The Nabob Volume Ii Part 24

At that sneer, stinging as a blow from a whip, which must have left its mark in red on his face, the wretch rejoined, gasping for breath:

"Enough, enough; do not mock me so. It is too horrible, after all that has gone. In G.o.d's name doesn't it touch you to be loved as I love you, sacrificing everything to you, wealth, honor, reputation? Come, look at me. However carefully applied my mask may have been, I have torn it off for you, I have torn it off before all the world. And now, look! here is the hypocrite!"

There was a dull sound as of two knees falling upon the floor. And mad with love, stammering, humbling himself before her, he implored her to consent to marry him, to give him the right to go everywhere with her, to defend her; then words failed him, his voice was choked by a pa.s.sionate sob, so deep, so heart-rending, that it might well have touched any heart, especially in presence of that gorgeous scenery lying impa.s.sive in the perfumed, enervating heat. But Felicia was not moved, and her manner was still haughty as she said brusquely: "Enough of this, Jenkins, what you ask is impossible. We have nothing to conceal from each other; and after your confidences of a moment ago, I propose to tell you something which it wounds my pride to tell, but which your persistence seems to me to deserve. I was Mora's mistress."

Paul was not unprepared for that. And yet that sweet voice burdened with such a confession was so sad amid the intoxicating aromas of that lovely blue atmosphere, that his heart was sorely oppressed, and he had in his mouth the taste of tears left by an unavowed regret.

"I knew it," replied Jenkins in a hollow voice. "I have here the letters you wrote him."

"My letters?"

"Oh! I will give them back to you; take them. I know them by heart, by dint of reading and re-reading them. That is the kind of thing that hurts when one is in love. But I have undergone other tortures. When I think that it was I--" he paused, he was suffocating--"I who was destined to furnish combustion for your flames, to warm that frozen lover, to send him to you, ardent and rejuvenated! Ah! he made away with the pearls, I tell you. It was of no use for me to say no, he always wanted more. At last I went mad. 'You want to burn, villain. Well, burn!'"

Paul sprang to his feet in dismay. Was he about to hear the confession of a crime?

But he had not to undergo the shame of listening further.

A sharp knock, on his door this time, warned him that the _calesino_ was ready.

"Hallo! Signor Francese."

There was profound silence in the adjoining room, then a hurried whispering. There was somebody close by, who was listening to them!--Paul de Gery rushed downstairs. He longed to be far away from that hotel parlor, to escape the haunting memory of the horrors that had been disclosed to him.

As the post-chaise started, he saw, between the cheap white curtains that hang at every window in the South, a pale face with the hair of a G.o.ddess and great blazing eyes, watching for him to pa.s.s. But a glance at Aline's portrait soon banished that disturbing vision, and, cured forever of his former pa.s.sion, he travelled until evening through an enchanted country with the pretty bride of the breakfast, who carried away in the folds of her modest dress, of her maidenly cloak, all the violets of Bordighera.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_The First Night of 'Revolte.'_"]

CHAPTER XXV

THE FIRST NIGHT OF "ReVOLTE."

"Ready for the first act!"

That cry from the stage manager, standing, with his hands at his mouth like a trumpet, at the foot of the actors' stairway, soars upward in its lofty well, rolls. .h.i.ther and thither, loses itself in the recesses of pa.s.sage-ways filled with the noise of closing doors and hurried footsteps, of despairing calls to the wig-maker and the dressers, while on the landings of the different floors, slowly and majestically, holding their heads perfectly still for fear of disarranging the slightest detail of their costumes, all the characters of the first act of _Revolte_ appear one by one, clad in elegant modern ball costumes, with much creaking of new shoes, rustling of silk trains, and clanking of handsome bracelets pushed up by the gloves in process of being b.u.t.toned. They all seem excited, nervous, pale under their paint, and little shivers pa.s.s in waves of shadow over the skilfully prepared velvety flesh of shoulders drenched with white lead. They talk but little, their mouths are dry. The most self-a.s.sured, while affecting to smile, have in their eyes and their voices the hesitation of absent-mindedness, that feeling of apprehension of the battle before the footlights which will always be one of the most potent attractions of the actor's profession, its piquancy, its ever-recurring springtime.

On the crowded stage, where scene-shifters and machinists are running hither and thither, jostling one another in the soft, snowy light from the wings, soon to give place, when the curtain rises, to the brilliant light from the theatre, Cardailhac in black coat and white cravat, his hat c.o.c.ked over one ear, casts a last glance over the arrangement of the scenery, hastens the workmen, compliments the _ingenue_, humming a tune the while, radiant and superb. To see him, no one would ever suspect the terrible anxieties by which his mind is beset. As he was involved with all the others in the Nabob's downfall, in which his stock company was swallowed up, he is staking his little all on the play to be given this evening, and will be forced--if it does not succeed--to leave this marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely new on the posters, flatters the gambler's superst.i.tions.

Andre Maranne is not so confident. As the time for the performance draws near, he loses faith in his work, dismayed by the sight of the crowded hall, which he surveys through a hole in the curtain as through the small end of a stereoscope.

A magnificent audience, filling the hall to the ceiling, despite the lateness of the season and the fashionable taste for going early to the country; for Cardailhac, the declared foe of nature and the country, who always struggles to keep Parisians in Paris as late as possible, has succeeded in filling his theatre, in making it as brilliant as in mid-winter. Fifteen hundred heads swarming under the chandeliers, erect, leaning forward, turned aside, questioning, with a great abundance of shadows and reflections; some ma.s.sed in the dark corners of the pit, others brilliantly illuminated by the reflection of the white walls of the lobby shining through the open doors of the boxes; a first-night audience, always the same, that collective brigand from the theatrical columns of the newspapers, who goes everywhere and carries by a.s.sault those much-envied places when some claim to favor or the exercise of some public function does not give them to him.

In the orchestra-stalls, lady-killers, clubmen, glistening craniums with broad bald streaks fringed with scanty hair, light gloves, huge opera-gla.s.ses levelled at the boxes. In the galleries, a medley of castes and fine dresses, all the names well known at functions of the sort, and the embarra.s.sing promiscuousness which seats the chaste, modest smile of the virtuous woman beside the eyes blazing with kohl and the lips streaked with vermilion of the other kind. White hats, pink hats, diamonds and face paint. Higher up, the boxes present the same scene of confusion: actresses and courtesans, ministers, amba.s.sadors, famous authors, critics solemn of manner and frowning, lying back in their chairs with the impa.s.sive gloom of judges beyond the reach of corruption. The proscenium boxes are ablaze with light and splendor, occupied by celebrities of the world of finance, decolletee, bare-armed women, gleaming with jewels like the Queen of Sheba when she visited the King of the Jews. But one of those great boxes on the left is entirely unoccupied, and attracts general attention by its peculiar decoration, lighted by a Moorish lantern at the rear. Over the whole a.s.semblage hovers an impalpable floating dust, the flickering of the gas, which mingles its odor with all Parisian recreations, and its short, sharp wheezing like a consumptive's breath, accompanying the slow waving of fans. And with all the rest, ennui, deathly ennui, the ennui of seeing the same faces always in the same seats, with their affectations or their defects, the monotony of society functions, which results every winter in turning Paris into a backbiting provincial town, more gossipy and narrow-minded than the provinces themselves.

Maranne noticed that sullen humor, that evident weariness on the part of the audience, and as he reflected upon the change that would be wrought by the success of his drama in his modest life, now made up entirely of hopes, he asked himself, in an agony of dread, what he could do to bring his thoughts home to that mult.i.tude of human beings, to force them to lay aside their preoccupied manner, to set in motion in that vast throng a single current which would attract to him those distraught glances, those minds, now scattered over all the notes in the key-board and so difficult to bring into harmony. Instinctively he sought friendly faces, a box opposite the stage filled by the Joyeuse family; elise and the younger girls in front, and behind them Aline and their father, a lovely family group, like a bouquet dripping with dew in a display of artificial flowers. And while all Paris was asking disdainfully: "Who are those people?" the poet placed his destiny in those little fairy-like hands, newly gloved for the occasion, which would boldly give the signal for applause when it was time.

"Clear the stage!" Maranne has barely time to rush into the wings; and suddenly he hears, far, very far away, the first words of his play, rising, like a flock of frightened birds, in the silence and immensity of the theatre. A terrible moment! Where should he go? What would become of him? Should he remain there leaning against a post, with ears strained and a feeling of tightness at his heart; to encourage the actors when he was so in need of encouragement himself? He prefers to confront the danger face to face, and he glides through a little door into the lobby outside the boxes and stops at a box on the first tier which he opens softly.--"Sh!--it's I." Some one is sitting in the shadow, a woman whom all Paris knows, and who keeps out of sight. Andre takes his place beside her, and sitting side by side, invisible to all, the mother and son, trembling with excitement, watch the performance.

The audience was dumbfounded at first. The Theatre des Nouveautes, situated at the heart of the boulevard, where its main entrance was a blaze of light, among the fashionable restaurants and select clubs,--a theatre to which small parties used to adjourn after a choice dinner to hear an act or two of something racy, had become in the hands of its clever manager the most popular of all Parisian play-houses, with no well-defined speciality but providing a little of all sorts, from the spectacular fairy-play which exhibits the women in scant attire, to the great modern drama which does the same for our morals. Cardailhac was especially bent upon justifying his t.i.tle of "manager of the Nouveautes,"[9] and since the Nabob's millions had been behind the undertaking, he had striven to give the frequenters of the boulevard some dazzling surprises. That of this evening surpa.s.sed them all: the play was in verse--and virtuous.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Novelties.

A virtuous play!

The old monkey had realized that the time had come to try that _coup_, and he tried it. After the first moments of amazement, and a few melancholy e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns here and there in the boxes: "Listen! it's in verse!" the audience began to feel the charm of that elevating, healthy work, as if someone had shaken over it, in that rarefied atmosphere, some cool essence, pleasant to inhale, an elixir of life perfumed with the wild thyme of the hillsides.

"Ah! this is fine--it is restful."

That was the general exclamation, a thrill of comfort, a bleat of satisfaction accompanying each line. It was restful to the corpulent Hemerlingue, puffing in his proscenium box on the ground floor, as in a sty of cherry-colored satin. It was restful to tall Suzanne Bloch, in her antique head-dress with crimps peeping out from under a diadem of gold; and Amy Ferat beside her, all in white like a bride, sprigs of orange-blossoms in her hair dressed _a la chien_, it was restful to her, too.

There were numbers of such creatures there, some very stout with an unhealthy stoutness picked up in all sorts of seraglios, triple-chinned and with an idiotic look; others absolutely green despite their rouge, as if they had been dipped in a bath of that a.r.s.enite of copper known to commerce as "Paris green," so faded and wrinkled that they kept out of sight in the back of their boxes, letting nothing be seen save a bit of white arm or a still shapely shoulder. Then there were old beaux, limp and stooping, of the type then known as little _creves_, with protruding neck and hanging lips, incapable of standing straight, or of uttering a word without a break. And all these people exclaimed as one man: "This is fine--it is restful." Beau Moessard hummed it like a tune under his little blond moustache, while his queen in a first tier box opposite translated it into her barbarous foreign tongue. Really it was restful to them. But they did not say why they needed rest, from what heart-sickening toil, from what enforced task as idlers and utterly useless creatures.

All these well-disposed murmurs, confused and blended, began to give the theatre the aspect that it wore on great occasions. Success was in the air, faces became brighter, the women seemed embellished by the reflection of the prevailing enthusiasm, of glances as thrilling as applause. Andre, sitting beside his mother, thrilled with an unfamiliar pleasure, with that proud delight which one feels in stirring the emotions of a crowd, even though it be as a street-singer in the faubourgs, with a patriotic refrain and two tremulous notes in one's voice. Suddenly the whispering redoubled, changed into a tumult. People began to move about and laugh sneeringly. What was happening? Some accident on the stage? Andre, leaning forward in dismay toward his actors, who were no less surprised than himself, saw that all the opera-gla.s.ses were levelled at the large proscenium box, empty until then, which some one had just entered and had taken his seat there, both elbows on the velvet rail, opera-gla.s.s in hand, in ominous solitude.

The Nabob had grown twenty years older in ten days. Those impulsive Southern natures, rich as they are in enthusiastic outbursts, in irresistible spurts of flame, collapse more utterly than others. Since his rejection by the Chamber the poor fellow had remained shut up in his own room, with the curtains drawn, refusing to see the daylight or to cross the threshold beyond which life awaited him, engagements he had entered into, promises made, a wilderness of protests and summonses. The Levantine having gone to some watering-place, attended by her ma.s.seur and her negresses, absolutely indifferent to the ruin of the family,--Bompain, the man in the fez, aghast amid the constant demands for money, being utterly at a loss to know how to approach his unfortunate employer, who was always in bed and turned his face to the wall as soon as any one mentioned business to him,--the old mother was left alone to struggle with the disaster, with the limited, guileless knowledge of a village widow, who knows what a stamped paper is, and a signature, and who considers honor the most precious possession on earth. Her yellow cap appeared on every floor of the great mansion, overlooking the bills, introducing reforms among the servants, heedless of outcries and humiliations. At every hour in the day the good woman could be seen striding along Place Vendome, gesticulating, talking to herself, saying aloud: "Bah! I'll go and see the bailiff." And she never consulted her son except when it was indispensable, and then only in a few concise words, careful to avoid looking at him. To arouse Jansoulet from his torpor nothing less would suffice than a despatch from Paul de Gery at Ma.r.s.eille, announcing his arrival with ten millions. Ten millions, that is to say, failure averted, a possibility of standing erect once more, of beginning life anew. And behold our Southerner, rebounding from the depths to which he had fallen, drunk with joy and hope. He ordered the windows to be thrown open, newspapers to be brought. What a magnificent opportunity that first night of _Revolte_ would afford him to show himself to the Parisians, who believed that he had gone under, to re-enter the great eddying whirlpool through the folding doors of his box at the Nouveautes! His mother, warned by an instinctive dread, made a slight effort to hold him back. Paris terrified her now. She would have liked to take her child away to some secluded corner in the South, to care for him with the Elder, both ill with the disease of the great city. But he was the master. It was impossible to resist the will of that man whom wealth had spoiled. She helped him to dress, "made him handsome," as she laughingly said, and watched him not without a certain pride as he left the house, superb, revivified, almost recovered from the terrible prostration of the last few days.

Jansoulet quickly remarked the sensation caused by his presence in the theatre. Being accustomed to such exhibitions of curiosity, he usually responded to them without the least embarra.s.sment, with his kindly, expansive smile; but this time the manifestation was unfriendly, almost insulting.

"What!--is that he?"

"There he is!"

"What impudence!"

Such exclamations went up from the orchestra stalls, mingled with many others. The seclusion and retirement in which he had taken refuge for the past few days had left him in ignorance of the public exasperation in his regard, the sermons, the dithyrambs with which the newspapers were filled on the subject of his corrupting wealth, articles written for effect, hypocritical verbiage to which public opinion resorts from time to time to revenge itself on the innocent for all its concessions to the guilty. It was a terrible disappointment, which caused him at first more pain than anger. Deeply moved, he concealed his distress behind his opera-gla.s.s, turning three-fourths away from the audience and giving close attention to the slightest details of the performance, but unable to avoid the scandalized scrutiny of which he was the victim, and which made his ears ring, his temples throb, and covered the dimmed lenses of his opera-gla.s.s with multi-colored circles, whirling about in the first vagaries of apoplexy.

When the act came to an end and the curtain fell, he remained, without moving, in that embarra.s.sed att.i.tude; but the louder whispering, no longer restrained by the stage dialogue, and the persistency of certain curious persons who changed their seats in order to obtain a better view of him, compelled him to leave his box, to rush out into the lobby like a wild beast fleeing from the arena through the circus.

Under the low ceiling, in the narrow circular pa.s.sage common in theatre lobbies, he stumbled upon a compact crowd of dandies, newspaper men, women in gorgeous hats, tightly laced, laughers by trade, shrieking with idiotic laughter as they leaned against the wall. From the open boxes, which sought a breath of fresh air from that swarming, noisy corridor, issued broken, confused fragments of conversation:

"A delightful play. It is so fresh and clean!"

"That Nabob! What insolence!"

"Yes, it really is very restful. One feels the better for--"

"How is it he hasn't been arrested yet?"

"A very young man, it seems; this is his first play."