Jean Bourjac was old and lazy. Why should he work any more? In his
little cottage he was content enough. If the place was not precisely
gay, could he not reach Paris for a small sum? And if he had no
neighbours to chat with across the wall, weren't there his flowers to
tend in the garden? Occasionally--because one cannot shake off the
interests of a lifetime--he indulged in an evening at the Folies-
Bergère, or Olympia, curious to witness some Illusion that had made a
hit.
At such times old Bourjac would chuckle and wag his head sagely, for he
saw no Illusions now to compare with those invented by himself when he
was in the business.
And there were many persons who admitted that he had been supreme in
his line. At the Folies-Bergère he was often recognised and addressed
as "Maître."
One summer evening, when old Bourjac sat reading _Le Journal_,
Margot, the housekeeper, who had grown deaf and ancient in his service,
announced a stranger.
She was a girl with a delicate oval face, and eyes like an angel's.
"Monsieur Bourjac," she began, as if reciting a speech that she had
studied, "I have come out here to beg a favour of you. I thirst for a
career behind the footlights. Alas! I cannot sing, or dance, or act.
There is only one chance for me--to possess an Illusion that shall take
Paris by storm. I am told that there is nothing produced to-day fit to
hold a candle to the former 'Miracles Bourjac.' Will you help me? Will
you design for me the most wonderful Illusion of your life?"
"Mademoiselle," said Bourjac, with a shrug, "I have retired."
"I implore you!" she urged. "But I have not finished; I am poor, I am
employed at a milliner's, I could not pay down a single franc. My offer
is a share of my salary as a star. I am mad for the stage. It is not
the money that I crave for, but the applause. I would not grudge you
even half my salary! Oh, monsieur, it is in your power to lift me from
despair into paradise. Say you consent."
Bourjac mused. Her offer was very funny; if she had been of the
ordinary type, he would have sent her packing, with a few commercial
home-truths. Excitement had brought a flush to the oval face, her
glorious eyes awoke in him emotions which he had believed extinct. She
was so captivating that he cast about him for phrases to prolong the
interview. Though he could not agree, he didn't want her to go yet.
And when she did rise at last, he murmured, "Well, well, see me again
and we will talk about it. I have no wish to be hard, you understand."
Her name was Laure. She was in love with a conjurer, a common, flashy
fellow, who gave his mediocre exhibitions of legerdemain at such places
as Le Jardin Extérieur, and had recently come to lodge at her mother's.
She aspired to marry him, but did not dare to expect it. Her homage was
very palpable, and monsieur Eugéne Legrand, who had no matrimonial
intentions, would often wish that the old woman did not keep such a
sharp eye upon her.
Needless to say, Bourjac's semi-promise sent her home enraptured. She
had gone to him on impulse, without giving her courage time to take
flight; now, in looking back, she wondered at her audacity, and that
she had gained so much as she had. "I have no wish to be hard," he had
said. Oh, the old rascal admired her hugely! If she coaxed enough, he
would end by giving in. What thumping luck! She determined to call upon
him again on Sunday, and to look her best.
Bourjac, however, did not succumb on Sunday. Fascinating as he found
her, he squirmed at the prospect of the task demanded of him. His
workshop in the garden had been closed so long that rats had begun to
regard it as their playroom; the more he contemplated resuming his
profession, the less inclined he felt to do it.
She paid him many visits and he became deeply infatuated with her; yet
he continued to maintain that he was past such an undertaking--that she
had applied to him too late.
Then, one day, after she had flown into a passion, and wept, and been
mollified, he said hesitatingly:
"I confess that an idea for an Illusion has occurred to me, but I do
not pledge myself to execute it. I should call it 'A Life.' An empty
cabinet is examined; it is supported by four columns--there is no stage
trap, no obscurity, no black velvet curtain concealed in the dark, to
screen the operations; the cabinet is raised high above the ground, and
the lights are full up. You understand?" Some of the inventor's
enthusiasm had crept into his voice. "You understand?"
"Go on," she said, holding her breath.
"Listen. The door of the cabinet is slammed, and in letters of fire
there appears on it, 'Scene I.' Instantly it flies open again and
discloses a baby. The baby moves, it wails--in fine, it is alive. Slam!
Letters of fire, 'Scene II.' Instantly the baby has vanished; in its
place is a beautiful girl--you! You smile triumphantly at your
reflection in a mirror, your path is strewn with roses, the world is at
your feet. Slam! 'Scene III.' In a moment twenty years have passed;
your hair is grey, you are matronly, stout, your face is no longer
oval; yet unmistakably it is you yourself, the same woman. Slam! 'Scene
IV.' You are enfeebled, a crone, toothless, tottering on a stick. Once
more! It is the last effect--the door flies open and reveals a
skeleton."
"You can make this?" she questioned.
"I could make it if I chose," he answered.
"Will you?"
"It depends."
"On what?"
"On you!"
"Take any share you want," she cried. "I will sign anything you like!
After all, would not the success be due to you?"
"So you begin to see that?" said the old man drily. "But, I repeat, it
depends! In spite of everything, you may think my terms too high."
"What do you want me to do?" she stammered.
"Marry me!" said Bourjac.
He did not inquire if she had any affection for him; he knew that if
she said "Yes" it would be a lie. But he adored this girl, who, of a
truth, had nothing but her beauty to recommend her, and he persuaded
himself that his devotion would evoke tenderness in her by degrees. She
found the price high indeed. Not only was she young enough to be his
granddaughter--she had given her fancy to another man. Immediately she
could not consent. When she took leave of him, it was understood that
she would think the offer over; and she went home and let Legrand hear
that Bourjac had proposed for her hand. If, by any chance, the news
piqued Legrand into doing likewise--?
But Legrand said nothing to the point. Though he was a little chagrined
by the intelligence, it never even entered his mind to attempt to cut
the inventor out. How should it? She was certainly an attractive girl,
but as to marrying her--He thought Bourjac a fool. As for himself, if
he married at all, it would be an artist who was drawing a big salary
and who would be able to provide him with some of the good things of
life. "I pray you will be very happy, mademoiselle," he said, putting
on a sentimental air.
So, after she had cried with mortification, Laure promised to be old
Bourjac's wife.
A few weeks later they were married; and in that lonely little cottage
she would have been bored to death but for the tawdry future that she
foresaw. The man's dream of awakening her tenderness was speedily
dispelled; he had been accepted as the means to an end, and he was held
fast to the compact. She grudged him every hour in which he idled by
her side. Driven from her arms by her impatience, old Bourjac would
toil patiently in the workroom: planning, failing--surmounting
obstacles atom by atom, for the sake of a woman whose sole interest in
his existence was his progress with the Illusion that was to gratify
her vanity.
He worshipped her still. If he had not worshipped her, he would sooner
or later have renounced the scheme as impracticable; only his love for
her supported him in the teeth of the impediments that arose. Of these
she heard nothing. For one reason, her interest was so purely selfish
that she had not even wished to learn how the cabinet was to be
constructed. "All those figures gave her a headache," she declared. For
another, when early in the winter he had owned himself at a deadlock,
she had sneered at him as a duffer who was unable to fulfil his boasts.
Old Bourjac never forgot that--his reputation was very dear to him--he
did not speak to her of his difficulties again.
But they often talked of the success she was to achieve. She liked to
go into a corner of the parlour and rehearse the entrance that she
would make to acknowledge the applause. "It will be the great moment,"
she would say, "when I reappear as myself and bow."
"No, it will be expected; that will not surprise anybody," Bourjac
would insist. "The climax, the last effect, will be the skeleton!"
It was the skeleton that caused him the most anxious thought of all. In
order to compass it, he almost feared that he would be compelled to
sacrifice one of the preceding scenes. The babe, the girl, the matron,
the crone, for all these his mechanism provided; but the skeleton, the
"last effect," baffled his ingenuity. Laure began to think his task
eternal.
Ever since the wedding, she had dilated proudly to her mother and
Legrand on her approaching début, and it angered her that she could
never say when the début was to be. Now that there need be no question
of his marrying her, Legrand's manner towards her had become more
marked. She went to the house often. One afternoon, when she rang, the
door was opened by him; he explained that the old woman was out
marketing.
Laure waited in the kitchen, and the conjurer sat on the table, talking
to her.
"How goes the Illusion?" he asked.
"Oh, big!" she said. "It's going to knock them, I can tell you!" Her
laugh was rather derisive. "It's a rum world; the shop-girl will become
an artist, with a show that draws all Paris. We expect to open at the
Folies-Bergère." She knew that Legrand could never aspire to an
engagement at the Folies-Bergère as long as he lived.
"I hope you will make a hit," he said, understanding her resentment
perfectly.
"You did not foresee me a star turn, hein?"
He gave a shrug. "How could I foresee? If you had not married Bourjac,
of course it would not have happened?"
"I suppose not," she murmured. She was sorry he realised that; she
would have liked him to feel that she might have had the Illusion
anyhow, and been a woman worth his winning.
"Indeed," added Legrand pensively, rolling a cigarette, "you have done
a great deal to obtain a success. It is not every girl who would go to
such lengths."
"What?" She coloured indignantly.
"I mean it is not every girl who would break the heart of a man who
loved her."
They looked in each other's eyes for a moment. Then she turned her head
scornfully away.
"Why do you talk rot to me? Do you take me for a kid?"
He decided that a pained silence would be most effective.
"If you cared about me, why didn't you say so?" she flashed, putting
the very question he had hoped for.
"Because my position prevented it," he sighed. "I could not propose, a
poor devil like me! Do I lodge in an attic from choice? But you are the
only woman I ever wanted for my wife."