His Excellency the Minister Part 68

"What is the use of worrying you?--Reflect for yourself, my good man!

You don't need me to emphasize your blunders. By the way, you know, our mad mistress?--She is in the theatre."

"I have seen her!" said Vaudrey, turning very pale.

"She is not yet a d.u.c.h.ess, but that will be patched up in four days. If one were only a rascal, how one could punish the hussy! But what is the use? And this devilish Rosas, who is mad enough over her to tie himself to her and to overlook everything he ought to know, would be capable of marrying her all the same! Much good may it do him!"

"But, tell me," continued Lissac, whose cutting tone suddenly became serious, "have you read the paper?"

"No! What is there in it?"

They were then in the corridor of the Opera, and heard the prelude to the curtain-raising. Guy took the _Soir_ from his pocket and handed it to Vaudrey:

"Here, see!--That poor Ramel!--You were very fond of him, were you not?"

"Ramel!"

Vaudrey had no need to read. He knew everything as soon as Guy showed him the paper and mentioned Denis's name in a mournful tone.

Dead!--He died peacefully in his armchair near the window, as if falling asleep.--"The death is announced," so read the paragraph, "of one of the oldest members of the Parisian press, Monsieur Denis Ramel, who was formerly a celebrated man and for a long time directed the _Nation Francaise_, once an important journal, now no longer in existence."--Not a word beyond the brief details of his death. No word of praise or regret, merely the commonplace statement of a fact. Vaudrey thought it was a trifling notice for a man who had held so large a place in the public eye.

"What do you think of it?" he said to Lissac. "People are ungrateful."

"Why, what would you have? Why didn't he write operettas?"

They parted after exchanging almost an ordinary grasp of the hand, though, perhaps, somewhat sad. Sulpice wished to cast a last look at Rosas's box. Marianne was standing, her outline clearly defined against the brightly-lighted background of the box. She was holding a saucer in her hand, eating an ice. He saw her once more as she stood near the buffet at Madame Marsy's, stirring her sherbet, a silver-gilt spoon smoothly gliding over her tongue. He closed his eyes, and with a nervous start quickly descended the grand stairway, where he found himself alone.

In order to forget Marianne, he turned his thoughts to Ramel.

Denis had been suffering for a long time. He smiled as he felt the hour of his departure draw near. He wished to disappear without stir, and in a civil way as he said, without attracting attention, _a l'Anglaise_.

Poor man! his wish was accomplished.

Vaudrey threw himself into a carriage and was driven to Batignolles. On the way he thought of the eternal ant.i.theses of Parisian life: the news of the death of a friend communicated to him at the Opera while a waltz-tune was being played!

And thinking to himself:

"_From the Opera to the Opera!_ That, moreover, is the history of my ministry--and that of the Granet administration, probably!"

The portress at Rue Boursault led him to Denis Ramel's apartment. Lying on his bed with a kindly smile on his face, the old journalist seemed as if asleep. The cold majesty of death gave a look of power to his face. One might almost believe at times, from the scintillating light placed near his bony brow, that its rigid muscles moved.

Denis Ramel! the sure guide of his youth and his counsellor through life! He recalled his entry on public life, his arrival in Paris, the first articles brought into the old editorial rooms of the _Nation Francaise_! If for a moment he had been one of the heads of the State, it was due to the man stretched out before him now!

He gently stooped over the corpse and pressed a farewell kiss on the dead man's brow.

As he turned round, he saw a man whom he had not at first seen and who had risen.

The man was very pale and greeted him with a timid air.

Vaudrey recognized Garnier, the man whom he had seen previously at Ramel's, a cough-racked, patient, dying man.

The consumptive had nevertheless outlived the old man.

"It is good of you to have come, monsieur," said the workman. "He loved you dearly."

"He died suddenly then?"

"Yes, and quite alone, while reading a book. He was found thus. They thought he was sleeping. It is all over, he is to be buried to-morrow.

Will you come, monsieur?--I did not know who you were when--you know--I said--In fact, it is kind--let us say no more about it--I beg your pardon--There will be a vast gathering at Denis Ramel's funeral, if there are present only a quarter of those whom he has obliged."

Vaudrey was heartbroken the next day. Behind Ramel's coffin, not a person followed. Himself, Garnier, and one or two old women from the house on Rue Boursault, who did not go all the way to the cemetery of Saint-Ouen because it was too far, were all that were present. At the grave Sulpice Vaudrey stood alone with the grave-digger and the workman Garnier. They buried Ramel in a newly-opened part close to the foot of a railway embankment.

For years Ramel had been forgotten, had even forgotten himself, he had let ambitious men pa.s.s beyond him, ingrates succeed and selfish men get to the top! He no longer existed! And those very men who had entreated him and called him _dear master_ in the old days, soliciting and flattering him, now no longer knew his name. Had he disappeared, or did he still live, that forerunner, a sort of j.a.panese idol, an ancient, a useless being who had known neither how to make his fortune nor his position, while building up that of others? n.o.body knew or cared.

Occasionally when circ.u.mstances called for it, they laughed at this romantic figure in politics, living like a porter, poor, lost, and buried under a ma.s.s of unknown individuals, after having made ministers and unmade governments. Yet, at the news of his death, not one of those who were indebted to him for everything, not a single politician who was well in the saddle, and for whom he had held the stirrup, not a comedian of the Chambers or the theatre who had pleaded with him, urged and flattered him, was to be found there to pay the most ordinary respects of memory to the man who had disappeared. That fateful solitude, added to a keen winter's wind, appeared to Sulpice to be a cruel abandonment and an act of cowardice. Two men followed the cortege of that maker of men!

"Follow journalism and you make the fame of others," said Vaudrey, shaking his head.

"After all," answered Garnier, "there are dupes in every trade, and they are necessarily the most honest."

When this man, who had been a minister, left the grave above which the whistling trains pa.s.sed, a freezing rain was falling and he pa.s.sed out of the cemetery in the company of the poor devil who coughed so sadly within the collar of his overcoat that was tightly drawn up over his comforter.

Before leaving him, Vaudrey, with a feeling of timidity, desired to ask him if work was at least fairly good.

"Thanks!" replied Garnier. "I have found a situation--And then--" he shook his head as he pointed out behind the black trees and the white graves, the spot where they had lowered Ramel--"One has always a place when all is over, and that perhaps is the best of all!"

He bowed and Vaudrey left in a gloomy mood. It seemed to him that his life was crumbling away, that he was sowing, shred by shred, his flesh on the road. The black hangings of Ramel's coffin--and he smiled sadly at this new irony--recalled to him the bills of the upholsterers that he still owed for the furnishing of that fete at the ministry on the last day of his power and his happiness. The official decorations of Belloir and the Gobelins were not sufficient for him. He had desired more modern decorations. He gave the coachman the upholsterer's address, Boulevard des Capucins. He hardly dared to enter and say: "I have come to pay the account of the furnishing supplied at the ministry!" It still seemed like a funeral bill he was paying. This upholsterer's account, paid for forgotten display, seemed to him a sort of mortuary transaction.

When he paid the upholsterer, the latter seemed to wear a cunning smile.

On finding himself again outside, he felt a sensation of relief; being cold, he was inclined to walk with a view to warming his chill blood.

On hearing his name spoken by some one, he turned round and perceived before him his compatriot Jeliotte, the friend of his childhood, the comrade, who, with a smile, cordially extended his hands toward him.

"I told you that you would always find me when I should not appear before you as a courtier! Well, then, here I am," said Jeliotte. "Now you may see me as much as you please!"

"Ah!" said Vaudrey.

Jeliotte took his arm.

"Probably you are going to the Chamber?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Well, I will accompany you!--Ah, since you are no longer minister, my dear friend, and that one does not appear to be a flatterer or a seeker of patronage, one can speak to you--You have faults enough!--You are too confident, too moderate--It is necessary to have a firm hand--And then that could not last. Those situations are all very fine but they are too easily destroyed!--They are like gla.s.s, my old friend!--A place is wanted for everybody, is it not?--Bah! must I tell you?--Why, you are happier! I like you better as it is!"

Vaudrey felt strongly inclined to shake off this pretentious ninny who was clinging to his arm.

"That is like me!" continued Jeliotte. "I like my friends better when they are down! What would you have? It is my generous nature. By the way, do you know that the reason I have not seen you before is because I have not been in Paris! I have returned from Isere!"

"Ah!" said Vaudrey, thinking of Adrienne.