Punctually on the last day of the month the little man appeared to collect his little income, stiff and formal in his dealings with Sigismond, as became an annuitant on duty. Madame Chebe had tried to obtain an interview with her son-in-law, whom she pitied and loved; but the mere appearance of her palm-leaf shawl on the steps put Sidonie"s husband to flight.
In truth, the courage with which he armed himself was more apparent than real. The memory of his wife never left him. What had become of her?
What was she doing? He was almost angry with Pla.n.u.s for never mentioning her. That letter, above all things, that letter which he had had the courage not to open, disturbed him. He thought of it continually. Ah!
had he dared, how he would have liked to ask Sigismond for it!
One day the temptation was too strong. He was alone in the office. The old cashier had gone out to luncheon, leaving the key in his drawer, a most extraordinary thing. Risler could not resist. He opened the drawer, moved the papers, and searched for his letter. It was not there.
Sigismond must have put it away even more carefully, perhaps with a foreboding of what actually happened. In his heart Risler was not sorry for his disappointment; for he well knew that, had he found the letter, it would have been the end of the resigned and busy life which he imposed upon himself with so much difficulty.
Through the week it was all very well. Life was endurable, absorbed by the innumerable duties of the factory, and so fatiguing that, when night came, Risler fell on his bed like a lifeless ma.s.s. But Sunday was long and sad. The silence of the deserted yards and workshops opened a far wider field to his thoughts. He tried to busy himself, but he missed the encouragement of the others" work. He alone was busy in that great, empty factory whose very breath was arrested. The locked doors, the closed blinds, the hoa.r.s.e voice of Pere Achille playing with his dog in the deserted courtyard, all spoke of solitude. And the whole neighborhood also produced the same effect. In the streets, which seemed wider because of their emptiness, and where the pa.s.sers-by were few and silent, the bells ringing for vespers had a melancholy sound, and sometimes an echo of the din of Paris, rumbling wheels, a belated hand-organ, the click of a toy-peddler"s clappers, broke the silence, as if to make it even more noticeable.
Risler would try to invent new combinations of flowers and leaves, and, while he handled his pencil, his thoughts, not finding sufficient food there, would escape him, would fly back to his past happiness, to his hopeless misfortunes, would suffer martyrdom, and then, on returning, would ask the poor somnambulist, still seated at his table: "What have you done in my absence?" Alas! he had done nothing.
Oh! the long, heartbreaking, cruel Sundays! Consider that, mingled with all these perplexities in his mind, was the superst.i.tious reverence of the common people for holy days, for the twenty-four hours of rest, wherein one recovers strength and courage. If he had gone out, the sight of a workingman with his wife and child would have made him weep, but his monastic seclusion gave him other forms of suffering, the despair of recluses, their terrible outbreaks of rebellion when the G.o.d to whom they have consecrated themselves does not respond to their sacrifices.
Now, Risler"s G.o.d was work, and as he no longer found comfort or serenity therein, he no longer believed in it, but cursed it.
Often in those hours of mental struggle the door of the draughting-room would open gently and Claire Fromont would appear. The poor man"s loneliness throughout those long Sunday afternoons filled her with compa.s.sion, and she would come with her little girl to keep him company, knowing by experience how contagious is the sweet joyousness of children. The little one, who could now walk alone, would slip from her mother"s arms to run to her friend. Risler would hear the little, hurrying steps. He would feel the light breath behind him, and instantly he would be conscious of a soothing, rejuvenating influence. She would throw her plump little arms around his neck with affectionate warmth, with her artless, causeless laugh, and a kiss from that little mouth which never had lied. Claire Fromont, standing in the doorway, would smile as she looked at them.
"Risler, my friend," she would say, "you must come down into the garden a while,--you work too hard. You will be ill."
"No, no, Madame,--on the contrary, work is what saves me. It keeps me from thinking."
Then, after a long pause, she would continue:
"Come, my dear Risler, you must try to forget."
Risler would shake his head.
"Forget? Is that possible? There are some things beyond one"s strength.
A man may forgive, but he never forgets."
The child almost always succeeded in dragging him down to the garden.
He must play ball, or in the sand, with her; but her playfellow"s awkwardness and lack of enthusiasm soon impressed the little girl. Then she would become very sedate, contenting herself with walking gravely between the hedges of box, with her hand in her friend"s. After a moment Risler would entirely forget that she was there; but, although he did not realize it, the warmth of that little hand in his had a magnetic, softening effect upon his diseased mind.
A man may forgive, but he never forgets!
Poor Claire herself knew something about it; for she had never forgotten, notwithstanding her great courage and the conception she had formed of her duty. To her, as to Risler; her surroundings were a constant reminder of her sufferings. The objects amid which she lived pitilessly reopened the wound that was ready to close. The staircase, the garden, the courtyard, all those dumb witnesses of her husband"s sin, a.s.sumed on certain days an implacable expression. Even the careful precaution her husband took to spare her painful reminders, the way in which he called attention to the fact that he no longer went out in the evening, and took pains to tell her where he had been during the day, served only to remind her the more forcibly of his wrong-doing.
Sometimes she longed to ask him to forbear,--to say to him: "Do not protest too much." Faith was shattered within her, and the horrible agony of the priest who doubts, and seeks at the same time to remain faithful to his vows, betrayed itself in her bitter smile, her cold, uncomplaining gentleness.
Georges was wofully unhappy. He loved his wife now. The n.o.bility of her character had conquered him. There was admiration in his love, and--why not say it?--Claire"s sorrow filled the place of the coquetry which was contrary to her nature, the lack of which had always been a defect in her husband"s eyes. He was one of that strange type of men who love to make conquests. Sidonie, capricious and cold as she was, responded to that whim of his heart. After parting from her with a tender farewell, he found her indifferent and forgetful the next day, and that continual need of wooing her back to him took the place of genuine pa.s.sion.
Serenity in love bored him as a voyage without storms wearies a sailor.
On this occasion he had been very near shipwreck with his wife, and the danger had not pa.s.sed even yet. He knew that Claire was alienated from him and devoted entirely to the child, the only link between them thenceforth. Their separation made her seem lovelier, more desirable, and he exercised all his powers of fascination to recapture her. He knew how hard a task it would be, and that he had no ordinary, frivolous nature to deal with. But he did not despair. Sometimes a vague gleam in the depths of the mild and apparently impa.s.sive glance with which she watched his efforts, bade him hope.
As for Sidonie, he no longer thought of her. Let no one be astonished at that abrupt mental rupture. Those two superficial beings had nothing to attach them securely to each other. Georges was incapable of receiving lasting impressions unless they were continually renewed; Sidonie, for her part, had no power to inspire any n.o.ble or durable sentiment. It was one of those intrigues between a cocotte and a c.o.xcomb, compounded of vanity and of wounded self-love, which inspire neither devotion nor constancy, but tragic adventures, duels, suicides which are rarely fatal, and which end in a radical cure. Perhaps, had he seen her again, he might have had a relapse of his disease; but the impetus of flight had carried Sidonie away so swiftly and so far that her return was impossible. At all events, it was a relief for him to be able to live without lying; and the new life he was leading, a life of hard work and self-denial, with the goal of success in the distance, was not distasteful to him. Luckily; for the courage and determination of both partners were none too much to put the house on its feet once more.
The poor house of Fromont had sprung leaks on all sides. So Pere Pla.n.u.s still had wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing and the ominous vision of the little blue man. But, by strict economy, they always succeeded in paying.
Soon four Risler Presses were definitively set up and used in the work of the factory. People began to take a deep interest in them and in the wall-paper trade. Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the industry, were much disturbed concerning that marvellous "rotary and dodecagonal" machine. One fine day the Procha.s.sons appeared, and offered three hundred thousand francs simply for an interest in the patent rights.
"What shall we do?" Fromont Jeune asked Risler Aine.
The latter shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"Decide for yourself. It doesn"t concern me. I am only an employe."
The words, spoken coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont"s bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity of a situation which he was always on the point of forgetting.
But when he was alone with his dear Madame "Chorche," Risler advised her not to accept the Procha.s.sons" offer.
"Wait,--don"t be in a hurry. Later you will have a better offer."
He spoke only of them in that affair in which his own share was so glorious. She felt that he was preparing to cut himself adrift from their future.
Meanwhile orders came pouring in and acc.u.mulated on their hands. The quality of the paper, the reduced price because of the improved methods of manufacture, made compet.i.tion impossible. There was no doubt that a colossal fortune was in store for the house of Fromont. The factory had resumed its former flourishing aspect and its loud, business-like hum.
Intensely alive were all the great buildings and the hundreds of workmen who filled them. Pere Pla.n.u.s never raised his nose from his desk; one could see him from the little garden, leaning over his great ledgers, jotting down in magnificently molded figures the profits of the Risler press.
Risler still worked as before, without change or rest. The return of prosperity brought no alteration in his secluded habits, and from the highest window on the topmost floor of the house he listened to the ceaseless roar of his machines. He was no less gloomy, no less silent.
One day, however, it became known at the factory that the press, a specimen of which had been sent to the great Exposition at Manchester, had received the gold medal, whereby its success was definitely established. Madame Georges called Risler into the garden at the luncheon hour, wishing to be the first to tell him the good news.
For the moment a proud smile relaxed his prematurely old, gloomy features. His inventor"s vanity, his pride in his renown, above all, the idea of repairing thus magnificently the wrong done to the family by his wife, gave him a moment of true happiness. He pressed Claire"s hands and murmured, as in the old days:
"I am very happy! I am very happy!"
But what a difference in tone! He said it without enthusiasm, hopelessly, with the satisfaction of a task accomplished, and nothing more.
The bell rang for the workmen to return, and Risler went calmly upstairs to resume his work as on other days.
In a moment he came down again. In spite of all, that news had excited him more than he cared to show. He wandered about the garden, prowled around the counting-room, smiling sadly at Pere Pla.n.u.s through the window.
"What ails him?" the old cashier wondered. "What does he want of me?"
At last, when night came and it was time to close the office, Risler summoned courage to go and speak to him.
"Pla.n.u.s, my old friend, I should like--"
He hesitated a moment.
"I should like you to give me the--letter, you know, the little letter and the package."
Sigismond stared at him in amazement. In his innocence, he had imagined that Risler never thought of Sidonie, that he had entirely forgotten her.
"What--you want--?"
"Ah! I have well earned it; I can think of myself a little now. I have thought enough of others."
"You are right," said Pla.n.u.s. "Well, this is what we"ll do. The letter and package are at my house at Montrouge. If you choose, we will go and dine together at the Palais-Royal, as in the good old times. I will stand treat. We"ll water your medal with a bottle of wine; something choice! Then we"ll go to the house together. You can get your trinkets, and if it"s too late for you to go home, Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s, my sister, shall make up a bed for you, and you shall pa.s.s the night with us. We are very comfortable there--it"s in the country. To-morrow morning at seven o"clock we"ll come back to the factory by the first omnibus. Come, old fellow, give me this pleasure. If you don"t, I shall think you still bear your old Sigismond a grudge."
Risler accepted. He cared little about celebrating the award of his medal, but he desired to gain a few hours before opening the little letter he had at last earned the right to read.
He must dress. That was quite a serious matter, for he had lived in a workman"s jacket during the past six months. And what an event in the factory! Madame Fromont was informed at once.