LA BARONNE HEMERLINGUE
Just at the end of the long vault, under which were the offices ofHemerlingue and Sons, the black tunnel which Joyeuse had for ten yearsadorned and illuminated with his dreams, a monumental staircase with awrought-iron balustrade, a staircase of mediaeval time, led towards theleft to the reception rooms of the baroness, which looked out on thecourt-yard just above the cashier's office, so that in summer, when thewindows were open, the ring of the gold, the crash of the piles ofmoney scattered on the counters, softened a little by the rich and loftyhangings at the windows, made a mercantile accompaniment to the buzzingconversation of fashionable Catholicism.
The entrance struck at once the note of this house, as of her who didthe honours of it. A mixture of a vague scent of the sacristy, withthe excitement of the Bourse, and the most refined fashion, theseheterogeneous elements, met and crossed each other's path there, butremained as much apart as the noble faubourg, under whose patronagethe striking conversion of the Moslem had taken place, was from thefinancial quarters where Hemerlingue had his life and his friends.The Levantine colony--pretty numerous in Paris--was composed in greatmeasure of German Jews, bankers or brokers who had made colossalfortunes in the East, and still did business here, not to lose thehabit. The colony showed itself regularly on the baroness's visitingday. Tunisians on a visit to Paris never failed to call on the wife ofthe great banker; and old Colonel Brahim, _charge d'affaires_ ofthe Bey, with his flabby mouth and bloodshot eyes, had his nap everySaturday in the corner of the same divan.
"One seems to smell scorching in your drawing-room, my child," said theold Princess de Dions smilingly to the newly named Marie, whom M. LeMerquier and she had led to the font. But the presence of all theseheretics--Jews, Moslems, and even renegades--of these great over-dressedblotched women, loaded with gold and ornaments, veritable bundlesof clothes, did not hinder the Faubourg Saint-Germain from visiting,surrounding, and looking after the young convert, the plaything of thesenoble ladies, a very obedient puppet, whom they showed, whom they tookout, and whose evangelical simplicities, so piquant by contrast withher past, they quoted everywhere. Perhaps deep down in the heart of heramiable patronesses a hope lay of meeting in this circle of returnedOrientals some new subject for conversion, an occasion for filling thearistocratic Chapel of Missions again with the touching spectacle of oneof those adult baptisms which carry one back to the first days of theFaith, far away on the banks of the Jordan; baptisms soon to be followedby a first communion, a confirmation, when baptismal vows are renewed;occasions when a godmother may accompany her godchild, guide the youngsoul, share in the naive transports of a newly awakened belief, andmay also display a choice of toilettes, delicately graduated to theimportance of the sentiment of the ceremony. But not every day does ithappen that one of the leaders of finance brings to Paris an Armenianslave as his wife.
A slave! That was the blot in the past of this woman from the East,bought in the bazaar of Adrianople for the Emperor of Morocco, thensold, when he died and his harem was dispersed, to the young Bey Ahmed.Hemerlingue had married her when she passed from this new seraglio,but she could not be received at Tunis, where no woman--Moor, Turk orEuropean--would consent to treat a former slave as an equal, on accountof a prejudice like that which separates the creoles from the bestdisguised quadroons. Even in Paris the Hemerlingues found thisinvincible prejudice among the small foreign colonies, constituted,as they were, of little circles full of susceptibilities and localtraditions. Yamina thus passed two or three years in a complete solitudewhose leisure and spiteful feelings she well knew how to utilize,for she was an ambitious woman endowed with extraordinary will andpersistence. She learned French thoroughly, said farewell to herembroidered vests and pantaloons of red silk, accustomed her figure andher walk to European toilettes, to the inconvenience of long dresses,and then, one night at the opera, showed the astonished Parisiansthe spectacle, a little uncivilized still, but delicate, elegant, andoriginal, of a Mohammedan in a costume of _Leonard's_.
The sacrifice of her religion soon followed that of her costume. Mme.Hemerlingue had long abandoned the practices of Mohammedan religion,when M. le Merquier, their friend and mentor in Paris, showed them thatthe baroness's public conversion would open to her the doors ofthat section of the Parisian world whose access became more andmore difficult as society became more democratic. Once the FaubourgSaint-Germain was conquered, all the others would follow. And, in fact,when, after the announcement of the baptism, they learned that thegreatest ladies in France could be seen at the Baroness Hemerlingue'sSaturdays, Mmes. Gugenheim, Furenberg, Caraiscaki, Maurice Trott--allwives of millionaires celebrated on the markets of Tunis--gave up theirprejudices and begged to be invited to the former slave's receptions.Mme. Jansoulet alone--newly arrived with a stock of cumbersome Orientalideas in her mind, like her ostrich eggs, her narghile pipe, and theTunisian _bric-a-brac_ in her rooms--protested against what she calledan impropriety, a cowardice, and declared that she would never set herfoot at _her_ house. Soon a little retrograde movement was felt roundthe Gugenheims, the Caraiscaki, and the other people, as happens atParis every time when some irregular position, endeavouring to establishitself, brings on regrets and defections. They had gone too far to drawback, but they resolved to make the value of their good-will, of theirsacrificed prejudices, felt, and the Baroness Marie well understood theshade of meaning in the protecting tone of the Levantines, treating heras "My dear child," "My dear good girl," with an almost contemptuouspride. Thenceforward her hatred of the Jansoulets knew no bounds--thecomplicated ferocious hatred of the seraglio, with strangling and thesack at the end, perhaps more difficult to arrive at in Paris thanon the banks of the lake of El Bahaira, but for which she had alreadyprepared the stout sack and the cord.
One can imagine, knowing all this, what was the surprise and agitationof this corner of exotic society, when the news spread, not only thatthe great Afchin--as these ladies called her--had consented to see thebaroness, but that she would pay her first visit on her next Saturday.Neither the Fuernbergs nor the Trotts would wish to miss such anoccasion. On her side, the baroness did everything in her power to givethe utmost brilliancy to this solemn reparation. She wrote, she visited,and succeeded so well, that in spite of the lateness of the season, Mme.Jansoulet, on arriving at four o'clock at the Faubourg Saint-Honore,would have seen drawn up before the great arched doorway, side by sidewith the discreet russet livery of the Princess de Dion, and ofmany authentic _blasons_, the pretentious and fictitious arms, themulticoloured wheels of a crowd of plutocrat equipages, and the tallpowdered lackeys of the Caraiscaki.
Above, in the reception rooms, was another strange and resplendentcrowd. In the first two rooms there was a going and coming, a continualpassage of rustling silks up to the boudoir where the baroness sat,sharing her attentions and cajoleries between two very distinct camps.On one side were dark toilettes, modest in appearance, whose refinementwas appreciable only to observant eyes; on the other, a wild burst ofvivid colour, opulent figures, rich diamonds, floating scarfs, exoticfashions, in which one felt a regret for a warmer climate, and moreluxurious life. Here were sharp taps with the fan, discreet whispersfrom the few men present, some of the _bien pensant_ youth, silent,immovable, sucking the handles of their canes, two or three figures,upright behind the broad backs of their wives, speaking with their headsbent forward, as if they were offering contraband goods for sale; andin a corner the fine patriarchal beard and violet cassock of an orthodoxArmenian bishop.
The baroness, in attempting to harmonize these fashionable diversities,to keep her rooms full until the famous interview, moved aboutcontinually, took part in ten different conversations, raisingher harmonious and velvety voice to the twittering diapason whichdistinguishes Oriental women, caressing and coaxing, the mind suppleas the body, touching on all subjects, and mixing in the requisiteproportions fashion and charity sermons, theatres and bazaars, thedressmaker and the confessor. The mistress of the house united a greatpersonal
charm with this acquired science--a science visible even in herblack and very simple dress, which brought out her nun-like pallor, herhouri-like eyes, her shining and plaited hair drawn back from a narrow,child-like forehead, a forehead of which the small mouth accentuatedthe mystery, hiding from the inquisitive the former _favourite's_ wholevaried past, she who had no age, who knew not herself the date of herbirth, and never remembered to have been a child.
Evidently if the absolute power of evil--rare indeed among women,influenced as they are by their impressionable physical nature by somany different currents--could take possession of a soul, it would bein that of this slave, moulded by basenesses, revolted but patient, andcomplete mistress of herself, like all those whom the habit of veilingthe eyes has accustomed to lie safely and unscrupulously.
At this moment no one could have suspected the anguish she suffered;to see her kneeling before the princess, an old, good, straightforwardsoul, of whom the Fuernberg was always saying, "Call that aprincess--that!"
"I beg of you, godmamma, don't go away yet."
She surrounded her with all sorts of cajoleries, of graces, of littleairs, without telling her, to be sure, that she wanted to keep her tillthe arrival of the Jansoulets, to add to her triumph.
"But," said the princess, pointing out to her the majestic Armenian,silent and grave, his tasselled hat on his knees, "I must take this poorbishop to the _Grand Saint-Christophe_, to buy some medals. He wouldnever get on without me."
"No, no, I wish--you must--a few minutes more." And the baroness threw afurtive look on the ancient and sumptuous clock in a corner of the room.
Five o'clock already, and the great Afchin not arrived. The Levantinesbegan to laugh behind their fans. Happily tea was just being served,also Spanish wines, and a crowd of delicious Turkish cakes which wereonly to be had in that house, whose receipts, brought away with her bythe favourite, had been preserved in the harem, like some secrets ofconfectionery on our convents. That made a diversion. Hemerlingue, whoon Saturdays came out of his office from time to time to make his bow tothe ladies, was drinking a glass of Madeira near the little table whiletalking to Maurice Trott, once the dresser of Said-Pasha, when his wifeapproached him, gently and quietly. He knew what anger this impenetrablecalm must cover, and asked her, in a low tone, timidly:
"No one?"
"No one. You see to what an insult you expose me."
She smiled, her eyes half closed, taking with the end of her nail acrumb of cake from his long black whiskers, but her little transparentnostrils trembled with a terrible eloquence.
"Oh, she will come," said the banker, his mouth full. "I am sure shewill come."
The noise of dresses, of a train rustling in the next room made thebaroness turn quickly. But, to the great joy of the "bundles," lookingon from their corners, it was not the lady they were expecting.
This tall, elegant blonde, with worn features and irreproachabletoilette, was not like Mlle. Afchin. She was worthy in every way to beara name as celebrated as that of Dr. Jenkins. In the last two or threemonths the beautiful Mme. Jenkins had greatly changed, become mucholder. In the life of a woman who has long remained young there comes atime when the years, which have passed over her head without leaving awrinkle, trace their passage all at once brutally in indelible marks.People no longer say, on seeing her, "How beautiful she is!" but "Howbeautiful she must have been!" And this cruel way of speaking in thepast, of throwing back to a distant period that which was but yesterdaya visible fact, marks a beginning of old age and of retirement, a changeof all her triumphs into memories. Was it the disappointment ofseeing the doctor's wife arrive, instead of Mme. Jansoulet, or did thediscredit which the Duke de Mora's death had thrown on the fashionablephysician fall on her who bore his name? There was a little of eachof these reasons, and perhaps of another, in the cool greeting of thebaroness. A slight greeting on the ends of her lips, some hurried words,and she returned to the noble battalion nibbling vigorously away. Theroom had become animated under the effects of wine. People no longerwhispered; they talked. The lamps brought in added a new brilliance tothe gathering, but announced that it was near its close; some indeed,not interested in the great event, having already taken their leave. Andstill the Jansoulets did not come.
All at once a heavy, hurried step. The Nabob appeared, alone, buttonedup in his black coat, correctly dressed, but with his face upset, hiseyes haggard, still trembling from the terrible scene which he had left.
She would not come.
In the morning he had told the maids to dress madame for three o'clock,as he did each time he took out the Levantine with him, when it wasnecessary to move this indolent person, who, not being able to accepteven any responsibility whatever, left others to think, decide, act forher, going willingly where she was desired to go, once she wasstarted. And it was on this amiability that he counted to take her toHemerlingue's. But when, after _dejeuner_, Jansoulet dressed, superb,perspiring with the effort to put on gloves, asked if madame would soonbe ready, he was told that she was not going out. The matter was grave,so grave, that putting on one side all the intermediaries of valets andmaids, which they made use of in their conjugal dialogues, he ran up thestairs four steps at once like a gust of wind, and entered the draperiedrooms of the Levantine.
She was still in bed, dressed in that great open tunic of silk oftwo colours, which the Moors call a _djebba_, and in a little capembroidered with gold, from which escaped her heavy long black hair, allentangled round her moon-shaped face, flushed from her recent meal. Thesleeves of her _djebba_ pushed back showed two enormous shapeless arms,loaded with bracelets, with long chains wandering through a heap oflittle mirrors, of red beads, of scent-boxes, of microscopic pipes, ofcigarette cases--the childish toyshop collection of a Moorish woman ather rising.
The room, filled with the heavy opium-scented smoke of Turkish tobacco,was in similar disorder. Negresses went and came, slowly removing theirmistress's coffee, the favourite gazelle was licking the dregs of a cupwhich its delicate muzzle had overturned on the carpet, while seated atthe foot of the bed with a touching familiarity, the melancholy Cabassuwas reading aloud to madame a drama in verse which Cardailhac wasshortly going to produce. The Levantine was stupefied with this reading,absolutely astounded.
"My dear," said she to Jansoulet, in her thick Flemish accent, "I don'tknow what our manager is thinking of. I am just reading this _Revolt_,which he is so mad about. But it is impossible. There is nothingdramatic about it."
"Don't talk to me of the theatre," said Jansoulet, furious, in spite ofhis respect for the daughter of the Afchins. "What, you are not dressedyet? Weren't you told that we were going out?"
They had told her, but she had begun to read this stupid piece. And withher sleepy air:
"We will go out to-morrow."
"To-morrow! Impossible. We are expected to-day. A most important visit."
"But where?"
He hesitated a second.
"To Hemerlingue's."
She raised her great eyes, thinking he was making game of her. Then hetold her of his meeting with the baron at the funeral of de Mora and theunderstanding they had come to.
"Go there, if you like," said she coldly. "But you little know me if youbelieve that I, an Afchin, will ever set foot in that slave's house."
Cabassu, prudently seeing what was likely to happen, had fled into aneighbouring room, carrying with him the five acts of _The Revolt_ underhis arm.
"Come," said the Nabob to his wife, "I see that you do not know theterrible position I am in. Listen."
Without thinking of the maids or the negresses, with the sovereignindifference of an Oriental for his household, he proceeded to picturehis great distress, his fortune sequestered over seas, his creditdestroyed over here, his whole career in suspense before the judgmentof the Chamber, the influence of the Hemerlingues on the judge-advocate,and the necessity of the sacrifice at the moment of all personal feelingto such important interests. He spoke hotly, tried to convince her, t
ocarry her away. But she merely answered him, "I shall not go," as if itwere only a matter of some unimportant walk, a little too long for her.
He said trembling:
"See, now, it is not possible that you should say that. Think that myfortune is at stake, the future of our children, the name you bear.Everything is at stake in what you cannot refuse to do."
He could have spoken thus for hours and been always met by the samefirm, unshakable obstinacy--an Afchin could not visit a slave.
"Well, madame," said he violently, "this slave is worth more than you.She has increased tenfold her husband's wealth by her intelligence,while you, on the contrary----"
For the first time in the twelve years of their married life Jansouletdared to hold up his head before his wife. Was he ashamed of this crimeof _lese-majeste_, or did he understand that such a remark would placean impassable gulf between them? He changed his tone, knelt down beforethe bed, with that cheerful tenderness when one persuades children to bereasonable.
"My little Martha, I beg of you--get up, dress yourself. It is for yourown sake I ask it, for your comfort, for your own welfare. What wouldbecome of you if, for a caprice, a stupid whim, we should become poor?"
But the word--poor--represented absolutely nothing to the Levantine. Onecould speak of it before her, as of death before little children.She was not moved by it, not knowing what it was. She was perfectlydetermined to keep in bed in her _djebba_; and to show her decision, shelighted a new cigarette at her old one just finished; and while the poorNabob surrounded his "dear little wife" with excuses, with prayers, withsupplications, promising her a diadem of pearls a hundred times morebeautiful than her own, if she would come, she watched the heavy smokerising to the painted ceiling, wrapping herself up in it as in animperturbable calm. At last, in face of this refusal, this silence, thisbarrier of headstrong obstinacy, Jansoulet unbridled his wrath and roseup to his full height:
"Come," said he, "I wish it."
He turned to the negresses:
"Dress your mistress at once."
And boor as he was at the bottom, the son of a southern nail-makerasserting itself in this crisis which moved him so deeply, he threw backthe coverlids with a brutal and contemptuous gesture, knocking down theinnumerable toys they bore, and forcing the half-clad Levantine tobound to her feet with a promptitude amazing in so massive a person. Sheroared at the outrage, drew the folds of her dalmatic against her bust,pushed her cap sideways on her dishevelled hair, and began to abuse herhusband.
"Never, understand me, never! You may drag me sooner to this----"
The filth flowed from her heavy lips as from a spout. Jansoulet couldhave imagined himself in some frightful den of the port of Marseilles,at some quarrel of prostitutes and bullies, or again at some open-airdispute between Genoese, Maltese, and Provencal hags, gleaning on thequays round the sacks of wheat, and abusing each other, crouched in thewhirlwinds of golden dust. She was indeed a Levantine of a seaport,a spoiled child, who, in the evening, left alone, had heard from herterrace or from her gondola the sailors revile each other in everytongue of the Latin seas, and had remembered it all. The wretched manlooked at her, frightened, terrified at what she forced him to hear, ather grotesque figure, foaming and gasping:
"No, I will not go--no, I will not go!"
And this was the mother of his children, a daughter of the Afchins!Suddenly, at the thought that his fate was in the hands of this woman,that it would only cost her a dress to put on to save him--and that timewas flying--that soon it would be too late, a criminal feeling rose tohis brain and distorted his features. He came straight to her, his handscontracted, with such a terrible expression that the daughter of theAfchins, frightened, rushed, calling towards the door by which the_masseur_ had just gone out:
"Aristide!"
This cry, the words, this intimacy of his wife with a servant! Jansouletstopped, his rage suddenly calmed; then, with a gesture of disgust, heflung himself out, slamming the doors, more eager to fly the misfortuneand the horror whose presence he divined in his own home, than to seekelsewhere the help he had been promised.
A quarter of an hour later he made his appearance at the Hemerlingues',making a despairing gesture as he entered to the banker, and approachedthe baroness stammering the ready-made phrase he had heard repeated sooften the night of his ball, "His wife, very unwell--most grieved notto have been able to come--" She did not give him time to finish, roseslowly, unwound herself like a long and slender snake from the pleatedfolds of her tight dress, and said, without looking at him, "Oh, Iknew--I knew!" then changed her place and took no more notice of him. Heattempted to approach Hemerlingue, but the good man seemed absorbed inhis conversation with Maurice Trott. Then he went to sit down near Mme.Jenkins, whose isolation seemed like his own. But, even while talkingto the poor woman, as languid as he was preoccupied, he was watchingthe baroness doing the honours of this drawing-room, so comfortable whencompared with his own gilded halls.
It was time to leave. Mme. Hemerlingue went to the door with some ofthe ladies, presented her forehead to the old princess, bent under thebenediction of the Armenian bishop, nodded with a smile to the young menwith the canes, found for each the fitting adieu with perfect ease; andthe wretched man could not prevent himself from comparing this Easternslave, so Parisian, so distinguished in the best society of the world,with the other, the European brutalized by the East, stupefied withTurkish tobacco, and swollen with idleness. His ambitions, his pride asa husband, were extinguished and humiliated in this marriage of whichhe saw the danger and the emptiness--a final cruelty of fate taking fromhim even the refuge of personal happiness from all his public disasters.
Little by little the room was emptied. The Levantines disappeared oneafter another, leaving each time an immense void in their place. Mme.Jenkins was gone, and only two or three ladies remained whom Jansouletdid not know, and behind whom the mistress of the house seemed toshelter herself from him. But Hemerlingue was free, and the Nabobrejoined him at the moment when he was furtively escaping to his officeson the same floor opposite his rooms. Jansoulet went out with him,forgetting in his trouble to salute the baroness, and once on theantechamber staircase, Hemerlingue, cold and reserved while he was underhis wife's eye, expanded a little.
"It is very annoying," said he in a low voice, as if he feared to beoverheard, "that Mme. Jansoulet has not been willing to come."
Jansoulet answered him by a movement of despair and savage helplessness.
"Annoying, annoying," repeated the other in a whisper, and feeling forhis key in his pocket.
"Come, old fellow," said the Nabob, taking his hand, "there's no reason,because our wives don't agree--That doesn't hinder us from remainingfriends. What a good chat the other day, eh?"
"No doubt" said the baron, disengaging himself, as he opened the doornoiselessly, showing the deep workroom, whose lamp burned solitarilybefore the enormous empty chair. "Come, good-bye, I must go; I have mymail to despatch."
"_Ya didon, monci_" (But look here, sir) said the poor Nabob, trying tojoke, and using the _patois_ of the south to recall to his old chum allthe pleasant memories stirred up the other evening. "Our visit to LeMerquier still holds good. The picture we were going to present to him,you know. What day?"
"Ah, yes, Le Merquier--true--eh--well, soon. I will write to you."
"Really? You know it is very important."
"Yes, yes. I will write to you. Good-bye."
And the big man shut his door in a hurry, as if he were afraid of hiswife coming.
Two days after, the Nabob received a note from Hemerlingue, almostunreadable on account of the complicated scrawls, of abbreviations moreor less commercial, under which the ex-sutler hid his entire want ofspelling:
MY DEAR OLD COM_--I cannot accom_ you to Le Mer. _Too bus_ just now.Besid_ y_ will be _bet_ alone to _tal_. Go _th bold_. You are _exp. A_Cassette, _ev morn_ 8 to 10.
Yours _faith_
HEM.
Below as a postscript, a ve
ry small hand had written very legibly:
"A religious picture, as good as possible."
What was he to think of this letter? Was there real good-will in it,or polite evasion? In any case hesitation was no longer possible. Timepressed. Jansoulet made a bold effort, then--for he was very frightenedof Le Merquier--and called on him one morning.
Our strange Paris, alike in its population and its aspects, seems aspecimen map of the whole world. In the Marais there are narrow streets,with old sculptured worm-eaten doors, with overhanging gablesand balconies, which remind you of old Heidelberg. The FaubourgSaint-Honore, lying round the Russian church with its white minarets andgolden domes, seems a part of Moscow. On Montmartre I know a picturesqueand crowded corner which is simply Algiers. Little, low, clean houses,each with its brass plate and little front garden, are English streetsbetween Neuilly and the Champs-Elysees while all behind the apse ofSaint-Sulpice, the Rue Feron, the Rue Cassette, lying peaceably in theshadow of its great towers, roughly paved, their doors each with itsknocker, seem lifted out of some provincial and religious town--Toursor Orleans, for example--in the district of the cathedral or the palace,where the great over-hanging trees in the gardens rock themselves to thesound of the bells and the choir.
It was there, in the neighbourhood of the Catholic Club--of which hehad just been made honorary president--that M. Le Merquier lived. He was_avocat_, deputy for Lyons, business man of all the great communities ofFrance; and Hemerlingue, moved by a deep-seated instinct, had intrustedhim with the affairs of his firm.
He arrived before nine o'clock at an old mansion of which the groundfloor was occupied by a religious bookshop, asleep in the odour of thesacristy, and of the thick gray paper on which the stories of miraclesare printed for hawkers, and mounted the great whitewashed conventstairway. Jansoulet was touched by this provincial and Catholicatmosphere, in which revived the souvenirs of his past in the south,impressions of infancy still intact, thanks to his long absence fromhome; and since his arrival at Paris he had had neither the time nor theoccasion to call them in question. Fashionable hypocrisy had presenteditself to him in all its forms save that of religious integrity, andhe refused now to believe in the venality of a man who lived in suchsurroundings. Introduced into the _avocat's_ waiting-room--a vastparlour with fine white muslin curtains, having for its sole ornamenta large and beautiful copy of Tintoretto's Dead Christ--his doubt andtrouble changed into indignant conviction. It was not possible! He hadbeen deceived as to Le Merquier. There was surely some bold slander init, such as so easily spreads in Paris--or perhaps it was one of thoseferocious snares among which he had stumbled for six months. No, thisstern conscience, so well known in Parliament and the courts, this coldand austere personage, could not be treated like those great swollenpashas with loosened waist-belts and floating sleeves open to concealthe bags of gold. He would only expose himself to a scandalous refusal,to the legitimate revolt of outraged honour, if he attempted such meansof corruption.
The Nabob told himself all this, as he sat on the oak bench which ranround the room, a bench polished with serge dresses and the rough clothof cassocks. In spite of the early hour several persons were waitingthere with him. A Dominican, ascetic and serene, walking up and downwith great strides; two sisters of charity, buried under their caps,counting long rosaries which measured their time of waiting; priestsfrom Lyons, recognisable by the shape of their hats; others reserved andsevere in air, sitting at the great ebony table which filled the middleof the room, and turning over some of those pious journals printed atFouvieres, just above Lyons, the _Echo of Purgatory_, the _Rose-bushof Mary_, which give as a present to all yearly subscribers pontificalindulgences and remissions of future sins. Some muttered words, astifled cough, the light whispered prayers of the sisters, recalled toJansoulet the distant and confused sensation of the hours of waiting inthe corner of his village church round the confessional on the eves ofthe great festivals of the Church.
At last his turn came, and if a doubt as to M. Le Merquier had remained,he doubted no longer when he saw this great office, simple and severe,yet a little more ornate than the waiting-room, a fitting frame forthe austerity of the lawyer's principles, and for his thin form, tall,stooping, narrow-shouldered, squeezed into a black coat too short inthe sleeves, from which protruded two black fists, broad and flat,two sticks of Indian ink with hieroglyphs of great veins. The clericaldeputy had, with the leaden hue of a Lyonnese grown mouldy between histwo rivers, a certain life of expression which he owed to his doublelook--sometimes sparkling, but impenetrable behind the glass of hisspectacles; more often, vivid, mistrustful, and dark, above these sameglasses, surrounded by the shadow which a lifted eye and a stooping headgives the eyebrow.
After a greeting almost cordial in comparison with the cold bow whichthe two colleagues exchanged at the Chamber, an "I was expecting you" inwhich perhaps an intention showed itself, the lawyer pointed the Nabobinto a seat near his desk, told the smug domestic in black not to cometill he was summoned, arranged a few papers, after which, sinking intohis arm-chair with the attitude of a man ready to listen, who becomesall ears, his legs crossed, he rested his chin on his hand, with hiseyes fixed on a great rep curtain falling to the ground in front of him.
The moment was decisive, the situation embarrassing. Jansoulet did nothesitate. It was one of the poor Nabob's pretensions to know men aswell as Mora. And this instinct, which, said he, had never deceivedhim, warned him that he was at that moment dealing with a rigid andunshakable honesty, a conscience in hard stone, untouchable by pick-axeor powder. "My conscience!" Suddenly he changed his programme, threw tothe winds the tricks and equivocations which embarrassed his open andcourageous disposition, and, head high and heart open, held to thishonest man a language he was born to understand.
"Do not be astonished, my dear colleague,"--his voice trembled, but soonbecame firm in the conviction of his defence--"do not be astonished ifI am come to find you here instead of asking simply to be heard bythe third committee. The explanation which I have to make to you is sodelicate and confidential that it would have been impossible to make itpublicly before my colleagues."
Maitre Le Merquier, above his spectacles, looked at the curtain with adisturbed air. Evidently the conversation was taking an unexpected turn.
"I do not enter on the main question," said the Nabob. "Your report, Iam assured, is impartial and loyal, such as your conscience has dictatedto you. Only there are some heart-breaking calumnies spread about me towhich I have not answered, and which have perhaps influenced the opinionof the committee. It is on this subject that I wish to speak to you. Iknow the confidence with which you are honoured by your colleagues, M.Le Merquier, and that, when I shall have convinced you, your word willbe enough without forcing me to lay bare my distress to them all. Youknow the accusation--the most terrible, the most ignoble. There are somany people who might be deceived by it. My enemies have given names,dates, addresses. Well, I bring you the proofs of my innocence. I laythem bare before you--you only--for I have grave reasons for keeping thewhole affair secret."
Then he showed the lawyer a certificate from the Consulate of Tunis,that during twenty years he had only left the principality twice--thefirst time to see his dying father at Bourg-Saint Andeol; the second,to make, with the Bey, a visit of three days to his chateau ofSaint-Romans.
"How comes it, then, that with a document so conclusive in my handsI have not brought my accusers before the courts to contradict andconfound them? Alas, monsieur, there are cruel responsibilities infamilies. I have a brother, a poor fellow, weak and spoiled, who has forlong wallowed in the mud of Paris, who has left there his intelligenceand his honour. Has he descended to that degree of baseness which I, inhis name, am accused of? I have not dared to find out. All I can sayis, that my poor father, who knew more than any one in the family ofit, whispered to me in dying, 'Bernard, it is your elder brother who haskilled me. I die of shame, my child.'"
He paused, compelled by his suppressed emotion; t
hen:
"My father is dead, Maitre Le Merquier, but my mother still lives, andit is for her sake, for her peace, that I have held back, that I holdback still, before the scandal of my justification. Up to now, in fact,the mud thrown at me has not touched her; it only comes from a certainclass, in a special press, a thousand leagues away from the poor woman.But law courts, a trial--it would be proclaiming our misfortune fromone end of France to the other, the articles of the official paperreproduced by all the journals, even those of the little district wheremy mother lives. The calumny, my defence, her two children coveredwith shame by the one stroke, the name--the only pride of the oldpeasant--forever disgraced. It would be too much for her. It would beenough to kill her. And truly, I find it enough, too. That is why Ihave had the courage to be silent, to weary, if I could, my enemies bysilence. But I need some one to answer for me in the Chamber. It mustnot have the right to expel me for reasons which would dishonour me, andsince it has chosen you as the chairman of the committee, I am come totell you everything, as to a confessor, to a priest, begging you not todivulge anything of this conversation, even in the interests of my case.I only ask you, my dear colleague, absolute silence; for the rest, Irely on your justice and your loyalty."
He rose, ready to go, and Le Merquier did not move, still asking thegreen curtain in front of him, as if seeking inspiration for his answerthere. At last he said:
"It shall be as you desire, my dear colleague. This confidence shallremain between us. You have told me nothing, I have heard nothing."
The Nabob, still heated with his burst of confidence, which demanded,it seemed to him, a cordial response, a pressure of the hand, was seizedwith a strange uneasiness. This coolness, this absent look, so unnervedhim that he was at the door with the awkward bow of one who feelshimself importunate, when the other stopped him.
"Wait, then, my dear colleague. What a hurry you are in to leave me! Afew moments, I beg of you. I am too happy to have a chat with a man likeyou. Besides, we have more than one common bond. Our friend Hemerlinguehas told me that you, too, are much interested in pictures."
Jansoulet trembled. The two words--"Hemerlingue," "pictures"--meetingin the same phrase so unexpectedly, restored all his doubts, all hisperplexities. He did not give himself away yet, however, and let LeMerquier advance, word by word, testing the ground for his stumblingadvances. People had told him often of the collection of his honourablecolleague. "Would it be indiscreet to ask the favour of being admitted,to--"
"On the contrary, I should feel much honoured," said the Nabob, tickledin the most sensible--since the most costly--point of his vanity; andlooking round him at the walls of the room, he added with the tone of aconnoisseur, "You have some fine things, too."
"Oh," said the other modestly, "just a few canvases. Painting is so dearnow, it is a taste so difficult to satisfy, a true passion _de luxe_--apassion for a Nabob," said he, smiling, with a furtive look over hisglasses.
They were two prudent players, face to face; but Jansoulet was a littleastray in this new situation, where he who only knew how to be bold, hadto be on his guard.
"When I think," murmured the lawyer, "that I have been ten yearscovering these walls, and that I have still this panel to fill."
In fact, at the most conspicuous place on the wall there was an emptyplace, emptied rather, for a great gold-headed nail near the ceilingshowed the visible, almost clumsy, trace of a snare laid for the poorsimpleton, who let himself be taken in it so foolishly.
"My dear M. Le Merquier," said he with his engaging, good-natured voice,"I have a Virgin of Tintoretto's just the size of your panel."
Impossible to read anything in the eyes of the lawyer, this time hiddenunder their overhanging brows.
"Permit me to hang it there, opposite your table. That will help you tothink sometimes of me."
"And to soften the severities of my report, too, sir?" cried LeMerquier, formidable and upright, his hand on the bell. "I have seenmany shameless things in my life, but never anything like this. Suchoffers to me, in my own house!"
"But, my dear colleague, I swear to you----"
"Show him out," said the lawyer to the hang-dog servant who had justentered; and from the middle of his office, whose door remained open,before all the waiting-room, where the paternosters were silent, hepursued Jansoulet--who slunk off murmuring excuses to the door--withthese terrible words:
"You have outraged the honour of the Chamber in my person, sir. Ourcolleagues shall be informed of it this very day; and, this crime comingafter your others, you will learn to your cost that Paris is not theEast, and that here we do not make shameless traffic of the humanconscience."
Then, after having chased the seller from the temple, the just manclosed his door, and approaching the mysterious green curtain, said in atone that sounded soft amidst his pretended anger:
"Is that what you wanted, Baroness Marie?"