At one o'clock on the following day _La Grille_ was in rehearsal, for
the first time, in the green-room of the theatre. A dismal light spread
like a pall over the grey stones of the roof, the galleries, and the
columns. In the depressing majesty of this pallid architecture, beneath
the statue of Racine, the leading actors were reading before Pradel, the
manager of the house, their parts, which they did not yet know. Romilly,
the stage manager, and Constantine Marc, the author of the piece, were
all three seated on a red velvet sofa, while, from a bench set back
between two columns, was exhaled the vigilant hatred and whispered
jealousy of the actresses left out of the cast.
The lover, Paul Delage, was with difficulty deciphering a speech:
"'I recognize the château with its brick walls, its slated roof; the
park, where I have so often entwined her initials and mine on the bark
of the trees; the pond whose slumbering waters....'"
Fagette rebuked him:
"'Beware, Aimeri, lest the château know you not again, lest the park
forget your name, lest the pond murmur: "Who is this stranger?"'"
But she had a cold, and was reading from a manuscript copy full of
mistakes.
"Don't stand there, Fagette: it's the summer-house," said Romilly.
"How do you expect me to know that?"
"There's a chair put there."
"'Lest the pond murmur: "Who is this stranger?"'"
"Mademoiselle Nanteuil, it's your cue----Where has Nanteuil got to?
Nanteuil!"
Nanteuil came forward muffled up in her furs, her little bag and her
part in her hand, white as a sheet, her eyes sunken, her legs nerveless.
When fully awake she had seen the dead man enter her bedroom.
She inquired:
"Where do I make my entrance from?"
"From the right."
"All right."
And she read:
"'Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning, I do not know why it
was. Can you perhaps tell me?'"
Delage read his reply:
"'It may be, Cécile, that it was due to a special dispensation of
Providence or of fate. The God who loves you suffers you to smile, in
the hour of weeping and the gnashing of teeth.'"
"Nanteuil, my darling, you cross the stage," said Romilly. "Delage,
stand aside a bit to let her pass."
Nanteuil crossed over.
"'Terrible days, do you say, Aimeri? Our days are what we make them.
They are terrible for evil-doers only.'"
Romilly interrupted:
"Delage, efface yourself a trifle; be careful not to hide her from the
audience. Once more, Nanteuil."
Nanteuil repeated:
"'Terrible days, do you say, Aimeri? Our days are what we make them.
They are terrible for evil-doers only.'"
Constantin Marc no longer recognized his handiwork, he could no longer
even hear the sound of his beloved phrases, which he had so often
repeated to himself in the Vivarais woods. Dumbfounded and dazed, he
held his peace.
Nanteuil tripped daintily across the stage, and resumed reading her
part:
"'You will perhaps think me very foolish, Aimeri; in the convent where I
was brought up, I often used to envy the fate of the victims.'"
Delage took up his cue, but he had overlooked a page of the manuscript:
"'The weather is magnificent. Already the guests are strolling about the
garden.'"
It became necessary to start all over again.
"'Terrible days, do you say, Aimeri....'"
And so they proceeded, without troubling to understand, but careful to
regulate their movements, as if studying the figures of a dance.
"In the interests of the play, we shall have to make some cuts," said
Pradel to the dismayed author.
And Delage continued:
"'Do not blame me, Cécile: I felt for you a friendship dating from
childhood, one of those fraternal friendships which impart to the love
which springs from them a disquieting appearance of incest.'"
"Incest," shouted Pradel. "You cannot let the word 'incest' remain,
Monsieur Constantin Marc. The public has susceptibilities of which you
have no idea. Moreover, the order of the two speeches which follow must
be transposed. The optics of the stage require it."
The rehearsal was interrupted. Romilly caught sight of Durville who, in
a recess, was telling racy stories.
"Durville, you can go. The second act will not be rehearsed to-day."
Before leaving, the old actor went up to Nanteuil, to press her hand.
Judging that this was the moment to assure her of his sympathy, he
summoned up the tears to his eyes, as anyone condoling with her would
have done in his place. But he did it admirably. The pupils of his eyes
swam in their orbits, like the moon amid clouds. The corners of his lips
were turned down in two deep furrows which prolonged them to the bottom
of his chin. He appeared to be genuinely afflicted.
"My poor darling," he sighed, "I pity you, I do indeed! To see one for
whom one has experienced a--feeling--with whom one has--lived in
intimacy--to see him carried off at a blow--a tragic blow--is hard, is
terrible!"
And he extended his compassionate hands. Nanteuil, completely unnerved,
and crushing her tiny handkerchief and her part in her hands, turned her
back upon him, and hissed between her teeth:
"Old idiot!"
Fagette passed her arm round her waist, and led her gently aside to the
foot of Racine's statue, where she whispered into her ear:
"Listen to me, my dear. This affair must be completely hushed up.
Everybody is talking about it. If you let people talk, they will brand
you for life as Chevalier's widow."
Then, being something of a talker, she added:
"I know you, I am your best friend. I know your value. But beware,
Félicie: women are held at their own valuation."
Every one of Fagette's shafts told. Nanteuil, with fiery cheeks, held
back her tears. Too young to possess or even to desire the prudence
which comes to celebrated actresses when of an age to graduate as women
of the world of fashion, she was full of self-esteem, and since she had
known what it was to love another she was eager to efface everything
unfashionable from her past; she felt that Chevalier, in killing himself
for her sake, had behaved towards her publicly with a familiarity which
made her ridiculous. Still unaware that all things fall into oblivion,
and are lost in the swift current of our days, that all our actions flow
like the waters of a river, between banks that have no memory, she
pondered, irritated and dejected, at the feet of Jean Racine, who
understood her grief.
"Just look at her," said Madame Marie-Claire to young Delage. "She wants
to cry. I understand her. A man killed himself for me. I was greatly
upset by it. He was a count."
"Well, begin again!" shouted Pradel. "Come now, Mademoiselle Nanteuil,
your cue!"
Whereupon Nanteuil:
"'Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning....'"
Suddenly, Madame Doulce appeared. Ponderous and mournful, she let fall
the following words:
"I have very sad news. The parish priest will not allow him to enter his
church."
As Chevalier had no relations left other than a sister, a working-woman
at Pantin, Madame Doulce had undertaken to make arrangements for the
funeral at the expense of the members of the company.
They gathered round her. She continued:
"The Church rejects him as though he were accurst! That's dreadful!"
"Why?" asked Romilly.
Madame Doulce replied in a very low tone and as if reluctantly:
"Because he committed suicide."
"We must see to this," said Pradel.
Romilly displayed an eager desire to be of service.
"The curé knows me," he said. "He is a very decent fellow. I'll just run
over to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and I'd be greatly surprised if----"
Madame Doulce shook her head sadly:
"All is useless."
"All the same, we must have a religious service," said Romilly, with all
the authority of a stage-manager.
"Quite so," said Madame Doulce.
Madame Marie-Claire, deeply exercised in her mind, was of opinion that
the priests could be compelled to say a Mass.
"Let us keep cool," said Pradel, caressing his venerable beard. "Under
Louis VIII the people broke in the doors of Saint-Roch, which had been
closed to the coffin of Mademoiselle Raucourt. We live in other times,
and under different circumstances. We must have recourse to gentler
methods."
Constantin Marc, seeing to his great regret that his play was abandoned,
had likewise approached Madame Doulce; he inquired of her:
"Why should you want Chevalier to be blessed by the Church? Personally,
I am a Catholic. With me, it is not a faith, it is a system, and I look
upon it as a duty to participate in all the external practices of
worship. I am on the side of all authorities. I am for the judge, the
soldier, the priest. I cannot therefore be suspected of favouring civil
burials. But I hardly understand why you persist in offering the curé of
Saint-Étienne-du-Mont a dead body which he repudiates. Now why do you
want this unfortunate Chevalier to go to church?"
"Why?" replied Madame Doulce. "For the salvation of his soul and because
it is more seemly."
"What would be seemly," replied Constantin Marc, "would be to obey the
laws of the Church, which excommunicates suicides."
"Monsieur Constantin Marc, have you read _Les Soirées de Neuilly_?"
inquired Pradel, who was an ardent collector of old books and a great
reader. "What, you have not read _Les Soirées de Neuilly_, by Monsieur
de Fongeray? You have missed something. It is a curious book, which can
still be met with sometimes on the quays. It is adorned by a lithograph
of Henry Monnier's, which is, I don't know why, a caricature of
Stendhal. Fongeray is the pseudonym of two Liberals of the Restoration,
Dittmer and Cavé. The work consists of comedies and dramas which cannot
be acted; but which contain some most interesting scenes representing
manners and customs. You will read in it how, in the reign of Charles X,
a vicar of one of the Paris churches, the Abbé Mouchaud, would refuse
burial to a pious lady, and would, at all costs, grant it to an atheist.
Madame d'Hautefeuille was religious, but she held some national
property. At her death, she received the ministrations of a Jansenist
priest. For this reason, after her death, the Abbé Mouchaud refused to
receive her into the church in which she had passed her life. At the
same time, in the same parish, Monsieur Dubourg, a big banker, was good
enough to die. In his will he stipulated that he should be borne
straight to the cemetery. 'He is a Catholic,' reflected the Abbé
Mouchaud, 'he belongs to us.' Quickly making a parcel of his stole and
surplice, he rushed off to the dead man's house, administered extreme
unction, and brought him into his church."
"Well," replied Constantin Marc, "that vicar was an excellent
politician. Atheists are not formidable enemies of the Church. They do
not count as adversaries. They cannot raise a Church against her, and
they do not dream of doing so. Atheists have existed at all times among
the heads and princes of the Church, and many of them have rendered
signal services to the Papacy. On the other hand, whoever does not
submit strictly to ecclesiastical discipline and breaks away from
tradition upon a single point, whoever sets up a faith against the
faith, an opinion, a practices against the accepted opinion and the
common practice, is a factor of disorder, a menace of peril, and must be
extirpated. This the vicar, Mouchaud, understood. He should have been
made a Cardinal."
Madame Doulce, who had been clever enough not to tell everything in a
breath, went on to say:
"I did not allow myself to be discomfited by the opposition of Monsieur
le Curé. I begged, I entreated. And his answer was: 'We owe respectful
obedience to the Ordinary. Go to the Archbishop's Palace. I will do as
Monseigneur bids me.' There is nothing left for me but to follow this
advice. I'm hurrying off to the Archbishop's Palace."
"Let us get to work," said Pradel.
Romilly called to Nanteuil:
"Nanteuil! Come, Nanteuil, begin your whole scene over again."
And Nanteuil said once more:
"'Cousin, I was so happy when I awoke this morning....'"