Part 68

He winked his eye knowingly. I looked at him in wonder. “Who is it you have seen, M. Francis?”

“The marquis, my master--over there in the little white house behind Notre-Dame.” (He did not use the word morgue, it is too low.) “I was sure I should find him there. I went there first thing next morning. There he was. Oh, well disguised, I tell you. Only his valet could recognise him. The hair gray, the teeth gone, the wrinkles showing his sixty-five years, which he used to hide so well. On the marble slab, with the tap running above, I seemed to see him at his dressing-table.”

“And you said nothing?”

“No. I knew his intentions on the subject for long. I let him go away discreetly, without awakening attention, as he wished. But, all the same, he might have given me a crust of bread before he went, after a service of twenty years.”

And on a sudden, striking the table with his fist with rage:

“When I think that if I had liked I might have been with Mora, instead of going to Monpavon, that I might have had Louis’s place. What luck he has had! How many bags of gold he laid his hands on when his duke died! And the wardrobe--hundreds of shirts, a dressing-gown of blue fox fur worth more than twenty thousand francs. Like Noel, too, he must have made his pile! He had to hurry, too, for he knew that it would stop soon. Now there is nothing to be got in the Place Vendome. An old policeman of a mother who manages everything. Saint-Romans is to be sold, the pictures are to be sold, half the house to be let. It is a real break-up.”

I must confess that I could not help showing my satisfaction, for this wretched Jansoulet is the cause of all our misfortunes. A man who boasted of being so rich, who said so everywhere. The public bit at it like a fish who sees the scales shine through the net. He has lost millions, I admit, but why did he make us believe he had more? They have arrested Bois l’Hery; they should have arrested him. Ah! if we had had another expert, I am sure it would have been done. Besides, as I said to Francis, you had only to look at this upstart of a Jansoulet to see what he was worth. What a head--like a bandit!

“And so common,” said the ex-valet.

“No principles.”

“An absolute want of form. Well, there he is on his beam-ends, and then Jenkins, too, and plenty of others with them.”

“What! the doctor too? Ah! so much the worse. Such a polite and amiable man.”

“Yes, still another breaking-up of his establishment. Horses, carriages, furniture. The yard of the house is full of bills, and it sounds as empty as if some one were dead. The place at Nanterre is on sale. There were half a dozen of the ‘little Bethlehems’ left whom they packed up in a cab. It is a break-up, I tell you, pere Passajon, a ruin which we, old as we are, may not see the end of, but it will be complete. Everything is rotten, it must all come down!”

He was a sinister figure, this old steward of the Empire, thin, stubbly, covered with mud, and shouting like a Jeremiah, “It is the downfall!” with a toothless mouth, black and wide open. I felt afraid and ashamed of him, with a great desire to see him outside, and I thought: “Oh, M. Chalmette! Oh, my little vineyard of Montbars!”

Same date.--Great news. Mme. Gaganetti came this afternoon to bring me mysteriously a letter from the governor. He is in London, going to begin a magnificent thing. Fine offices in the best part of the town, a superb list of shareholders. He offers me the chance of joining him, “happy to repair thus the damage he has caused me,” says he. I shall have twice my wages at the Territorial, be lodged comfortably, five shares in the new bank, and all my arrears paid. All I need is a little money to go there and to pay a few small debts round here. Good luck! My fortune is assured. I shall write to the notary of Montbars to mortgage my vineyard.

AT BORDIGHERA

As M. Joyeuse had told the Juge d’Instruction, Paul de Gery returned from Tunis after three weeks’ absence. Three interminable weeks spent in struggling among intrigues, and traps secretly laid by the powerful hatred of the Hemerlingues--in wandering from hall to hall, from ministry to ministry through the immense palace of the Bardo, which gathered within one enclosure, bristling with culverins, all the departments of the State, as much under the master’s eye as his stables and harem. On his arrival, Paul had learned that the Chamber of Justice was preparing secretly Jansoulet’s trial--a derisive trial, lost beforehand; and the closed offices of the Nabob on the Marine Quay, the seals on his strong boxes, his ships moored to the Goulette, a guard round his palace, seemed to speak of a sort of civil death, of a disputed succession of which the spoils would not long remain to be shared.

There was not a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious crowd; the French colony itself appeared satisfied with the fall of a courtier who had so long monopolized the roads to favour. To attempt to snatch this prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph at the Assembly, was not to be thought of. All that de Gery could hope for was to save some shreds of his fortune, and this only if he hurried, for he was expecting day by day to learn of his friend’s complete ruin.

He set himself to work, therefore, hurried on his business with an activity which nothing could discourage, neither Oriental discursiveness--that refined fair-spoken politeness, under which is hidden ferocity--nor coolly indifferent smiles, nor averted looks, invoking divine fatalism when human lies fail. The self-possession of this southerner, in whom was condensed, as it were, all the exuberance of his compatriots, served him as well as his perfect knowledge of French law, of which the Code of Tunis is only a disfigured copy.

By his diplomacy and discretion, in spite of the intrigues of Hemerlingue’s son--who was very influential at the Bardo--he succeeded in withdrawing from confiscation the money lent by the Nabob some months before, and to snatch ten millions out of fifteen from Mohammed’s rapacity. The very morning of the day on which the money was to be paid over, he received from Paris the news of the unseating of Jansoulet. He hurried at once to the Palace to arrive there before the news, and on his return with the ten millions in bills on Marseilles secure in his pocket-book, he passed young Hemerlingue’s carriage, with his three mules at full gallop. The thin owl’s face was radiant. De Gery understood that if he remained many hours at Tunis his bills ran the risk of being confiscated, so took his place at once on an Italian packet which was sailing next morning for Genoa, passed the night on board, and was only easy in his mind when he saw far behind him white Tunis with her gulf and the rocks of Cape Carthage spread out before her. On entering Genoa, the steamer while making for the quay passed near a great yacht with the Tunisian flag flying. De Gery felt greatly excited, and for a moment believed that she had come in pursuit of him, and that on landing he might be seized by the Italian police like a common thief. But the yacht was swinging peacefully at anchor, her sailors cleaning the deck or repainting the red siren of her figurehead, as if they were expecting someone of importance. Paul had not the curiosity to ask who this personage was. He crossed the marble city, and returned by the coast railway from Genoa to Marseilles--that marvellous route where one passes suddenly from the blackness of the tunnels to the dazzling light of the blue sea.

At Savona the train stopped, and the passengers were told that they could go no farther, as one of the little bridges over the torrents which rush from the mountains to the sea had been broken during the night. They must wait for the engineer and the break-down gang, already summoned by telegraph; wait perhaps a half day. It was early morning. The Italian town was waking in one of those veiled dawns which forecast great heat for the day. While the dispersed travellers took refuge in the hotels, installed themselves in the cafes, and others visited the town, de Gery, chafing at the delay, tried to think of some means of saving these few hours. He thought of poor Jansoulet, to whom the money he was bringing might save honour and life, of his dear Aline, her whose remembrance had not quitted him a single day of his journey, no more than the portrait which she had given him. Then he was inspired to hire one of those four-horse calesinos which run from Genoa to Nice, along the Italian Corniche--an adorable trip which foreigners, lovers, and winners at Monaco often enjoy. The driver guaranteed that he would be at Nice early; and even if he arrived no earlier than the train, his impatient spirit felt the comfort of movement, of feeling at each turn of the wheel the distance from his desire decrease.

On a fine morning in June, when one is young and in love, it is a delicious intoxication to tear behind four horses over the white Corniche road. To the left, a hundred feet below, the sea sparkling with foam, from the rounded rocks of the shore to those vapoury distances where the blue of the waves and of the heavens mingle; red or white sails are scattered over it like wings, steamers leaving behind them their trail of smoke; and on the sands, fishermen no larger than birds, in their anchored boats like nests. Then the road descends, follows a rapid declivity along the rocks and sharp promontories. The fresh wind from the waves shakes the little harness bells; while on the right, on the side of the mountain, the rows of pine-trees, the green oaks with roots capriciously leaving the arid soil, and olive-trees growing on their terraces, up to a wide and white pebbly ravine, bordered with grass, marking the passage of the waters. This is really a dried-up water-course, which the loaded mules ascend with firm foot among the shingle, and a washer-woman stoops near a microscopic pond--the few drops that remained of the great inundation of winter. From time to time one crosses the street of some village, or little town rather, grown rusty through too much sun, of historic age, the houses closely packed and joined by dark arcades--a network of vaulted courts which clamber the hillside with glimpses of the upper daylight, here and there letting one see crowds of children with aureoles of hair, baskets of brilliant fruit, a woman coming down the road, her water-pot on her head and her distaff on her arm. Then at a corner of the street, the blue sparkle of the waves and the immensity of nature.

But as the day advanced, the sun rising in the heavens spread over the sea--now escaped from its mists, still with the transparence of quartz--thousands of rays striking the water like arrow-heads, a dazzling sight made doubly so by the whiteness of the rocks and of the soil, by a veritable African sirocco which raised the dust in a whirlwind on the road. They were coming to the hottest and most sheltered places of the Corniche--a true exotic temperature, scattering dates, cactus, and aloes. Seeing these thin trunks, this fantastic vegetation in the white hot air, feeling the blinding dust crackle under the wheels like snow, de Gery, his eyes half closed, dreaming in this leaden noon, thought he was once more on that fatiguing road from Tunis to the Bardo, in a singular medley of Levantine carriages with brilliant liveries, of long-necked camels, of caparisoned mules, of young donkeys, of Arabs in rags, of half-naked negroes, of officials in full-dress with their guard of honour. Should he find there, where the road ran through the gardens of palm-trees, the strange and colossal architecture of the Bey’s palace, its barred windows with closed lattices, its marble gates, its balconies in carved wood painted in bright colours?--It was not the Bardo, but the lovely country of Bordighera, divided, like all those on the coast, into two parts--the sea town lying on the shore; and the upper town, joined to it by a forest of motionless palm-trees, with upright stem and falling crown--like green rockets, springing into the blue with their thousand feathers.

The insupportable heat, the overtired horses, forced the traveller to stop for a couple of hours at one of those great hotels which line the road, and bring every November into this little town, so marvellously sheltered, the luxurious life and cosmopolitan animation of an aristocratic wintering place. But at this time of year there was no one in the sea town of Bordighera but fishermen, invisible at this hour. The villas and hotels seemed dead, their blinds and shutters closed. They took Paul through long, cool, and silent passages to a great drawing-room facing north, which seemed to be part of the suites let for the season, whose doors communicated with the other rooms. White curtains, a carpet, the comfort demanded by the English even when travelling, and outside the windows, which the hotel-keeper opened wide to tempt the traveller to a longer stay, a splendid view of the mountain. An astonishing quiet reigned in this great deserted inn, with neither manager, nor cook, nor waiters--the whole staff coming only in the winter--and given up for domestic needs to a local spoil-sauce, expert at a stoffato, a risotto; also to two stablemen, who clothed themselves at meal-time with the dress-coat and white tie of office. Happily, de Gery was only going to remain there for an hour or two, to rest his eyes from the overpowering light, his head from the dolorous grip of the sun.

From the divan where he lay, the admirable landscape, diversified with light and trembling leaves, seemed to descend to his window by stages of different greens, where scattered villas shone white, and among them that of Maurice Trott, the banker, recognisable by its capricious architecture and the height of its palms.

The Levantine house, whose gardens came up to the windows of the hotel, had sheltered for some months an artistic celebrity, the sculptor Brehat, who was dying of consumption, and owed the prolonging of his existence to this princely hospitality. The neighbourhood of this dying celebrity--of which the hotel-keeper was proud, and which he would have liked to charge in the bill--the name of Brehat, which de Gery had so often heard pronounced with admiration in Felicia Ruys’s studio, brought back his thoughts to the beautiful face, with its pure lines, which he had last seen in the Bois de Boulogue, leaning on Mora’s shoulder. What had become of this unfortunate girl when this prop had failed her? Would this lesson be of use to her in the future? And, by a strange coincidence, while he was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white greyhound was bounding up an alley of green trees on the slopes of the neighbouring garden. It was like Kadour--the same short hair, the same mouth, red, fierce, and delicate. Paul, before his open window, was assailed in a moment by all sorts of visions, sad or charming. Perhaps the beauty of the scene before his eyes made his thoughts wander. Under the orange-trees and lemon-trees in rows, laden with their golden fruit, stretched immense fields of violets in regular and packed beds, separated by little irrigation canals, whose white stone cut up the exuberant verdure.

An exquisite ordour of violets dried in the sun was rising--a hot boudoir scent, enervating, enfeebling, which called up for de Gery feminine visions--Aline, Felicia--permeating the fairy-like landscape, in this blue-charged atmosphere, this heavenly day, which one might have called the perfume become visible of so many open flowers. The creaking of a door made him open his eyes. Some one had just gone into the next room. He heard the rustle of a dress against the thin partition, a leaf turned in a book which could not be very interesting, for a long sigh turning into a yawn made him start. Was he still sleeping, dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of the “jackal in the desert,” so much in keeping with the burning temperature out of doors? No--nothing more. He fell asleep again, and this time all the confused images which pursued him fixed themselves in a dream--a very pleasant dream.

He was on his honeymoon with Aline. She was a delicious wife, her clear eyes full of love and faith, which only knew, only looked at him. In this very room, on the other side of the partition, she was sitting in white morning dress, which smelt of violets and of the fine lace of her trousseau. They were having breakfast--one of those solitary breakfasts of a honeymoon, served in their bedroom, opposite the blue sea, and the clear sky, which tinge with azure the glass in which one drinks, the eyes where one sees one’s self, the future--life--the distant horizon. Oh! how good it was; what a divine youth-giving light; how happy they were!

And all at once, in the delight of their kisses, Aline became sad. Her eyes filled with tears. She said to him: “Felicia is there. You will love me no longer.” And he laughed, “Felicia here? What an idea!” “Yes, yes; she is there.” Trembling she pointed to the next room, from which came angry barks, and the voice of Felicia: “Here, Kadour! Here, Kadour!” the low, concentrated, furious voice of some one who is hiding and suddenly discovered.