DRAMAS OF PARIS
Que l'heure est donc breve, Qu'on passe en aimant! C'est moins qu'un moment, Un peu plus qu'un reve.
In the semi-obscurity of a great drawing-room filled with flowers, theseats of the furniture covered with holland, the chandeliers draped withmuslin, the windows open, and the venetians lowered, Mme. Jenkins isseated at the piano reading the new song of the fashionable musician;some melodic phrases accompanying exquisite verse, a melancholy _Lied_,unequally divided, which seems written for the tender gravities of hervoice and the disturbed state of her soul.
Le temps nous enleve Notre enchantement
sighs the poor woman, moved by the sound of her own voice, and whilethe notes float away in the court-yard of the house, where the fountainfalls drop by drop among a bed of rhododendrons, the singer breaks off,her hands holding the chord, her eyes fixed on the music, but her lookfar away. The doctor is absent. The care of his health and business hasexiled him from Paris for some days, and the thoughts of the beautifulMme. Jenkins have taken that grave turn, as often happens in solitude,that analytical tendency which sometimes makes even momentaryseparations fatal in the most united households. United they had notbeen for sometime. They only saw each other at meal-times, beforethe servants, hardly speaking unless he, the man of unctuous manners,allowed himself to make some disobliging or brutal remark on her son,or on her age, which she began to show, or on some dress which did notbecome her. Always gentle and serene, she stifled her tears, acceptedeverything, feigned not to understand; not that she loved him stillafter so much cruelty and contempt, but it was the story, as theircoachman Joe told it, "of an old clinger who was determined to make himmarry her." Up to then a terrible obstacle--the life of the legitimatewife--had prolonged a dishonourable situation. Now that the obstacleno longer existed she wished to put an end to the situation, becauseof Andre, who from one day to another might be forced to despise hismother, because of the world which they had deceived for ten years--aworld she never entered but with a beating heart, for fear of thetreatment she would receive after a discovery. To her allusions, toher prayers, Jenkins had answered at first by phrases, grand gestures:"Could you distrust me? Is not our engagement sacred?"
He pointed out the difficulty of keeping an act of this importancesecret. Then he shut himself up in a malignant silence, full of coldanger and violent determinations. The death of the duke, the fall of anabsurd vanity, had struck a final blow at the household; for disaster,which often brings hearts ready to understand one another nearer,finishes and completes disunions. And it was indeed a disaster. Thepopularity of the Jenkins pearls suddenly stopped, the situation of theforeign doctor and charlatan, ably defined by Bouchereau in the Journalof the Academy, and people of fashion looked at each other in fright,paler from terror than from the arsenic they had imbibed. Already theIrishman had felt the effect of those counter blasts which make Parisianinfatuations so dangerous.
It was for that reason, no doubt, that Jenkins had judged it wise todisappear for some time, leaving madame to continue to frequent thehouses still open to them, to gauge and hold public opinion in respect.It was a hard task for the poor woman, who found everywhere the cool anddistant welcome which she had received at the Hemerlingues. But she didnot complain; thus earning her marriage, she was putting between them asa last resource the sad tie of pity and common trials. And as she knewthat she was welcomed in the world on account of her talent, of theartistic distraction she lent to their private parties, she was alwaysready to lay on the piano her fan and long gloves, to play some fragmentof her vast repertory. She worked constantly, passing her afternoonsin turning over new music, choosing by preference sad and complicatedharmonies, the modern music which no longer contents itself with beingan art, but becomes a science, and answers better to our nerves, to ourrestlessness, than to sentiment.
Daylight flooded the room as a maid brought a card to her mistress;"Heurteux, business agent."
The gentleman was there, he insisted on seeing madame.
"You have told him the doctor is travelling?"
He had been told, but it was to madame he wished to speak.
"To me?"
Disturbed, she examined this rough, crumpled card, this unknown name:"Heurteux." What could it be?
"Well, show him in."
Heurteux, business agent, coming from broad daylight into thesemi-obscurity of the room, was blinking with an uncertain air, tryingto see. She, on the other hand, saw very distinctly a stiff figure, withiron-gray whiskers and protruding jaw, one of those hangers-on of thelaw whom one meets round the law courts, born fifty years old, with abitter mouth, an envious air, and a morocco portfolio under the arm. Hesat down on the edge of the chair which she pointed out to him, turnedhis head to make sure that the servant had gone out, then opened hisportfolio methodically to search for a paper. Seeing that he did notspeak, she began in a tone of impatience:
"I ought to warn you, sir, that my husband is absent, and that I am notacquainted with his business."
Without any astonishment, his hand in his papers, the man answered:"I know that _M. Jenkins_ is absent, madame"--he emphasized moreparticularly the two words "M. Jenkins"--"especially as I come on hisbehalf."
She looked at him frightened. "On his behalf?"
"Alas! yes, madame. The doctor's situation, as you are no doubt aware,is one, for the moment, of very great embarrassment. Unfortunatedealings on the Stock Exchange, the failure of a great financialenterprise in which his money is invested, the _OEuvre de Bethleem_which weighs heavily on him, all these reverses coming at once haveforced him to a grave resolution. He is selling his mansion, his horses,everything that he possesses, and has given me a power of attorney forthat purpose."
He had at last found what he was looking for--one of those stampedfolded papers, interlined and riddled with references, where theimpassible law makes itself responsible for so many lies. Mme. Jenkinswas going to say: "But I was here. I would have carried out all hiswishes, all his orders--" when she suddenly understood by the coolnessof her visitor, his easy, almost insolent attitude, that she wasincluded in this clearing up, in the getting rid of the costly mansionand useless riches, and that her departure would be the signal for thesale.
She rose suddenly. The man, still seated, went on: "What I have still tosay, madame"--oh, she knew it, she could have dictated to him, what hehad still to say--"is so painful, so delicate. M. Jenkins is leavingParis for a long time, and in the fear of exposing you to the hazardsand adventures of the new life he is undertaking, of taking youaway from a son you cherish, and in whose interest perhaps you hadbetter----"
She heard no more, saw no more, and while he was spinning out hisgossamer phrases, given over to despair, she heard the song over andover in her mind, as the last image seen pursues a drowning man:
Le temps nous enleve Notre enchantement.
All at once her pride returned. "Let us put a stop to this, sir. Allyour turns and phrases are only an additional insult. The fact is that Iam driven out--turned into the street like a servant."
"Oh, madame, madame! The situation is cruel enough, don't let us make itworse by hard words. In the evolution of his _modus vivendi_ M. Jenkinshas to separate from you, but he does so with the greatest pain tohimself; and the proposals which I am charged to make are a proof of hissentiments for you. First, as to furniture and clothes, I am authorizedto let you take--"
"That will do," said she. She flew to the bell. "I am going out.Quick--my hat, my mantle, anything, never mind what. I am in a hurry."
And while they went to fetch her what she wanted she said:
"Everything here belongs to M. Jenkins. Let him dispose of it as helikes. I want nothing from him. Don't insist; it is useless."
The man did not insist. His mission fulfilled, the rest mattered littleto him.
Steadily, coldly, she arranged her hat carefully before the glass, themaid fastening her veil, and arranging on her shoulders the folds of hermant
le, then she looked round her and considered for a moment whethershe was forgetting anything precious to her. No, nothing--her son'sletters were in her pocket, she never allowed them to be away from her.
"Madame does not wish for the carriage?"
"No." And she left the house.
It was about five o'clock. At that moment Bernard Jansoulet was crossingthe doorway of the legislative chamber, his mother on his arm; butpoignant as was the drama enacted there, this one surpassed it--moresudden, unforeseen, and without any stage effects. A drama between fourwalls, improvised in Paris day by day. Perhaps it is this which givesthat vibration to the air of the city, that tremor which forces thenerves into activity. The weather was magnificent. The streets of thewealthy quarter, large and straight as avenues, shone in the declininglight, embellished with open windows, flowery balconies, and patchesof green seen on the boulevards, light and soft among the narrow, hardprospects of stone. Mme. Jenkins hurried in this direction, walkingaimlessly, in a dull stupor. What a horrible crash! Five minutes agorich, surrounded by all the respect and comfort of easy circumstances.Now--nothing. Not even a roof to sleep under, not even a name. Thestreet!
Where was she to go? What would become of her?
At first she had thought of her son. But, to acknowledge her fault, toblush before her own child, to weep while taking from him the right toconsole her, was more than she could do. No, there was nothing for herbut death. To die as soon as possible, to escape shame by a completedisappearance, to unravel in this way an inextricable situation. Butwhere to die! How? There are so many ways of departure! And she calledthem all up mentally while she walked. Life flowed around her, itsluxury at this time of the year in full flower, round the Madeleineand its market, in a space marked off by the perfume of carnations androses. On the wide footpath were well-dressed women whose skirts mingledtheir rustle with the trembling of the young leaves; there was some ofthe pleasure here of a meeting in a drawing-room, an air of acquaintanceamong the passers-by, of smiles and discreet greetings in passing. Andall at once Mme. Jenkins, anxious lest her features might betray her,fearing what might be thought if any one saw her rushing on so blindly,slackened her pace to the aimless gait of an afternoon walk, stoppinghere and there. The light materials of the dresses spoke of summer,of the country; a thin skirt for the sandy paths of the parks,gauze-trimmed hats for the seaside, fans, sunshades. Her fixed eyesfastened on these trifles without seeing them; but in a vague and palereflection in the clear windows she saw her image, lying motionless onthe bed of some hotel, the leaden sleep of a poison in her head; or,down there, beyond the walls, among the slime of some sunken boat. Whichof the two was better?
She hesitated, considered, compared; then, her decision made, startedoff with the resolved air of a woman tearing herself regretfullyfrom the temptations of the window. As she moved away, the Marquis deMonpavon, proud and well-dressed, a flower in his coat, saluted her ata distance with that sweep of the hat so dear to women's vanity, thewell-bred brow, with the hat lifted high above the erect head. Sheanswered him with her pretty Parisian's greeting, expressed in animperceptible inclination of the body and a smile; and seeing thisexchange of politeness in the midst of the spring gaiety, one wouldnever think that the same sinister idea was guiding the two, meeting bychance on the road they were traversing in opposite directions, but tothe same end.
The prediction of Mora's valet had come true for the marquis: "Wemay die or lose power; then there will be a reckoning, and it will beterrible." It was terrible. The former receiver-general had obtainedwith difficulty a delay of a fortnight to make up his deficiencies,taking the last chance that Jansoulet, with his election confirmed, andwith full control over his millions again, would come to the rescue oncemore. The decision of the Assembly had just taken from him this lasthope. As soon as he knew it, he returned to the club calmly, and wentup to his room, where Francis was waiting impatiently for him withan important paper just arrived. It was a notification to the SieurLouis-Marie-Agenor de Monpavon to appear the next day in the officeof the Juge d'Instruction. Was it addressed to the censor of theTerritorial Bank or to the former receiver-general? In any case, thebold formula of a judicial assignation in the first instance, instead ofa private invitation, spoke sufficiently of the gravity of the situationand the firm resolution of Justice.
In view of such an extremity, foreseen and expected for long, hehad made his plans. A Monpavon in the criminal courts!--a Monpavon,librarian in a convict prison! Never! He put all his affairs in order,tore up his papers, emptied his pockets carefully, and took somethingfrom his toilet-table, so calmly and naturally, that when he saidto Francis, as he was going out, "Am going to the baths--That dirtyChamber--Filthy dust"--the servant took him at his word. And the marquiswas not lying. His exciting post up there in the dust of the tribune hadtired him as much as two nights in the train; and his decision to dieassociated itself with his desire to take a bath, the old Sybaritethought of going to sleep in the bath, like what's his name, and otherfamous personages of antiquity. And in justice, it must be said that notone of these Stoics went to his death more quietly than he.
With a white camellia in his buttonhole, above his rosette of the Legionof Honour, he was going up the Boulevard des Capucines with a lightstep, when the sight of Mme. Jenkins troubled his serenity for a moment.She had a youthful air, a light in her eyes, something so piquant thathe stopped to look at her. Tall and beautiful, with her long dress ofblack gauze, her shoulders wrapped in a lace mantle, her hat trimmedwith a garland of autumn leaves, she disappeared in the midst of otherelegant women in the balmy atmosphere; and the thought that his eyeswere going to close forever on this delightful sight, whose pleasures heknew so well, saddened Monpavon a little, and took the spring from hisstep. But a few paces farther on, a meeting of another kind gave himback all his courage.
Some one, threadbare, shamefaced, dazzled by the light, was coming downthe Boulevard. It was old Marestang, former senator, former minister,so deeply compromised in the affairs of the "Malta Biscuits," that,in spite of his age, his services, and the great scandal of such aproceeding, he had been condemned to two years of prison, struck offthe roll of the Legion of Honour, of which he had been one of thedignitaries. The affair was long ago; the poor wretch had just been letout of prison before his sentence had expired, lost, ruined, not havingeven the means to gild his trouble, for he had had to pay what he owed.Standing on the curb, he was waiting with bent head till the crowds ofcarriages should allow him to pass, embarrassed by this stoppage at thefullest spot of the boulevards between the passers-by and the sea ofopen carriages filled with familiar figures. Monpavon walking near him,caught his timid, uneasy look, imploring a recognition and hiding fromit at the same time. The idea that one day he could humiliate himselfthus, gave him a shudder of revolt. "Oh! that is not possible!" Andstraightening himself up and throwing out his chest, he kept on his way,firmer and more resolute than before.
M. de Monpavon walks to his death! He goes there by the long line ofthe boulevards, all on fire in the direction of the Madeleine, wherehe treads the elastic asphalt once more as a lounger, nose in the air,hands crossed behind. He has time; there is no hurry; he is master ofthe rendezvous. At each instant he smiles before him, waves a greetingfrom the ends of his fingers or makes the more formal bow we havejust seen. Everything revives him, charms him, the noise of thewatering-carts, the awnings of the _cafes_, pulled down to the middleof the foot-paths. The approach of death gives him the feelings of aconvalescent accessible to all the delicacy, the hidden poesy of anexquisite hour of summer in the midst of Parisian life--of an exquisitehour--his last, and which he will prolong till night. No doubt it isfor that reason that he passes the sumptuous establishment where heordinarily takes his bath. He does not stop either at the Chinese Baths.He is too well known here. All Paris would know of it the same evening.There would be a scandal of bad taste, much coarse rumour about hisdeath in the clubs and drawing-rooms. And the old sensualist, thewell-bred man, wishes to
spare himself this shame, to plunge and beswallowed up in the vague anonymity of suicide, like those soldiers who,after great battles, neither wounded, dead, or living, are simplyput down as "missing." That is why he has nothing on him which can berecognised, or furnish a hint to the inquiries of the police, why heseeks in this immense Paris the distant quarter where will open for himthe terrible but oblivious confusion of the pauper's grave. Already,since Monpavon has been walking, the aspect of the boulevardhas changed. The crowd has become more compact, more active, andpreoccupied, the houses smaller, marked with signs of commerce. When thegates of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin are passed, with their overflowfrom the faubourgs, the provincial physiognomy of the town accentuatesitself. The old beau no longer knows any one, and can congratulatehimself on being unknown.
The shopkeepers looking curiously after him, with his fine linen, hiswell-cut coat, and good figure, take him for some famous actor strollingon the boulevard--witness of his first triumphs--before the play begins.The wind freshens, the twilight softens the distances, and while thelong road behind him still glitters, it grows darker now at everystep--like the past, with its retrospections to him who looks back andregrets. It seems to Monpavon that he is walking into blackness. Heshivers a little, but does not falter, and continues to walk with erecthead and chest thrown out.
M. de Monpavon walks to his death! Now he is entering the complicatedlabyrinth of noisy streets, where the clatter of the omnibus mingleswith the thousand humming trades of the working city, where the heatof the factory chimneys loses itself in the fever of a whole peoplestruggling against hunger. The air trembles, the gutters steam, thehouses shake at the passing of the wagons, of the heavy drays rumblinground the narrow streets. On a sudden the marquis stops; he has foundwhat he wanted. Between the black shop of a charcoal-seller and theestablishment of a packing-case maker, whose pine boards leaning on thewalls give him a little shiver, there is a wide door, surmounted by itssign, the word BATHS on a dirty lantern. He enters, crosses a littledamp garden where a jet of water weeps in a rockery. Here is the gloomycorner he was looking for. Who would ever believe that the Marquis deMonpavon had come there to cut his throat? The house is at the end, low,with green blinds and a glass door, with a sham air of a villa. He asksfor a bath, and while it is being prepared he smokes his cigar at thewindow, with the noise of the water behind him, looks at the flower-bedof sparse lilac, and the high walls which inclose it.
At the side there is a great yard, the court-yard of a fire station,with a gymnasium, whose masts and swings, vaguely seen from below, looklike gibbets. A bugle-call sounds in the yard, and its call takes themarquis thirty years back, reminds him of his campaigns in Algeria, thehigh ramparts of Constantine, the arrival of Mora at the regiment, andthe duels, and the little parties. Ah! how well life began then! What apity that those cursed cards--ps--ps--ps--Well, it's something to havesaved appearances.
"Your bath is ready, sir," said the attendant.
At that moment, breathless and pale, Mme. Jenkins was entering Andre'sstudio, where an instinct stronger than her will had brought her--thewish to embrace her child before she died. When she opened the door (hehad given her a key) she was relieved to find that he was not there, andthat she would have time to calm her excitement, increased as it was bythe long walk to which she was so little accustomed. No one was there.But on the table was the little note which he always left when he wentout, so that his mother, whose visits were becoming shorter and lessfrequent on account of the tyranny of Jenkins, could tell where he was,and wait for him or rejoin him easily. The two had not ceased to loveeach other deeply, tenderly, in spite of the cruelty of life whichforced into the relations of mother and son the clandestine precautionsof an intrigue.
"I am at my rehearsal," said the note to-day, "I shall be back atseven."
This attention of the son, whom she had not seen for three weeks, yetwho persisted in expecting her all the same, brought to the mother'seyes the flood of tears which was suffocating her. She felt as if shehad just entered a new world. This little room was so pure, so quiet, soelevated. It kept the last rays of the setting sun on its windows,and seemed, with its bare walls, hewn from a corner of the sky. It wasadorned only with one great portrait, hers, nothing but hers, smilingin the place of honour, and again, down there, on the table in a giltframe. This humble little lodging, so light when all Paris was becomingdark, made an extraordinary impression on her, in spite of the povertyof its sparse furniture, scattered in two rooms, its common chintz, andits chimney garnished with two great bunches of hyacinths--those flowerswhich are hawked round the streets in barrowsful. What a good and worthylife she could have led by the side of her Andre! And in her mind's eyeshe had arranged her bed in one corner, her piano in another, she sawherself giving lessons, and caring for the home to which she was addingher share of ease and courageous gaiety. How was it that she had notseen that her duty, the pride of her widowhood, was there? By whatblindness, what unworthy weakness?
It was a great fault, no doubt, but one for which many excuses might befound in her easy and tender disposition, and the clever knavery of heraccomplice, always talking of marriage, hiding from her that he himselfwas no longer free, and when at last obliged to confess it, paintingsuch a picture of his dull life, of his despair, of his love, that thepoor creature, so deeply compromised already, and incapable of oneof those heroic efforts which raise the sufferer above the falsesituations, had given way at last, had accepted this double existence,so brilliant and so miserable, built on a lie which had lastedten years. Ten years of intoxicating success and unspeakableunhappiness--ten years of singing, with the fear of exposure betweeneach verse--where the least remark on irregular unions wounded her likean allusion--where the expression of her face had softened to the air ofmild humility, of a guilty woman begging for pardon. Then the certaintythat she would be deserted had come to spoil even these borrowed joys,had tarnished her luxury; and what misery, what sufferings borne insilence, what incessant humiliations, even to this last, the mostterrible of all!
While she is thus sadly reviewing her life in the cool of the eveningand the calm of the deserted house, a gust of happy laughter rose fromthe rooms beneath; and recalling the confidences of Andre, his lastletter telling the great news, she tried to distinguish among all thesefresh and limpid voices that of her daughter Elise, her son's betrothed,whom she did not know, whom she would never know. This reflection addedto the misery of her last moments, and loaded them with so much remorseand regret that, in spite of her will to be brave, she wept.
Night comes on little by little. Large shadows cover the slopingwindows, where the immense depth of the sky seems to lose its colour,and to deepen into obscurity. The roofs seem to draw close together forthe night, like soldiers preparing for the attack. The bells count thehours gravely, while the martins fly round their hidden nests, and thewind makes its accustomed invasion of the rubbish of the old wood-yard.To-night it sighs with the sound of the river, a shiver of the fog; itsighs of the river, to remind the unfortunate woman that it is thereshe must go. She shivers beforehand in her lace mantle. Why did she comehere to reawaken her desire for a life impossible after the avowal shewas forced to make? Hasty steps shake the staircase; the door opensprecipitately; it is Andre. He is singing, happy, in a great hurry, forthey are waiting dinner for him below. But, as he is striking the match,he feels that someone is in the room--a moving shadow among the shadowsat rest.
"Who is there?"
Something answers him like a stifled laugh or a sob. He believes thatit is one of his little neighbours, a plot of the children to amusethemselves. He draws near. Two hands, two arms, seize and surround him.
"It is I."
And with a feverish voice, hurrying as if to assure herself, she tellshim that she is setting out on a long journey, and that before going--
"A journey! And where are you going?"
"Oh, I do not know. We are going over there, a long way, on business inhis own part of the world."
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br /> "What! You will not be here for my play? It is in three days. And then,immediately after, my marriage. Come now, he cannot hinder you fromcoming to my marriage?"
She makes excuses, imagines reasons, but her hands burning between herson's, and her altered voice, tell Andre that she is not speaking thetruth. He is going to strike a light; she prevents him.
"No, no; it is useless. We are better without it. Besides, I have somuch to get ready still. I must go away."
They are both standing up, ready for the separation, but Andre will notlet her go without telling him what is the matter, what tragic careis hollowing that fair face where the eyes--was it an effect of thedusk?--shone with a strange light.
"Nothing; no, nothing, I assure you. Only the idea of not being able totake part in your happiness, your triumph. At any rate, you know I loveyou; you don't mistrust your mother, do you? I have never been a daywithout thinking of you: do the same--keep me in your heart. And nowkiss me and let me go quickly. I have waited too long."
Another minute and she would have the strength for what she had to do.She darts forward.
"No, you shall not go. I feel that something extraordinary is happeningin your life which you do not want to tell. You are in some greattrouble, I am sure. This man has done some infamous thing."
"No, no. Let me go! Let me go!"
But he held her fast.
"Tell me, what is it? Tell me."
Then, whispering in her ear, with a voice tender and low as a kiss:
"He has left you, hasn't he?"
The wretched woman shivers, hesitates.
"Ask me nothing. I will say nothing. Adieu!"
He pressed her to his heart:
"What could you tell me that I do not know already, poor mother? You didnot guess, then, why I left six months ago?"
"You know?"
"I know everything. And what has happened to you to-day I have foreseenfor long, and hoped for."
"Oh, wretch, wretch that I am, why did I come?"
"Because it is your home, because you owe me ten years of my mother. Yousee now that I must keep you."
He said all this on his knees, before the sofa on which she had letherself fall, in a flood of tears, and the last painful sobs of herwounded pride. She wept thus for long, her child at her feet. And nowthe Joyeuse family, anxious because Andre did not come down, hurriedup in a troop to look for him. It was an invasion of innocent faces,transparent gaiety, floating curls, modest dress, and over all thegroup shone the big lamp, the good old lamp with the vast shade whichM. Joyeuse solemnly carried, as high, as straight as he could, with thegesture of a caryatid. Suddenly they stopped before this pale and sadlady, who looked, touched to the depths, at all this smiling grace,above all at Elise, a little behind the others, whose conscious air inthis indiscreet visit points her out as the _fiancee_.
"Elise, embrace our mother and thank her. She has come to live with herchildren."
There she is, caught in all these caressing arms, pressed against fourlittle feminine hearts which have missed the shelter of a mother's lovefor so long; there she is introduced, and so gently, into the luminouscircle of the family lamp, widened to allow her to take her place there,to dry her eyes, to warm and brighten her spirit at this steady flame,even in this little studio near the roof, where just now the terriblestorm blew so wildly.
He who breathes his last over there, lying in his blood-stained bath,has never known this sacred flame. Egoistical and hard, he has lived upto the last for show, throwing out his chest in a bubble of vanity. Andthis vanity was what was best in him. It alone had held him firm andupright so long; it alone clinched his teeth on the groans of hislast agony. In the damp garden the water drips sadly. The bugle of thefiremen sounds the curfew. "Go and look at No. 7," says the mistress,"he will never have done with his bath." The attendant goes, and uttersa cry of fright, of horror: "Oh, madame, he is dead! But it is not thesame man." They go, but nobody can recognise the fine gentleman whoentered a short time ago, in this death's-head puppet, the head leaningon the edge of the bath, a face where the blood mingles with paint andpowder, all the limbs lying in the supreme lassitude of a part playedto the end--to the death of the actor. Two cuts of the razor across themagnificent chest, and all the factitious majesty has burst and resolveditself into this nameless horror, this heap of mud, of blood, of spoiledand dead flesh, where, unrecognisable, lies the man of appearances, theMarquis Louis-Marie-Agenor de Monpavon.