"Bois-l"Hery at Mazas!--It isn"t possible. There"s the marchioness just opposite us in the first gallery, with a new hat."
"What does that prove? She"s plying her trade of _lanceuse_. That"s a very pretty hat, by the way--the colors of Desgranges" horse."
"And Jenkins? What has become of Jenkins?"
"At Tunis with Felicia. Old Brahim saw them both. It seems that the bey has taken a decided liking to the pearls."
"_Bigre!_"
Farther on, sweet voices whispered:
"Go, father, do go. See how entirely alone he is, poor man."
"But I don"t know him, children."
"Even so, just a bow. Something to show him that he isn"t utterly abandoned."
Whereupon a little old gentleman, in a white cravat, with a very red face, darted to meet the Nabob and saluted him with a respectful flourish of his hat. How gratefully, with what an eager, pleasant smile, was that single salutation returned, that salutation from a man whom Jansoulet did not know, whom he had never seen, but who, nevertheless, exerted a very great influence upon his destiny; for, except for Pere Joyeuse, the president of the council of the _Territoriale_ would probably have shared the fate of the Marquis de Bois-l"Hery. So it is that in the network of modern society, that vast labyrinth of selfish interests, ambitions, services accepted and rendered, all castes communicate between themselves, mysteriously connected by hidden bonds, from the most elevated to the humblest existences; therein lies the explanation of the variegated coloring, the complication of this study of manners, the a.s.semblage of scattered threads of which the writer with a regard for truth is compelled to make the groundwork of his drama.
Glances cast vaguely into the air, steps turned aimlessly aside, hats pulled abruptly over the eyes, in ten minutes the Nabob was subjected to all the outward manifestations of that terrible ostracism of Parisian society, where he had neither kindred nor substantial connections of any sort, and where contempt isolated him more surely than respect isolates a sovereign when paying a visit. He staggered with embarra.s.sment and shame. Some one said aloud: "He has been drinking," and all that the poor man could do was to go back into the salon of his box and close the door. Ordinarily that little _retiro_ was filled during the entr"actes with financiers and journalists. They laughed and talked and smoked there, making a great uproar; the manager always came to pay his respects to his partner. That evening, not a soul. And the absence of Cardailhac, with his keen scent for success, showed Jansoulet the full measure of his disgrace.
"What have I done to them? Why is it that Paris will no longer have anything to do with me?"
He questioned himself thus in a solitude which was emphasized by the sounds all about, the sudden turning of keys in the doors of boxes, the innumerable exclamations of an amused crowd. Then suddenly the newness of his luxurious surroundings, the odd shadows cast by the Moorish lantern on the brilliant silk covering of the couch and the hangings reminded him of the date of his arrival. Six months! Only six months since he arrived in Paris! Everything consumed and vanished in six months! He relapsed into a sort of torpor from which he was aroused by enthusiastic applause and bravos. Clearly this play of _Revolte_ was a great success. They had now reached the powerful, satirical pa.s.sages; and the virulent declamation, a little emphatic in tone but relieved by a breath of youth and sincerity, made every heart beat fast after the idyllic effusions of the first act. Jansoulet determined to look and listen with the rest. After all, the theatre belonged to him. His seat in that proscenium box had cost him more than a million; surely the least he was ent.i.tled to was the privilege of occupying it.
Behold him seated once more at the front of his box. In the hall a heavy, suffocating heat, stirred but not dissipated by the waving fans, their glittering spangles mingling their reflections with the impalpable outbreathings of the silence. The audience listened intently to an indignant and spirited pa.s.sage against the pirates, so numerous at that period, who had become c.o.c.ks of the roost after long haunting the darkest corners to rob all who pa.s.sed. Certainly Maranne, when he wrote those fine lines, had had n.o.body less in his mind than the Nabob. But the audience saw in them an allusion to him; and while a triple salvo of applause greeted the end of the tirade, all eyes were turned toward the box on the left, with an indignant, openly insulting movement. The poor wretch, pilloried in his own theatre! A pillory that had cost him so dear! That time he did not seek to avoid the affront, but settled himself resolutely on his seat, with folded arms, and defied that crowd, which stared at him with its hundreds of upturned, sneering faces, that virtuous All-Paris which took him for a scapegoat and drove him forth after loading all its crimes upon him.
A pretty a.s.semblage, in sooth, for such an exhibition! Opposite, the box of an insolvent banker, the wife and the lover side by side in front, the husband in the shadow, neglected and grave. At one side the frequent combination of a mother who has married her daughter according to her (the mother"s) own heart, and to make the man she loved her son-in-law.
Contraband couples too, courtesans flaunting the price of their shame, diamonds in circlets of flame riveted around arms and necks like dog-collars, stuffing themselves with bonbons, which they swallowed in gluttonous, beastly fashion because an exhibition of the animal nature in woman pleases those who pay for it. And those groups of effeminate fops, with low collars and painted eyebrows, whose embroidered lawn shirts and white satin corsets aroused admiration in the guest chambers at Compiegne; _mignons_ of Agrippa"s day, who called one another: "My heart," or "My dear love." Scandal and wickedness in every form, consciences sold or for sale, the vice of an epoch devoid of grandeur or originality, attempting to copy the freaks of all other epochs, and contributing to the Jardin Bullier that d.u.c.h.ess, the wife of a minister of state, who rivalled the most shameless dancers of that resort. And they were the people who turned their back upon him, who cried out to him: "Begone! You are unworthy."
"I unworthy! Why, I am worth a hundred times more than the whole of you, vile wretches! You reproach me with my millions. In G.o.d"s name, who helped me squander them?--Look you, you cowardly, treacherous friend, hiding in the corner of your box your fat carca.s.s like a sick pasha"s! I made your fortune as well as my own in the days when we shared everything like brothers.--And you, sallow-faced marquis, I paid a hundred thousand francs at the club to prevent your being expelled in disgrace.--I covered you with jewels, you hussy, so letting people think you were my mistress, because that is good form in our circle, and never asked you for anything in return.--And you, brazen-faced journalist, with no other brains than the dregs of your inkstand, and with as many leprous spots on your conscience as your queen has on her skin, you consider that I didn"t pay you what you were worth, and that"s the secret of your insults.--Yes, yes, look at me, _canaille_! I am proud. I am better than you."
All that he said thus to himself, in a frenzy of wrath, visible in the trembling of his thick, pallid lips, the unhappy man, upon whom madness was swooping down, was, perhaps, on the point of shouting aloud in the silence, of pouring out a flood of maledictions upon that insulting mob, and, who can say? of leaping down into the midst of them and killing some one, ah! G.o.d"s blood! of killing some one, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder; and he saw a blond head, a frank, grave face, and two outstretched hands which he grasped convulsively, like a drowning man.
"Ah! my dear--my dear--" stammered the poor man. But he had no strength to say more. That grateful emotion coming upon him in the midst of his frenzy, melted it into a sob of tears, of blood, of choking speech. His face became purple. He motioned: "Take me away." And, leaning on Paul de Gery"s arm, he stumbled through the door of his box and fell to the floor in the lobby.
"Bravo! bravo!" shouted the audience at the conclusion of the actor"s tirade; and there was a noise as of a hail-storm, an enthusiastic stamping,--while the great inert body, borne by scene-shifters, pa.s.sed through the brilliantly-lighted wings, obstructed by men and women crowding around the entrances to the stage, excited by the atmosphere of success, and hardly noticing the pa.s.sage of that lifeless victim carried in men"s arms like the victim of a street affray. They laid him on a couch in the property room, Paul de Gery by his side with a physician and two attendants who were eager to help. Cardailhac, who was very busy with the performance, had promised to come and see how he was getting on, "in a moment, after the fifth act."
Bloodletting upon bloodletting, cupping, plasters, nothing produced even a twitching of the skin in the sick man, who was insensible to all the methods of resuscitation usually resorted to in cases of apoplexy. A relaxation of every fibre of his being seemed to give him over to death, to prepare his body for the rigidity of the corpse; and that in the most dismal place on earth, chaos lighted by a dark lantern, where all the debris of plays that had been performed, gilded furniture, hangings with gorgeous fringe, carriages, strong boxes, card-tables, discarded flights of stairs and banisters, were heaped together pell-mell under the dust, among ropes and pulleys, a wilderness of damaged, broken, demolished, cast-off stage properties. Bernard Jansoulet, as he lay amid that wreckage, his shirt torn away from his chest, at once bleeding and bloodless, was the typical shipwrecked victim of life, bruised and cast ash.o.r.e with the pitiable debris of his artificial splendor broken and scattered by the Parisian whirlpool. Paul, broken-hearted, gazed sadly at that face with its short nose, retaining in its inert condition the wrathful yet kindly expression of an inoffensive creature who tried to defend himself before dying, but had no time to bite. He blamed himself for his inability to serve him to any useful purpose. What had become of that fine project of his of leading Jansoulet through the quagmires, of saving him from ambuscades? All that he had been able to do was to rescue a few millions, and even those came too late.
The windows were opened on the balcony overlooking the boulevard, then at its full tide of noise and animation, and blazing with light. The theatre was surrounded with rows of gas-jets, a circle of flame lighting up the most obscure recesses where flickering lanterns gleamed like stars travelling through the dark sky. The play was done. The audience was leaving the theatre. The dark throng moved in a compact ma.s.s down the steps and scattered to right and left along the white sidewalks, to spread through the city the news of a great success and the name of an unknown author, who would be ill.u.s.trious and famous on the morrow. A most enjoyable evening, causing the restaurant windows to blaze with delight and the streets to be filled with long lines of belated carriages. That holiday uproar, of which the poor Nabob had been so fond and which was well adapted to the giddy whirl of his existence, aroused him for a second. His lips moved, and his staring eyes, turned toward de Gery, a.s.sumed in presence of death a sorrowful, imploring, rebellious expression, as if to call upon him to bear witness to one of the greatest, the most cruel acts of injustice that Paris ever committed.
THE END.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Publishers mark]
=George Sand"s Works in English.=
MAUPRAT.
ANTONIA.
THE BAGPIPERS.
MONSIEUR SYLVESTRE.
THE SNOW MAN.
NANON.
THE MILLER OF ANGIBAULT.
As to "Mauprat," if there were any doubts as to George Sand"s power, it would forever set them at rest.--_Harper"s Monthly._
=Little Cla.s.sics, by George Sand.=
FADETTE.
FRANCOIS THE WAIF.
THE DEVIL"S POOL.
THE MASTER MOSAIC WORKERS.