On the morning of the burial, Thérèse was in her room, busy sorting
papers they had found in her uncle's room, when Brigitte knocked at the
door.
"A lady, mademoiselle!" the maid said. "Mme. Chambannes, I think."
A frown appeared on Mlle. Raindal's velvety eyebrows.
"Did you tell her that monsieur and madame had gone out?"
"Yes, mademoiselle! But she said that she would like to see
mademoiselle. She is in the drawing-room."
"Very well, I'll go!" Thérèse replied.
She threw a rapid glance in the mirror, to examine her dress and her
hair, as a woman does on marching to a decisive encounter. Her stiff
crêpe collar like the neckpiece of a suit of armor kept her head more
erect and made her physiognomy more aggressive and severe. The corners
of her thin lips arched in an aggressive smile. Ah! Mme. Chambannes
wishes to see her! Well, all right! She would see her and hear her too!
She was going to have her wishes, that lady, and perhaps more than that.
Thérèse opened the door of the drawing-room. Mme. Chambannes, in a
black dress, black gloves and a black hat, rose slowly. Each made a
ceremonious salute, from the back of the neck, with an accompaniment of
watching looks and glances which already felt each other in the
semi-anticipation of a contest.
Thérèse opened the door of the drawing-room, to take a seat. Mme.
Chambannes murmured hesitatingly!
"I wished to tell M. Raindal how sorry we were about his loss."
"Thank you, madame!" Thérèse said, dryly. "My father is at the
chapel.... I shall transmit your condolences to him, as soon as he comes
home."
She fell back into silence. Mme. Chambannes went on, more timidly:
"We learned all about it through one of our common friends, the Marquis
de Meuze.... Your uncle was not very old, was he?"
"Forty-two, madame."
"Still young!" Zozé remarked, urged to exaggeration by the fierce looks
of Thérèse.
She walked towards the door, but stopped halfway: "Will you be kind
enough to tell M. Raindal that I shall come to visit him to-morrow?"
Icily Thérèse replied.
"Do not take this trouble, Madame.... My father will not receive."
"Not even his intimate friends?"
"No, madame!... His intentions are formal.... There will be no exception
for anyone."
"Not even for me?" Zozé insisted, with a mock sweetness that was really
a challenge.
Her languorous eyes seemed to smile, to elaborate on the question: "I,
you know, I, Mme. Chambannes; I who took him away from you.... your
father; I who hold him, who make him do what I want."
The provocation caused Thérèse to become very pale. "Not even for you,
madame!" she said with self-restraint.... "Father has decided to keep
very strict mourning and I trust that no one will attempt to make him
change his mind."
"So then, you will prevent him from seeing his friends?"
Thérèse's trembling fingers were opening and shutting on the back of an
armchair. "We shall not prevent him from doing anything at all,
Madame.... I am surprised to hear _you_ using such expressions.... You
must have learned in the last six months that our wishes are of little
importance against those of my father...."
"What do you mean, mademoiselle?" Zozé said, with that impertinent
phlegm which is often the only resource of worldly women when engaged in
a discussion.
"I mean," Thérèse replied haltingly. "I mean to say, or rather you are
compelling me to say that, for the last six months, you have taken my
father away from us, you have led him away, engaged him in a grotesque
_affaire_, the details and aim of which I know nothing of, but the
worry of which has never ceased horribly to torment my mother and
myself...." "But, mademois...."
"Oh! If you please, madame!" Thérèse interrupted firmly. "You have
sought an explanation. Allow me to finish.... Yes, you found it quite
natural to disunite us, to monopolize this poor man, to drag him in your
train, out of vainglory, out of I know not what vain fantasy and without
any excuse.... To-day, this catastrophe brings him back to us.... You
should find it natural that we should protect him and that, seeing him
rescued, we do not wish to lose him again. Was it due to my uncle's
death or to other emotions with which I am unacquainted that my father
seemed, on our return, very weary and much aged. He who is usually so
courageous in the hours of sorrow, weeps at every opportunity, he has
sudden fits of heavy sobs, like a child.... He needs quiet and a
well-regulated, peaceful life. Gradually he will return to his family
and to his work, and you to your pleasures, which his absence will not
appreciably diminish, I should think."
Zozé blushed imperceptibly under the bantering tone of Thérèse's last
words. Mlle. Raindal took advantage of her confusion and added:
"Leave him to us now, madame! I assure you, it will be better thus....
It will be both straightforward and charitable!"
They studied each other in silence for a while and the scorn in their
glances seemed a mutual reflection. "Not at her best in mourning dress,
this Mlle. Raindal!" Mme. Chambannes thought to herself. Thérèse saw
nothing on the charming face but signs of baseness and stupidity.
The sound of a key slipped in the keyhole caused them both to lower
their eyelids.
"Will you excuse me, madame?" Thérèse said, with a curt nod.
Without pausing for an answer she walked to the hall, closed the door of
the room and whispered in a short enervated voice, while M. Raindal put
down his gloves and walking-stick: "Father, Mme. Chambannes is here!"
"Where? Where did you say?" M. Raindal stammered, his forehead purple.
"In the drawing-room!" Thérèse replied, eyeing him sharply. "Do you wish
to see her?"
"Ah! It would be only decent, it seems to me.... What do you think?"
He sought anxiously in his daughter's eyes a permission, an approval.
"If you like, father!" Thérèse said less sharply.
"Very well, then!" the master concluded, but he did not budge. An
involuntary look in his eyes begged the girl to go away, not to remain
treacherously on watch behind the door. She understood his distrust. Why
oppose him, why upset him in the course of this test whose issue,
favorable or not, would at all events be significant. She gave him a
friendly look and said:
"Au revoir! I am going back to my room!"
He entered the drawing-room, closing the door behind him after having
made sure that the hall was really empty.
"My dear master!" Zozé murmured tenderly, as she advanced towards him.
At the same time, either as a last maneuver to avoid defeat, or from an
impulse of filial compassion, she threw herself in his arms.
He did not resist. He pressed her against his chest, kissed her
haphazard, on her cheeks, on the hair of the neck, sobbing, stammering,
not knowing any more what it was he was crying over, his lost brother or
his destroyed happiness.
"_Ma chère amie! ma chère amie!_" he faltered, without tiring of tasting
the hitherto unknown joy of holding her in his arms.
She released herself from his embrace which she considered too long and,
after the first words of sympathy, asked him quietly:
"Is it true, my dear master, what Mlle. Thérèse has just told me?"
"What was that?" M. Raindal said, mopping his eyes.
"That you do not want to see me again, that you want to break away from
us?"
The master did not reply. Once more he burst into tears.
"Why don't you want to?" Zozé insisted, as she sat near him on a low
stool.
"Because...." M. Raindal sobbed out, unable to finish.
"Because of what?" Zozé asked, helping him as if he were a schoolboy
balking at a confession. "Speak frankly to me.... Am I not your friend?"
He contemplated her greedily, with shining eyes where his tears had
caused the many little red veins to show more vividly. His words were
exhaled rather than spoken:
"Because my affection for you has taken a turn ... an unfortunate turn,
alas an excessive turn, I might even say a guilty turn...."
She tried to evince surprise despite the calm of her face.
"How, so, dear master?"
"Yes, yes!" he pursued more distinctly, as if relieved by the
admission.... "You know it well enough, my dear friend.... You have
known it since the day of my departure from Les Frettes, you remember?"
He collected his thoughts and shook his head. "Is it not sad and
ridiculous at my age, eh?... At my age!... Old and decrepit as I am!...
Bah! it is not your fault.... I bear you no grudge.... But, I beg of
you, don't come here again.... Leave me alone.... Let me cure myself, if
I can!... It will be more charitable!"
Almost the same words that Thérèse had used, an instant before and,
indeed, almost the same tone! Mme. Chambannes, who was, at bottom, not
heartless, felt herself thoroughly upset.
"Good-by, then, dear master!" she sighed, and offered her hand to M.
Raindal.
"Good-by, my dear friend!" said the master, whose face was twisted with
pain.
Passionately he pressed to his lips her little black-gloved hand, truly
a hand of funerals and eternal parting.
"Good-by, good-by, since you wish it!" Mme. Chambannes repeated.
"No, I do not _wish_ it!" M. Raindal specified. "I _must_ wish it!"
She passed out, disappeared on the stairs, with her cadenced gait that
the master so much admired.
"It was necessary!" he said aloud, when the door was closed.
Returning to his room, he evoked famous parting scenes, historic adieux:
Titus and Berenice, the _Dimisit Invitus_ ... and also Louis XIV and
Marie Mancini.
Then suddenly his strength betrayed him. Despair, held back by his
literary memories, rose to his throat in tears. He collapsed on a chair,
his handkerchief over his eyes.
"I shall not see her again," he whispered dramatically. "I shall never
see her again, ... never ... never!"
* * * * *
He did, nevertheless, see her again, a few hours later, at the Cimetière
Montparnasse, while a delegate of the Atheists' Association pronounced
the eulogy of Uncle Cyprien, in front of the gaping tomb.
There were not many people, owing to the season, few women especially.
All those who had come wore black, but the black garments of Zozé among
theirs seemed like a queen's dress. Her grace, her smartness were still
triumphant in mourning. Her fine small face, paler than usual near the
dark material, had a pleasant seriousness which would have made the
master smile, had he not wept so much.
His dull glances went successively from Zozé to the grave and from the
grave to Zozé, while his tears ran confusedly for both.
The delegate, on concluding his speech, laid on the marble a vast crown
of red goldilocks.
The family lined up with Schleifmann in a little side alley and the
audience passed on file, murmuring their condolences. M. Raindal,
without seeing anyone, pressed the hands of all, those of the
indifferent like those of Zozé, Chambannes, the Marquis, even Gerald and
the abbé Touronde, who was somewhat ill at ease among so many
free-thinkers. Then the procession ceased. All walked to the entrance
gate.
Schleifmann lingered behind, prowling about the grave of his friend
Cyprien. Once free from onlookers, he gave two twenty-sou pieces to one
of the grave-diggers. Then, after the rite of Israel, scratching the
ground of a nearby tomb-garden, he three times threw a handful of earth
and gravel across the sepulture. The pebbles resounded on the wood of
the coffin. In reply, the Galician murmured a Hebrew verse.
His eyes looked up to the heavens. Their fervent glance seemed to desire
to pierce the mystery of the clouds, into the inaccessible region of
destinies. He no longer cursed. He was merely seeking a reply.
Why did the Lord tolerate such iniquitous ruins? By what formidable
designs did He associate His people with the accomplishment of such
misdeeds? When would He at last raise up in His Temple, among His
priests, someone, with a free and daring voice--to remind the Jews, the
proudest and the meekest, of the solemn trust of purity and justice
which they once received at the foot of Sinai?
No sign answered these silent queries. The clouds pursued their peaceful
promenade on the blue background of the sky.
Schleifmann dragged his weary feet to the gate. In the curly locks of
his gray beard his lips unconsciously mumbled: "Cyprien!... Cyprien!..."
He remembered the good times spent at Klapproth's, the progressive
building up of the old theory of the Two Banks of the River.... A most
uncertain, a most contestable theory, if one liked--but a theory which,
nevertheless, contained a small portion of the truth! Then, how
valiantly he would utter it, poor Cyprien! With what gayety, what fire,
what conviction, and what presentiment perhaps! Now, alas, there would
be no more Cyprien! Henceforth, Schleifmann, my dear fellow, you will
remain a poor lonely soul, vowed to your books, your deserted garret
and your friendless brasseries! The eyes of the Galician were full of
big tears.
As he reached the gate of the cemetery, he stopped short and stood
gravely on the threshold.
Outside, in front of the door, two carriages faced each other, against
the pavement. In the first, a private coupé with sober harness, were
settled Zozé, Chambannes and Gerald, all three. Into the other--a black
undertaker's carriage--young Boerzell was climbing beside the Raindal
family.
The drivers started simultaneously. The two carriages turned in opposite
directions, one going back to the elegance of the Right Bank, the other
driving again into the studious district of the Left Bank.
Schleifmann followed them both alternately with his glance. Ah! if his
good old Cyprien had been there to see that!
Gradually, the carriages grew dim at the two ends of the boulevard. He
could hardly distinguish their vanishing silhouettes, one massive and
without reflection, like a block of black crêpe, the other smart and
light under the sparkle of a new coat of varnish.
Schleifmann smiled with melancholy pride.
THE END.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
inquity=> iniquity {pg 18}
Salvard=> Saulvard {pg 44}
postion=> position {pg 162}
hazzard=> hazard {pg 169}
writen=> written {pg 173}
Zozè=> Zozé {pg 188}
Boerzel=> Boerzell {pg 202}
Randal=> Raindal {pg 238}
Cyrien=> Cyprien {pg 239}
one to great=> one too great {pg 241}
castastrophe=> catastrophe {pg 312}
althought=> although {pg 320}
abbè Touronde=> abbé Touronde {pg 327}
the pony showed its pace=> the pony slowed its pace {pg 329}
Schleifman=> Schleifmann {pg 387}
End of Project Gutenberg's Two banks of the Seine, by Fernand Vandérem