The next morning, towards eleven, Mlle. Clara Laneret, better known in
night cabarets by her nickname of _l'Irlandaise_, bent over the banister
of her staircase to watch someone go down.
"Eh, monsieur!" she exclaimed suddenly, discreetly recalling him. "You
will come again, won't you?"
The "monsieur"--that is to say, M. Eusèbe Raindal, member of the
Institute of France, officer of the Légion d'Honneur, author of the
_Life of Cleopatra_ and of several other important books--the "monsieur"
replied in a weak voice, rendered even more hollow by the distance of
the steps:
"Yes, yes, certainly, I shall come back!..."
What a disgrace! What turpitude! He had followed that brunette girl,
missed his train, lost his self-respect altogether! Ah! if his family,
if Zozé were to see him on that sordid staircase running out, pursued by
the tenderness of Clara l'Irlandaise!... And now, where was he to go?
What could he do till the hour of his train?
He stopped on the edge of the pavement, trying to read on the high
enameled plate, the name of the street--rue d'Ams ... rue
d'Amsterdam--which he had forgotten. His head was heavy, his tongue
pasty and he longed to resume his sleep.
"I might go and see Cyprien," he thought, stiffening himself against
slumber.
He called a cab. But when he reached the house in the rue d'Assas, Uncle
Cyprien had gone out on his tricycle.
"Not three minutes ago," the concierge assured him.
In fact, two hundred meters away, in the rue de Fleurus, Cyprien was at
that very moment stopping before the house where Johan Schleifmann
lived.
He put his tricycle--his "beast" as he would have said--under the arch
and asked the concierge to keep an eye on it; then he began to climb the
stairs.
"Have you come to fetch me for lunch, my friend?" Schleifmann asked,
when he had opened the door to him. "One minute, please! I'll put my
frockcoat on and go with you!"
They walked into the study, a light, spacious, garret, the red tiles of
which were half covered with two straw mats.
M. Raindal the younger's expression was both amused and ceremonious. He
sat in an old armchair and declared, as, with a stage gesture, he took
off his wide, brown sombrero:
"No, my friend, I have not come to fetch you.... I have come to talk to
you...."
"What has happened?" asked Schleifmann.
"This has happened, my dear fellow, that ... that I am presenting to
you a man who is done for, absolutely done for!"
And he added, while the Galician lifted his arms in a gesture of
surprise.
"Yes, Schleifmann! I have gambled in gold mines and I have lost...."
"I was sure of it!" the Galician exclaimed, stamping angrily on the red
tiles. "How much have you lost?"
"One hundred and ten thousand francs, my dear friend!... Yes, there is
no need for you to open your eyes so wide.... I said it: one hundred and
ten thousand francs!... At the last settlement, on the 15th, I had only
lost fifty thousand francs.... Thanks to the help of M. de Meuze, who
had written to his friend M. Pums, the father of your pupil, I made
arrangements with Talloire, my stockbroker--for I have a stockbroker, is
it comical enough, eh! I, a stockbroker!--I made arrangements with
Talloire, I say, for him to carry me over; in other words, an operation
which allowed me a delay for settling up and permitted me to gamble
again.... You know?... Good!... I gambled again.... The smash came, more
terrible than ever, organized by the whole Black Band.... I was
stubborn; I gave orders right and left.... Result: sixty thousand francs
added to my losses!"
"Oh, my poor Raindal, my poor friend!" the Galician murmured, shaking
his head.
"That is not all!" Uncle Cyprien added. "I have asked to be carried
over again.... Nothing doing! Pums did not receive me, and Talloire
kicked me out.... I wrote to the Marquis, who is holidaying at
Deauville; no reply!... Therefore, this afternoon, unless I have paid
up, I shall be 'executed' at the Bourse, and, this evening, I shall
execute myself at home!... Tell me, Schleifmann, am I done for or am I
not?"
The Galician took a turn round the room, with his usual dragging gait,
grumbling:
"Devilish idiot! Devilish idiot!" Then he asked brusquely. "What about
your pension, Raindal?... You could perhaps borrow on that?"
"Child!" exclaimed M. Raindal, the younger, paternally. "Do you think
that I have waited for you to think of that? Guess what I have been
offered for my pension by the usurers: fifteen thousand francs, fifteen
paltry thousand francs, not a damned sou more!"
The Galician thought. Then after a time he said:
"Listen, Raindal!... I have put five thousand francs by.... With your
fifteen thousand, that would give you twenty.... Do you want them?"
Cyprien came over to press his hand.
"You are a very good friend, Schleifmann," he said.... "I am very
grateful to you.... That _would_ give me twenty, yes, that is to say, a
little less than twenty per cent, enough to make arrangements which
would cause some men to call me an honest man, and others--a thief. But
after that, my friend! After that, how should I exist? I would not have
a penny, not a sou.... I would need to look for a job and, what is more
difficult, to find one.... No, you see, I would never have the
patience.... I prefer to end it at once!"
"You are speaking foolishly!" Schleifmann protested. "To end it!... Why
should you?... What a lazy rent-holder you are!... Devil take it, you
could work!"
"Work!" grunted Cyprien.... "I would work if I were given work to do!...
A man of my age, who has been hammered on 'Change.... You know, that is
not precisely a good recommendation!"
Schleifmann scratched his thick gray hair, thinking fast. At length, he
asked:
"Come, my dear Cyprien!... I have an idea.... Supposing you were allowed
to carry over, would you be able to re-establish your finances?"
"I can promise nothing!" Cyprien replied. "But there would be a
chance.... This crash will not last.... People affirm on all sides that
it is due to a maneuver of the Black Band.... Before the end of this
fortnight, everything may be changed.... At all events, if one has to
blow up, it would be finer to have fought to the end...."
"And, of course, you would gamble again?"
"No, Schleifmann! I would not gamble again.... I would maintain my
position, as they say ... my splendid position, and I would wait for
things to turn up!"
"Will you swear it to me on the head of your niece, Mlle. Thérèse?"
"I don't like this oath idea very much!... Well, let it be so!... I
swear it, upon the head of my nephew.... But why all these preambles and
questions?"
"Well, here is my idea!" Schleifmann said solemnly. "Where is M. Pums at
this hour?"
Uncle Cyprien consulted his watch.
"Noon!... He must be at the Bourse."
"Very good! I am going to see him.... I shall attempt to get him to have
you carried over.... He is not a bad fellow.... At the time of my affair
of the reforms, you remember, Cyprien, don't you, he was one of those
who received me with the least roughness. Again, he left me his son as a
pupil, his overdressed gummy son.... Well, I have some hopes.... What do
you say?"
"All right! If I am carried over!" Cyprien said skeptically.
"Let me go down, then.... A cab, quick!... Huf! Huf!"
Downstairs, Cyprien asked the concierge to take his "beast" back to the
rue d'Assas, and the two old friends climbed into an open carriage.
They were silent for a few minutes; then M. Raindal said with sarcasm.
"The one time in my life that I have had anything to do with the Jews,
you must admit, my dear Schleifmann, has brought me no luck!"
"And M. de Meuze?" the Galician replied aggressively. "M. de Meuze who
led you to this, is _he_ a Jew?"
"No, that's true enough," Cyprien admitted. "He is not a Jew.... But he
is Judaized, which comes to the same thing."
"And I, a Jew, who always told you not to touch that dirty business, how
about me?"
"You! That's different! You are a good Jew!" Cyprien interrupted.
As usual, when he heard that remark, Schleifmann could not dissimulate
an angry gesture. M. Raindal regretted his lack of tact and attempted to
turn the matter; he gave a mass of minute directions and topographic
particulars touching the plan of the Bourse and the place where Pums was
to be found.
"By the way," he added, "take care of the clerks' pranks! True, they
will probably not be very much in a mood for joking to-day....
Nevertheless, be careful of their funny tricks! The first day I myself,
went to the Bourse, why, they slipped a paper arrow under the collar of
my coat; on it was written in large letters the word: _Topper!_... I
know that it has no importance.... Just the same, it is sometimes very
annoying at the moment!"
The carriage stopped before the gate of the monument.
"I shall wait for you here!" Raindal shouted after the Galician as he
walked away. "Good luck for us both, and courage, my dear friend!"
Up above, under the colonnade, or top of the steps, was the mournful
Bourse of the days of _débâcle_. Not a laugh, not a chat, no outburst of
merry voices. The faces were ghastly pale; the bravest attempted a joke,
twitching their features in lying smiles which were more hideous than
grimaces. Over that lugubrious silence came the vociferations of the
agents, the outbidding downward, the monotonous shouts of the sales,
sales at any price. They were all selling.
An unfortunate mistake led the Galician right into the midst of the
agents who were dealing with the gold mines.
Politely he removed his hat and stood before a fair young man who had
ceased shouting.
"Excuse me, monsieur," he said. "Will you be good enough to tell me
where I can find M. Pums?"
The other looked at him, dumfounded.... M. Pums, on such a day, at such
a time! As if he had nothing else to do! Wait, wait a bit, old man, they
are going to give it to you; they'll show you M. Pums!... And, of a
sudden, on a wink from the blonde young man, with repeated shouts of "M.
Pums! M. Pums!" a frantic rush sent the unfortunate Schleifmann forward.
"M. Pums! M. Pums!" The Galician passed from hand to hand, from group to
group, thrown from _Gold_ to _Cash_, from _Cash_ to _Gold_, from _Gold_
to _Values_, from _Values_ to _External_, from _External_ to _Turkish_.
All of them, despite the tragic hour, despite the anguish of that day's
operations, sought relief for their nerves in that brutal game, relaxed
their hearts and arms by molesting the old intruder.... "M. Pums! M.
Pums!"
He landed in a corner of the circular hall; his gold-rimmed spectacles
all awry, his hat thrown on the floor in a final cuff.
A little messenger, in a bottle-green livery, took pity on his distress.
"Here, monsieur!" he said, picking up Schleifmann's hat. "You want M.
Pums!... I work at the bank.... M. Pums is at his office, 72 rue
Vivienne."
"Thank you, youngster!" the Galician stammered. "Thanks very much, my
boy!"
Slowly, looking back at every step for fear of a treacherous blow, and
polishing his poor hat with his sleeve, he walked down the steps.
* * * * *
The hall of the bank was crowded with solicitors when the Galician
entered. There were agents, bucket-shop brokers, financial go-betweens
of all kinds, some seated, their eyes on their shoes, in a defeated
attitude, others standing talking by groups in corners or near the
windows, with the measured accents one uses in the room of the dying.
Alone, the usher in green livery, seated behind his oak rostrum, seemed
indifferent to the cares of those about him and read placidly the serial
story in the _Petit Journal_.
He barely moved his eyelids to decipher the card which Schleifmann
pushed before him and fell back to his paper, saying, "Very good,
monsieur.... Please take a seat!"
"I do not want a seat!" said Schleifmann, who was holding himself in
hand. "I am asking you to take my card to M. Pums, and at once, do you
hear?"
"Impossible, sir.... _Monsieur le sous-Directeur_ is attending a
conference. He has given orders that no one should come in until he
rings...." Then he added, pointing to the gathered agents and brokers:
"Besides, all these gentlemen here are ahead of you."
"I don't know whether these gentlemen ..." and here the Galician's voice
became more haughty, "are ahead of me.... But I ask you once more to
hand my card.... You will tell M. Pums that it is a serious matter, that
a man's life is in danger."
The usher stared impudently at Schleifmann. That dramatic language, that
silk hat brushed away, that tie all in disorder, and that foreign
accent--some poor devil, some Jewish beggar, no doubt. He did not even
condescend to answer and took up his reading again.
"I say, did you hear me?" stammered Schleifmann, incensed by so much
insolence. "Yes or no, are you going to take my card in?"
"When M. Pums rings, sir!" the usher reiterated, curling his mustache,
his body still bent towards the paper. "I cannot go before he does."
"You cannot!" Schleifmann almost shouted. "Very good! We shall see...."
He walked towards a tall door painted brown which he supposed to be that
of Pums' office.
"Where are you going?" the usher asked, barring his advance with
outstretched arms.
The Galician gave a sharp push of his shoulders and threw the man aside.
"I go where it pleases me! Get out of here, damn you!"
Some of the dealers hurried to the call of the usher and surrounded
Schleifmann, questioning him. Their intervention completed the
Galician's exasperation. He had a sudden vision of the recent scene, a
jostling mob, fists shaken, ugly faces. All that might be coming again!
His voice became threatening.
"What are you butting into this for?... We are not at the Bourse here!
Leave me alone; the first man who lays a hand on me I will kick in the
stomach!"
"What! You, Schleifmann!" said Pums, who opened his door when he heard
the fracas. "Is it you, talking about kicking people in the stomach?"
The Galician took off his hat and said in lower tones:
"Yes, ... it was I, M. Pums.... They wanted to prevent me from seeing
you.... And it is an urgent matter. As I was telling that ill-bred
usher, it is a matter of a man's life!"
"But, at the present moment ..." the assistant director protested.
"When a man's life is at stake, there is no such thing as a moment, M.
Pums! Believe me.... Let me speak with you. Some day, you will thank me
for this!"
"All right!" said Pums, darting a sly wink of apology and connivance at
the agents.
Schleifmann followed him in and closed the door behind him.
Pums sat at his desk of purple ebony; Schleifmann opposite him, his back
to the door. He laid his hat on the table.
"I shall be brief, M. Pums," he began. "In a word, as I told you, it is
a matter of a man's life.... This man--I shall not conceal his name any
longer--is my best friend, M. Cyprien Raindal, brother of M. Raindal of
the Institute.... His situation you know already.... If he does not pay
up, he is smashed.... And, I may add, if he is smashed, he will kill
himself.... I came to ask you to have his account carried over...."
"I would do it with pleasure, M. Schleifmann...." Pums murmured in
German, preferring to use that tongue in delicate transactions.
"Allow me!" Schleifmann retorted, also in German and because of an
analogous preference. "Allow me! I am not through yet.... You will ask
me what interest you have in saving my friend Cyprien.... I will tell
you.... It is a sacred interest, it is the interest of your own race, of
your family, of your children, of your grandchildren, of your
great-grandchildren...."
"Sorry to interrupt you!" said M. Pums, drumming his desk impatiently.
"We are right in the middle of a panic.... I have twenty persons to
see.... I beg you; you promised me to be brief ... be so!"
"I shall!" said Schleifmann.
And he started an interminable discourse. His thesis was that Pums, who
had guided Cyprien in his first speculations, owed him support at the
hour of his failure. What, at the most, would this help which would be
rather moral support cost him? Not more than a risk, a mere signature.
Even if he were to lose the sum which he would thus endorse, would he be
thereby impoverished, incommoded in his train of life, he whose actual
fortune was estimated at three millions or more? On the other hand, what
a glory for Israel, what a noble tradition in the family, what a
magnanimous example attached to the name of Pums, this legend would
become as it passed from lip to lip: a rich Israelite, generously saving
from misery, from suicide, a little ex-official, a Christian, lured to
his ruin by a taste for lucre and by gambling!... Such acts, as they
multiplied, would do more for the Jews than a thousand gifts to the
poor, a thousand sanitary foundations celebrated by the press with much
din of praise. Such acts would carry further than charity. For they
would have originated from a higher source, from humanity, from justice
itself....
The Galician ended at last. Pums looked up with a slight jerk and leaned
back in his armchair.
"My dear M. Schleifmann," he announced in a doctoral tone, "I pay homage
to your intentions; you are an excellent man but, allow me to say it,
you understand nothing of business...."
A quick blinking of his eyelids accentuated all that was unfavorable in
that verdict in M. Pum's estimation. He then went on:
"No, nothing, absolutely nothing.... For instance, you imagine that you
know what your friend's situation is? You don't know the first word of
it. If M. Cyprien Raindal had listened to me, if he had been satisfied
to follow my advice, his losses would be insignificant, about like those
of the Marquis de Meuze, his protector, seven, eight, perhaps ten
thousand francs at the most.... But your friend wished to show his
cleverness.... He followed his own ideas. _Il s'est enfilé_, as we say
in the slang of the Bourse.... And, to-day, he faces the result....
Whose fault is it? Mine or his, tell me?"
"M. Pums," the stubborn Galician replied. "I did not come here to talk
business to you.... You are right, I know nothing about it.... I came as
a Jew and a friend to talk _heart_ to you, to talk justice, to enlist
your aid for this brave fellow of whom I am very fond.... If you do not
give it, it will be a pity and it will be very sad, because he will die
of it!"
"Very regrettable," Pums said, "but not certain.... And then, frankly,
M. Schleifmann, think it over.... You are asking too much! He is not a
relation, this M. Cyprien Raindal, not a friend, at best an
acquaintance.... To help him, to be obliging to him--why, it seems to me
that I would not begrudge my time.... But in order to save him, I should
have to assume his liability in my own name.... I have no choice between
the means.... The panic is general.... No one at all is allowed to carry
over his account. The Bank of England itself refuses to allow it....
And, according to you, I should personally pledge myself for one hundred
and ten thousand francs on behalf of a man I have seen three times in my
life?... No, that is not reasonable.... At every séance of the Bourse,
there would be ten like him to save.... My fortune would not be
sufficient...."
He grew more animated, stamping around the table, his thumbs in the
shoulder-holes of his waistcoat.
"And why should I do this? In order that people should speak well of the
Jews, burn incense before Israel.... Go on! I don't care a rap for the
Jews.... I have no prejudices.... Every man for himself.... Let them
look after their affairs.... I have no hundred and ten thousand francs
to throw out of the window like this!" He came to a stop before
Schleifmann. "Bah! do you imagine that I am making anything out of this
mining business?... I am caught like the others.... I am losing huge
sums, the very eyes out of my head."
Involuntarily his big round eyeballs showed, in their self-denouncing
projection, that he had not lost everything yet. Schleifmann at least
did not seem altogether convinced, for he answered Pums, insinuatingly:
"Yet, the fall is instigated by the Black Band.... And the Black
Band--they are your friends!"
"My friends?" repeated Pums, suddenly all abashed. Then he recovered his
self-control and added: "Oh, yes! nice friends! You may speak of
them.... Wretches!... Imbeciles!... Men who stupidly lead the market to
ruin, who know nothing but the rise and fall of stocks! Ah! clever
work!... I congratulate them!"
Schleifmann did not give up the thread of his arguments.
"Nevertheless, these imbeciles, these wretches, you will see them again,
to-morrow, or the next day...."
"What are you talking about?" Pums exclaimed, to mask his hesitation....
"Shall I see them again?... Well, yes, I presume so.... But I guarantee
you that I shall tell them what I think. At this moment, see, if I had
one of them handy...."
"_Alzo! wie gehts!_" a cordial voice cried out in German behind
Schleifmann.
Pums did not finish his sentence. He had taken on a sinister pallor; his
chocolate-colored eyeballs were even more haggard and prominent, as if
they were on the point of jumping out of their sockets. Schleifmann
turned round and recognized Herschstein.
The head of the Black Band entered by a side door, his hat on his head,
smiling, without knocking, as if he were at home, as master;
brilliantine shone in silvery eddies in his patriarchal gray beard.
When he caught sight of Schleifmann, he recoiled prudently; his
venerable face took on a different expression and he murmured modestly:
"Ah! you are busy!"
Pums, who was diligently sorting some papers, did not reply. Schleifmann
examined them both in turn, a flame of contempt in his eyes.
"Eh, M. Pums!" he commanded sarcastically. "I am waiting.... Here is one
of them.... Go ahead!... Let him know what you think of it.... Tell him!
Ha! You have forgotten! Patience, M. Herschstein.... It will come.... M.
Pums has a heartload to let out for you!... He is trying to find.... Sit
down!"
"What does this mean?" Herschstein asked, icily.
"I shall explain, my dear friend!" stammered Pums. "We were talking of
M. Raindal's brother, who is losing on the mines.... M. Schleifmann is
joking...."
"Am I joking!" the Galician said, smashing his fist on the table so
violently that the ink came out of the inkstand. "Truly, here is ground
for joking indeed!"
He eyed them both.
"So! you are in league!... So, 'it goes!'... You, M. Pums, you make up
a pair with M. Herschstein.... And you, M. Herschstein, you come to give
account!... Congratulations! It must have been a fine massacre!...
Write it down, M. Pums. I shall dictate: Profits of September 2nd: M.
Cyprien Raindal, one hundred and ten thousand francs.... Hah! M. Pums,
how much of that do you get? Ten thousand? Fifteen thousand?" He
chuckled, then suddenly his face fell under an intolerable sadness.
"Malediction!" he groaned, prowling about the room. "Malediction and
misery!... Yes, ever since Sinai, there has been the same eternal
misunderstanding!... God gives His People supreme intelligence and His
People prostitute it to the basest works, and then God exacts vengeance
because His People ignore Him! It is the whole history of Israel, all
their unhappiness.... Malediction! Malediction!... When shall this
cease?... You are not a fool, M. Pums, nor you either, M.
Herschstein!... But you believe, don't you, that the Lord has given you
this power of mind so that you can manipulate the markets, and pile up
gold.... Madmen that you are! I see the hand of the Lord over you!... It
was because they had betrayed His law that your ancestors went to
Babylon, to Nineveh and to Egypt! And for the same reason, you will have
to go elsewhere!"
He stretched out his arm towards mysterious far distant places.
"Yes! the Lord will make you sleep under tents once more and, with you,
there may be some who are innocent, meek and lowly ones, toilers ...
unless, beforehand, they all break away from you!"
"Enough, M. Schleifmann!" dryly declared Herschstein, who was gradually
recovering his arrogance. "Enough of your jeremiads! We know your
ideas.... You are an anti-Semite, a renegade! It is well known!"
Schleifmann lifted his arms again and looked up at the ceiling.
"A renegade!" he repeated, "Anti-Semite!... Adonaï! Adonaï! Hearest thou
what this man is saying to me?"
"Moreover," added Pums who, like Herschstein, had recovered his ease,
"moreover, when it comes to people being expelled, you might very well
be before we are, M. Schleifmann! For we are French, we ... while
you...."
A frantic laugh cut him short. Schleifmann exploded with bitter
merriment, a prey to a fit of wild hilarity.
"French! You French!" he exclaimed, between two sobs of laughter. "But
you are neither French, nor German, nor Austrians, nor anything at
all--least of all Jews!... Your Jewry oppresses you under your
clothing.... It oppresses you in drawing-rooms, in clubs, everywhere you
go! It makes you itch, like a haircloth.... You wear it without good
grace, without good nature, without pride! You only acknowledge it with
regret.... It makes you pale!... You are unacquainted with its most
elementary dogmas.... And, were it not that you fear it might hurt you
in your business, I wager that, to-morrow morning, you would all seek to
be naturalized as Catholics!"
"We do not argue with possessed people!" cried Herschstein, whose
forehead and cheeks were striped with livid lines.
"With whom do you argue, if you please?" Schleifmann vociferated. "With
dross like yourself? For I tell you, in the words of Ezekiel: 'You are
all dross, all dross of brass, of lead, of iron; you are all dross of
silver.... And the Lord shall precipitate you in the crucible to melt
you under the breath of His anger!'"
He had given the Hebrew text. Now he gave it in German, and it was such
a volley of harsh, thundering syllables that Pums began to take fright.
What would the agents and the clerks in the hall nearby think of this
noise? He decided to try audacity and said haltingly:
"That will do, M. Schleifmann!... Enough scandal!... I ask you to
retire.... Shut up and get out, or damn it all, I will call the police!"
"Ah! that would complete the day!" Schleifmann exclaimed. "No! but do
it; do it, so that I can laugh a little more!... Have me removed to the
police station for a religious brawl!... Have me arrested!... Jeremiah
was arrested twice.... Hamasiah also and Micah as well, and many
others.... It is natural.... No, I stay right here, if only just to see
it happen! The police!... Ha! ha!"
"He is mad, raving mad!" Pums murmured, his face convulsed.
"Not at all," Herschstein said in an attempt at irony. "You haven't got
it right.... He is a prophet, my friend, a great prophet!"
"Alas, no, M. Herschstein!" the Galician retorted simply. "I am too old;
I have passed the age.... I regret it.... Until the social question is
settled for everyone in a scientific fashion, as my master Karl Marx
wished it, it would do you no harm to find, on Saturday at the
Synagogue, instead of your rabbis who flatter you, a sort of Sophonia
who would say to you: 'Lament! ye dwellers in the market-place! All who
traffic shall be....'"
Again the avalanche of Hebrew and German poured forth. Pums, his nerves
overtaxed, closed his ears. Herschstein contracted his hand upon his
Moses-like beard. Then a light of hope came to his anxious eyes. He had
found an objection.
"What about the Christians?" he said victoriously. "Don't the Christians
traffic?"
"It is no concern of ours what the Christians do!" Schleifmann
thundered, cutting the space with a broad forbidding gesture. "They have
their God to punish them and socialism to reduce them!... But you ...
you are the people of the Lord!... You owe a spontaneous example to the
others! You must be _better_!... enjoy less and suffer more!... Such is
your destiny! your difficult glory!... They are unique in the world! You
can only avoid them by meeting worse sufferings! You are the people of
the Lord!"
Messrs. Pums and Herschstein would have readily deprived themselves of
belonging to that people! To show the example to the others, they! Why
they, more than the others? No, this time, upon their honor, they failed
to understand. And that rain of quotations, that prophetic storm which
was still raging! Better leave the place to him, better find some
pretext for a flight.
Pums winked rapidly to warn Herschstein and then said deliberately:
"You came to sign those papers, didn't you?"
"Yes!" Herschstein replied, winking back at him.
"Well, then, will you come this way?..."
He opened a door at the back and kept his hand on the handle, pluckily
protecting the retreat of his ally.
"I leave you here, M. Schleifmann!" he said. "The exit is opposite....
As to your lessons to my son, there is no need for you to trouble about
them any more. Send me your bill and we shall end it there.... _Au
plaisir!_"
Schleifmann, stupefied by this flight, stood still, with his mouth open.
He racked his mind for a biting word, for a last deadly venomous
apostrophe! Then he came close to the door through which Pums had
disappeared.
"You are the chosen People of the Lord!" he clamored frantically.
He went back into the hall, threw a challenging look at the usher and,
recollecting the anxiety of his friend Cyprien, hurried down the steps.
"Well?" M. Raindal asked, with a suppliant movement of his jaw.
"Nothing!" Schleifmann replied. "Nothing!... The scoundrel would not do
a thing!"
"I could have sworn to it!" Uncle Cyprien sighed, sliding down
despairingly.
Schleifmann sat beside him in the carriage and asked, "Where shall I
drive you, my dear Raindal? To the brasserie?"
"No, Schleifmann! I am not hungry.... Better take me home!"
They started. The Galician narrated his interview.
Uncle Cyprien listened in silence, his body crumpled up, his eyes dull,
his face rigid. Schleifmann was still relating when they reached the
pont des Saints-Pères.
"And I am not telling you a quarter of it, my friend!" the Galician
concluded, still in the fever of his epopee. "I am forgetting some of
it!... True, I did not obtain anything!... True, I lost a pupil!... But
I have told them what I thought of them!"
"You may have told them what you thought of them, my friend," Cyprien
remarked judiciously. "But that does not prevent my being done for, the
most undone of all men!"
He made a motion as if to stride out of the carriage. Schleifmann pulled
him back.
"Ho! Cyprien! What's the matter?"
"I feel very much like chucking myself into the Seine.... It is right
here, under my very nose.... It would save me a trip!"
The Galician shrugged his shoulders philosophically.
"Don't be foolish, Raindal!... Be serious, my dear fellow! Your brother
is not your brother for nothing!... He'll pull you out of it! He will
arrange this affair!"
"If he arranges it as you have done, be it said without reproach,
Schleifmann, I am sorry for my creditors!" Raindal retorted calmly.
He said not another word until they reached the rue d'Assas. But while
Schleifmann paid the driver, Cyprien felt a sudden sensation of
weakness.
"Schleifmann!" he called out.
"I am coming!" the Galician replied.
There was a dull sound. A brown sombrero rolled into the gutter. M.
Raindal had sunk, bent in two, on the pavement, all his nerves relaxed,
his limbs flabby--a bundle of lifeless flesh with a face of chalk-like
pallor.
* * * * *
Near the bed where they had laid Cyprien, still inanimate, Schleifmann
wrote feverishly.
"Here!" he told the concierge, who was finishing putting the patient's
clothes in order, "when you go to the drug-store, you will please send
this telegram to M. Eusèbe Raindal, the brother of M. Raindal."
"M. Eusèbe Raindal!" the concierge protested. "But he is in Paris,
monsieur!... He called this morning, just after M. Cyprien had gone, and
he told me to inform his brother that he would come again this
afternoon."
"Ah!" said Schleifmann, surprised. "Very well, then; no telegram.... Go
straight to the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs! Listen, don't frighten the
poor man.... Tell him that his brother is ill."
"Yes, yes! Monsieur may rest assured.... I'll tell him that as he ought
to be told."
Nevertheless, M. Raindal was stammering with emotion when, half an hour
later, he entered the room.
"What? What?" he asked, forgetting to salute Schleifmann. "Cyprien is
ill ... gravely?"
"You can see for yourself, monsieur!" the Galician replied. "A
stroke!... He fell in the street. My own physician, Doctor Chesnard, has
just been here and suggests that it is an embolism. He is coming again
to-night. Cyprien had gambled in mining stock and lost enormous sums."
He added more details. The master interrupted him with distressed
exclamations.
"Is it possible!... Had I but known!... Oh! poor fellow!... poor
fellow!... Why did he hide it from me?"
When Schleifmann had told him all, there were a few minutes of mutual
embarrassment. The two men had at no time felt any affinity for each
other. Schleifmann considered M. Raindal a narrow-minded man, timorous
and dried up with erudition. He did not deny the merit of the master's
works but reproached him with keeping out of the great contemporary
problems. M. Raindal, on the other hand, had always disliked
Schleifmann, whom he charged with stimulating the subversive instincts
of his brother. Now, compelled to sympathize over a pious duty, they
both would have liked to destroy those ancient grievances which their
loyalty blushed to keep back. M. Raindal was the first to be emboldened
enough to fib. He spoke most cordially.
"M. Schleifmann! Circumstances have been such that we have not become
fast friends.... But I knew your affection for my poor Cyprien; I knew
the wide range of your culture, the reliability of your character; you
may be sure that I have always felt the most earnest esteem for you."
The Galician replied with tactful praise of M. Raindal's books.
The discomfort disappeared. It vanished altogether when the concierge
came back with drugs, mustard plasters and leeches. Both busied
themselves nursing the patient; they had no leisure until the evening.
At the approach of night, Uncle Cyprien awoke from his torpor. He opened
his eyes and looked absently about the room. Gradually he appeared to
remember.
"Ah, yes!" he murmured. "The Bourse! The smash!"
He tried to stretch himself. A resistance on his left side caused him to
frown. He felt his left shoulder with his right hand, which remained
free.
"Ah! I am paralyzed, somewhere there.... That's nice!" he grunted.
Again he inspected the room with the same infant-like stare of his
mobile, toneless eyes. The presence of Schleifmann and his brother, who
were watching him at the foot of the bed, caused him a momentary
perplexity. Who were those men? He hesitated, having the impression that
he knew them without being able to call them by name. "Eusèbe ..." he
uttered at last. "Sch ... Schleifmann!"
M. Raindal went forward, stretching out his hand. Uncle Cyprien smiled
sadly and said in a hoarse voice, stammering a little:
"Heh! What a state they have put me in, these fellows!... I fell on the
pavement.... Did Schleifmann explain to you?"
"Yes, my dear, fellow! Don't get yourself tired!"
"And the money?" the ex-official went on. "Did Schleifmann tell you
that, too? Do you know that I owe one hundred and ten thousand francs. A
nice thing for a Raindal!... To die leaving one hundred and ten thousand
francs' debts! If poor Father had seen such a thing!"
"Hush, reassure yourself!" the master said. "First of all, you seem to
me on the road to recovery...."
In reply Cyprien touched his dead shoulder.
"As to your debts!" the master added. "I will make them my affair. I
have saved ninety thousand francs and I give them up to you without much
regret.... My salary and what I get for my books and articles will amply
suffice for all of us to live on and even to pay, a little each year,
the unpaid balance.... Well, I hope that your mind is relieved."
"Yes, thanks! I thank you!" Cyprien replied distractedly, the leeches
and the mustard plasters pricking him terribly. Then he forced himself
to add: "Just the same, poor Eusèbe.... I have very often teased you,
worried you! How many jokes have I not played upon you? But if I had
been told that I would ruin you one day, I, Uncle Cyprien, with my
hundred francs a month, my board at the brasserie and my garret at five
hundred francs a year, well!... No, No! It is incredible! To think that
all this happened because, because...." His impotent thoughts wandered
through the complications of his adventure; then he went on after a
pause: "Yes, because ... because, to annoy you, I wished to go to that
Mme. Rhâm-Bâhan and there met the ... the marquis ... the marquis
de...."
He moved his eyelids, but a weight seemed to dominate them. He fell
asleep again, with an uneven breathing, sometimes imperceptible,
sometimes snoring and galloping like the wind on a log fire. His cheeks
became purple. His throat rattled with a scraping noise. Congestion was
beginning. On his return, Dr. Chesnard assumed a face of ill-omen. He
made a new prescription and ordered more violent revulsives.
As he was leaving, M. Raindal suggested for the next day a consultation
with Dr. Gombauld, his colleague of the Academy of Medicine.
"Well, monsieur!" Dr. Chesnard said contemptuously, shaking his small,
bald, gray head.... "I am only a district doctor and have no ambition. I
shall speak to you quite frankly. Gombauld or no Gombauld--it will make
little difference. An embolism is an embolism. There are not ten
thousand treatments for such a case. There is only one, and it is that
which I have indicated.... Of course, if a consultation appeals to you,
I see no inconvenience in having it."
The meeting was fixed for noon.
They arranged a bed with a mattress and blankets in the front room, on
the green rep couch. Every other hour the Galician, after watching the
patient, went to stretch out upon it.
M. Raindal could not sleep. When his regret for his little pupil did not
torment him, it was remorse, scruples of his conscience, the need to
absolve himself. The halting words of Cyprien rang in his ears, like the
repercussion of an endless echo. "All this because I wanted to go to
that Mme. Rhâm-Bâhan and met there the ... the marquis!" Surely that was
false reasoning! A childish conception of the relation between cause and
effect! But the particle of truth which perfumes every error
nevertheless spread its venomous aroma in M. Raindal's soul. Evidently,
he was not responsible for the mortal accident which had struck his
brother. Had he been informed in time, he would have made the hardest
sacrifices in order to tear the poor fellow away from the wheels of
stock-gambling. Yet, who knew if, but for his intervention, for this
fatal love which held him, who knew if Uncle Cyprien would have ever met
"the ... the marquis?" Who could say but that this love, guilty already
of so many faults against sane morality and the sentiments due to
others, had not its share also--small but real--in the present calamity?
M. Raindal continued to sigh about it. He was wet with perspiration. At
last, fatigue got the better of insomnia. He only awoke at eight, to
open the door to Thérèse and Mme. Raindal. Behind them, the bearded head
of young Boerzell saluted him.
Summoned by telegram, the women had traveled all night. Their hair in
disorder, their faces sprinkled with coal dust, where drying tears had
traced white lines, expressed better than their voices the anguish of
their night journey. M. Raindal kissed them both with an unusual
effusion of tenderness, then led them, himself in tears, to the room of
Uncle Cyprien.
The latter was still sleeping, his sleep alternately tumultuous and
lethargic; his skin was more purple and blacker in places than the day
before, at the beginning of the crisis. Mme. Raindal knelt down beside
the bed, her hands crossed. They waited for the doctors, commenting on
the drama. The doctors came precisely at noon. The consultation was
short. Dr. Gombauld approved his colleague's prescriptions. For the
rest, he refused to foretell: nature would decide.
"What did I tell you?" Dr. Chesnard said contemptuously, on reaching the
door.
And he promised to return in the course of the evening.
When he did return, the only result of his visit was that their alarm
was increased. The physician left, refusing to give an opinion as to the
issue of the night.
An hour later, delirium took possession of Uncle Cyprien. At first,
there were nothing but vague exclamations, inarticulate complaints. But
they soon became more precise. He named people, insulted certain
enemies, all the immemorial enemies of Uncle Cyprien, the whole troop of
grafters, _youpins_, _calotins_ and _rastas_! It was as if they were
dancing with triumphant laughter a Satanic round about his cot, breaking
his chest with heavy boots, at times, for he took on attitudes of
defense or of fear as if he were under the iron shoes of a horse. To
exercise this evil rout, he tired his lungs with words of abuse, with
insults taken from the vocabulary of his favorite author. His forefinger
threatened; his fist hammered the empty space. Suddenly, it seemed that
the saraband was scattered. By a chance turn of his memory, one
preponderating image effaced the malice of the others: the image of an
illustrious statesman, of a minister renowned for his fight against
Boulangism. That legendary figure appeared before the bed and, without
bending, it reached Uncle Cyprien with the hands that completed its
enormous arms.
"Oh! Oh!..." M. Raindal, the younger, roared out in terror. "Here is the
old Pirate now!... Oh! those arms!... What arms he has!... Will you go
away, old Pirate! Will you let go of me!"
The imaginary grasp was stronger than his cries. In vain he put his
hands to his throat. He was choking. He fell back in a coma.
He stayed in it all the evening, all night. The family waited in the
next room and took turns watching the patient with Schleifmann, Boerzell
and a medical student sent by Dr. Gombauld. At eleven, when the women
and Schleifmann had fallen asleep on couches and chairs, M. Raindal
signaled with his eyes for the young savant to come to him.
"My dear M. Boerzell," the master whispered softly, "Thérèse has told me
everything this afternoon.... It seems that, while at Langrune, you came
to an agreement. For my part, I am very glad of it.... But you know what
disaster has befallen us.... Without speaking of poor Cyprien, it is
complete ruin for us, and Thérèse will have neither dowry nor
expectations of any kind. I wanted formally to warn you, knowing by
experience what are the expenses of a _ménage_, ... children to be
brought up, expenses...."
"I am very much obliged to you for your sincerity, dear master!"
Boerzell interrupted him, in the same tone. "However, these sad events
have not modified my intentions towards Mlle. Thérèse...."
He paused, ever careful of measure, of truth and exactness, then added:
"I shall not go so far as to tell you that I am indifferent to these
money considerations.... On the contrary, it is certain that a dowry and
some expectations would have been a precious help to my wife's comfort
and the education of our children.... But our marriage can easily take
place without this help. I feel that I am full of energy, and the
prospect of a little more mediocre work is not enough to move the young
and vigorous man I feel myself to be.... Therefore, I maintain my
request, dear master!"
Schleifmann left the room to join the medical student. M. Raindal and
the young savant shook hands affectionately; then, each on a chair,
their chins in their hands, they fell gradually asleep.
Towards dawn, the interne woke them all up. The agony had begun. It
proved a long one. Uncle Cyprien's insurgent soul rebelled against death
as it had rebelled against life. Choked by blood, he wished to breathe,
to live still; his well arm repulsed the asphyxia with an imperative
gesture which seemed to express his indignation.
Finally he lost his breath. He distended his purple face, his twisted
lips in a supreme effort and fell back, defeated, immobile, delivered.
Mme. Raindal threw herself on her knees and prayed with abundant tears.
Schleifmann, one elbow resting on the marble mantel-piece, his hands
over his eyes, quietly chanted some Hebraic words. Thérèse sobbed on her
father's shoulders.
The interne opened the window and pushed back the shutters through which
there already came some golden rays.
With the fresh splendor of the morning brightness an outburst of
chirping penetrated the room.
It was the sparrows of the Luxembourg which sang merrily on the
branches, unwittingly chirping a last good-by to their old friend,
Cyprien Raindal.