M. Cyprien Raindal lived on the sixth floor of an old house that stood
at the corner of the rue Vavin and the rue d'Assas, in an apartment made
up of two large rooms, the windows of which gave him a limitless vista
over the yoke-elm trees of the Luxemburg. He was a thick-set, sanguine
man, about forty-five years old, and wore his hair close-cropped, like
soldiers in the African colonies. By temperament he was irritable and
rebellious. As early as 1860 his elder brother had secured him a place
in the Ministry of Industry, from which, however, had it not been for
the same powerful intervention of Eusèbe Raindal, he would several times
have been dismissed.
Born at the unfortunate period of their father's life, when M. Raindal
had been put out of the University for being an accomplice of Barbès and
was reduced to coaching at two francs a lesson, it seemed as if the son
had inherited a taste for political opposition. He had detested in turn
each government which his functions compelled him to serve, the second
empire, M. Thiers, the Seize-Mai, and the subsequent rule of
"opportunism." Finally, in 1889, when the trunks of General Boulanger
were seized, a card bearing Cyprien's name was found therein upon which
he had written the cordial exhortation, "Bravo, general! Forward! The
whole country stands with you!"
Cyprien Raindal was on the eve of being promoted; but called to the
office of the Minister, his lips already shaping words of gratitude, he
received instead the notification of his dismissal. The blow struck him
as he was breathing the very spirit of peace; it was like an unexpected
insult, like a blow upon the cheek that had been offered for a kiss.
Murmuring threats and words of rage, he had returned to his desk, and
then had rushed out to order new visiting-cards, on which appeared under
his name, _ancien sous-chef de bureau au Ministère de l'Industrie_, and
one of these he had himself nailed up on the door of his apartment. But
his vengeance had stopped there. The official mind within him forbade
his persisting in what was almost the usurpation of a title, and he
finally decided to burn the rest of the deceptive cards. Moreover, in
spite of the affair, his brother was endeavoring to secure him the
benefit of his pension,--three thousand francs, without which he would
have been plunged into the most undignified misery. He waited, holding
himself in check for a few weeks, and only began to express himself with
freedom when his pension had been officially liquidated.
When that was done, however, the fury of his opinions and the violence
of his language burst forth terribly, like explosives that have been too
long compressed. Thirty years of exasperation, hitherto repressed by
the necessity of existing and the fear of his superiors, rushed out
through his lips in avalanches that seemed to be inexhaustible. He
wished at first to reduce his hatred to a formula, to justify his
discontent with some sort of principles, and he inclined towards
socialism. Unfortunately, however, he was lost in questions of capital
and wages; statistics bored him and political economy upset him with its
systems, which were always either unstable or denied by rival experts.
By taste, if not by conviction, he was bourgeois; by education he was,
like his brother, non-religious; by force of habit he was a waster of
red-tape. What he needed was a more human and less subversive doctrine,
theories easy to master, morality rather than figures, and sentiment
rather than deduction.
Thus, gradually and by himself, he had built up a social creed which
allowed him elbow room, as would a suit of clothes made to order. Firmly
persuaded that he was the victim of injustice, he longed to see justice
enthroned. The punishment of evildoers, the death or exile of the
thieves, a general return to honest life and the crushing of
iniquity--these he wished to see in the first place. Later? Well, one
would see about the rest. Let the people obtain that much purification,
and they would settle the remainder in the best way possible. M.
Raindal, junior, was not one of those swaggering dreamers who promise to
destroy and rebuild society as if it were the hut of a road-mender. He
knew how powerful was tradition, how necessary the family, and he
appreciated the indispensable charm of freedom. Before doing away with
that, let Frenchmen think about clearing the country from the vermin
that infested it. If the chance offered itself, Uncle Cyprien would not
refuse his help. He declared himself ready to go with them any day that
the "comrades" would proceed en masse to seize in their own mansions the
prevaricators, the Jews, and the pillars of the church whose coalition
kept down France as with a three-pronged fork. It was his own
comparison, and he repeated it readily with much bragging about getting
his head broken and breaking the heads of many others.
His reading of the newspapers of the opposition had thoroughly fitted
him for a place in the ranks of those sincere justice-lovers whom the
death of the rebel general had left without a head but not without a
hope. Instinctively he turned towards the pamphleteers who denounced the
enemies of the weak or supported the victims against their oppressors.
By a curious anomaly he had in turn discovered within himself all the
hatreds, no matter how incongruous, with which these masters stirred up
the flames. Rochefort had helped him to find in his heart the hatred of
all politicians; with Paul Bert or his disciples he had discerned in
himself a hatred for the priests and all devout Catholics; with Drumont,
hatred for Jews and exotics. He was always reading the articles and the
books of these pamphleteers and could quote whole passages from memory.
His conversation showed this; it was discordant with the most diverse
insults. The words _chequard_ (grafter), _repu_ (bloated), _panamist_
(one compromised in the Panama scandals), _calotin_ (priest-ridden),
_cafard_ (canting rascal), _ratichon_ (bigot), joined to those of
_youtre_ (Jew), _youpin_ (Jew), or _rasta_ (short for _rastaquouère_ and
meaning an exotic mongrel or Levantine) vibrated all at once like the
"sustained bass" of his indignations. His virulence when he discussed
sociology in the presence of strangers was a cause of deep grievance to
his family.
When he heard the bell of his apartment he jumped from the little green
rep-covered couch where he was dozing and, slightly limping and holding
his back with one hand, he opened the door. A smile lit his face the
moment he recognized M. Raindal.
"I am very glad to see you!" exclaimed Cyprien, after the two brothers
had kissed as usual. "Come this way.... I had so many things to read to
you...."
"And how are you?" asked M. Raindal, as he followed him. "How do you
feel now? Are you coming to dine to-night?"
"Why, yes, indeed; I shall certainly come." And, entering the room in
which he used to receive, Cyprien affectionately laid his hand on his
brother's shoulder and said, "Now, sit down and listen to this."
Hastily he began a search among the newspapers which littered his
couch. They were unfolded, crumpled or piled up so that only odd letters
from their large titles could be seen. All those scattered newspapers
were a sick man's debauch, a fond indulgence--a luxury, a treat he
offered himself when he was kept at home by rheumatism. Otherwise he
only read the papers at the café or at the brasserie, and in small
doses--perhaps two or three aggressive sheets, which gave a delightful
sensation of warmth to his brain after lunch, as the small glass of
cognac he usually took burned his throat. When at last he had sorted
them and found the three which he sought he flourished them with a
rattling noise.
"Here is something!" he said. "Rich and delightful!... Enough to amuse
me and to make you swell with pride.... First of all, of course, what
amuses me...."
He read the first article in victorious tones. In discreet but pitiless
terms the writer announced as imminent the arrest of a senator, an
ex-minister and deputy, well-known for his intrigues, his accommodating
complacency towards the banking interests and his clerical tendencies;
and the government was congratulated for that forthcoming show of
energy.
"You see," Uncle Cyprien said, when he had finished reading, "I don't
know who it is.... I thought about it for hours.... I couldn't find the
name ... and yet, I must admit the news caused me to pass a very
pleasant day.... It is high time that all those scoundrels were swept
out.... One more in jail! I score one!..." He smiled at his own
merriment and added, with his two hands on his knees:
"Well, what do you think about it? It is getting serious! All these
rotten gatherings are bursting open!"
M. Raindal hesitated. He wished to avoid controversy or, at least, to
adjourn it and to thrash the matter out only after his brother had read
the other articles. Trained by his profession and by personal
inclination to consider things through the immensity of time, in the
infinite span of past and future centuries, he was not so much
indifferent to his own time as disdainful of it. Whenever his brother
goaded him into discussing politics he felt more scared and ill at ease
than if he had had to argue upon a matter of taboo with a savage chief
of Polynesia in the latter's own language.
"Of course! To be sure!..." he declared. "We are living in a troubled
period.... There are many abuses.... How can it be helped?... Concussion
is the plague of democracies.... Polybius said so...."
"Ah, leave me alone with your Polybius!" Uncle Cyprien interrupted,
shaking his head as if to disentangle himself from his brother's
aphorisms. "Why not simply tell me that we are governed by rogues?... It
will be truer and quicker...."
Then he felt somewhat ashamed of having thus chided his illustrious
elder brother whom he worshiped in the depths of his tormented soul.
"Oh, well, don't get angry.... It's your fault, after all.... You get on
my nerves with your vague, high-sounding sentences.... See, to earn my
forgiveness ... the portrait of M. Eusèbe Raindal, the man of the day,
the family's standard, the glory of the French Egyptology, with the
history of his life from the most remote times to our own days! Tara!
Tara! Ta-ta-ta-ta!..." He gave his brother the second newspaper and
marched round the room sounding through his rounded fingers a triumphal
march, as in the days gone by, at the office, he had celebrated the
success of some colleague.
M. Raindal's eyes stared at the paper which his long-sightedness
compelled him to hold at arm's length.
Yes, that coarse-printed, ill-reproduced portrait, that was himself, his
own strong nose, his white beard and benevolent face--a true senator's
face, as uncle Cyprien assured him.
Below his biography were spread out dates and yet more dates, all the
titles of his books, one after the other, giving no more inkling of his
life, his ideas, the joys and sorrows of his manhood than the milestones
on the road or the posts at the crossings give one any idea of the
places one goes through. To him, however, these dry figures and words
were as alive as his own human flesh. His lips trembled in a nervous
smile. Vanity overflowed from his heart to his face. He blushed with
shame as if he felt directed towards him the stares of the crowd which,
this very day, was looking at his features. However, his innate sense of
propriety caused him to collect himself, and he said calmly:
"Entirely correct! I am much obliged to you. I'll carry it home...."
He rose to take his leave. A gesture from Cyprien caused him to resume
his seat.
"Wait! Wait!... That's not all. Now comes the unpleasant part!... You
are insulted in the _Fléau_, a filthy rag written by _calotins_ and read
by all the rich Jews.... Here, listen to this!... It is awful!"
Cyprien began to read in a voice that trembled with sarcasm but even
more with anger:
ACADEMIC INDISCRETIONS
The commission that is to bestow the Vital-Gerbert prize of fifteen
thousand francs upon the best history book of the year will shortly
meet at the French Academy. If one is to believe the rumors, the
fight will be a hot one as there are several candidates. We are
assured that one of them is M. Eusèbe Raindal, of the Institute,
the author of that _Life of Cleopatra_ which a certain section of
the press has much boomed within the last month. M. Raindal's
candidacy, however, meets with serious opposition in academic
circles. Several members consider the success of his book to be
largely due to the obscene details which abound in it and which
have attracted a special class of readers. Without desiring in any
way to prejudice this delicate controversy, we are nevertheless
compelled to admit that this book is one of the most immoral
productions which have for a long time been published by a member
of the Institute. The footnotes especially, although written in
Latin, show signs of a revolting indecency. The author may claim in
his defense that he has merely translated Egyptian pamphlets of the
period and that, moreover, he has translated them only into Latin.
It is nevertheless a fact that, wittingly or otherwise, he has
given publicity to a mass of veritable filth. We know that history
has its rights and the historian his duties. But M. Raindal will
have some difficulty in establishing that it was his duty as a
historian to show us Cleopatra coughing out disgusting words in the
most abject surrenders of her love-making or going one better in
the shameless expressions of debauchery than a female Nero. We
think it is for other works, that treat of wider questions, and
from a social and lofty point of view, that the academic prizes
should be reserved. The "Immortals" of the Academy must decide
whether we are right or wrong. To prove our contention they have
this year only the difficulty of selection.
Cyprien kneaded the paper into a ball and threw it on the floor.
"Well," he concluded, "a pretty savage attack!... It has no importance
whatsoever since, as I told you, only Jews read this letter.... However,
if you were to authorize me, I should be very glad to go and pull the
ears of the sneak who let his pen...."
M. Raindal's face had grown pale with suffering as his brother had
proceeded with his reading. He lifted his hand with a philosophical
gesture and murmured in a voice that he had not yet steadied:
"No use.... These are the little come-backs of fame.... And then, I know
the source!"
"Who?"
"I am sure that it was inspired, if not written, by my colleague and
competitor Saulvard.... Lemeunier de Saulvard, of the Sciences
Morales.... I recognize his hand.... He wants the prize for his _History
of the Freed Men in the Roman Empire_.... I am in his way.... He gets
someone to vilify me.... It is a classical method.... One can only be
sorry for the wretch and smile...."
M. Raindal gave a painful smile, but his throat was obstructed by that
rage, like bitter gall, which one feels under patent injustice. He spat
out the word:
"Obscene!"
He paused awhile, then, his voice relieved, he repeated:
"Obscene!... No, I had never heard that in the course of my career; yet
I have seen much jealousy, smallness of mind and calumny among members
of my profession.... If you knew what sewers run under what is called
the pure regions of science!... And the filth that is poured down in
them! Obscene!... After a career like mine!... The scoundrels!"
He laughed disdainfully.
"Ha! ha!... To call a man obscene who led an almost pure, blameless
youth!... A man who has worked twelve hours a day for the last forty
years.... It is all they have found.... See! I am laughing!... It is too
amusing! It is too funny for words!"
His brother Cyprien remained silent so as to allow full swing to this
revolt, the vehemence of which was a delight to his own instincts. He
pressed his brother's hand.
"That's right! That's the way to speak.... I can see you are a true
Raindal. You do not like to be goaded.... You kick.... That's right! I
hope when you meet that person...."
"I am seeing him to-night," M. Raindal said, putting a sudden damper on
his eagerness.
"To-night?" the ex-official muttered with surprise. "How?... Where?..."
"At his house.... He is giving a dance...."
"And you are going?"
"Well, yes!... A marriage for Thérèse.... A young man, a young savant,
is to be introduced to us."
Cyprien laid a hand on the polished dome of his head and said dreamily:
"Ah! ah! A match for my nephew." (He always called Thérèse his nephew
because of her masculine ways.) "Good! That is a reason.... Well, I have
an idea that my nephew will not accept that young savant.... However,
you are right; one has to see.... But be cautious! Your Saulvard seems
to me utterly worthless ... and I would not be inclined to trust
anything that came from that quarter...."
M. Raindal rose to his feet.
"Don't worry. I shall look out.... Besides, you are wrong.... When his
ambitions are not concerned Saulvard is not such a bad fellow...."
Cyprien whistled incredulously:
"Phew!... That may be.... Well, see you later ... seven o'clock."
And he accompanied his brother to the top of the steps.
The lamp-posts were lit outside when M. Raindal reached his home in the
rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.
Rapidly he put on his brown smoking-jacket and his felt slippers, and
passed quietly through the dark hall towards his study. Two large
rectangular oak tables, face to face as in a bank, almost filled the
room. Thérèse was sitting at one of them, writing by the light of an oil
lamp. The green cardboard shade threw back on her the crude light which
her bowed forehead reflected in spots.
"Already at work!" M. Raindal exclaimed.
He took her head between his two hands as one does with a little girl
and kissed her with a recrudescent selfish tenderness, with that need
for a closer contact which those who are dear to us inspire after we
have suffered from the wickedness of others.
She released herself with a smile, and said gently:
"Let me alone, father!... I am reading the proofs of your article for
_La Revue_. They are coming for them at 5.30. You can see that there is
no time to lose."
"Quite right! I obey," M. Raindal said.
He sat facing her at the other table and took up some papers on which he
began to make notes. Everything was dark about the room with the
exception of a few golden threads shining in the texture of the gold
curtains and the thin yellow circle which the lamp threw on the ceiling.
The only sounds were the somewhat halting breathing of M. Raindal, the
crackling of the coke in the fireplace, and now and then a neighboring
bell giving out at long intervals a few isolated, mournful sounds.
Suddenly the master exclaimed:
"What about your mother?... Has she come home yet?"
"No," Thérèse replied, "but she will not be long.... She cannot be much
longer."
And without ceasing to write, she added with a slight touch of sarcasm:
"It seemed to me.... No, I ought not to tell you.... Well, since I have
begun, let it go!... I thought before I came in that I saw Mother
entering the Church of St. Germain-des-Prés!"
"Again!" M. Raindal murmured with a tone of commiseration.... "That is
at least the second time since this morning.... It is deplorable!"
Thérèse smiled and looked at her father.
"What can you expect?... It makes her happy and soothes her!"
M. Raindal made a melancholy grimace.
He, a philosophical and contemptuous atheist, whose only faith was in
science, whom religious faith, even on the part of his friends,
irritated as a proof of lack of understanding--had he not done
everything he could in the past to bring to his wife that calm
happiness which he enjoyed? If Mme. Raindal had not forgotten, she
better than anyone else could testify to the patience and abnegation
with which he had done so!...
It had been an unpleasant surprise. Mlle. Desjannières was so gay and
merry, so childish, despite her twenty years; her father, a Marseilles
barrister, who had chanced to seek his fortune in Egypt, was such a
brilliant talker, such a good fellow, a singer of such catchy tunes! No
one could have suspected the secret fervor at work in the mind of the
girl. Well, M. Raindal had not minded because he was in love with his
fiancée. He would take care of her, cure her of it! On the very day that
had followed their wedding in Alexandria, and later in Paris where they
had settled, he had begun the cure and pursued it methodically. Every
day he had discussed it with his wife for hours, preached to her and
reasoned with her. She had lent herself willingly to the régime and
tried in her tenderness to surmount her fears. After three months, one
morning, she threw herself on her knees before her husband, weeping and
crying for mercy. She begged him to put a stop to the martyrdom, to let
her return to the confessional. In presence of her affliction, M.
Raindal had been compelled to agree.
She was moved by a superhuman force, an unconquerable fear, the dread of
the punishments which follow sin. An old Provençal maid, a kind of
Domestic Dante, had inoculated her when she was quite young with the
germs of the sickness. In the evenings she had described to her, as if
she had been there herself, the lurid sights, the burning horrors, the
eternal pangs which torment the sinners in the lands of Hell, the pains
of damnation, the torments of the senses, the howls, the moans, the
diabolical contortions. And as the child grew up, her soul became
gradually narrower at the flame of those tales, more sensitive, more
fearful of sins. The slightest of them weighed upon her as an
irremissible fault, a thorny burden that choked her heart. She must
needs at once rush to a priest, unload before his indulgence that weight
of anguish which was heavier than a load of lead. Often as she emerged
from a sanctuary she was halted by a scruple, by the semblance of a
neglect which brought her hastily back to implore once more the help of
the priest as he left the sacred enclosure. And since her marriage, for
the last thirty-two years, she had been living thus, forever urged
toward churches by new torments of her conscience, hiding her terrors
when at home, unable to dominate them when outside, dreading the sarcasm
of her family and weeping over their damnation.
"Her happiness! Her peace of mind!" M. Raindal was grunting as he
wrote.... "If only she had had the energy to trust me with them."
* * * * *
Just then the doorbell rang hurriedly twice.
"Hark!" the master said. "Here comes your mother.... I am anxious to
hear what she has to say...."
Mme. Raindal stood on the threshold. A long quilted silk cape, lined
with minever and slightly worn about the shoulders, encased her form.
All out of breath, she panted:
"Wait!"
Her hand went under the cape and lay over her heart to suppress its
beating. She explained:
"I climbed the stairs too fast."
"Sit down! Rest yourself!" M. Raindal said calmly.
"No, no! It is passed! I feel better!"
She unhooked her cape and went to kiss her husband, then her daughter.
Her cheeks carried the frost of the wind outside; they were cold as a
window pane; she was still panting as she bent over each of them.
"Where have you been, to return so late?" M. Raindal inquired, without
lifting his eyes from his work.
She protested.
"So late!... But it is not 'so late'!... It is not more than 5.15.... I
went to Guerbois, to order a pie for to-night.... Cyprien's coming to
dinner, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes ... Cyprien's coming."
She did not dwell on the matter. She was choking with a new fear; she
had almost sinned by telling an untruth. She poked the red lumps of coke
and lowered the wick of the smoking lamp. Then, feeling the weight of
the silence which was pregnant with irony and with suspicion perhaps,
she left the room, her cheeks now suddenly aflame, her breast heavy with
sighs.
Thérèse and her father simultaneously raised their heads and exchanged a
knowing smile.
"Did you hear that?... her pie?..."
He shrugged his shoulders quite discouraged. The young girl murmured
with compassion:
"Poor mother!... She is so kind!..."