THE GRAND PRIZE
For the first fortnight of the new year, things went swimmingly at
the Imperial Theater, and several times the nightly receipts were
over three hundred francs. Duvernet wrote and produced a new play, in
which he took the part of Alexander the Great; and it was a screaming
success. Fifi as Queen Roxana was simply stunning, wearing her alleged
diamond brooch in a tiara made by her own hands, of beautiful glass
beads. The merry war between Julie Campionet and herself went on as
noisily as ever, but there was more noise than malignity about it. When
Julie was ill with a cold, Fifi went and cooked Julie’s dinner for her;
and when Fifi needed a scepter for her part of Queen Roxana, Julie
Campionet sent her a very nice parasol handle with a glass knob at the
top which made a lovely scepter.
But they did not, for these trifles, deny themselves the pleasure of
quarreling, and Duvernet was treated about once a week to a threat
from each of them that if her rival were not immediately discharged,
the complainant would at once resign. Duvernet received these threats
with secret satisfaction, because, as he explained to Cartouche, as
long as the war was actively prosecuted, Julie Campionet did not have
time to make a serious demonstration against him.
“But if ever they are reconciled,” he confided gloomily to Cartouche,
“the Campionet woman will marry me in a week.”
As for Cartouche, he attended strictly to his business at the theater,
but his mind was so much taken up with certain possibilities of the
future that he did not keep the faithful watch over Duvernet which
the manager considered as his safeguard. Cartouche was even so
inconsiderate as to let Julie Campionet get into the manager’s private
office more than once, and remain there alone with him for at least
five minutes, without interrupting the tête-à-tête.
It was the lottery ticket which in some way grievously disturbed
Cartouche’s mind. Suppose Fifi should win a prize? And from that
supposing, came a kind of superstitious conviction that number 1313
_would_ win a prize. He found himself, without his own volition,
figuring upon what should be done with the money, so as to enure to the
greatest benefit of Fifi.
“If it is a twenty-franc prize she draws, she must have a pair of
new shoes, and some good stockings”--he thought, for Cartouche knew
intimately the condition of Fifi’s wardrobe. “If it is as much as fifty
francs, the shoes and stockings must wait--it won’t do to fool away
such a sum as fifty francs; it must be put aside for a rainy day, for
Fifi, in the tin box in the cranny of the chimney”--where Cartouche
was beginning to save up also for a rainy day, for Fifi. If it were
five hundred francs--or possibly a thousand--Cartouche lost his breath
in contemplation of the catastrophe. In that case, Fifi would have a
_dot_, but whom would she marry? She knew no one but the men about the
theater, and Cartouche did not consider any of them a match for Fifi;
but perhaps he was prejudiced. She might, it is true, with five hundred
francs to her dowry, marry a tradesman; but how would Fifi get on with
a tradesman?
Altogether, it was the most puzzling proposition Cartouche had ever
struggled with, and he began to wish the fateful day were over, and
that these strange dreams and hopes and fears about Fifi and the
lottery ticket would vanish like shapes in a mist, and leave him in
peace.
Then, there was that veiled suggestion from the Emperor that he knew
something about Fifi’s family which might change her whole destiny;
and on the whole, Cartouche had good reason to go about looking like a
sick bull, which was his way of showing a passionate solicitude for the
being dearest to him on earth. And meanwhile, Julie Campionet went hot
foot after the manager, and Fifi wondered why Cartouche was so gentle
with her and so indulgent with Toto.
The lottery drawing was to be held on the tenth of January, in a large
public hall of the _arrondissement_, the mayor presiding. The drawing
was to begin at noon, and last until all the tickets were drawn. As the
day drew near, Cartouche’s fever of excitement increased, and when the
morning of the tenth dawned he was as nervous as a cat. He knocked at
Fifi’s door early, and told her to be ready to go with him at twelve
o’clock to the lottery drawing. Fifi responded sleepily, but when the
hour came she was ready to accompany him.
It was a lovely, bright morning, and Fifi’s looks were in harmony with
the morning. The red cloak was very becoming to her, and the black
feathers, for which her first thirty francs had gone, nodded over the
most sparkling, piquant face in Paris. Toto, of course, was along, led
by a long blue ribbon in his mistress’ hand; and so they set off.
Fifi had not the slightest thought of drawing a prize.
“As if 1313 would draw anything!” she sniffed. “If you had given me
that franc, Cartouche, which the ticket cost, I could have bought a
pair of gloves, or a fan, or a bushel of onions--” Fifi went on to
enumerate what she could have bought with Cartouche’s franc, until its
purchasing power grew to be something like her whole weekly salary. But
in any event, she liked the expedition she was on and Toto liked it;
so, on the whole, Fifi concluded she could at least get fifty centimes’
worth of pleasure out of the lottery ticket.
She looked so pretty as she tripped along that Cartouche mentally
resolved, if she drew a five-hundred-franc prize, she might aspire to a
notary, such as her father had been; and engrossed with the thought of
Fifi’s possible rise in the world, he was so grumpy, Fifi declared she
almost hated him.
They were among the first to arrive, and secured good seats near
the tribune. There sat the officers of the lottery, the mayor with
his tricolored sash, and several representatives of the government,
together with a little fairy of a child, all in white, who was to draw
the numbers from the wheel, which was already in place.
The crowd assembled in the hall was an orderly and well-dressed one,
but Fifi and Cartouche, who were used to crowds, felt in a subtile
way that it was quite different from the ordinary crowd. Most of the
people were, like Cartouche, in a state of acute tension. They were
strangely still and silent, but also, strangely ready to laugh, to cry,
to shout--to do anything which would take the edge off the crisis.
When the drawing began, and one or two small prizes of twenty and fifty
francs were drawn, the winners were vociferously cheered. There was a
feeling that the grand prize of a hundred thousand francs would not be
drawn until late in the afternoon, and the people were letting off
their excitement over the little prizes, waiting for the thunder-bolt
to fall. But scarcely half an hour after the drawing began, there was a
sudden, deep pause--time itself seemed to stop for a moment--and then
the auctioneer, who was calling out the prizes, roared out:
“Number 1313 draws the grand prize of one hundred thousand francs!”
Cartouche sat stunned. Like persons near drowning, he saw in an
instant, by some inward vision, all his past and future with Fifi: she
was no more for him. A great gulf had opened between them. Had it been
thundered in his ears for a century, he could not have realized it more
than in the first two seconds after the announcement was made. Fifi had
a hundred thousand francs; then she could be Fifi, his little Fifi, no
more. He saw, in a mental flash, the little store he had saved up in
the cranny of the chimney--twenty-two francs. Twenty-two francs! What a
miserable sum! A blur came before his eyes; he heard a great noise of
men shouting and clapping; women were waving their handkerchiefs and
laughing and screaming out of sheer inability to keep quiet. As for
Fifi, she turned two wide, innocent, frightened eyes on Cartouche, and
stammered:
“Dear Cartouche--shall we really have a hundred--thousand--francs--of
our own?”
“You will have it, Fifi,” replied Cartouche, and thrusting the ticket
in her nerveless hand, he forced her to stand up and show it, which
Fifi did, then suddenly burst into a torrent of tears and a tempest of
sobs.
Her youth, her beauty, her tears, her humility touched all hearts; and
this time there was a roar of sympathy. Fifi’s slight figure swayed and
would have fallen but for Cartouche holding her up. It was buzzed about
on all sides:
“Who is that tall, ugly fellow with her?” Some said her father, some
her brother, but no one said he was her lover.
The formalities were simple and brief; the drawing would still take
many hours; and Fifi, with her precious memorandum, duly signed and
countersigned, to be presented at a certain bank, was once again in the
street with Cartouche.
It was a bright, soft January day, the sun gilding the blue river,
the quays and bridges, and lighting up with a golden glow the great
masses of the Louvre and the Tuileries. Fifi walked along, clutching
Cartouche’s arm tightly. She had forgotten Toto trotting soberly at her
side, and apparently crushed by the hundred thousand francs, forgotten
all but Cartouche, who seemed to her the only thing that was not
changed in all the wide world. It was Cartouche who held Toto’s blue
ribbon and who straightened Fifi’s hat when it fell over her eyes and
she was too agitated to know it. Cartouche proposed to her to stop and
rest in the Tuileries gardens--but Fifi would have none of it.
“Take me home,” she cried. “Take me somewhere so I can cry as much as I
like!”
This struck Cartouche as a perfectly natural way of receiving such
stunning news; he himself could have wept with pleasure.
At last they were in Fifi’s shabby little room, and Fifi was taking off
her new cloak and folding it up mechanically.
“No need to do that, Fifi,” said Cartouche, in a strange voice. “After
to-morrow you need not wear thirty-franc cloaks any more.”
“Oh, you cruel Cartouche!” cried Fifi, and burst into the anticipated
fit of crying. She insisted on weeping on Cartouche’s shoulder, and
even kicked Toto when that sympathetic dog would have joined his grief
to hers, for Toto knew well enough that something was to pay, whether
it was the devil or not, he could not tell, but rather suspected it was
the devil.
Cartouche tried to comfort Fifi--usually not a difficult problem when
one has to be reconciled to a fortune--but there is always something
staggering in contemplating another state of existence. Neither
Cartouche nor Fifi could at once become calm, and Fifi, too, felt in
some singular, but acute manner, that the hundred thousand francs stood
between her and Cartouche.
“Now, mind, Fifi,” Cartouche said, “not a word of this to the people in
the theater. Wait until the money is actually in your hands.”
“In my hands,” cried Fifi, tearfully and indignantly, “in _your_ hands,
you mean, you cruel Cartouche!”
Fifi had called Cartouche cruel a dozen times since she had drawn the
prize, but Cartouche did not mind it. He would have liked to stay with
her but there were a dozen things awaiting him at the theater, and
Cartouche was not the man to neglect his work. He went off, therefore,
and had not a minute to himself, until just before it was time to dress
for the play. Then he went to his room, and taking his tin box from the
chink in the chimney, he counted over his twenty-two francs--saved by
doing without food and fire.
Clothes and shoes he must have to keep his place in the theater.
Duvernet had been a good friend to him, and he could not go in rags,
so that people would say: “There goes one of Duvernet’s actors. That
man does not pay his people enough to give them decent clothes to their
backs.”
But food and fire were a man’s own affairs, and, by keeping on the
near side of both, Cartouche had been able to save twenty-two francs
in three weeks of the coldest weather he had ever felt. And how little
it was! How contemptible alongside of a hundred thousand francs!
Cartouche, sighing, put the box back. It was all in vain: those days
when he battled with his hunger, those bitter nights when the snow lay
deep on the roofs below his garret, and his old, cracked stove was as
cold as the snow. And yet, there had been a tender, piercing sweetness
in the very endurance of those privations--it was for Fifi. And Fifi
would never more need his savings, which thought should have made him
happy, but did not.
The next day, the whole story was out, the newspapers published the
numbers and names of the winners, and it was as if Fifi had been
transported to another planet.
Duvernet came first to congratulate her. She was in a cold spasm of
terror for fear he had come to tell her that her services were no
longer needed at the theater. It seemed to her as if she were about to
be thrown headlong into an unknown abyss, and she thought that if she
could but remain at the Imperial Theater for a short while longer, long
enough to get accustomed to that stupendous change which awaited her,
it would become a little more tolerable. And Duvernet himself was so
strange, it frightened Fifi. He was so respectful; he did not strut as
usual, and he called her Mademoiselle Chiaramonti, instead of Fifi. And
Toto, who usually barked furiously at the manager, did not bark at all,
but sat on his hind legs, his fore legs dropping dejectedly, and looked
ruefully in Duvernet’s face, as much as to say:
“See, Monsieur Duvernet; we have got a hundred thousand francs and we
don’t know what to do with it, or how to behave ourselves.” Toto, in
fact, had neither barked nor danced nor jumped since he heard the news,
and appeared thoroughly oppressed and abashed by his changed fortunes.
Duvernet, it is true, felt some awe of Fifi in her new aspect, but the
active and enterprising manager was still uppermost with him.
“Well, Mademoiselle,” he began, trying to assume an airy manner, “I
presume we shall have to dispense with your valuable services at the
Imperial Theater; you will probably abandon the stage altogether, and
certainly our humble place.”
Duvernet, before this, had always spoken as if the Imperial Theater
were the rival of the Théâtre Française.
Fifi burst into tears.
“Yes,” she cried, “I shall have to go away--and that odious Julie
Campionet, who can no more act than a gridiron can act, will have all
my best parts--o-o-o-o-oo-h!”
Then Duvernet played his trump card.
“A few farewell performances, Mademoiselle, would put Julie Campionet’s
nose severely out of joint.”
“Do you think so?” cried Fifi, brightening up at the thought of
putting Julie’s Roman nose out of joint; that, at least, seemed natural
and normal.
“If Cartouche will let me--” for Fifi now, instead of opposing
Cartouche, seemed unable to come to the smallest decision without him.
“I will see to that,” replied the manager eagerly, “and I will also see
to it that Julie Campionet is made to gnaw the file.”
Just then Cartouche coming in, Fifi besought him to let her act for at
least two weeks more; and Cartouche, feeling himself that vague, but
intense strangeness of all things and people since Fifi got her hundred
thousand francs, consented. When it was decided, Toto laid his nose
down on his paws and uttered a short whine of relief, which sounded
like grace after meat.
So Fifi was to play for two weeks more at the Imperial Theater, the
franc seats were to be two francs, and the cheapest seats, fifty
centimes. Fifi breathed again. It was a respite.
Meanwhile Fifi had been formally notified that the money was awaiting
her at a certain bank, and she was requested to name a day for the
payment to her, in the presence of an official of the lottery, a friend
of her own, and a representative of the lottery company. Fifi, or
rather Cartouche for her, named a day a whole month from the day of the
lottery drawing. They were both frightened at the prospect of Fifi’s
receiving the money.
She and Cartouche resumed their life exactly as it had been before
number 1313 was purchased. Cartouche, going about attending to his
business as usual, thought his head would crack. At the end of the
month, what was to be done? He was but little more experienced than
Fifi when it came to a hundred thousand francs. Fifi must find another
and a very different home--but where? She must be married--but when
and how and to whom? He knew of no one of whom he could ask advice,
except one, and he was not easy to reach--the Emperor. Cartouche was
as certain as he was of being alive, that if he could see his Emperor,
and could tell the whole story, a way out of all his perplexities could
be found. He had a shadowy hope that the Emperor might have discovered
something about Fifi, according to that mysterious hint he gave the
memorable night when he heard her name, but it did not materialize.
At last Cartouche formed the desperate resolve of trying to see the
Emperor and telling all his trouble about Fifi. On certain mornings in
the week an inspection of the Imperial Guard was held in the courtyard
of the Tuileries; and on one of these mornings--a cold, dull, uncertain
morning, matching Cartouche’s feelings--he went and stationed himself
as close to the iron railings of the courtyard as the police would let
him. He thought to himself: “The Emperor sees everything and everybody.
He will see me, and he will know that I have something on my mind, and
then he will send for me, and I will make a clean breast of it; and the
Emperor will tell me what to do with Fifi and her money.”
The guard was drawn up into a hollow square, their splendid uniforms
making a splash of color in the dull gray day, their arms shining,
their bronzed countenances and steady eyes fit to face the great god
Mars himself. Presently an electric thrill flashed through every
soldier and each of the crowd of onlookers, as when a demigod appears
among the lesser sons of men--the Emperor appeared, stepping quickly
across the courtyard.
He was in simple dress uniform, and had with him only two or three
anxious-looking officers; for he was then the eagle-eyed general, who
knew if a button was missing or a strap awry, and incidentally read
the soul of the man before him. At once, he ordered this man and that
to open his knapsack; one piercing glance sufficed to see in it and
through it. He had a musket examined here and there, and in a flash he
knew if everything was as it should be. The inspection was rapid, but
nothing escaped the magic eyes of the Emperor. All was in order, and in
consequence, Jove smiled.
Cartouche saw that the Emperor would pass within a few yards of
him, and he stood, erect and rigid, at “attention,” waiting for the
lightning glance to find him, and, just as he expected, the Emperor’s
eye swept over the waiting crowd, rested a moment on him, recognized
him instantly, and as Cartouche made a slight gesture of entreaty,
nodded to him. Five minutes after, a smart young aide stepped up, and
motioning to Cartouche, walked toward the palace; Cartouche followed.
He did not know how he got into a small room on the ground floor,
which communicated with the Emperor’s cabinet. He was hot and cold and
red and pale, but said to himself: “Never mind, as soon as I see the
Emperor I shall feel as cool and easy as possible. For when was it
that a private soldier was not at his ease with the Emperor? It is the
bigwigs who think they know something, whom the Emperor frightens.”
There was a long wait, but after a while the door opened, and the
same young aide ushered him into the Emperor’s cabinet; and just as
Cartouche had known, he felt as easy as ever in his life as soon as he
found himself alone with the Emperor.
The Emperor sat at a table, leaning his elbow upon it. His pale and
classic face was luminous with a smile as he saw Cartouche; he had no
more forgotten the first man across the bridge at Lodi than Cartouche
had forgotten him.
“Well, my friend,” he said, smiling. “I was about to send for you,
because I have found out some surprising things about your protegée,
Mademoiselle Fifi; and besides, I see by the newspapers that she has
drawn a prize of a hundred thousand francs in the lottery.”
“Yes, Sire,” replied Cartouche, “and I want to ask your Majesty what I
am to do with Fifi’s hundred thousand francs.”
“Good God!” cried the Emperor, getting up and walking about the room
with his hands behind his back, “I know no more what to do with a
hundred thousand francs than you do; I never had a hundred thousand
francs of my own in my life. I have a civil list of forty millions,
which I disburse for the benefit of the state, but it is as much as
I can do to keep myself and my wife in clothes. Women are expensive
creatures, Cartouche.”
“True, your Majesty,” replied Cartouche, “and Fifi does not know what
to do with money when she gets it--” Then, in a burst of confidence he
told the Emperor about the thirty francs Fifi had saved up for a cloak
and invested in a little black dog instead. The Emperor threw back his
head and laughed heartily.
“This Fifi must be a character. Well, I shall ask Lebrun, the
arch-treasurer, to give us his advice about Fifi’s hundred
thousand francs. But suppose she will not trust you and me and the
arch-treasurer with her money?”
“I don’t know about the arch-treasurer, your Majesty, but I am sure
Fifi will trust you, Sire, and me. But what is to be done with Fifi
herself, is puzzling me.”
“That can be easily settled, I think. You remember I told you, when
I found her name was Chiaramonti, that I might have some surprising
news about her. I was, this very morning, contemplating sending for
you. Well, this young lady, whom you found crying in the market-place
at Mantua, I have discovered is the granddaughter of Barnabas Gregory
Chiaramonti, who was the first cousin and playmate, in his boyhood, of
Gregory Barnabas Chiaramonti, now reigning over the Holy See as Pius
the Seventh, and at present, sojourning as my guest at the palace of
Fontainebleau.”
Everything reeled before Cartouche, and he had to hold on to the back
of a chair to keep from falling.
Some minutes passed. The world was changing its aspect so rapidly to
Cartouche that he hardly recognized it as the same old planet he had
known for thirty-five years.
The Emperor waited until Cartouche had a little recovered himself,
although he was still pale and breathed hard. Then the Emperor said:
“I shall cause the Holy Father to be informed of Fifi’s existence. He
is a good old man, although as obstinate as the devil. Oh, I am sure
we can arrange for Fifi; and then, Cartouche, how about a husband for
her?”
The Emperor, as he said this, looked steadily at Cartouche; but
Cartouche, looking back as steadily, replied:
“I should think the Holy Father would arrange that, your Majesty.”
“True,” replied the Emperor, “but I wish one of my deserving young
officers might suit the Holy Father as Fifi’s husband. I say,
Cartouche, how hard life is sometimes! Now, because Fifi is rich
through the lottery ticket you bought her, you can never hope to marry
her.”
“Oh, your Majesty, that could not have been in any event,” answered
Cartouche, a dull red showing through his dark skin. “I am sixteen
years older than Fifi, and I have a stiff leg, and although I make
what is reckoned a good living for a man like me, it is not the sort
of living for a notary’s daughter like Fifi. No, your Majesty; I love
Fifi, but I never thought to make her my wife. She deserves a better
man than I am.”
“Another sort of a man, Cartouche, but not a better one,” replied the
Emperor, gently tweaking Cartouche’s ear. “I shall arrange for the
Holy Father to be told of Fifi’s existence, and we shall see about the
hundred thousand francs; and, Cartouche, if you are in any trouble or
perplexity, come to your Emperor.”
And with that, Cartouche knew the interview was over, and he went away
with a heart both light and heavy. For Cartouche was a very human man
after all, and the thought of Fifi’s having a husband made the whole
world black to him.