The Nabob Part 16

"You know her then?"

"Do I know Felicia? Why, our desks were next each other in the first form. We had the same garden. Such a nice girl, and so handsome and clever!"

And, observing the pleasure with which she was listened to, Aline used to recall the times which already formed a past for her, seductive and melancholy like all pasts. She was very much alone in life, the little Felicia. On Thursdays, when the visitors' names were called out in the parlour, there was no one for her; except from time to time a good but rather absurd lady, formerly a dancer, it was said, whom Felicia called the Fairy. In the same way she used to have pet names for all the people she cared for and whom she transformed in her imaginations. In the holidays they used to see each other. Mme. Joyeuse, while she refused to allow Aline to visit the studio of M. Ruys, used to invite Felicia over for whole days, very short days they seemed, minglings of study, music, dual dreams, young intimate conversations. "Oh, when she used to talk to me of her art, with that enthusiasm which she put into everything, how delighted I was to listen to her! How many things I have understood through her, of which I should never have had any idea. Even now when we go to the Louvre with papa, or to the exhibition of the 1st of May, that special feeling I have about a beautiful piece of sculpture, a good picture, carries me back immediately to Felicia. In my early girlhood she represented art to me, and it corresponded with her beauty. Her nature was a little vague, but so kind, I always felt she was something superior to myself, that bore me to great heights without frightening me. Suddenly she stopped coming to see me. I wrote to her; no reply.

Later on, fame came to her; to me great sorrows, absorbing duties. And of all that friendship, which was very deep, however, since I cannot speak of it without--'three, four, five'--nothing now remains except old memories like dead ashes."

Bending over her work, the brave girl made haste to count her st.i.tches, to imprison her regret in the capricious designs of her tapestry, while de Gery, moved as he heard the testimony of those pure lips against the calumnies of rejected young dandies or of jealous comrades, felt himself raised, restored to the proud dignity of his love. This sensation was so sweet to him that he returned in search of it very often, not only on the evenings of the lessons, but on other evenings, too, and almost forgot to go to see Felicia for the pleasure of hearing Aline talk about her.

One evening, as he was leaving the Joyeuses' home, Paul met the neighbour, M. Andre, on the landing, who was waiting for him and took his arm feverishly.

"Monsieur de Gery," he said in a trembling voice, with eyes that glittered behind their spectacles, the one feature of his face that was visible in the darkness. "I have an explanation to ask from you. Will you come up to my rooms for a moment?"

There had only been between this young man and himself the ba.n.a.l relations of two persons accustomed to frequent the same house, whom no tie unites, who seem ever separated by a certain antipathy of nature, of manner of life. What explanation could there be called for between them?

He followed him with much perplexed curiosity.

The aspect of the little studio, chilly under its top-light, the empty fireplace, the wind blowing as though they were out of doors and making the candle flicker, the solitary light on the scene of the night's labour of a poor and lonely man, reflected on sheets of paper scribbled over and scattered about, in short, this atmosphere of habitations wherein the soul of the inhabitants lives on its own aspirations, caused de Gery to understand the visionary air of Andre Maranne, his long hair thrown back and streaming loose, that somewhat excessive appearance, very excusable when it is paid for by a life of sufferings and privations, and his sympathy immediately went out to this courageous fellow whose intrepidity of spirit he guessed at a glance. But the other was too deeply moved by emotion to notice the progress of these reflections. As soon as the door was closed upon them, he said, with the accent of a stage hero addressing the perfidious seducer, "M. de Gery, I am not yet a Ca.s.sandra."

And seeing the stupefaction of de Gery:

"Yes, yes," he went on, "we understand each other. I have known perfectly well what it is that draws you to M. Joyeuse's house, and the eager welcome with which you are received there has not escaped my notice either. You are rich, you are of n.o.ble birth, there can be no hesitation between you and the poor poet who follows a ridiculous trade in order to give himself full time to reach a success which perhaps will never come. But I shall not allow my happiness to be stolen from me.

We must fight, monsieur, we must fight," he repeated, excited by the peaceful calm of his rival. "For long I have loved Mlle. Joyeuse. That love is the end, the joy, and the strength of an existence which is very hard, in many respects painful. I have only it in the world, and I would rather die than give it up."

Strangeness of the human soul! Paul did not love the charming Aline. His whole heart belonged to the other. He thought of her simply as a friend, the most adorable of friends. But the idea that Maranne was interested in her, that she no doubt returned this regard, gave him the jealous shiver of an annoyance, and it was with some considerable sharpness that he inquired whether Mlle. Joyeuse was aware of this sentiment of Andre's and had in any way authorized him thus to proclaim his rights.

"Yes, monsieur, Mlle. Elise knows that I love her, and before your frequent visits--"

"Elise? It is of Elise you are speaking?"

"And of whom, then, should I be speaking? The two others are too young."

He fully entered into the traditions of the family, this Andre. For him, Bonne Maman's age of twenty years, her triumphant grace, were obscured by a surname full of respect and the attributes of a Providence which seemed to cling to her.

A very brief explanation having calmed Andre Maranne's mind, he offered his apologies to de Gery, begged him to sit down in the arm-chair of carved wood which was used by his sitters, and their conversation quickly a.s.sumed an intimate and sympathetic character, brought about by the so abrupt avowal at its opening. Paul confessed that he, too, was in love, and that he came so often to M. Joyeuse's only in order to speak of her whom he loved with Bonne Maman, who had known her formerly.

"That is my case, too," said Andre. "Bonne Maman knows all my secrets; but we have not yet ventured to say anything to the father. My position is too unsatisfactory. Ah, when I shall have got _Revolt_ produced!"

Then they talked of that famous drama, _Revolt_, upon which he had been at work for six months, day and night, which had kept him warm all the winter, a very severe winter, but whose rigours the magic of composition had tempered in the little studio, which it transformed. It was there, within that narrow s.p.a.ce, that all the heroes of his piece had appeared to his poet's vision like familiar gnomes dropped from the roof or riding moon-beams, and with them the gorgeous tapestries, the glittering chandeliers, the park scenes with their gleaming flights of steps, all the luxurious circ.u.mstance expected in stage effects, as well as the glorious tumult of his first night, the applause of which was represented for him by the rain beating on the gla.s.s roof and the boards rattling in the door, while the wind, driving below over the murky timber-yard with a noise as of far-off voices, borne near and anew carried off into the distance, resembled the murmurs from the boxes opened on the corridor to let the news of his success circulate among the gossip and wonderment of the crowd. It was not only fame and money that it was destined to procure him, this thrice-blessed play, but something also more precious still. With what care accordingly did he not turn over the leaves of the ma.n.u.script in five thick books, all bound in blue, books like those that the Levantine was accustomed to strew about on the divan where she took her siestas, and that she marked with her managerial pencil.

Paul, having in his turn approached the table in order to examine the masterpiece had his glance attracted by a richly framed portrait of a woman, which, placed so near to the artist's work, seemed to be there to preside over it. Elise, doubtless? Oh, no, Andre had not yet the right to bring out from its protecting case the portrait of his little friend.

This was a woman of about forty, gentle of aspect, fair, and extremely elegant. As he perceived her, de Gery could not suppress an exclamation.

"You know her?" asked Andre Maranne.

"Why, yes. Mme. Jenkins, the wife of the Irish doctor. I have had supper at their house this winter."

"She is my mother." And the young man added in a lower tone:

"Mme. Maranne made a second marriage with Dr. Jenkins. You are surprised, are you not, to see me in these poor surroundings, while my relatives are living in the midst of luxury? But, you know, the chances of family life sometimes group together natures that differ very widely.

My stepfather and I have never been able to understand each other. He wished to make me a doctor, whereas my only taste was for writing. So at last, in order to avoid the continual discussions which were painful to my mother, I preferred to leave the house and plough my furrow alone, without the help of anybody. A rough business. Funds were wanting. The whole fortune has gone to that--to M. Jenkins. The question was to earn a livelihood, and you are aware what a difficult thing that is for people like ourselves, supposed to be well brought-up. To think that among all the accomplishments gained from what we are accustomed to call a complete education, this child's play was the only thing I could find by which I could hope to earn my bread. A few savings, my own purse, slender like that of most young men, served to buy my first outfit and I installed myself here far away, in the remotest region of Paris, in order not to embarra.s.s my relatives. Between ourselves, I don't expect to make a fortune out of photography. The first days especially were very difficult. n.o.body came, or if by chance some unfortunate wight did mount, I made a failure of him, got on my plate only an image blurred and vague as a phantom. One day, at the very beginning, a wedding-party came up to me, the bride all in white, the bridegroom with a waistcoat--like that! And all the guests in white gloves, which they insisted on keeping on for the portrait on account of the rarity of such an event with them. No, I thought I should go mad. Those black faces, the great white patches made by the dresses, the gloves, the orange-blossoms, the unlucky bride, looking like a queen of Niam-niam under her wreath merging indistinguishably into her hair. And all of them so full of good-will, of encouragements to the artist. I began them over again at least twenty times, and kept them till five o'clock in the evening. And then they only left me because it was time for dinner. Can you imagine that wedding-day pa.s.sed at a photographer's?"

While Andre was recounting to him with this good humour the troubles of his life, Paul recalled the tirade of Felicia that day when Bohemians had been mentioned, and all that she had said to Jenkins of their lofty courage, avid of privations and trials. He thought also of Aline's pa.s.sion for her beloved Paris, of which he himself was only acquainted, for his part, with the unwholesome eccentricities, while the great city hid in its recesses so many unknown heroisms and n.o.ble illusions. This last impression, already experienced within the sheltered circle of the Joyeuse's great lamp, he received perhaps still more vividly in this atmosphere, less warm, less peaceful, wherein art also entered to add its despairing or glorious uncertainty; and it was with a moved heart that he listened to Andre Maranne as he spoke to him of Elise, of the examinations which it was taking her so long to pa.s.s, of the difficulties of photography, of all that unforeseen element in his life which would end certainly "when he could have secured the production of _Revolt_," a charming smile accompanying on the poet's lips this so often expressed hope, which he was wont himself to hasten to make fun of, as though to deprive others of the right to do so.

MEMOIRS OF AN OFFICE PORTER SERVANTS

Truly Fortune in Paris has bewildering turns of the wheel!

To have seen the Territorial Bank as I have seen it, the rooms without fires, never swept, the desert with its dust, protested bills piled high as _that_ on the desks, every week a notice of sale posted at the door, my stew spreading throughout the whole place the odour of a poor man's kitchen; and then to witness now the reconst.i.tution of our company in its newly furnished halls, in which I have orders to light fires big enough for a Government department, amid a busy crowd, blowings of whistles, electric bells, gold pieces piled up till they fall over; it savours of miracle. I need to look at myself in the gla.s.s before I can believe it, to see in the mirror my iron-gray coat, trimmed with silver, my white tie, my usher's chain like the one I used to wear at the Faculty on the days when there were sittings. And to think that to work this transformation, to bring back to our brows gaiety, the mother of concord, to restore to our scrip its value ten times over, to our dear governor the esteem and confidence of which he had been so unjustly deprived, one man has sufficed, the being of supernatural wealth whom the hundred voices of renown designate by the name of the Nabob.

Oh, the first time that he came to the office, with his fine presence, his face a little worn perhaps, but so distinguished, his manners of one accustomed to frequent courts, upon terms of the utmost familiarity with all the princes of the Orient--in a word, that indescribable quality of a.s.surance and greatness which is bestowed by immense wealth--I felt my heart bursting beneath the double row of b.u.t.tons on my waistcoat. People may mouth in vain their great words of equality and fraternity; there are men who stand so surely above the rest that one would like to bow one's self down flat in their presence, to find new phrases of admiration in order to compel them to take a practical interest in one.

Let us hasten to add that I had need of nothing of the kind to attract the attention of the Nabob. As I rose at his pa.s.sage--moved to some emotion, but with dignity, you may trust Pa.s.sajon for that--he looked at me with a smile and said in an undertone to the young man who accompanied him: "What a fine head, like a--" Then there came a word which I did not catch very well, a word ending in _art_, something like _leopard_. No, however, it cannot have been that. _Jean-Bart_, perhaps, although even then I hardly see the connection. However that be, in any case he did say, "What a fine head," and this condescension made me proud. Moreover, all the directors show me a marked degree of kindness and politeness. It seems that there was a discussion with regard to me at the meeting of the board, to determine whether I should be kept or dismissed like our cashier, that ill-tempered fellow who was always talking of getting everybody sent to the galleys, and whom they have now invited to go elsewhere to manufacture his cheap shirt-fronts.

Well done! That will teach him to be rude to people. So far as I am concerned, Monsieur the Governor kindly consented to overlook my somewhat hasty words, in consideration of my record of service at the Territorial and elsewhere; and at the conclusion of the board meeting, he said to me with his musical accent: "Pa.s.sajon, you remain with us."

It may be imagined how happy I was and how profuse in the expression of my grat.i.tude. But just think! I should have left with my few pence without hope of ever saving any more; obliged to go and cultivate my vineyard in that little country district of Montbars, a very narrow field for a man who has lived in the midst of all the financial aristocracy of Paris, and among those great banking operations by which fortunes are made at a stroke. Instead of that, here I am established afresh in a magnificent situation, my wardrobe renewed, and my savings, which I spent a whole day in fingering over, intrusted to the kind care of the governor, who has undertaken to invest them for me advantageously. I think that is a manoeuvre which he is the very man to execute successfully. And no need for the least anxiety. Every fear vanishes before the word which is in vogue just now at all the councils of administration, in all shareholders' meetings, on the Bourse, the boulevards, and everywhere: "The Nabob is in the affair." That is to say, gold is being poured out abundantly, the worst _combin.a.z.ioni_ are excellent.

He is so rich, that man!

Rich to a degree one cannot imagine. Has he not just lent fifteen million francs as a simple loan pa.s.sing from hand to hand, to the Bey of Tunis? I repeat, fifteen millions. It was a trick he played on the Hemerlingues, who wished to embroil him with that monarch and cut the gra.s.s under his feet in those fine regions of the Orient where it grows golden, high, and thick. It was an old Turk whom I know, Colonel Brahim, one of our directors at the Territorial, who arranged the affair.

Naturally, the Bey, who happened to be, it appears, short of pocket-money, was very much touched by the alacrity of the Nabob to oblige him, and he has just sent him through Brahim a letter of thanks in which he announces that upon the occasion of his next visit to Vichy, he will stay a couple of days with him at that fine Chateau de Saint-Romans, which the former Bey, the brother of this one, honoured with a visit once before. You may fancy, what an honour! To receive a reigning prince as a guest! The Hemerlingues are in a rage. They who had manoeuvred so carefully--the son at Tunis, the father in Paris--to get the Nabob into disfavour. And then it is true that fifteen millions is a big sum. And do not say, "Pa.s.sajon is telling us some fine tales." The person who acquainted me with the story has held in his hands the paper sent by the Bey in an envelope of green silk stamped with the royal seal. If he did not read it, it was because this paper was written in Arabic, otherwise he would have made himself familiar with its contents as in the case of all the rest of the Nabob's correspondence. This person is his _valet de chambre_, M. Noel, to whom I had the honour of being introduced last Friday at a small evening-party of persons in service which he gave to all his friends. I record an account of this function in my memoirs as one of the most curious things which I have seen in the course of my four years of sojourn in Paris.

I had thought at first when M. Francis, Monpavon's _valet de chambre_, spoke to me of the thing, that it was a question of one of those little clandestine junketings such as are held sometimes in the garrets of our boulevards with the fragments of food brought up by Mlle. Seraphine and the other cooks in the building, at which you drink stolen wine, and gorge yourself, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light of a couple of candles which are extinguished at the least noise in the corridors. These secret practices are repugnant to my character. But when I received, as for the regular servants' ball, an invitation written in a very beautiful hand upon pink paper:

"M. Noel rekwests M---- to be present at his evenin-party on the 25th instent. Super will be provided"

I saw clearly, not withstanding the defective spelling, that it was a question of something serious and authorized. I dressed myself therefore in my newest frock-coat, my finest linen, and arrived at the Place Vendome at the address indicated by the invitation.

For the giving of his party, M. Noel had taken advantage of a first-night at the opera, to which all fashionable society was thronging, thus giving the servants a free rein, and putting the entire place at our disposal until midnight. Notwithstanding this, the host had preferred to receive us upstairs in his own bed-chamber, and this I approved highly, being in that matter of the opinion of the old fellow in the rhyme:

Fie on the pleasure That fear may corrupt!

But my word, the luxury on the Place Vendome! A felt carpet on the floor, the bed hidden away in an alcove, Algerian curtains with red stripes, an ornamental clock in green marble on the chimneypiece, the whole lighted by lamps of which the flames can be regulated at will. Our oldest member, M. Chalmette, is not better lodged at Dijon. I arrived about nine o'clock with Monpavon's old Francis, and I must confess that my entry made a sensation, preceded as I was by my academical past, my reputation for politeness, and great knowledge of the world. My fine presence did the rest, for it must be said that I know how to go into a room. M. Noel, in a dress-coat, very dark skinned and with mutton-chop whiskers, came forward to meet us.

"You are welcome, M. Pa.s.sajon," said he, and taking my cap with silver galloons which, according to the fashion, I had kept in my right hand while making my entry, he gave it to a gigantic negro in red and gold livery.

"Here, Lakdar, hang that up--and that," he added by way of a joke, giving him a kick in a certain region of the back.

There was much laughter at this sally, and we began to chat together in very friendly fashion. An excellent fellow, this M. Noel, with his accent of the Midi, his p.r.o.nounced style of dress, the smoothness and the simplicity of his manners. He reminded me of the Nabob, without his distinction, however. I noticed, moreover, that evening, that these resemblances are frequently to be observed in _valets de chambre_ who, living in the intimacy of their masters, by whom they are always a little dazzled, end by acquiring their manners and habits. Thus, M.

Francis has a certain way of straightening his body when displaying his linen-front, a mania for raising his arms in order to pull his cuffs down--it is Monpavon to a T. Now one, for instance, who bears no resemblance to his master is Joey, the coachman of Dr. Jenkins. I call him Joey, but at the party every one called him Jenkins; for, in that world, the stable folk among themselves give to each other the names of their masters, call each other Bois l'Hery, Monpavon, and Jenkins, without ceremony. Is it in order to degrade their superiors, to raise the status of menials? Every country has its customs; it is only a fool who will be surprised by them. To return to Joey Jenkins, how can the doctor, affable as he is, so polished in every particular, keep in his service that brute, bloated with _porter_ and _gin_, who will remain silent for hours at a time, then, at the first mounting of liquor to his head, begins to howl and to wish to fight everybody, as witness the scandalous scene which had just occurred when we entered?

The marquis's little groom, Tom Bois l'Hery, as they call him here, had desired to have a jest with this uncouth creature of an Irishman, who had replied to a bit of Parisian urchin's banter with a terrible Belfast blow of his fist right in the lad's face.

"A sausage with paws, I! A sausage with paws, I!" repeated the coachman, choking with rage, while his innocent victim was being carried into the adjoining room, where the ladies and girls found occupation in bathing his nose. The disturbance was quickly appeased, thanks to our arrival, thanks also to the wise words of M. Barreau, a middle-aged man, sedate and majestic, with a manner resembling my own. He is the Nabob's cook, a former _chef_ of the Cafe Anglais, whom Cardailhac, the manager of the Nouveautes, has procured for his friend. To see him in a dress-coat, with white tie, his handsome face full and clean-shaven, you would have taken him for one of the great functionaries of the Empire. It is true that a cook in an establishment where the table is set every morning for thirty persons, in addition to madame's special meal, and all eating only the very finest and most delicate of food, is not the same as the ordinary preparer of a _ragout_. He is paid the salary of a colonel, lodged, boarded, and then the perquisites! One has hardly a notion of the extent of the perquisites in a berth like this. Every one consequently addressed him respectfully, with the deference due to a man of his importance. "M. Barreau" here, "My dear M. Barreau" there. For it is a great mistake to imagine that servants among themselves are all cronies and comrades. Nowhere do you find a hierarchy more prevalent than among them. Thus at M. Noel's party I distinctly noticed that the coachmen did not fraternize with their grooms, nor the valets with the footmen and the lackeys, any more than the steward or the butler would mix with the lower servants; and when M. Barreau emitted any little pleasantry it was amusing to see how exceedingly those under his orders seemed to enjoy it. I am not opposed to this kind of thing. Quite on the contrary. As our oldest member used to say, "A society without a hierarchy is like a house without a staircase." The observation, however, seems to me one worth setting down in these memoirs.

The party, I need scarcely say, did not shine with its full splendour until after the return of its most beauteous ornaments, the ladies and girls who had gone to nurse the little Tom, ladies'-maids with shining and pomaded hair, chiefs of domestic departments in bonnets adorned with ribbons, negresses, housekeepers, a brilliant a.s.sembly in which I was immediately given great prestige, thanks to my dignified bearing and to the surname of "Uncle" which the younger among these delightful persons saw fit to bestow upon me.

I fancy there was in the room a good deal of second-hand frippery in the way of silk and lace, rather faded velvet, even, eight-b.u.t.ton gloves that had been cleaned several times, and perfumes abstracted from madame's dressing-table, but the faces were happy, thoughts given wholly to gaiety, and I was able to make a little corner for myself, which was very lively, always within the bounds of propriety--that goes without saying--and of a character suitable for an individual in my position.

This was, moreover, the general tone of the party. Until towards the end of the entertainment I heard none of those unseemly jests, none of those scandalous stories which give so much amus.e.m.e.nt to the gentlemen of our Board; and I take pleasure in remarking that Bois l'Hery the coachman--to cite only one example--is much more observant of the proprieties than Bois l'Hery the master.