JANSOULET AT HOME
Married he was and had been so for twelve years, but he had mentionedthe fact to no one among his Parisian acquaintances, through Easternhabit, that silence which the people of those countries preserve uponaffairs of the harem. Suddenly it was reported that madame was coming,that apartments were to be prepared for herself, her children, and herfemale attendants. The Nabob took the whole second floor of the houseon the Place Vendome, the tenant of which was turned out at an expenseworthy of a Nabob. The stables also were extended, the staff doubled;then, one day, coachmen and carriages went to the Gare de Lyon to meetmadame, who arrived by train heated expressly for her during the journeyfrom Marseilles and filled by a suite of negresses, serving-maids, andlittle negro boys.
She arrived in a condition of frightful exhaustion, utterly worn outand bewildered by her long railway journey, the first of her life, for,after being taken to Tunis while still quite a child, she had never leftit. From her carriage, two negroes carried her into her apartments on aneasy chair which, subsequently, always remained downstairs beneaththe entrance porch, in readiness for these difficult removals. Mme.Jansoulet could not mount the staircase, which made her dizzy; shewould not have lifts, which creaked under her weight; besides, shenever walked. Of enormous size, bloated to such a degree that it wasimpossible to assign to her any particular age between twenty-five andforty, with a rather pretty face but grown shapeless in its features,dull eyes beneath lids that drooped, vulgarly dressed in foreignclothes, laden with diamonds and jewels after the fashion of a Hinduidol, she was as fine a sample as could be found of those transplantedEuropean women called Levantines--a curious race of obese creoles whomspeech and costume alone attach to our world, but whom the East wrapsround with its stupefying atmosphere, with the subtle poisons of itsdrugged air in which everything, from the tissues of the skin to thewaists of garments, even to the soul, is enervated and relaxed.
This particular specimen of it was the daughter of an immensely richBelgian who was engaged in the coral trade at Tunis, and in whosebusiness Jansoulet, after his arrival in the country, had been employedfor some months. Mlle. Afchin, in those days a delicious little doll oftwelve years old, with radiant complexion, hair, and health, used oftento come to fetch her father from the counting-house in the great chariotwith its yoke of mules which carried them to their fine villa at LaMarsu, in the vicinity of Tunis. This mischievous child with splendidbare shoulders, had dazzled the adventurer as he caught glimpses ofher amid her luxurious surroundings, and, years afterward, when, havingbecome rich and the favourite of the Bey, he began to think of settlingdown, it was to her that his thoughts went. The child had grown into afat young woman, heavy and white. Her intelligence, dull in the firstinstance, had become still more obscured through the inertia of adormouse's existence, the carelessness of a father given over tobusiness, the use of opium-saturated tobacco and of preserves made fromrose-leaves, the torpor of her Flemish blood, re-enforced by Orientalindolence. Furthermore, she was ill-bred, gluttonous, sensual, arrogant,a Levantine jewel in perfection.
But Jansoulet saw nothing of all this.
For him she was, and remained, up to the time of her arrival in Paris, asuperior creature, a lady of the most exalted rank, a Demoiselle Afchin.He addressed her with respect, in her presence maintained an attitudewhich was a little constrained and timid, gave her money withoutcounting, satisfied her most costly fantasies, her wildest caprices, allthe strange desires of a Levantine's brain disordered through boredomand idleness. One word alone excused everything. She was a DemoiselleAfchin. Beyond this, no intercourse between them; he always at theKasbah or the Bardo, courting the favour of the Bey, or else in hiscounting-houses; she passing her days in bed, wearing in her hair adiadem of pearls worth three hundred thousand francs which she nevertook off, befuddling her brain with smoking, living as in a harem,admiring herself in the glass, adorning herself, in company with a fewother Levantines, whose supreme distraction consisted in measuring withtheir necklaces arms and legs which rivalled each other in plumpness,and bearing children about whom she never gave herself the leasttrouble, whom she never used to see, who had not even cost her a pang,for she gave birth to them under chloroform. A lump of white fleshperfumed with musk. And, as Jansoulet used to say with pride: "I marrieda Demoiselle Afchin!"
Under the sky of Paris and its cold light the disillusion began.Determined to settle down, to receive, to give entertainments, the Nabobhad brought his wife over with the idea of setting her at the head ofthe establishment; but when he saw the arrival of that display of gaudydraperies of Palais-Royal jewelry, and all the strange paraphernalia inher suite, he had the vague impression of a Queen Pomare in exile.The fact was that now he had seen real women of the world, and he madecomparisons. After having planned a great ball to celebrate her arrival,he prudently changed his mind. Besides, Mme. Jansoulet desired to seenobody. Here her natural indolence was increased by the home-sicknesswhich she suffered, from the first hour of her coming, by the chillinessof a yellow fog and the dripping rain. She passed several days withoutgetting up, weeping aloud like a child, saying that it was in order tocause her death that she had been brought to Paris, and not permittingher women to do even the least thing for her. She lay there bellowingamong the laces of her pillow, with her hair bristling in disorder abouther diadem, the windows of the room closed, the curtains drawn close,the lamps lighted night and day, crying out that she wanted to goaway-y, to go away-y; and it was pitiful to see, in that funeral gloom,the half-unpacked trunks scattered over the carpets, the frightenedmaids, the negresses crouched around their mistress in her nervousattack, they also groaning, with haggard eyes like those dogs of artictravellers that go mad without the sun.
The Irish doctor, called in to deal with all this trouble, had nosuccess with his fatherly manners, the pretty phrases that issued fromhis compressed lips. The Levantine would have nothing to do at any pricewith the arsenic pearls as a tonic. The Nabob was in consternation.What was to be done? Send her back to Tunis with the children? It wasscarcely possible. He was decidedly in disgrace in that quarter. TheHemerlingues were triumphant. A last affront had filled up themeasure. At Jansoulet's departure, the Bey had commissioned him to havegold-pieces struck at the Paris Mint of a new design to the value ofseveral millions; then the order, suddenly withdrawn, had been givento Hemerlingue. Publicly outraged, Jansoulet had replied by a publicdemonstration, offering for sale all his possessions, his palace atthe Bardo given to him by the former Bey, his villas of La Marsu all ofwhite marble, surrounded by splendid gardens, his counting-houses whichwere the largest and the most sumptuous in the city, and, charging,finally, the intelligent Bompain to bring over to him his wife andchildren in order to make a clear affirmation of a definitive departure.After such an uproar, it was no easy thing for him to return there;this was what he endeavoured to make evident to Mlle. Afchin, who onlyreplied to him by deep groans. He tried to console her, to amuse her,but what distraction could be found to appeal to that monstrouslyapathetic nature? And then, could he change the sky of Paris, restore tothe unhappy Levantine her _patio_ paved with marble, where she used topass long hours in a cool, delicious sleepiness, listening to the wateras it dripped on the great alabaster fountain with its three basins, oneover the other, and her gilded barge, with its awning of crimson, whicheight Tripolitan boatmen supple and vigorous rowed after sunset on thebeautiful lake of El-Baheira? However luxurious the apartment of thePlace Vendome might be, it could not compensate for the loss of thesemarvels. And then she would be more miserable than ever. At last, a manwho was a frequent visitor to the house succeeded in lifting her outof her despair. This was Cabassu, the man who described himself on hiscards as "professor of massage," a big, dark, thick-set man, smellingof garlic and pomade, square-shouldered, hairy to the eyes, and whoknew stories of Parisian seraglios, tales within the reach of madame'sintelligence. Having once come to massage her, she wished to see himagain, retained him. He had to give up all his other clients, and
became, at the salary of a senator, the masseur of this stout lady, herpage, her reader, her body-guard. Jansoulet, delighted to see his wifecontented, was unconscious of the ridicule attached to this intimacy.
Cabassu was now seen in the Bois, seated beside the favourite maid inthe huge and sumptuous open carriage, also at the back of the theatreboxes taken by the Levantine, for she began to go out, since she hadgrown less torpid under the treatment of her masseur and was determinedto amuse herself. The theatre pleased her, especially farces ormelodramas. The apathy of her large body found a stimulus in the falseglare of the footlights. But it was to Cardailhac's theatre that shewent for preference. There, the Nabob found himself in his own house.From the chief superintendent to the humblest _ouvreuse_, the wholestaff was under his control. He had a key which enabled him to pass fromthe corridors on to the stage; and the small drawing-room communicatingwith his box was decorated in Oriental manner, with a concave ceilinglike a beehive, its couches covered in camel's hair, the flame of thegas inclosed in a little Moorish lantern. Here one could enjoy a siestaduring rather long intervals between the acts; a gallant attention onthe part of the manager to the wife of his partner. Nor did that ape ofa Cardailhac stop at this. Remarking the taste of the Demoiselle Afchinfor the drama, he had ended by persuading her that she also possessedthe intuition, the knowledge of it, and by begging her when she hadnothing better to do to glance over and let him know what she thoughtof the pieces that were submitted to him. A good way of cementing thepartnership more firmly.
Poor manuscripts in your blue or yellow covers, bound by hope withfragile ribbons, that set out full of ambition and dreams, who knowswhat hands may touch you, turn over your pages, what indiscreet fingersdeflower your charm, the charm of the unknown, that glittering dustwhich lies on new ideas? Who may judge you and who condemn? Sometimes,before dining out, Jansoulet, mounting to his wife's room, would findher on her lounge, smoking, her head thrown back, bundles of manuscriptsby her side, and Cabassu, armed with a blue pencil, reading in his thickvoice and with the Bourg-Saint-Andeol accent, some dramatic lucubrationwhich he cut and scored without pity at the least criticism from thelady.
"Don't disturb yourselves," the good Nabob would signal with his hand,entering on tiptoe. He would listen, shake his head with an admiringair, as he watched his wife: "She is astonishing!" for he himselfunderstood nothing about literature, and there, at least, he coulddiscover once again the superiority of Mlle. Afchin.
"She had the instinct of the stage," as Cardailhac used to say; but, onthe other hand, the maternal instinct was wanting in her. Never didshe take any interest in her children, abandoning them to the hands ofstrangers, and, when they were brought to her once a month, contentingherself with offering to them the flaccid and inanimate flesh ofher cheeks between two puffs of cigarette-smoke, without making anyinquiries into those details of their bringing up and of their healthwhich perpetuate the physical bond of maternity and make the hearts oftrue mothers bleed at the least suffering of their children.
They were three big, dull and apathetic boys of eleven, nine, and sevenyears, having, with the sallow complexion and the precocious bloatednessof the Levantine, the kind, black, velvety eyes of their father. Theywere ignorant as young lords of the middle ages. At Tunis, M. Bompainhad directed their studies; but at Paris, the Nabob, anxious to givethem the benefit of a Parisian education, had sent them to that smartestand most expensive of boarding-schools, the College Bourdaloue, managedby good priests who sought less to instruct their pupils than to make ofthem good-mannered and right-thinking men of the world, and succeededin turning them out affectedly grave and ridiculous little prigs,disdainful of games, absolutely ignorant, without anything spontaneousor boyish about them, and of a desperate precocity. The littleJansoulets were not very happy in this forcing-house, notwithstandingthe immunities which they enjoyed by reason of their immense wealth;they were, indeed, utterly left to themselves. Even the creoles in thecharge of the institution had some friend whom they visited and peoplewho came to see them; but the Jansoulets were never summoned to theparlour, no one knew any of their relatives; from time to time theyreceived basketfuls of sweetmeats, piles of confectionery, and that wasall. The Nabob, doing some shopping in Paris, would strip for them thewhole of a pastry-cook's window and send the spoils to the college, withthat generous impulse of the heart mingled with negro ostentationwhich characterized all his actions. It was the same in the matterof playthings. They were always too pretty, tricked out too finely,useless--those toys that are for show but which the Parisian does notbuy. But that which above all attracted to the little Jansoulets therespect both of pupils and masters, were their purses heavy with gold,ever ready for school subscriptions, for the professors' birthdays,and the charity visits, those famous visits organized by the CollegeBourdaloue, one of the tempting things in the prospectus, the marvel ofsensitive souls.
Twice a month, turn and turn about, the pupils who were members of theminiature Society of St. Vincent de Paul founded in the college upon themodel of the great one, went in little squads, alone, as though they hadbeen grown-up, to bear succour and consolation into the deepest recessesof the more densely populated quarters of the town. This was designedto teach them a practical charity, the art of knowing the needs, themiseries of the lower classes, and to heal these heart-rending evilsby a nostrum of kind words and ecclesiastical maxims. To console, toevangelize the masses by the help of childhood, to disarm religiousincredulity by the youth and _naivete_ of the apostles, such was the aimof this little society; an aim entirely missed, moreover. The children,healthy, well-dressed, well-fed, calling only at addresses previouslyselected, found poor persons of good appearance, sometimes ratherunwell, but very clean, already on the parish register and in receipt ofaid from the wealthy organization of the Church. Never did theychance to enter one of those nauseous dwellings wherein hunger, grief,humiliation, all physical and moral ills are written in leprous mould onthe walls, in indelible lines on the brows. Their visits were preparedfor, like that of the sovereign who enters a guard-room to taste thesoldiers' soup: the guard-room is warmed and the soup seasoned forthe royal palate. Have you seen those pictures in pious books, where alittle communicant, with candle in hand, and perfectly groomed, comesto minister to a poor old man lying sick on his straw pallet and turningthe whites of his eyes to heaven? These visits of charity had the sameconventionality of setting and of accent. To the measured gestures ofthe little preachers were corresponding words learned by heart andfalse enough to make one squint. To the comic encouragement, to the"consolations lavished" in prize-book phrases by the voices of youngurchins with colds, were the affecting benedictions, the whining andpiteous mummeries of a church-porch after vespers. And the moment theyoung visitors departed, what an explosion of laughter and shouting inthe garret, what a dance in a circle round the present brought, what anupsetting of the arm-chair in which one had pretended to be lying ill,of the medicine spilt in the fire, a fire of cinders very artisticallyprepared!
When the little Jansoulets went out to visit their parents at home,they were intrusted to the care of the man with the red fez, theindispensable Bompain. It was Bompain who conducted them to theChamps-Elysees, clad in English jackets, bowler hats of the latestfashion--at seven years old!--and carrying little canes in theirdog-skin-gloved hands. It was Bompain who stuffed the race-wagonettewith provisions. Here he mounted with the children, who, with theirentrance-cards stuck in their hats round which green veils were twisted,looked very like those personages in Liliputian pantomimes whose entirefunniness lies in the enormous size of their heads compared with theirsmall legs and dwarf-like gestures. They smoked and drank; it was apainful sight. Sometimes the man in the fez, hardly able to hold himselfupright, would bring them home frightfully sick. And yet Jansoulet wasfond of them, the youngest especially, who, with his long hair, hisdoll-like manner, recalled to him the little Afchin passing in hercarriage. But they were still of the age when children belong to themother, when neither t
he fashionable tailor, nor the most accomplishedmasters, nor the smart boarding-school, nor the ponies girthed speciallyfor the little men in the stable, nor anything else can replacethe attentive and caressing hand, the warmth and the gaiety of thehome-nest. The father could not give them that; and then, too, he was sobusy!
A thousand irons in the fire: the Territorial Bank, the installationof the picture gallery, drives to Tattersall's with Bois l'Hery,some _bibelot_ to inspect, here or there, at the houses of collectorsindicated by Schwalbach, hours passed with trainers, jockeys, dealersin curiosities, the encumbered and multiple existence of a _bourgeoisgentilhomme_ in modern Paris. This rubbing of shoulders with all sortsand conditions of people brought him improvement, in that each day hewas becoming a little more Parisianized; he was received at Monpavon'sclub, in the green-room of the ballet, behind the scenes at thetheatres, and presided regularly at his famous bachelor luncheons, theonly receptions possible in his household. His existence was really avery busy one, and de Gery relieved him of the heaviest part of it, thecomplicated department of appeals and of charities.
The young man now became acquainted with all the audacious and burlesqueinventions, all the serio-comic combinations of that mendicancy of greatcities, organized like a department of state, innumerable as an army,which subscribes to the newspapers and knows its _Bottin_ by heart. Hereceived the blonde lady, bold, young, and already faded, who only asksfor a hundred napoleons, with the threat that she will throw herselfinto the river when she leaves if they are not given to her, and thestout matron of prepossessing and unceremonious manner, who says, as sheenters: "Sir, you do not know me. Neither have I the honour of knowingyou. But we shall soon make each other's acquaintance. Be kind enough tosit down and let us have a chat." The merchant at bay, on the verge ofbankruptcy--sometimes it is true--who comes to entreat you to save hishonour, with a pistol ready to shoot himself, bulging out the pocketof his overcoat--sometimes it is only his pipe-case. And often genuinedistresses, wearisome and prolix, of people who are unable even to tellhow little competent they are to earn a livelihood. Side by side withthis open begging, there was that which wears various kinds of disguise:charity, philanthropy, good works, the encouragement of projects of art,the house-to-house begging for infant asylums, parish churches, rescuedwomen, charitable societies, local libraries. Finally, those who weara society mask, with tickets for concerts, benefit performances,entrance-cards of all colours, "platform, front seats, reserved seats."The Nabob insisted that no refusals should be given, and it was aconcession that he no longer burdened his own shoulders with suchmatters. For quite a long time, in generous indifference, he had goneon covering with gold all that hypocritical exploitation, payingfive hundred francs for a ticket for the concert of some Wurtembergcithara-player or Languedocian flutist, which at the Tuileries or at theDuc de Mora's might have fetched ten francs. There were days when theyoung de Gery issued from these audiences nauseated. All the honesty ofhis youth revolted; he approached the Nabob with schemes of reform. Butthe Nabob's face, at the first word, would assume the bored expressionof weak natures when they have to make a decision, or he would perhapsreply: "But that is Paris, my dear boy. Don't get frightened orinterfere with my plans. I know what I am doing and what I want."
At that time he wanted two things: a deputyship and the cross of theLegion of Honour. These were for him the first two stages of the greatascent to which his ambition pushed him. Deputy he would certainly bethrough the influence of the Territorial Bank, at the head of which hestood. Paganetti of Porto-Vecchio was often saying it to him: "When theday arrives, the island will rise and vote for you as one man."
It is not enough, however, to control electors; it is necessary alsothat there be a seat vacant in the Chamber, and the representation ofCorsica was complete. One of its members, however, the old Popolusca,infirm and in no condition to do his work, might perhaps, upon certainconditions, be willing to resign his seat. It was a difficult matter tonegotiate, but quite feasible, the old fellow having a numerous family,estates which produced little or nothing, a palace in ruins at Bastia,where his children lived on _polenta_, and a furnished apartment atParis in an eighteenth-rate lodging-house. If a hundred or two hundredthousand francs were not a consideration, one ought to be able toobtain a favourable decision from this honourable pauper who, soundedby Paganetti, would say neither yes nor no, tempted by the large sumof money, held back by the vainglory of his position. The matter hadreached that point, it might be decided from one day to another.
As for the cross, things were going still better. The Bethlehem Societyhad assuredly made the devil of a noise at the Tuileries. They were nowonly waiting until after the visit of M. de la Perriere and his report,which could not be other than favorable, before inscribing on the listfor the 16th March, on the date of an imperial anniversary, the gloriousname of Jansoulet. The 16th March; that was to say, within a month. Whatwould the fat Hemerlingue find to say of this signal favour, he who forso long had had to content himself with the Nisham? And the Bey, who hadbeen misled into believing that Jansoulet was cut by Parisian society,and the old mother, down yonder at Saint-Romans, ever so happy inthe successes of her son! Was that not worth a few millions cleverlysquandered along the path of glory which the Nabob was treading like achild, all unconscious of the fate that lay waiting to devour him at itsend? And in these external joys, these honours, this consideration sodearly bought, was there not a compensation for all the troubles of thisOriental won back to European life, who desired a home and possessedonly a caravansary, looked for a wife and found only a Levantine?