"But what does this article say?" asked M. Barreau. "Who is present that has read it?"
n.o.body answered. Several had tried to buy it, but in Paris scandal sells like bread. At ten o"clock in the morning there was not a single copy of the _Messenger_ left in the office. Then it occurred to one of my nieces--a sharp girl, if ever there was one--to look in the pocket of one of the numerous overcoats in the cloak-room, folded carefully in large pigeon-holes. At the first which she examined:
"Here it is!" exclaimed the charming child with an air of triumph, as she drew out a _Messenger_ crumpled in the folding like a paper that has just been read.
"Here is another!" cried Tom Bois l"Hery, who was making a search on his own account. A third overcoat, a third _Messenger_. And in every one the same thing: pushed down to the bottom of a pocket, or with its t.i.tlepage protruding, the newspaper was everywhere, just as its article must have been in every memory; and one could imagine the Nabob up above exchanging polite phrases with his guests, while they could have reeled off by heart the atrocious things that had been printed about him. We all laughed much at this idea; but we were anxious to make acquaintance in our own turn with this curious article.
"Come, _pere_ Pa.s.sajon, read it aloud to us."
It was the general desire, and I a.s.sented.
I don"t know if you are like me, but when I read aloud I gargle my throat with my voice; I introduce modulations and flourishes to such an extent that I understand nothing of what I am saying, like those singers to whom the sense of the words matters little, provided the notes be true. The thing was ent.i.tled "The Boat of Flowers"--a sufficiently complicated story, with Chinese names, about a very rich mandarin, who had at one time in the past kept a "boat of flowers" moored quite at the far end of the town near a barrier frequented by the soldiers. At the end of the article we were not farther on than at the beginning. We tried certainly to wink at each other, to pretend to be clever; but, frankly, we had no reason. A veritable puzzle without solution; and we should still be stuck fast at it if old Francis, a regular rascal who knows everything, had not explained to us that this meeting place of the soldiers must stand for the Military School, and that the "boat of flowers" did not bear so pretty a name as that in good French. And this name, he said it aloud notwithstanding the presence of the ladies.
There was an explosion of cries, of "Ah"s!" and "Oh"s!" some saying, "I suspected it!" others, "It is impossible!"
"Pardon me," added Francis, formerly a trumpeter in the Ninth Lancers--the regiment of Mora and of Monpavon--"pardon me. Twenty years ago, during the last half year of my service, I was in barracks in the Military School, and I remember very well that near the fortifications there was a dirty dancing-hall known as the Jansoulet Rooms, with a little furnished flat above and bedrooms at twopence-halfpenny the hour, to which one could retire between two quadrilles."
"You are an infamous liar!" said M. Noel, beside himself with rage--"a thief and a liar like your master. Jansoulet has never been in Paris before now."
Francis was seated a little outside our circle engaged in sipping something sweet, because champagne has a bad effect on his nerves and because, too, it is not a sufficiently distinguished beverage for him.
He rose gravely, without putting down his gla.s.s, and, advancing towards M. Noel, said to him very quietly:
"You are wanting in manners, _mon cher_. The other evening I found your tone coa.r.s.e and unseemly. To insult people serves no good purpose, especially in this case, since I happen to have been an a.s.sistant to a fencing-master, and, if matters were carried further between us, could put a couple of inches of steel into whatever part of your body I might choose. But I am good-natured. Instead of a sword-thrust, I prefer to give you a piece of advice, which your master will do well to follow.
This is what I should do in your place: I should go and find Moessard, and I should buy him, without quibbling about price. Hemerlingue has given him twenty thousand francs to speak; I would offer him thirty thousand to hold his tongue."
"Never! never!" vociferated M. Noel. "I should rather go and knock the rascally brigand"s head off."
"You will do nothing of the kind. Whether the calumny be true or false, you have seen the effect of it this evening. This is a sample of the pleasures in store for you. What can you expect, _mon cher_? You have thrown away your crutches too soon, and thought to walk by yourselves.
That is all very well when one is well set up and firm on the legs; but when one had not a very solid footing, and has also the misfortune to feel Hemerlingue at his heels, it is a bad business. Besides, your master is beginning to be short of money; he has given notes of hand to old Schwalbach--and don"t talk to me of a Nabob who gives notes of hand.
I know well that you have millions over yonder, but your election must be declared valid before you can touch them; a few more articles like to-day"s, and I answer for it that you will not secure that declaration.
You set yourselves up to struggle against Paris, _mon bon_, but you are not big enough for such a match; you know nothing about it. Here we are not in the East, and if we do not wring the necks of people who displease us, if we do not throw them into the water in a sack, we have other methods of effecting their disappearance. Noel, let your master take care. One of these mornings Paris will swallow him as I swallow this plum, without spitting out either the stone or skin."
He was terrible, this old man, and notwithstanding the paint on his face, I felt a certain respect for him. While he was speaking, we could hear the music upstairs, and the horses of the munic.i.p.al guards shaking their curb-chains in the square. From without, our festivities must have seemed very brilliant, all lighted up by their thousands of candles, and with the great portico illuminated. And when one reflected that ruin perhaps lay beneath it all! We sat there in the vestibule like rats that hold counsel with each other at the bottom of a ship"s hold, when the vessel is beginning to leak and before the crew has found it out, and I saw clearly that all the lackeys and chambermaids would not be long in decamping at the first note of alarm. Could such a catastrophe indeed be possible? And in that case what would become of me, and the Territorial, and the money I had advanced, and the arrears due to me?
That Francis has left me with a cold shudder down my back.
A PUBLIC MAN
The bright warmth of a clear May afternoon heated the lofty cas.e.m.e.nt windows of the Mora mansion to the temperature of a greenhouse. The blue silk curtains were visible from outside through the branches of the trees, and the wide terraces, where exotic flowers were planted out of doors for the first time of the season, ran in borders along the whole length of the quay. The raking of the garden paths traced the light footprints of summer in the sand, while the soft fall of the water from the hoses on the lawns was its refreshing song.
All the luxury of the princely residence lay sunning itself in the soft warmth of the temperature, borrowing a beauty from the silence, the repose of this noontide hour, the only hour when the roll of carriages was not to be heard under the arches, nor the banging of the great doors of the antechamber, and that perpetual vibration which the ringing of bells upon arrivals or departures sent coursing through the very ivy on the walls; the feverish pulse of the life of a fashionable house. It was well known that up to three o"clock the duke held his reception at the Ministry, and that the d.u.c.h.ess, a Swede still benumbed by the snows of Stockholm, had hardly issued from her drowsy curtains; consequently n.o.body came to call, neither visitors or pet.i.tioners, and only the footmen, perched like flamingoes on the deserted flight of steps in front of the house, gave the place a touch of animation with the slim shadows of their long legs and their yawning weariness of idlers.
As an exception, however, that day Jenkins"s brougham was standing waiting in a corner of the court-yard. The duke, unwell since the previous evening, had felt worse after leaving the breakfast-table, and in all haste had sent for the man of the pearls in order to question him on his singular condition. Pain nowhere, sleep and appet.i.te as usual; only an inconceivable la.s.situde, and a sense of terrible chill which nothing could dissipate. Thus at that moment, notwithstanding the brilliant spring sunshine which flooded his chamber and almost extinguished the fire flaming in the grate, the duke was shivering beneath his furs, surrounded by screens; and while signing papers for an _attache_ of his cabinet on a low table of gold lacquer, placed so near to the fire that it frizzled, he kept holding out his numb fingers every moment toward the blaze, which might have burned the skin without restoring circulation.
Was it anxiety caused by the indisposition of his ill.u.s.trious client?
Jenkins appeared nervous, disquieted, walked backward and forward with long strides over the carpet, hunting about right and left, seeking in the air something which he believed to be present, a subtle and intangible something like the trace of a perfume or the invisible track left by a bird in its flight. You heard the crackling of the wood in the fireplace, the rustle of papers hurriedly turned over, the indolent voice of the duke indicating in a sentence, always precise and clear, a reply to a letter of four pages, and the respectful monosyllables of the _attache_--"Yes, M. le Ministre," "No, M. le Ministre"; then the sc.r.a.ping of a rebellious and heavy pen. Out of doors the swallows were twittering merrily over the water, the sound of a clarinet was wafted from somewhere near the bridges.
"It is impossible," suddenly said the Minister of State, rising. "Take that away, Lartigues; you must return to-morrow. I cannot write. I am too cold. See, doctor; feel my hands--one would think that they had just come out of a pail of iced water. For the last two days my whole body has been the same. Isn"t it too absurd, in this weather!"
"I am not surprised," muttered the Irishman, in a sullen, curt tone, rarely heard from that honeyed personage.
The door had closed upon the young _attache_, bearing off his papers with majestic dignity, but very happy, I imagine, to feel himself free and to be able to stroll for an hour or two, before returning to the Ministry, in the Tuileries gardens, full of spring frocks and pretty girls sitting near the still empty chairs round the band, under the chestnut-trees in flower, through which from root to summit there ran the great thrill of the month when nests are built. The _attache_ was certainly not frozen.
Jenkins, silently, examined his patient, sounded him, and tapped his chest; then, in the same rough tone which might be explained by his anxious devotion, the annoyance of the doctor who sees his orders transgressed:
"Ah, now, my dear duke, what sort of life have you been living lately?"
He knew from the gossip of the antechamber--in the case of his regular clients the doctor did not disdain this--he knew that the duke had a new favourite, that this caprice of recent date possessed him, excited him in an extraordinary measure, and the fact, taken together with other observations made elsewhere, had implanted in Jenkins"s mind a suspicion, a mad desire to know the name of this new mistress. It was this that he was trying to read on the pale face of his patient, attempting to fathom the depth of his thoughts rather than the origin of his malady. But he had to deal with one of those faces which are hermetically sealed, like those little coffers with a secret spring which hold jewels and women"s letters, one of those discreet natures closed by a cold, blue eye, a glance of steel by which the most astute perspicacity may be baffled.
"You are mistaken, doctor," replied his excellency tranquilly. "I have made no changes in my habits."
"Very well, M. le Duc, you have done wrong," remarked the Irishman abruptly, furious at having made no discovery.
And then, feeling that he was going too far, he gave vent to his bad temper and to the severity of his diagnosis in words which were a tissue of ba.n.a.lities and axioms. One ought to take care. Medicine was not magic. The power of the Jenkins pearls was limited by human strength, by the necessities of age, by the resources of nature, which, unfortunately, are not inexhaustible. The duke interrupted him in an irritable tone:
"Come, Jenkins, you know very well that I don"t like phrases. I am not all right, then? What is the matter with me? What is the reason of this chilliness?"
"It is anaemia, exhaustion--a sinking of the oil in the lamp."
"What must I do?"
"Nothing. An absolute rest. Eat, sleep, nothing besides. If you could go and spend a few weeks at Grandbois."
Mora shrugged his shoulders:
"And the Chamber--and the Council--and--? Nonsense! how is it possible?"
"In any case, M. le Duc, you must put the brake on; as somebody said, renounce absolutely--"
Jenkins was interrupted by the entry of the servant on duty, who, discreetly, on tiptoe, like a dancing-master, came in to deliver a letter and a card to the Minister of State, who was still shivering before the fire. At the sight of that satin-gray envelope of a peculiar shape the Irishman started involuntarily, while the duke, having opened and glanced over his letter, rose with new vigor, his cheeks wearing that light flush of artificial health which all the heat of the stove had not been able to bring there.
"My dear doctor, I must at any price--"
The servant still stood waiting.
"What is it? Ah, yes; this card. Take the visitor to the gallery. I shall be there directly."
The gallery of the Duke de Mora, open to visitors twice a week, was for himself, as it were, a neutral ground, a public place where he could see any one without binding or compromising himself in any way. Then, the servant having withdrawn:
"Jenkins, _mon bon_, you have already worked miracles for me. I ask you for one more. Double the dose of my pearls; find something, whatever you will. But I must be feeling young by Sunday. You understand me, altogether young."
And on the little letter in his hand, his fingers, warm once more and feverish, clinched themselves with a thrill of eager desire.
"Take care, M. le Duc," said Jenkins, very pale and with compressed lips. "I have no wish to alarm you unnecessarily with regard to the feeble state of your health, but it becomes my duty--"
Mora gave a smile of pretty arrogance: