The Spa Again
The station of Enval could hardly be recognized on the first of July
of the following year. On the summit of the knoll, standing between
the two outlets of the valley, rose a building in the Moorish style of
architecture, bearing on its front the word "Casino" in letters of gold.
A little wood had been utilized for the purpose of creating a small
park on the slope facing the Limagne. Lower down, among the vines, six
chalets here and there showed their _façades_ of polished wood. On the
slope facing the south, an immense structure was visible at a distance
to travelers, who perceived it on their way from Riom.
This was the Grand Hotel of Mont Oriol. And exactly below it, at the
very foot of the hill, a square house, simpler and more spacious,
surrounded by a garden, through which ran the rivulet which flowed down
from the gorges, offered to invalids the miraculous cure promised by a
pamphlet of Doctor Latonne. On the _façade_ could be read: "Thermal
baths of Mont Oriol." Then, on the right wing, in smaller letters:
"Hydropathy.--Stomach-washing.--Piscina with running water." And, on
the left wing: "Medical institute of automatic gymnastics."
All this was white, with a fresh whiteness, shining and crude. Workmen
were still occupied in completing it--house-painters, plumbers, and
laborers employed in digging, although the establishment had already
been a month open.
Its success, moreover, had since the start, surpassed the hopes of
its founders. Three great physicians, three celebrities, Professor
Mas-Roussel, Professor Cloche, and Professor Remusot, had taken the new
station under their patronage, and consented to sojourn for sometime in
the villas of the Bernese "Chalets Mobiles" Company, placed at their
disposal by the Board intrusted with the management of the waters.
Under their influence a crowd of invalids flocked to the place. The
Grand Hotel of Mont Oriol was full.
Although the baths had commenced working since the first days of June,
the official opening of the station had been postponed till the first
of July, in order to attract a great number of people. The _fête_ was
to commence at three o'clock with the ceremony of blessing the springs;
and in the evening, a magnificent performance, followed by fireworks
and a ball, would bring together all the bathers of the place, as well
as those of the adjoining stations, and the principal inhabitants of
Clermont-Ferrand and Riom.
The Casino on the summit of the hill was hidden from view by the flags.
Nothing could be seen any longer but blue, red, white, yellow, a kind
of dense and palpitating cloud; while from the tops of the gigantic
masts planted along the walks in the park, huge oriflammes curled
themselves in the blue sky with serpentine windings.
M. Petrus Martel, who had been appointed conductor of this new Casino,
seemed to think that under this cloud of flags he had become the
all-powerful captain of some fantastic ship; and he gave orders to the
white-aproned waiters with the resounding and terrible voice which
admirals need in order to exercise command under fire. His vibrating
words, borne on by the wind, were heard even in the village.
Andermatt, out of breath already, appeared on the terrace. Petrus
Martel advanced to meet him and bowed to him in a lordly fashion.
"Everything is going on well?" inquired the banker.
"Everything is going on well, my dear President."
"If anyone wants me, I am to be found in the medical inspector's study.
We have a meeting this morning."
And he went down the hill again. In front of the door of the thermal
establishment, the overseer and the cashier, carried off also from the
other Company, which had become the rival Company, but doomed without
a possible contest, rushed forward to meet their master. The ex-jailer
made a military salute. The other bent his head like a poor person
receiving alms. Andermatt asked:
"Is the inspector here?"
The overseer replied: "Yes, Monsieur le President, all the gentlemen
have arrived."
The banker passed through the vestibule, in the midst of bathers and
respectful waiters, turned to the right, opened a door, and found in a
spacious apartment of serious aspect, full of books and busts of men of
science, all the members of the Board at present in Enval assembled:
his father-in-law the Marquis, and his brother-in-law Gontran, the
Oriols, father and son, who had almost been transformed into gentlemen
wearing frock-coats of such length that--with their own tallness, they
looked like advertisements for a mourning-warehouse--Paul Bretigny, and
Doctor Latonne.
After some rapid hand-shaking, they took their seats, and Andermatt
commenced to address them:
"It remains for us to regulate an important matter, the naming of
the springs. On this subject I differ entirely in opinion from the
inspector. The doctor proposes to give to our three principal springs
the names of the three leaders of the medical profession who are
here. Assuredly, there would in this be a flattery which might touch
them and win them over to us still more. But be sure, Messieurs, that
it would alienate from us forever those among their distinguished
professional brethren who have not yet responded to our invitation, and
whom we should convince, at the cost of our best efforts and of every
sacrifice, of the sovereign efficacy of our waters. Yes, Messieurs,
human nature is unchangeable; it is necessary to know it and to
make use of it. Never would Professors Plantureau, De Larenard, and
Pascalis, to refer only to these three specialists in affections of the
stomach and intestines, send their patients to be cured by the water
of the Mas-Roussel Spring, the Cloche Spring, or the Remusot Spring.
For these patients and the entire public would in that case be somewhat
disposed to believe that it was by Professors Remusot, Cloche, and
Mas-Roussel that our water and all its therapeutic properties had been
discovered. There is no doubt, Messieurs, that the name of Gubler, with
which the original spring at Chatel-Guyon was baptized, for a long time
prejudiced against these waters, to-day in a prosperous condition, a
section, at least, of the great physicians, who might have patronized
it from the start.
"I accordingly propose to give quite simply the name of my wife to the
spring first discovered and the names of the Mademoiselles Oriol to
the other two. We shall thus have the Christiane, the Louise, and the
Charlotte Springs. This suits very well; it is very nice. What do you
say to it?"
His suggestion was adopted even by Doctor Latonne, who added: "We might
then beg of MM. Mas-Roussel, Cloche, and Remusot to be godfathers and
to offer their arms to the godmothers."
"Excellent, excellent," said Andermatt. "I am hurrying to meet them.
And they will consent. I may answer for them--they will consent. Let
us, therefore, reassemble at three o'clock in the church where the
procession is to be formed."
And he went off at a running pace. The Marquis and Gontran followed him
almost immediately. The Oriols, father and son, with tall hats on their
heads, hastened to walk in their turn side by side, grave looking and
all in black, on the white road; and Doctor Latonne said to Paul, who
had only arrived the previous evening, to be present at the _fête:_
"I have detained you, Monsieur, in order to show you a thing from which
I expect marvelous results. It is my medical institute of automatic
gymnastics."
He took him by the arm, and led him in. But they had scarcely reached
the vestibule when a waiter at the baths stopped the doctor:
"M. Riquier is waiting for his wash."
Doctor Latonne had, last year, spoken disparagingly of the stomach
washings, extolled and practiced by Doctor Bonnefille, in the
establishment of which he was inspector. But time had modified his
opinion, and the Baraduc probe had become the great instrument of
torture of the new inspector, who plunged it with an infantile delight
into every gullet.
He inquired of Paul Bretigny: "Have you ever seen this little
operation?"
The other replied: "No, never."
"Come on then, my dear fellow--it is very curious."
They entered the shower-bath room, where M. Riquier, the brick-colored
man, who was this year trying the newly discovered springs, as he had
tried, every summer, every fresh station, was waiting in a wooden
armchair.
Like some executed criminal of olden times, he was squeezed and choked
up in a kind of straight waistcoat of oilcloth, which was intended to
preserve his clothes from stains and splashes; and he had the wretched,
restless, and pained look of patients on whom a surgeon is about to
operate.
As soon as the doctor appeared, the waiter took up a long tube, which
had three divisions near the middle, and which had the appearance of
a thin serpent with a double tail. Then the man fixed one of the
ends to the extremity of a little cock communicating with the spring.
The second was let fall into a glass receiver, into which would be
presently discharged the liquids rejected by the patient's stomach; and
the medical inspector, seizing with a steady hand the third arm of this
conduit-pipe, drew it, with an air of amiability, toward M. Riquier's
jaw, passed it into his mouth, and guiding it dexterously, slipped
it into his throat, driving it in more and more with the thumb and
index-finger, in a gracious and benevolent fashion, repeating:
"Very good! very good! very good! That will do, that will do; that will
do; that will do exactly!"
M. Riquier, with staring eyes, purple cheeks, lips covered with foam,
panted for breath, gasped as if he were suffocating, and had agonizing
fits of coughing; and, clutching the arms of the chair, he made
terrible efforts to get rid of that beastly india-rubber which was
penetrating into his body.
When he had swallowed about a foot and a half of it, the doctor said:
"We are at the bottom. Turn it on!"
The attendant thereupon turned on the cock, and soon the patient's
stomach became visibly swollen, having been filled up gradually with
the warm water of the spring.
"Cough," said the physician, "cough, in order to facilitate the
descent."
In place of coughing, the poor man had a rattling in the throat, and
shaken with convulsions, he looked as if his eyes were going to jump
out of his head.
Then suddenly a light gurgling could be heard on the ground close to
the armchair. The spout of the tube with the two passages had at last
begun to work; and the stomach now emptied itself into this glass
receiver where the doctor searched eagerly for the indications of
catarrh and the recognizable traces of imperfect digestion.
"You are not to eat any more green peas," said he, "or salad. Oh! no
salad! You cannot digest it at all. No more strawberries either! I have
already repeated to you ten times, no strawberries!"
M. Riquier seemed raging with anger. He excited himself now without
being able to utter a word on account of this tube, which stopped up
his throat. But when, the washing having been finished, the doctor had
delicately drawn out the probe from his interior, he exclaimed:
"Is it my fault if I am eating every day filth that ruins my health?
Isn't it you that should watch the meals supplied by your hotel-keeper?
I have come to your new cook-shop because they used to poison me at
the old one with abominable food, and I am worse than ever in your big
barrack of a Mont Oriol inn, upon my honor!"
The doctor had to appease him, and promised over and over again to have
the invalids' food at the _table d'hôte_ submitted beforehand to his
inspection. Then, he took Paul Bretigny's arm again, and said as he led
him away:
"Here are the extremely rational principles on which I have established
my special treatment by the self-moving gymnastics, which we are
going to inspect. You know my system of organometric medicine, don't
you? I maintain that a great portion of our maladies entirely proceed
from the excessive development of some one organ which encroaches on
a neighboring organ, impedes its functions, and, in a little while,
destroys the general harmony of the body, whence arise the most serious
disturbances.
"Now, the exercise is, along with the shower-bath and the thermal
treatment, one of the most powerful means of restoring the equilibrium
and bringing back the encroaching parts to their normal proportions.
"But how are we to determine the man to make the exercise? There is
not merely the act of walking, of mounting on horseback, of swimming
or rowing--a considerable physical effort. There is also and above
all a moral effort. It is the mind which determines, draws along, and
sustains the body. The men of energy are men of movement. Now energy is
in the soul and not in the muscles. The body obeys the vigorous will.
"It is not necessary to think, my dear friend, of giving courage to
the cowardly or resolution to the weak. But we can do something else,
we can do more--we can suppress mental energy, suppress moral effort
and leave only physical subsisting. This moral effort, I replace with
advantage by a foreign and purely mechanical force. Do you understand?
No, not very well. Let us go in."
He opened a door leading into a large apartment, in which were ranged
fantastic looking instruments, big armchairs with wooden legs, horses
made of rough deal, articulated boards, and movable bars stretched
in front of chairs fixed in the ground. And all these objects were
connected with complicated machinery, which was set in motion by
turning handles.
The doctor went on: "Look here. We have four principal kinds of
exercise. These are walking, equitation, swimming, and rowing. Each of
these exercises develops different members, acts in a special fashion.
Now, we have them here--the entire four--produced by artificial means.
All you have to do is to let yourself act, while thinking of nothing,
and you can run, mount on horseback, swim, or row for an hour, without
the mind taking any part--the slightest part in the world--in this
entirely muscular work."
At that moment, M. Aubry-Pasteur entered, followed by a man whose
tucked-up sleeves displayed the vigorous biceps on each arm. The
engineer was as fat as ever. He was walking with his legs spread Wide
apart and his arms held out from his body, While he panted for breath.
The doctor said: "You will understand by looking on at it yourself."
And addressing his patient: "Well, my dear Monsieur, what are we going
to do to-day? Walking or equitation?"
M. Aubry-Pasteur, who pressed Paul's hand, replied: "I would like a
little walking seated; that fatigues me less."
M. Latonne continued: "We have, in fact, walking seated and walking
erect. Walking erect, while more efficacious, is rather painful. I
procure it by means of pedals on which you mount and which set your
legs in motion while you maintain your equilibrium by clinging to
rings fastened to the wall. But here is an example of walking while
seated."
The engineer had fallen back into a rocking armchair, and he placed his
legs in the wooden legs with movable joints attached to this seat. His
thighs, calves, and ankles were strapped down in such a way that he was
unable to make any voluntary movement; then, the man with the tucked-up
sleeves, seizing the handle, turned it round with all his strength. The
armchair, at first, swayed to and fro like a hammock; then, suddenly,
the patient's legs went out, stretching forward and bending back,
advancing and returning, with extreme speed.
"He is running," said the doctor, who then gave the order: "Quietly! Go
at a walking pace."
The man, turning the handle more slowly, caused the fat engineer to
do the sitting walk in a more moderate fashion, which ludicrously
distorted all the movements of his body.
Two other patients next made their appearance, both of them enormous,
and followed also by two attendants with naked arms.
They were hoisted upon wooden horses, which, set in motion, began
immediately to jump along the room, shaking their riders in an
abominable manner.
"Gallop!" cried the doctor. And the artificial animals, rushing like
waves and capsizing like ships, fatigued the two patients so much that
they began to scream out together in a panting and pitiful tone:
"Enough! enough! I can't stand it any longer! Enough!"
The physician said in a tone of command: "Stop!" He then added: "Take
breath for a little while. You will go on again in five minutes."
Paul Bretigny, who was choking with suppressed laughter, drew attention
to the fact that the riders were not warm, while the handle-turners
were perspiring.
"If you inverted the rôles," said he, "would it not be better?"
The doctor gravely replied: "Oh! not at all, my dear friend. We must
not confound exercise and fatigue. The movement of the man who is
turning the wheel is injurious, while the movement of the walker or the
rider is beneficial."
But Paul noticed a lady's saddle.
"Yes," said the physician; "the evening is reserved for the other sex.
The men are no longer admitted after twelve o'clock. Come, then, and
look at the dry swimming."
A system of movable little boards screwed together at their ends and at
their centers, stretched out in lozenge-shape or closing into squares,
like that children's game which carries along soldiers who are spurred
on, permitted three swimmers to be garroted and mangled at the same
time.
The doctor said: "I need not extol to you the benefits of dry
swimming, which does not moisten the body except by perspiration, and
consequently does not expose our imaginary bather to any danger of
rheumatism."
But a waiter, with a card in his hand, came to look for the doctor.
"The Duc de Ramas, my dear friend. I must leave you. Excuse me."
Paul, left there alone, turned round. The two cavaliers were trotting
afresh. M. Aubry-Pasteur was walking still; and the three natives of
Auvergne, with their arms all but broken and their backs cracking with
thus shaking the patients on whom they were operating, were quite out
of breath. They looked as if they were grinding coffee.
When he had reached the open air, Bretigny saw Doctor Honorat watching,
along with his wife, the preparations for the _fête_. They began to
chat, gazing at the flags which crowned the hill with a kind of halo.
"Is it at the church the procession is to be formed?" the physician
asked his wife.
"It is at the church."
"At three o'clock?"
"At three o'clock."
"The professors will be there?"
"Yes, they will accompany the lady-sponsors."
The next persons to stop were the ladies Paille. Then, came the
Monecus, father and daughter. But as he was going to breakfast alone
with his friend Gontran at the Casino Café, he slowly made his way up
to it. Paul, who had arrived the night before, had not had an interview
with his comrade for the past month; and he was longing to tell him
many boulevard stories--stories about gay women and houses of pleasure.
They remained chattering away till half past two when Petrus Martel
came to inform them that people were on their way to the church.
"Let us go and look for Christiane," said Gontran.
"Let us go," returned Paul.
They found her standing on the steps of the new hotel. She had the
hollow cheeks and the swarthy complexion of pregnant women; and her
figure indicated a near accouchement.
"I was waiting for you," she said. "William is gone on before us. He
has so many things to do to-day."
She cast toward Paul Bretigny a glance full of tenderness, and took his
arm. They went quietly on their way, avoiding the stones.
She kept repeating: "How heavy I am! How heavy I am! I am no longer
able to walk. I am so much afraid of falling!"
He did not reply, and carefully held her up, without seeking to meet
her eyes which she turned toward him incessantly.
In front of the church, a dense crowd was awaiting them.
Andermatt cried: "At last! at last! Come, make haste. See, this is the
order: two choir-boys, two chanters in surplices, the cross, the holy
water, the priest, then Christiane with Professor Cloche, Mademoiselle
Louise with Professor Remusot, and Mademoiselle Charlotte with
Professor Mas-Roussel. Next come the members of the Board, the medical
body, then the public. This is understood. Forward!"
The ecclesiastical staff thereupon left the church, taking their places
at the head of the procession. Then a tall gentleman with white hair
brushed back over his ears, the typical "scientist," in accordance with
the academic form, approached Madame Andermatt, and saluted her with a
low bow.
When he had straightened himself up again, with his head uncovered, in
order to display his beautiful, scientific head, and his hat resting
on his thigh with an imposing air as if he had learned to walk at the
Comédie Française, and to show the people his rosette of officer of the
Legion of Honor, too big for a modest man.
He began to talk: "Your husband, Madame, has been speaking to me
about you just now, and about your condition which gives rise to some
affectionate disquietude. He has told me about your doubts and your
hesitations as to the probable moment of your delivery."
She reddened to the temples, and she murmured: "Yes, I believed that I
would be a mother a very long time before the event. Now I can't tell
either--I can't tell either----"
She faltered in a state of utter confusion.
A voice from behind them said: "This station has a very great future
before it. I have already obtained surprising effects."
It was Professor Remusot addressing his companion, Louise Oriol. This
gentleman was small, with yellow, unkempt hair, and a frock-coat badly
cut, the dirty look of a slovenly savant.
Professor Mas-Roussel, who gave his arm to Charlotte Oriol, was a
handsome physician, without beard or mustache, smiling, well-groomed,
hardly turning gray as yet, a little fleshy, and, with his smooth,
clean-shaven face, resembling neither a priest nor an actor, as was the
case with Doctor Latonne.
Next came the members of the Board, with Andermatt at their head, and
the tall hats of old Oriol and his son towering above them.
Behind them came another row of tall hats, the medical body of Enval,
among whom Doctor Bonnefille was not included, his place, indeed, being
taken by two new physicians, Doctor Black, a very short old man almost
a dwarf, whose excessive piety had surprised the whole district since
the day of his arrival; then a very good-looking young fellow, very
much given to flirtation, and wearing a small hat, Doctor Mazelli, an
Italian attached to the person of the Duc de Ramas--others said, to the
person of the Duchesse.
And behind them could be seen the public, a flood of people--bathers,
peasants, and inhabitants of the adjoining towns.
The ceremony of blessing the springs was very short. The Abbé Litre
sprinkled them one after the other with holy water, which made Doctor
Honorat say that he was going to give them new properties with chloride
of sodium. Then all the persons specially invited entered the large
reading-room, where a collation had been served.
Paul said to Gontran: "How pretty the little Oriol girls have become!"
"They are charming, my dear fellow."
"You have not seen M. le President?" suddenly inquired the ex-jailer
overseer.
"Yes, he is over there, in the corner."
"Père Clovis is gathering a big crowd in front of the door."
Already, while moving in the direction of the springs for the purpose
of having them blessed, the entire procession had filed off in front of
the old invalid, cured the year before, and now again more paralyzed
than ever. He would stop the visitors on the road and the last-comers
as a matter of choice, in order to tell them his story:
"These waters here, you see, are no good--they cure, 'tis true, but you
relapse again afterward, and after this relapse you're half a corpse.
As for me, my legs were better before, and here I am now with my arms
gone in consequence of the cure. And my legs, they're iron, but iron
that you have to cut before it bends."
Andermatt, filled with vexation, had tried to prosecute him in a court
of justice and to get him sent to jail for having depreciated the
waters of Mont Oriol and having attempted extortion. But he had not
succeeded in obtaining a conviction or in shutting the old fellow's
mouth.
The moment he was informed that the old vagabond was babbling before
the door of the establishment, he rushed out to make Clovis keep silent.
At the side of the highroad, in the center of an excited crowd, he
heard angry voices. People pressed forward to listen and to see. Some
ladies asked: "What is this?" Some men replied: "'Tis an invalid, whom
the waters here have finished." Others believed that an infant had just
been squashed. It was also said that a poor woman had got an attack of
epilepsy.
Andermatt broke through the crowd, as he knew how to do, by violently
pushing his little round stomach between the stomachs of other people.
"It proves," Gontran remarked, "the superiority of balls to points."
Père Clovis, sitting on the ditch, whined about his pains, recounted
his sufferings in a sniveling tone, while standing in front of him,
and separating him from the public, the Oriols, father and son,
exasperated, were hurling insults and threats at him as loudly as ever
they could.
"That's not true," cried Colosse. "This fellow is a liar, a sham, a
poacher, who runs all night through the wood."
But the old fellow, without getting excited, kept reiterating in a
high, piercing voice which was heard above the vociferations of the two
Oriols: "They've killed me, my good monchieus, they've killed me with
their water. They bathed me in it by force last year. And here I am at
this moment--here I am!"
Andermatt imposed silence on all, and stooping toward the impotent man,
said to him, looking into the depths of his eyes: "If you are worse, it
is your own fault, mind. If you listen to me, I undertake to cure you,
I do, with fifteen or twenty baths at most. Come and look me up at the
establishment in an hour, when the people have all gone away, my good
father. In the meantime, hold your tongue."
The old fellow had understood. He became silent, then, after a pause,
he answered: "I'm always willing to give it a fair trial. You'll see."
Andermatt caught the two Oriols by the arms and quickly dragged them
away; while Père Clovis remained stretched on the grass between his
crutches, at the side of the road, blinking his eyes under the rays of
the sun.
The puzzled crowd kept pressing round him. Some gentlemen questioned
him, but he did not reply, as though he had not heard or understood;
and as this curiosity, futile just now, ended by fatiguing him, he
began to sing, bareheaded, in a voice as false as it was shrill, an
interminable ditty in an unintelligible dialect.
The crowd ebbed away gradually. Only a few children remained standing
a long time in front of him, with their fingers in their noses,
contemplating him.
Christiane, exceedingly tired, had gone in to take a rest. Paul and
Gontran walked about through the new park in the midst of the visitors.
Suddenly they saw the company of players, who had also deserted the old
Casino, to attach themselves to the growing fortunes of the new.
Mademoiselle Odelin, who had become quite fashionable, was leaning
as she walked on the arm of her mother, who had assumed an air of
importance. M. Petitnivelle, of the Vaudeville, appeared very attentive
to these ladies, who followed M. Lapalme of the Grand Theater of
Bordeaux, arguing with the musicians just as of old, the _maestro_
Saint Landri, the pianist Javel, the flautist Noirot, and the
double-bass Nicordi.
On perceiving Paul and Gontran, Saint Landri rushed toward them. He
had, during the winter, got a very small musical composition performed
in a very small out-of-the-way theater; but the newspapers had spoken
of him with a certain favor, and he now treated Massenet, Beyer, and
Gounod contemptuously.
He stretched forth both hands with an outburst of friendly regard,
and immediately proceeded to repeat what he had been saying to those
gentlemen of the orchestra over whom he was the conductor.
"Yes, my dear friend, it is finished, finished, finished, the hackneyed
style of the old school. The melodists have had their day. This is
what people cannot understand. Music is a new art, melody is its first
lisping. The ignorant ear loves the burden of a song. It takes a
child's pleasure, a savage's pleasure in it. I may add that the ears
of the people or of the ingenuous public, the simple ears, will always
love little songs, airs, in a word. It is an amusement similar to that
in which the frequenters of _café_ concerts indulge. I am going to
make use of a comparison in order to make myself understood. The eye
of the rustic loves crude colors and glaring pictures; the eye of the
intelligent representative of the middle class who is not artistic
loves shades benevolently pretentious and affecting subjects; but the
artistic eye, the refined eye, loves, understands, and distinguishes
the imperceptible modulations of a single tone, the mysterious
harmonies of light touches invisible to most people.
"It is the same with literature. Doorkeepers like romances of
adventure, the middle class like novels which appeal to the feelings;
while the real lovers of literature care only for the artistic books
which are incomprehensible to the others. When an ordinary citizen
talks music to me I feel a longing to kill him. And when it is at the
opera, I ask him: 'Are you capable of telling me whether the third
violin has made a false note in the overture of the third act? No. Then
be silent. You have no ear. The man who does not understand, at the
same time, the whole and all the instruments separately in an orchestra
has no ear, and is no musician. There you are! Good night!'"
He turned round on his heel, and resumed: "For an artist all music is
in a chord. Ah! my friend, certain chords madden me, cause a flood of
inexpressible happiness to penetrate all my flesh. I have to-day an ear
so well exercised, so finished, so matured, that I end by liking even
certain false chords, just like a virtuoso whose fully-developed taste
amounts to a form of depravity. I am beginning to be a vitiated person
who seeks for extreme sensations of hearing. Yes, my friends, certain
false notes. What delights! What perverse and profound delights! How
this moves, how it shakes the nerves! how it scratches the ear--how it
scratches! how it scratches!"
He rubbed his hands together rapturously, and he hummed: "You shall
hear my opera--my opera--my opera. You shall hear my opera."
Gontran said: "You are composing an opera?"
"Yes, I have finished it." But the commanding voice of Petrus Martel
resounded:
"You understand perfectly! A yellow rocket, and off you go!"
He was giving orders for the fireworks. They joined him, and he
explained his arrangements by showing with his outstretched arm, as
if he were threatening a hostile fleet, stakes of white wood on the
mountain above the gorge, on the opposite side of the valley.
"It is over there that they are to be shot out. I told my pyrotechnist
to be at his post at half past eight. The very moment the spectacle is
over, I will give the signal from here by a yellow rocket, and then he
will illuminate the opening piece."
The Marquis made his appearance: "I am going to drink a glass of
water," he said.
Paul and Gontran accompanied him, and again descended the hill. On
reaching the establishment, they saw Père Clovis, who had got there,
sustained by the two Oriols, followed by Andermatt and by the doctor,
and making, every time he trailed his legs on the ground, contortions
suggestive of extreme pain.
"Let us go in," said Gontran, "this will be funny."
The paralytic was placed sitting in an armchair. Then Andermatt said to
him: "Here is what I propose, old cheat that you are. You are going to
be cured immediately by taking two baths a day. And the moment you walk
you'll have two hundred francs."
The paralytic began to groan: "My legs, they are iron, my good
Monchieu!"
Andermatt made him hold his tongue, and went on: "Now, listen! You
shall again have two hundred francs every year up to the time of your
death--you understand--up to the time of your death, if you continue to
experience the salutary effect of our waters."
The old fellow was in a state of perplexity. The continuous cure was
opposed to his plan of action. He asked in a hesitating tone: "But
when--when it is closed up--this box of yours--if this should take hold
of me again--I can do nothing then--I--seeing that it will be shut
up--your water----"
Doctor Latonne interrupted him, and, turning toward Andermatt, said:
"Excellent! excellent! We'll cure him every year. This will be
even better, and will show the necessity of annual treatment, the
indispensability of returning hither. Excellent--this is perfectly
clear!"
But the old man repeated afresh: "It will not suit this time, my good
Monchieu. My legs, they're iron, iron in bars."
A new idea sprang up in the doctor's mind: "If I got him to try a
course of seated walking," he said, "I might hasten the effect of the
waters considerably. It is an experiment worth trying."
"Excellent idea," returned Andermatt, adding: "Now, Père Clovis, take
yourself off, and don't forget our agreement."
The old fellow went away still groaning; and, when evening came on,
all the directors of Mont Oriol came back to dine, for the theatrical
representation was announced to take place at half past seven.
The great hall of the new Casino was the place where they were to dine.
It was capable of holding a thousand persons.
At seven o'clock the visitors who had not numbered seats presented
themselves. At half past seven the hall was filled, and the curtain was
raised for the performance of a vaudeville in two acts, which preceded
Saint Landri's operetta, interpreted by vocalists from Vichy, who had
given their services for the occasion.
Christiane in the front row, between her brother and her husband,
suffered a great deal from the heat. Every moment she repeated: "I feel
quite exhausted! I feel quite exhausted!"
After the vaudeville, as the operetta was opening, she was becoming
ill, and turning round to her husband, said: "My dear Will, I shall
have to leave. I am suffocating!"
The banker was annoyed. He was desirous above everything in the world
that this _fête_ should be a success, from start to finish, without a
single hitch. He replied:
"Make every effort to hold out. I beg of you to do so! Your departure
would upset everything. You would have to pass through the entire hall!"
But Gontran, who was sitting along with Paul behind her, had overheard.
He leaned toward his sister: "You are too warm?" said he.
"Yes, I am suffocating."
"Good. Stay! You are going to have a laugh."
There was a window near. He slipped toward it, got upon a chair, and
jumped out without attracting hardly any notice. Then he entered the
_café_, which was perfectly empty, stretched his hand out under the
bar where he had seen Petrus Martel conceal the signal-rocket, and,
having filched it, he ran off to hide himself under a group of trees,
and then set it on fire. The swift yellow sheaf flew up toward the
clouds, describing a curve, and casting across the sky a long shower
of flame-drops. Almost instantaneously a terrible detonation burst
forth over the neighboring mountain, and a cluster of stars sent flying
sparks through the darkness of the night.
Somebody exclaimed in the hall where the spectators were gathered, and
where at the moment Saint Landri's chords were quivering: "They're
letting off the fireworks!"
The spectators who were nearest to the door abruptly rose to their feet
to make sure about it, and went out with light steps. All the rest
turned their eyes toward the windows, but saw nothing, for they were
looking at the Limagne. People kept asking: "Is it true? Is it true?"
The impatient assembly got excited, hungering above everything for
simple amusements. A voice from outside announced: "It is true! The
firework's are let off!"
Then, in a second everyone in the hall was standing up. They rushed
toward the door; they jostled against each other; they yelled at those
who obstructed their egress: "Hurry on! hurry on!"
The entire audience, in a short time, had emerged into the park. Saint
Landri alone, in a state of exasperation continued beating time in
front of his distracted orchestra. Meanwhile, fiery suns succeeded
Roman candles in the midst of detonations.
Suddenly, a formidable voice sent forth thrice this wild exclamation:
"Stop, in God's name! Stop, in God's name! Stop, in God's name!"
And, as an immense Bengal fire next illuminated the mountain and
lighted up in red to the right and blue to the left, the enormous rocks
and trees, Petrus Martel could be seen standing on one of the vases of
imitation marble that decorated the terrace of the Casino, bareheaded,
with his arms in the air, gesticulating and howling.
Then, the great illumination being extinguished, nothing could be seen
any longer save the real stars. But immediately another rocket shot up,
and Petrus Martel, jumping on the ground, exclaimed: "What a disaster!
what a disaster! My God, what a disaster!"
And he passed through the crowd with tragic gestures, with blows of his
fist in the empty air, furious stampings of his feet, always repeating:
"What a disaster! My God, what a disaster!"
Christiane had taken Paul's arm to get a seat in the open air, and kept
looking with delight at the rockets which ascended into the sky.
Her brother came up to her suddenly, and said: "Hey, is it a success?
Do you think it is funny?"
She murmured: "What, it is you?"
"Why, yes, it is I. Is it good, hey?"
She began to laugh, finding it really amusing. But Andermatt arrived in
a state of great mental distress. He did not understand how such a blow
could have come. The rocket had been stolen from the bar to give the
signal agreed upon. Such an infamy could only have been perpetrated by
some emissary of the old Company, some agent of Doctor Bonnefille!
And he repeated: "'Tis maddening, positively maddening. Here are
fireworks worth two thousand three hundred francs destroyed, entirely
destroyed!"
Gontran replied: "No, my dear fellow, on a proper calculation, the loss
does not mount up to more than a quarter; let us put it at a third, if
you like; say seven hundred and sixty-six francs. Your guests will,
therefore, have enjoyed fifteen hundred and thirty-four francs' worth
of rockets. This truly is not bad."
The banker's anger turned against his brother-in-law. He caught him
roughly by the arm: "Gontran, I want to talk seriously to you. Since I
have a hold of you, let us take a turn in the walks. Besides, I have
five minutes to spare."
Then, turning toward Christiane: "I place you in charge of our friend
Bretigny, my dear; but don't remain a long time out--take care of
yourself. You might catch cold, you know. Be careful! be careful!"
She murmured: "Never fear, dear."
So Andermatt carried off Gontran. When they were alone, at a little
distance from the crowd, the banker stopped: "My dear fellow, 'tis
about your financial position that I want to talk."
"About my financial position?"
"Yes, you know it well, your financial position."
"No. But you ought to know it for me, since you lent money to me."
"Well, yes, I do know it, and 'tis for that reason I want to talk to
you."
"It seems to me, to say the least of it, that the moment is ill
chosen--in the midst of a display of fireworks!"
"The moment, on the contrary, is very well chosen. I am not talking to
you in the midst of a display of fireworks, but before a ball."
"Before a ball? I don't understand."
"Well, you are going to understand. Here is your position: you have
nothing except debts; and you'll never have anything but debts."
Gontran gravely replied: "You tell me that a little bluntly."
"Yes, because it is necessary. Listen to me! You have eaten up the
share which came to you as a fortune from your mother. Let us say no
more about that."
"Let us say no more about it."
"As for your father, he possesses a yearly income of thirty thousand
francs, say, a capital of about eight hundred thousand francs. Your
share, later on, will, therefore, be four hundred thousand francs. Now
you owe me--me, personally--one hundred and ninety thousand francs. You
owe money besides to usurers."
Gontran muttered in a haughty tone: "Say, to Jews."
"Be it so, to Jews, although among the number there is a churchwarden
from Saint Sulpice who made use of a priest as an intermediary between
himself and you--but I will not cavil about such trifles. You owe,
then, to various usurers, Israelites or Catholics, nearly as much. Let
us put it at a hundred and fifty thousand at the lowest estimate. This
makes a total of three hundred and forty thousand francs, on which you
are paying interest, always borrowing, except with regard to mine,
which you do not pay."
"That's right," said Gontran.
"So then, you have nothing more left."
"Nothing, indeed--except my brother-in-law."
"Except your brother-in-law, who has had enough of lending money to
you."
"What then?"
"What then, my dear fellow? The poorest peasant living in one of these
huts is richer than you."
"Exactly--and next?"
"Next--next--? If your father were to die tomorrow, you would no longer
have any resource to get bread--to get bread, mind you--except to take
a post as a clerk in my house. And this again would only be a means of
disguising the pension which I should be allowing you."
Gontran, in a tone of irritation, said: "My dear William, these things
bore me. I know them, besides, just as well as you do, and, I repeat,
the moment is ill chosen to remind me about them--with--with so little
diplomacy."
"Allow me, let me finish. You can only extricate yourself from it by a
marriage. Now, you are a wretched match, in spite of your name, which
sounds well without being illustrious. In short, it is not one of those
which an heiress, even a Jewish one, buys with a fortune. Therefore, we
must find you a wife acceptable and rich--which is not very easy----"
Gontran interrupted him: "Give her name at once--that is the best way."
"Be it so--one of Père Oriol's daughters, whichever you prefer. And
this is why I wanted to talk to you before the ball."
"And now explain yourself at greater length," returned Gontran, coldly.
"It is very simple. You see the success I have obtained at the start
with this station. Now if I had in my hands, or rather if we had in our
hands all the land which this cunning peasant has kept for himself,
I could turn it into gold. To speak only of the vineyards which lie
between the establishment and the hotel and between the hotel and the
Casino, I would pay a million francs for them to-morrow--I, Andermatt.
Now, these vineyards and others all round the knoll will be the dowries
of these girls. The father told me so again a short time since, not
without an object, perhaps. Well, if you were willing, we could do a
big stroke of business there, the two of us."
Gontran muttered, with a thoughtful air: "'Tis possible. I'll think
over it."
"Do think over it, my dear boy, and don't forget that I never speak of
things that are not very sure, or without having given matters every
consideration, and realized all the possible consequences and all the
decided advantages."
But Gontran, lifting up his arm, as if he had suddenly forgotten all
that his brother-in-law had been saying to him: "Look! How beautiful
that is!"
The bunch of rockets flamed up, in imitation of a burning palace on
which a blazing flag had inscribed on it "Mont Oriol" in letters of
fire perfectly red and, right opposite to it, above the plain, the
moon, red also, seemed to have come out to contemplate this spectacle.
Then, when the palace, after it had been burning for some minutes,
exploded like a ship which is blown up, flinging toward the wide
heavens fantastic stars which burst in their turn, the moon remained
all alone, calm and round, on the horizon.
The public applauded wildly, exclaiming: "Hurrah! Bravo! bravo!"
Andermatt, all of a sudden, said: "Let us go and open the ball, my dear
boy. Are you willing to dance the first quadrille face to face with me?"
"Why, certainly, my dear brother-in-law."
"Who have you thought of asking to dance with you? As for me, I have
bespoken the Duchesse de Ramas."
Gontran answered in a tone of indifference: "I will ask Charlotte
Oriol."
They reascended. As they passed in front of the spot where Christiane
was resting with Paul Bretigny, they did not notice the pair. William
murmured: "She has followed my advice. She went home to go to bed. She
was quite tired out to-day." And he advanced toward the ballroom which
the attendants had been getting ready during the fireworks.
But Christiane had not returned to her room, as her husband supposed.
As soon as she realized that she was alone with Paul she said to him in
a very low tone, while she pressed his hand:
"So then you came. I was waiting for you for the past month. Every
morning I kept asking myself, 'Shall I see him to-day?' and every night
I kept saying to myself, 'It will be to-morrow then.' Why have you
delayed so long, my love?"
He replied with some embarrassment: "I had matters to engage my
attention--business."
She leaned toward him, murmuring: "It was not right to leave me here
alone with them, especially in my state."
He moved his chair a little away from her.
"Be careful! We might be seen. These rockets light up the whole country
around."
She scarcely bestowed a thought on it; she said: "I love you so much!"
Then, with sudden starts of joy: "Ah! how happy I feel, how happy I
feel at finding that we are once more together, here! Are you thinking
about it? What joy, Paul! How we are going to love one another again!"
She sighed, and her voice was so weak that it seemed a mere breath.
"I feel a foolish longing to embrace you, but it is
foolish--there!--foolish. It is such a long time since I saw you!"
Then, suddenly, with the fierce energy of an impassioned woman, to whom
everything should give way: "Listen! I want--you understand--I want to
go with you immediately to the place where we said adieu to one another
last year! You remember well, on the road from La Roche Pradière?"
He replied, stupefied: "But this is senseless! You cannot walk farther.
You have been standing all day. This is senseless; I will not allow it."
She had risen to her feet, and she said: "I am determined on it! If you
do not accompany me, I'll go alone!"
And pointing out to him the moon which had risen: "See here! It was an
evening just like this! Do you remember how you kissed my shadow?"
He held her back: "Christiane--listen--this is ridiculous--Christiane!"
She did not reply, and walked toward the descent leading to the
vineyards. He knew that calm will which nothing could divert from its
purpose, the graceful obstinacy of these blue eyes, of that little
forehead of a fair woman that could not be stopped; and he took her arm
to sustain her on her way.
"Supposing we are seen, Christiane?"
"You did not say that to me last year. And then, everyone is at the
_fête_. We'll be back before our absence can be noticed."
It was soon necessary to ascend by the stony path. She panted, leaning
with her whole weight on him, and at every step she said:
"It is good, it is good, to suffer thus!"
He stopped, wishing to bring her back. But she would not listen to him.
"No, no. I am happy. You don't understand this, you. Listen! I feel
it leaping in me--our child--your child--what happiness. Give me your
hand."
She did not realize that he--this man--was one of the race of lovers
who are not of the race of fathers. Since he discovered that she was
pregnant, he kept away from her, and was disgusted with her, in spite
of himself. He had often in bygone days said that a woman who has
performed the function of reproduction is no longer worthy of love.
What raised him to a high pitch of tenderness was that soaring of two
hearts toward an inaccessible ideal, that entwining of two souls which
are immaterial--all those artificial and unreal elements which poets
have associated with this passion. In the physical woman he adored
the Venus whose sacred side must always preserve the pure form of
sterility. The idea of a little creature which owed its birth to him, a
human larva stirring in that body defiled by it and already grown ugly,
inspired him with an almost unconquerable repugnance. Maternity had
made this woman a brute. She was no longer the exceptional being adored
and dreamed about, but the animal that reproduces its species. And even
a material disgust was mingled in him with these loathings of his mind.
How could she have felt or divined this--she whom each movement of the
child she yearned for attached the more closely to her lover? This man
whom she adored, whom she had every day loved a little more since the
moment of their first kiss, had not only penetrated to the bottom of
her heart, but had given her the proof that he had also entered into
the very depths of her flesh, that he had sown his own life there, that
he was going to come forth from her, again becoming quite small. Yes,
she carried him there under her crossed hands, himself, her good, her
dear, her tenderly beloved one, springing up again in her womb by the
mystery of nature. And she loved him doubly, now that she had him in
two forms--the big, and the little one as yet unknown, the one whom she
saw, touched, embraced, and could hear speaking to her, and the one
whom she could up to this only feel stirring under her skin. They had
by this time reached the road.
"You were waiting for me over there that evening," said she. And she
held her lips out to him.
He kissed them, without replying, with a cold kiss.
She murmured for the second time: "Do you remember how you embraced me
on the ground. We were like this--look!"
And in the hope that he would begin it all over again she commenced
running to get some distance away from him. Then she stopped, out of
breath, and waited, standing in the middle of the road. But the moon,
which lengthened out her profile on the ground, traced there the
protuberance of her swollen figure. And Paul, beholding at his feet
the shadow of her pregnancy, remained unmoved at sight of it, wounded
in his poetic sense with shame, exasperated that she was not able to
share his feelings or divine his thoughts, that she had not sufficient
coquetry, tact, and feminine delicacy to understand all the shade
which give such a different complexion to circumstances; and he said to
her with impatience in his voice:
"Look here, Christiane! This child's play is ridiculous."
She came back to him moved, saddened, with outstretched arms, and,
flinging herself on his breast:
"Ah! you love me less. I feel it! I am sure of it!"
He took pity on her, and, encircling her head with his arms, he
imprinted two long sweet kisses on her eyes.
Then in silence they retraced their steps. He could find nothing to say
to her; and, as she leaned on him, exhausted by fatigue, he quickened
his pace so that he might no longer feel against his side the touch of
this enlarged figure. When they were near the hotel, they separated,
and she went up to her own apartment.
The orchestra at the Casino was playing dance-music; and Paul went to
look at the ball. It was a waltz; and they were all waltzing--Doctor
Latonne with the younger Madame Paille, Andermatt with Louise Oriol,
handsome Doctor Mazelli with the Duchesse de Ramas, and Gontran with
Charlotte Oriol. He was whispering in her ear in that tender fashion
which denotes a courtship begun; and she was smiling behind her fan,
blushing, and apparently delighted.
Paul heard a voice saying behind him: "Look here! look here at M. de
Ravenel whispering gallantries to my fair patient."
He added, after a pause: "And there is a pearl, good, gay, simple,
devoted, upright, you know, an excellent creature. She is worth ten
of the elder sister. I have known them since their childhood--these
little girls. And yet the father prefers the elder one, because
she is more--more like him--more of a peasant--less upright--more
thrifty--more cunning--and more--more jealous. Ah! she is a good girl,
all the same. I would not like to say anything bad of her; but, in
spite of myself, I compare them, you understand--and, after having
compared them, I judge them--there you are!"
The waltz was coming to an end; Gontran went to join his friend, and,
perceiving the doctor:
"Ah! tell me now--there appears to me to be a remarkable increase in
the medical body at Enval. We have a Doctor Mazelli who waltzes to
perfection and an old little Doctor Black who seems on very good terms
with Heaven."
But Doctor Honorat was discreet. He did not like to sit in judgment on
his professional brethren.