The day was drawing near its close. The crowd, moving more rapidly than before, with gaps here and there, was beginning to stream toward the exit, after eddying violently around the success of the year, surfeited, a little weary, but still excited by the artistic electricity with which the atmosphere was charged. A great ray of sunlight, the sunlight of four o"clock in the afternoon, illuminated the rosework of the windows, cast upon the gravelled paths rainbow-like beams that crept gently up the bronze or marble of the statues, suffusing a lovely nude body with bright colors and giving to the vast museum something of the aspect of a garden. Felicia, absorbed in her profound, melancholy reverie, did not see the man who came toward her, superb, refined, fascinating, through the throng of visitors, who respectfully opened a pa.s.sage for him, while the name of "Mora" was whispered on every side.
"Well, well, Mademoiselle, this is a grand triumph. I regret only one thing, that is the unpleasant symbolism that you have concealed in your masterpiece."
When she saw the duke standing before her, she shuddered.
"Ah! yes, the symbolism," she said, looking up at him with a disheartened smile; and, leaning against the pedestal of the great, voluptuous statue, near which they happened to be standing, with her eyes closed, like a woman who gives herself voluntarily or surrenders, she murmured in a low, very low voice:
"Rabelais lied, as all men lie. The real truth is that the fox can go no farther, that he is at the end of his breath and his courage, ready to fall into the ditch, and if the hound persists in his pursuit--"
Mora started, became a little paler, as all the blood in his veins rushed back to his heart. Two darkly flashing glances met, two words were swiftly exchanged with the ends of the lips; then the duke bowed low and walked away with a step as brisk and light as if the G.o.ds were carrying him.
There was only one man in the palace as happy as he at that moment, and that was the Nabob. Escorted by his friends, he occupied, filled the main aisle all by himself, talking in a loud tone, gesticulating, so proud that he seemed almost handsome, as if, by dint of gazing long at his bust in artless admiration, he had caught a little of the splendid idealization with which the artist had softened the vulgarity of the type. The head at an elevation of three-fourths, free from the high rolling collar, gave rise to contradictory opinions from the spectators concerning the resemblance; and Jansoulet"s name, which had been repeated so many times by the electoral urns, was echoed by the prettiest lips in Paris, by its most influential voices. Any other than the Nabob would have been embarra.s.sed by hearing as he pa.s.sed the exclamations of these curious bystanders, who were not always in sympathy with him. But the platform and the springboard were congenial to that nature, which was always braver under the fire of staring eyes, like those women who are beautiful and clever only in society, and whom the slightest admiration transfigures and perfects.
When he felt that that delirious joy was subsiding, when he thought that he had drained the cup of his proud intoxication, he had only to say to himself: "Deputy! I am a deputy!" and the triumphal cup was br.i.m.m.i.n.g full once more. It meant the raising of the embargo from all his property, the awakening from a nightmare of two months" duration, the blast of the mistral sweeping away all vexations, all anxieties, even to the insult at Saint-Romans, heavily as it weighed on his memory.
Deputy!
He laughed all by himself as he thought of the baron"s face when he heard the news, of the bey"s stupefaction when he was taken to look at his bust; and suddenly, at the thought that he was no longer a mere adventurer gorged with gold, arousing the senseless admiration of the vulgar like an enormous nugget in a money-changer"s window, but that he was ent.i.tled to be looked upon as one of the chosen exponents of the national will, his good-natured, mobile face a.s.sumed an expression of ponderous gravity suited to the occasion, his mind was filled with plans for the future, for reform, and the longing to profit by the lessons he had lately learned from destiny. Already, mindful of the promise he had made de Gery, he exhibited a certain contemptuous coldness for the hungry herd that fawned servilely about his heels, and seemed to have adopted deliberately a system of peremptory contradiction. He called the Marquis de Bois-l"Hery "my good fellow," sharply imposed silence on the Governor, whose enthusiasm was becoming scandalous, and was inwardly making a solemn vow that he would rid himself as speedily as possible of all that begging, compromising horde of bohemians, when an excellent opportunity presented itself for him to begin to put his purpose in execution. Moessard, the handsome Moessard, in a sky-blue cravat, pale and puffed-up like a white abscess, his bust confined in a tight frock coat, seeing that the Nabob, after making the circuit of the hall of sculpture a score of times, was walking toward the exit, forced his way through the crowd, sprang to his side and said, as he pa.s.sed his arm through Jansoulet"s:
"You are to take me with you, you know--"
Of late, especially during the period of the election, he had a.s.sumed an authority on Place Vendome almost equal to Monpavon"s, but more impudent; for, in respect of impudence, the queen"s lover had not his equal on the sidewalk that extends from Rue Drouot to the Madeleine. But on this occasion he had a bad fall. The muscular arm that he grasped violently shook itself free, and the Nabob answered him very shortly:
"I am very sorry, my dear fellow, but I have no seat to offer you."
No seat, in a carriage as big as a house, which had often held five of them!
Moessard gazed at him in utter stupefaction.
"But I had something very urgent to say to you. On the subject of my little note. You received it, did you not?"
"To be sure, and Monsieur de Gery should have answered it this morning.
What you ask is impossible. Twenty thousand francs!--_tonnerre de Dieu!_ how fast you go."
"It seems to me, however, that my services--" stammered the fop.
"Have been handsomely paid. So it seems to me too. Two hundred thousand francs in five months! We will stop at that, if you please. You have long teeth, young man; we must file them a bit."
They exchanged these words as they walked along, pushed by the crowd which flocked like sheep through the door of exit. Moessard stopped:
"That is your last word?"
The Nabob hesitated a second, seized by a presentiment of evil at sight of that pale, wicked mouth; then he remembered the promise he had given his friend.
"That is my last word."
"Very well, we will see," said Beau Moessard, while his cane cleft the air with a noise like a snake"s hiss; and, turning on his heel, he strode rapidly away like a man who has very important business awaiting him.
Jansoulet continued his triumphal march. On that day it would have required something much more serious to disturb the equilibrium of his happiness; on the other hand he felt encouraged by the beginning so successfully accomplished.
The great vestibule was filled with a compact crowd, whom the approach of the hour for closing impelled toward the outer world, but whom one of the sudden downpours which seem an essential part of the opening of the Salon detained under the porch with its floor of hard-trodden gravel, like the entrance to the Circus where the lady-killers disport themselves. It was a curious, thoroughly Parisian spectacle.
Outside, the sunbeams shining through the rain, attaching to its limpid threads those sharp, brilliant blades of light which justify the proverb "It rains halberds;" the young verdure of the Champs-elysees, the clumps of dripping, rustling rhododendrons, the carriages drawn up in line on the avenue, the oilcloth capes of the coachmen, all the splendid accoutrements of the horses to which the water and the sunbeams imparted vastly greater richness and effect, and everywhere a gleam of blue, the blue of the sky, smiling in the interval between two showers.
Within, laughter, idle chatter, salutations, impatience, skirts turned up, satins puffing vaingloriously over the narrow pleats of petticoats and delicately striped silk stockings, oceans of fringe, of lace, of flounces, held with one hand in too heavy bundles, and torn beyond recognition. Then, to connect the two sides of the picture, the prisoners framed by the arched doorway and standing in its dark shadow, with the vast background of light behind them, footmen running about under umbrellas, shouting names of coachmen and names of masters, and coupes slowly approaching, into which terrified couples hastily jump.
"Monsieur Jansoulet"s carriage!"
Everybody turned to look, but we know that that disturbed him but little. And while the honest Nabob posed for a moment, awaiting his people, amid those fashionable women, those famous men, that a.s.sorted gathering of all Paris which was present there with a name to fit each of its figures, a slender, neatly-gloved hand was held out to him, and the Duc de Mora, who was about to enter his coupe, said to him as he pa.s.sed, with the effusiveness that happiness gives to the most reserved of men:
"My congratulations, my dear deputy."
It was said aloud, and every one could hear,--"My dear deputy."
There is in the life of every man a golden hour, a luminous mountain-top where all that he can hope for of prosperity, of joy, of triumph, awaits him and is showered upon him. The mountain is more or less high, more or less precipitous and difficult to climb; but it exists equally for all, for the most powerful and the humblest. But, like the longest day of the year, when the sun has reached the end of his upward journey and the next day seems a first step toward winter, that _summum bonum_ of human existence is but a moment to be enjoyed, after which we have no choice but to descend. Poor man! you must remember that late afternoon in May, that time of alternating rain and sunshine, you must fix its changing splendor forever in your memory. It was the hour of your midsummer, when the flowers were blooming, the branches bending beneath their weight of golden fruit, and the crops whose gleanings you so recklessly threw aside, were fully ripe. The star will fade now, gradually receding and descending, and soon will be incapable of piercing the woeful darkness wherein your destiny is about to be fulfilled.
XV.
MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--IN THE RECEPTION-ROOM.
There was a grand affair last Sat.u.r.day on Place Vendome.
Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet, the new Deputy for Corsica, gave a magnificent evening party in honor of his election, with munic.i.p.al guards at the door, the whole house illuminated and two thousand invitations strewn broadcast through fashionable Paris.
I was indebted to the distinction of my manners, to the resonance of my voice, which the president of the administrative council has had a chance to appreciate at the meetings of the _Caisse Territoriale_, for the privilege of taking part in that sumptuous festivity, where I stood for three hours in the reception-room, amid flowers and draperies, dressed in scarlet and gold, with the majestic bearing peculiar to persons who exert some little authority, and with my calves exposed for the first time in my life, and sent the name of each guest like the report of a cannon into the long line of five salons, a resplendent footman saluting each time with the _bing_ of his halberd on the floor.
How many interesting observations I was able to make that evening, what jocose sallies, what quips, all in most excellent taste, were tossed back and forth by the servants, concerning the people of fashion who pa.s.sed! I should never have heard anything so amusing with the vine-dressers of Montbars. I ought to say that the worthy M. Barreau caused us all to be served with a hearty, well-irrigated lunch in his office, which was filled to the ceiling with iced drinks and refreshments, thereby putting every one of us in an excellent humor, which was maintained throughout the evening by gla.s.ses of punch and champagne whisked from the salvers as they pa.s.sed.
The masters, however, were not so contented as we were. When I reached my post, at nine o"clock, I was struck by the anxious, nervous face of the Nabob, whom I spied walking with M. de Gery through the brilliantly-lighted, empty salons, talking earnestly and gesticulating wildly.
"I will kill him," he said, "I will kill him."
The other tried to soothe him, then Madame appeared and they talked about something else.
A magnificent figure of a woman, that Levantine, twice as powerful as I am, and dazzling to look at with her diamond diadem, the jewels that covered her huge white shoulders, her back as round as her breast, her waist squeezed into a breastplate of greenish gold, which extended in long stripes the whole length of her skirt. I never saw anything so rich, so imposing. She was like one of those beautiful white elephants with towers on their backs that we read about in books of travel. When she walked, clinging painfully to the furniture, all her flesh shook and her ornaments jangled like old iron. With it all a very shrill little voice and a beautiful red face which a little negro boy kept fanning all the time with a fan of white feathers as big as a peac.o.c.k"s tail.
It was the first time that that indolent savage had made her appearance in Parisian society, and M. Jansoulet seemed very proud and very happy that she had consented to preside at his fete: a task that involved no great labor on the lady"s part, however, for, leaving her husband to receive his guests in the first salon, she went and stretched herself out on the couch in the little j.a.panese salon, wedged between two piles of cushions, and perfectly motionless, so that you could see her in the distance, at the end of the line of salons, like an idol, under the great fan which her negro waved with a clocklike motion, as if by machinery. These foreigners have the bra.s.s for you!
The Nabob"s irritation had impressed me all the same, and as I saw his valet going downstairs four steps at a time, I caught him on the wing and whispered in his ear:
"What the deuce is the matter with your governor, Monsieur Noel?"
"It"s the article in the _Messager_," he replied, and I had to abandon the idea of finding out anything more for the moment, as a loud ring at the bell announced the arrival of the first carriage, and it was followed by a mult.i.tude of others.