. Although, for economy’s sake and just to save a little
trouble and expense, they had not torn down the little bas-relief of
Silenus and the nymphs, they had at any rate painted it, like the rest
of the staircase, with a sham decoration of red granite. The tradition
of the place would have it that in this Silenus one might see a
portrait of Pauquet himself, who was reputed to have been the ugliest
man of his time, as well as the most popular with women. M. Bergeret,
although no great connoisseur in art, made no such mistake as this, for
in the grotesque, yet sublime, figure of the old god he recognised a
type well known in the Renaissance, and transmitted from the Greeks and
Romans. Yet, whenever he saw this Silenus and his nymphs, his thoughts
naturally turned to Pauquet, who had enjoyed all the good things of
this world in the very house where he himself lived a life that was not
only toilsome, but thankless.
“This financier,” he thought as he stood on the landing, “merely sucked
money from a king who in turn sucked it from him. This made them quits.
It is unwise to brag about the finances of the monarchy, since, in the
end, it was the financial deficit that brought about the downfall of
the system. But this point is noteworthy, that the king was then the
sole owner of all property, both real and personal, throughout the
kingdom. Every house belonged to the king, and in proof of this, the
subject who actually enjoyed the possession of it had to place the
royal arms on the slab at the back of the hearth. It was therefore as
owner, and not in pursuance of his right of taxation, that Louis XIV
sent his subjects’ plate to the Mint in order to defray the expenses of
his wars. He even had the treasures of the churches melted down, and I
read lately that he carried off the votive-offerings of Notre-Dame de
Liesse in Picardy, among which was found the breast that the Queen of
Poland had deposited there in gratitude for her miraculous recovery.
Everything then belonged to the king, that is to say, to the state.
And yet neither the Socialists, who to-day demand the nationalisation
of private property, nor the owners who intend to hold fast their
possessions, pay any heed to the fact that this nationalisation would
be, in some respects, a return to the ancient custom. It gives one a
philosophic pleasure to reflect that the Revolution really was for
the benefit of those who had acquired private ownership of national
possessions and that the Declaration of the Rights of Man has become
the landlords’ charter.
“This Pauquet, who used to bring here the prettiest girls from the
opera, was no knight of Saint-Louis. To-day he would be commander of
the Legion of Honour and to him the finance ministers would come for
their instructions. Then it was money he enjoyed; now it would be
honours. For money has become honourable. It is, in fact, the only
nobility we possess. We have destroyed all the others to put in their
place the most oppressive, the most insolent, and the most powerful of
all orders of nobility.”
M. Bergeret’s reflections were distracted at this point by the sight of
a group of men, women, and children coming out of M. Raynaud’s flat.
He saw that it was a band of poor relations who had come to wish the
old man a happy New Year: he fancied he could see them smelling about,
under their new hats, for some profit to themselves. He went on up the
stairs, for he lived on the third floor, which he delighted to call
the third “room,” using the seventeenth-century phrase for it. And to
explain this ancient term he loved to quote La Fontaine’s lines:
Where is the good of life to men of make like you,
To live and read for ever in a poor third room?
Chill winter always finds you in the dress of June,
With for lackey but the shadow that is each man’s due.[6]
[6] Que sert à vos pareils de lire incessamment?
Ils sont toujours logés à la troisième chambre,
Vêtus au mois de juin comme au mois de décembre,
Ayant pour tout laquais leur ombre seulement.
Possibly the use he made of this quotation and of this kind of talk was
unwise, for it exasperated Madame Bergeret, who was proud of living
in a flat in the middle of the town, in a house that was inhabited by
people of good position.
“Now for the third ‘room,’” said M. Bergeret to himself. Drawing out
his watch, he saw that it was eleven o’clock. He had told them not
to expect him before noon, as he had intended to spend an hour in
Paillot’s shop. But there he had found the shutters up: holidays and
Sundays were days of misery to him, simply because the bookseller’s was
closed on those days. To-day he had a feeling of annoyance, because he
had not been able to pay his usual call on Paillot.
On reaching the third storey he turned his key noiselessly in the
lock and entered the dining-room with his cautious footstep. It was
a dismal room, concerning which M. Bergeret had formed no particular
opinion, although in Madame Bergeret’s eyes it was quite artistic,
on account of the brass chandelier which hung above the table, the
chairs and sideboard of carved oak with which it was furnished, the
mahogany whatnot loaded with little cups, and especially on account of
the painted china plates that adorned the wall. On entering this room
from the dimly lit hall one had the door of the study on the left, and
on the right the drawing-room door. Whenever M. Bergeret entered the
flat he was in the habit of turning to the left into his study, where
solitude, books and slippers awaited him. This time, however, for no
particular motive or reason, without thinking what he was doing, he
went to the right. He turned the handle, opened the door, took one step
and found himself in the drawing-room.
He then saw on the sofa two figures linked together in a violent
attitude that suggested either endearment or strife, but which was, as
a matter of fact, very compromising. Madame Bergeret’s head was turned
away and could not be seen, but her feelings were plainly expressed
in the generous display of her red stockings. M. Roux’s face wore
that strained, solemn, set, distracted look that cannot be mistaken,
although one seldom sees it; it agreed with his disordered array. Then,
the appearance of everything changed in less than a second, and now M.
Bergeret saw before him two quite different persons from those whom he
had surprised; two persons who were much embarrassed and whose looks
were strange and even rather comical. He would have fancied himself
mistaken had not the first picture engraved itself on his sight with a
strength that was only equalled by its suddenness.