"The Abbe and I rejoined my mother in the kitchen, and Melani again offered us chairs, "I knew quite well that it would not go of its own accord; we must try some other means, otherwise he will escape us." And they began deliberating afresh, my mother being of one opinion and the Abbe of another, while I held a third.
"We had been discussing the matter in a low voice for half an hour, perhaps, when a great noise of furniture being moved and of cries uttered by my uncle, more vehement and terrible even, than the former had been, made us all four jump up.
"Through the doors and walls we could hear him shouting: "Go out ... out ... rascals, ... humbugs, get out scoundrels ... get out ... get out!..."
"Melani rushed in, but came back immediately to call me to help her, and I hastened in. Opposite to my uncle who was terribly excited by anger, almost standing up and vociferating, two men, one behind the other, seemed to be waiting till he should be dead with rage.
"By his long, ridiculous coat, his long English shoes, by his manners of a tutor out of a situation, by his high collar, white necktie and straight hair, by his humble face of a priest, I immediately recognized the first as a Protestant minister.
"The second was the porter of the house, who belonged to the reformed religion and had followed us, and having seen our defeat had gone to fetch his own priest, in hopes of a better fate. My uncle seemed mad with rage! If the sight of the Catholic priest, of the priest of his ancestors, had irritated the Marquis de Fumerol, who had become a freethinker, the sight of his porter"s minister made him altogether beside himself. I therefore took the two men by the arm and threw them out of the room so violently that they embraced each other twice, between the two doors which led to the staircase, and then I disappeared in my turn and returned to the kitchen, which was our headquarters, in order to take counsel with my mother and the Abbe.
"But Melani came back in terror, sobbing out: "He is dying ... he is dying ... come immediately ... he is dying...."
"My mother rushed out. My uncle had fallen onto the ground, full length along the floor, and did not move. I fancy he was already dead. My mother was superb at that moment! She went straight up to the two girls who were kneeling by the body and trying to raise it up, and pointing to the door with irresistible authority, dignity and majesty, she said: "Now it is for you to go out."
"And they went out without a protest, and without saying a word. I must add, that I was getting ready to turn them out as unceremoniously as I had done the parson and the porter.
"Then the Abbe Poivron administered the last sacrament to my uncle with all the customary prayers and remitted all his sins, while my mother sobbed, kneeling near her brother. Suddenly, however, she exclaimed: "He recognized me; he pressed my hand; I am sure he recognized me!!!... and that he thanked me! Oh, G.o.d, what happiness!"
"Poor Mamma! If she had known or guessed to whom those thanks ought to have been addressed!
"They laid my uncle on his bed; he was certainly dead that time.
""Madame," Melani said, "we have no sheets to bury him in; all the linen belongs to those two young ladies," and when I looked at the omelette which they had not finished, I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the same time. There are some strange moments and some strange sensations in life, occasionally!
"We gave my uncle a magnificent funeral, with five speeches at the grave. Baron de Croiselles, the Senator, showed in admirable terms, that G.o.d always returns victorious into well-born souls which have gone astray for a moment. All the members of the Royalist and Catholic party followed the funeral procession with the enthusiasm of triumphers, speaking of that beautiful death, after a somewhat restless life."
Viscount Roger ceased speaking, and those around him laughed. Then somebody said: "Bah! That is the story of conversions _in Extremis_."
THE SIGNAL
The little Marchioness de Rennedon was still asleep in her closed and perfumed bedroom, in her soft, low bed, between her sheets of delicate cambric, fine as lace and caressing as a kiss; she was sleeping alone and tranquil, the happy and profound sleep of divorced women.
She was awakened by loud voices in the little blue drawing-room, and she recognized her dear friend, the little Baroness de Grangerie, who was disputing with the lady"s maid, because the latter would not allow her to go into her mistress" room. So the little Marchioness got up, opened the door, drew back the door-hangings and showed her head, nothing but her fair head, hidden under a cloud of hair.
"What is the matter with you, that you have come so early?" she asked.
"It is not nine o"clock yet."
The little baroness who was very pale, nervous and feverish, replied: "I must speak to you. Something horrible has happened to me." "Come in, my dear."
She went in, they kissed each other, and the little Marchioness got back into her bed while the lady"s maid opened the windows to let in light and air, and then when she had left the room, Madame de Rennedon went on: "Well, tell me what it is."
Madame de Grangerie began to cry, shedding those pretty, bright tears which make woman more charming, and she stammered without wiping her eyes, so as not to make them red: "Oh! my dear, what has happened to me is abominable, abominable. I have not slept all night, not a minute; do you hear, not a minute. Here, just feel my heart, how it is beating."
And, taking her friend"s hand, she put it on her breast, on that firm, round covering of women"s hearts which often suffices men, and prevents them from seeking beneath. But her breast was really beating violently.
She continued: "It happened to me yesterday during the day, at about four o"clock ... or half-past four; I cannot say exactly. You know my apartments, and you know that my little drawing-room, where I always sit, looks onto the Rue Saint-Lazare, and that I have a mania for sitting at the window to look at the people pa.s.sing. The neighborhood of the railway station is very gay; so full of motion and lively.... Well, that is just what I like! So, yesterday, I was sitting in the low chair which I have placed in my window recess; the window was open and I was not thinking of anything; I was breathing the fresh air. You remember how fine it was yesterday!
"Suddenly, I remarked that there was also a woman sitting at the window, a woman in red; I was in mauve, you know, my pretty mauve costume. I did not know the woman, a new lodger, who had been there a month, and as it had been raining for a month, I had not yet seen her, but I saw immediately that she was a bad girl. At first I was very much shocked and disgusted that she should be at the window like I was; and then, by degrees, it amused me to examine her. She was resting her elbows on the window ledge, and looking at the men, and the men looked at her also, all or nearly all. One might have said that they were apprised beforehand by some means as they got near the house, which they scented as dogs scent game, for they suddenly raised their heads, and exchanged a swift look with her, a freemason"s look. Hers said: "Will you?"
"Theirs replied: "I have no time," or else: "another day;" or else: "I have not got a half penny;" or else: "Will you hide yourself, you wretch!"
"You cannot imagine how funny it was to see her carrying on such a piece of work, though, after all, it is her regular business.
"Sometimes she shut the window suddenly, and I saw a gentleman go in.
She had caught him like a fisherman hooks a gudgeon. Then I looked at my watch, and I found that they stopped from twelve to twenty minutes, never longer. In the end she really infatuated me, the spider! And then the creature is so ugly.
"I asked myself: How does she manage to make herself understood so quickly, so well and so completely? Does she add a sign of the head or a motion of the hands to her looks? And I took my opera-gla.s.ses to watch her proceedings. Oh! they were very simple: first of all a glance, then a smile, then a slight sign with the head, which meant: "Are you coming up?" But it was so slight, so vague, so discreet, that it required a great deal of knack to succeed as she did. And I asked myself: "I wonder if I could do that little movement, from below upwards, which was at the same time bold and pretty, as well as she does," for her gesture was very pretty.
"I went and tried it before the looking-gla.s.s, and, my dear, I did it better than she, a great deal better! I was enchanted, and resumed my place at the window.
"She caught n.o.body more then, poor girl, n.o.body. She certainly had no luck. It must really be very terrible to earn one"s bread in that way, terrible and amusing occasionally, for really some of these men one meets in the street are rather nice.
"After that they all came on my side of the road and none on hers; the sun had turned. They came one after the other, young, old, dark, fair, gray, white. I saw some who looked very nice, really very nice, my dear, far better than my husband or than yours, I mean than your late husband, as you have got a divorce. Now you can choose.
"I said to myself! If I give them the sign, will they understand me, who am a respectable woman? And I was seized with a mad longing to make that sign to them. I had a longing, the longing of a pregnant woman ... a terrible longing; you know, one of those longings which one cannot resist! I have some like that occasionally. How stupid such things are, don"t you think so? I believe that we woman have the souls of monkeys. I have been told (and it was a physician who told me) that the brain of a monkey was very like ours. Of course we must imitate some one or other.
We imitate our husbands, when we love them, during the first months after our marriage, and then our lovers, our female friends, our confessors, when they are nice. We a.s.sume their ways of thought, their manners of speech, their words, their gestures, everything. It is very stupid.
"However, as for me, when I am too much tempted to do a thing I always do it, and so I said to myself: "I will try it once, on one man only, just to see. What can happen to me? Nothing whatever! We shall exchange a smile and that will be all, and I shall deny it, most certainly."
"So I began to make my choice. I wanted someone nice, very nice, and suddenly I saw a tall, fair, very good-looking fellow coming along. I like fair men, as you know. I looked at him, he looked at me; I smiled, he smiled; I made the movement; oh! but scarcely; he replied _yes_ with his head, and there he was, my dear! He came in at the large door of the house.
"You cannot imagine what pa.s.sed through my mind then! I thought I should go mad. Oh! how frightened I was. Just think, he will speak to the servants! To Joseph, who is devoted to my husband! Joseph would certainly think that I had known that gentleman for a long time.
"What could I do, just tell me? And he would ring in a moment. What could I do, tell me? I thought I would go and meet him, and tell him he had made a mistake, and beg him to go away. He would have pity on a woman, on a poor woman: So I rushed to the door and opened it, just at the moment when he was going to ring the bell, and I stammered out, quite stupidly: "Go away, Monsieur, go away; you have made a mistake, a terrible mistake; I took you for one of my friends whom you are very like. Have pity on me, Monsieur."
"But he only began to laugh, my dear, and replied: "Good morning, my dear, I know all about your little story, you may be sure. You are married, and so you want forty francs instead of twenty, and you shall have them, so just show the way."
"And he pushed me in, closed the door, and as I remained standing before him, horror-struck, he kissed me, put his arm round my waist and made me go back into the drawing-room, which had remained open. Then he began to look at everything, like an auctioneer, and continued: "By Jove, it is very nice in your rooms, very well. You must be very down on your luck just now, to do the window business!"
"Then I began to beg him again: "Oh! Monsieur, go away, please go away!
My husband will be coming in soon, it is just his time. I swear that you have made a mistake!" But he answered quite coolly: "Come, my beauty, I have had enough of this nonsense, and if your husband comes in, I will give him five francs to go and have a drink at the cafe opposite." And then, seeing Raoul"s photograph on the chimney-piece, he asked me: "Is that your ... your husband?" "Yes, that is he." "He looks a nice, disagreeable sort of fellow. And who is this? One of your friends?"
"It was your photograph, my dear, you know, the one in ball dress. I did not know any longer what I was saying, and I stammered: "Yes, it is one of my friends." "She is very nice; you shall introduce me to her."
"Just then the clock struck five, and Raoul comes home every day at half past! Suppose he were to come home before the other had gone, just fancy what would have happened! Then ... then ... I completely lost my head ... altogether.... I thought ... I thought ... that ... that ... the best thing would be ... to get rid ... of ... of this man ... as quickly as possible.... The sooner it was over ... you understand ... and ...
and there ... as it must be done ... and I was obliged, my dear ... he would not have gone away without it.... Well I ... I locked the drawing-room door.... There!"
The little Marchioness de Rennedon had begun to laugh, to laugh madly, with her head buried in her pillow, so that the whole bed shook, and when she was a little calmer she asked: "And ... and ... was he good-looking?" "Yes." "And yet you complain?" "But ... but ... don"t you see, my dear, he said ... he said ... he should come again to-morrow ...
at the same time ... and I ... I am terribly frightened.... You have no idea how tenacious he is and obstinate.... What can I do ... tell me ...