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diff --git a/1649-0.txt b/1649-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07e4c61 --- /dev/null +++ b/1649-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5182 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ferragus, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ferragus + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley + +Release Date: February, 1999 [Etext #1649] +Posting Date: February 27, 2010 +Last Updated: November 22, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FERRAGUS *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +FERRAGUS, CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley + + + + + PREPARER’S NOTE: + + Ferragus is the first part of a trilogy. Part two is entitled + The Duchesse de Langeais and part three is The Girl with the + Golden Eyes. The three stories are frequently combined under + the title The Thirteen. + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Hector Berlioz. + + + + +PREFACE + +Thirteen men were banded together in Paris under the Empire, all imbued +with one and the same sentiment, all gifted with sufficient energy to +be faithful to the same thought, with sufficient honor among themselves +never to betray one another even if their interests clashed; and +sufficiently wily and politic to conceal the sacred ties that united +them, sufficiently strong to maintain themselves above the law, bold +enough to undertake all things, and fortunate enough to succeed, nearly +always, in their undertakings; having run the greatest dangers, but +keeping silence if defeated; inaccessible to fear; trembling neither +before princes, nor executioners, not even before innocence; accepting +each other for such as they were, without social prejudices,--criminals, +no doubt, but certainly remarkable through certain of the qualities that +make great men, and recruiting their number only among men of mark. That +nothing might be lacking to the sombre and mysterious poesy of their +history, these Thirteen men have remained to this day unknown; though +all have realized the most chimerical ideas that the fantastic power +falsely attributed to the Manfreds, the Fausts, and the Melmoths can +suggest to the imagination. To-day, they are broken up, or, at least, +dispersed; they have peaceably put their necks once more under the yoke +of civil law, just as Morgan, that Achilles among pirates, transformed +himself from a buccaneering scourge to a quiet colonist, and spent, +without remorse, around his domestic hearth the millions gathered in +blood by the lurid light of flames and slaughter. + +Since the death of Napoleon, circumstances, about which the author must +keep silence, have still farther dissolved the original bond of this +secret society, always extraordinary, sometimes sinister, as though +it lived in the blackest pages of Mrs. Radcliffe. A somewhat strange +permission to relate in his own way a few of the adventures of these men +(while respecting certain susceptibilities) has only recently been given +to him by one of those anonymous heroes to whom all society was once +occultly subjected. In this permission the writer fancied he detected a +vague desire for personal celebrity. + +This man, apparently still young, with fair hair and blue eyes, whose +sweet, clear voice seemed to denote a feminine soul, was pale of face +and mysterious in manner; he conversed affably, declared himself not +more than forty years of age, and apparently belonged to the very +highest social classes. The name which he assumed must have been +fictitious; his person was unknown in society. Who was he? That, no one +has ever known. + +Perhaps, in confiding to the author the extraordinary matters which he +related to him, this mysterious person may have wished to see them in +a manner reproduced, and thus enjoy the emotions they were certain +to bring to the hearts of the masses,--a feeling analogous to that of +Macpherson when the name of his creation Ossian was transcribed into +all languages. That was certainly, for the Scotch lawyer, one of the +keenest, or at any rate the rarest, sensations a man could give himself. +Is it not the incognito of genius? To write the “Itinerary from Paris to +Jerusalem” is to take a share in the human glory of a single epoch; but +to endow his native land with another Homer, was not that usurping the +work of God? + +The author knows too well the laws of narration to be ignorant of the +pledges this short preface is contracting for him; but he also knows +enough of the history of the _Thirteen_ to be certain that his +present tale will never be thought below the interest inspired by +this programme. Dramas steeped in blood, comedies filled with terror, +romantic tales through which rolled heads mysteriously decapitated, have +been confided to him. If readers were not surfeited with horrors served +up to them of late in cold blood, he might reveal the calm atrocities, +the surpassing tragedies concealed under family life. But he chooses +in preference gentler events,--those where scenes of purity succeed the +tempests of passion; where woman is radiant with virtue and beauty. To +the honor of the _Thirteen_ be it said that there are such scenes in +their history, which may have the honor of being some day published as +a foil of tales to listeners,--that race apart from others, so curiously +energetic, and so interesting in spite of its crimes. + +An author ought to be above converting his tale, when the tale is true, +into a species of surprise-game, and of taking his readers, as certain +novellists do, through many volumes and from cellar to cellar, to show +them the dry bones of a dead body, and tell them, by way of conclusion, +that _that_ is what has frightened them behind doors, hidden in the +arras, or in cellars where the dead man was buried and forgotten. In +spite of his aversion for prefaces, the author feels bound to place the +following statement at the head of this narrative. Ferragus is a +first episode which clings by invisible links to the “History of the +_Thirteen_,” whose power, naturally acquired, can alone explain certain +acts and agencies which would otherwise seem supernatural. Although it +is permissible in tellers of tales to have a sort of literary coquetry +in becoming historians, they ought to renounce the benefit that may +accrue from an odd or fantastic title--on which certain slight successes +have been won in the present day. Consequently, the author will now +explain, succinctly, the reasons that obliged him to select a title to +his book which seems at first sight unnatural. + +_Ferragus_ is, according to ancient custom, a name taken by the chief or +Grand Master of the Devorants. On the day of their election these chiefs +continue whichever of the dynasties of their Order they are most +in sympathy with, precisely as the Popes do, on their accession, in +connection with pontifical dynasties. Thus the Devorants have “Trempe-la +Soupe IX.,” “Ferragus XXII.,” “Tutanus XIII.,” “Masche-Fer IV.,” just +as the Church has Clement XIV., Gregory VII., Julius II., Alexander VI., +etc. + +Now, then, who are the Devorants? “Devorant” is the name of one of +those tribes of “Companions” that issued in ancient times from the great +mystical association formed among the workers of Christianity to rebuild +the temple at Jerusalem. Companionism (to coin a word) still exists in +France among the people. Its traditions, powerful over minds that are +not enlightened, and over men not educated enough to cast aside an oath, +might serve the ends of formidable enterprises if some rough-hewn genius +were to seize hold of these diverse associations. All the instruments +of this Companionism are well-nigh blind. From town to town there has +existed from time immemorial, for the use of Companions, an “Obade,”--a +sort of halting-place, kept by a “Mother,” an old woman, half-gypsy, +with nothing to lose, knowing everything that happens in her +neighborhood, and devoted, either from fear or habit, to the tribe, +whose straggling members she feeds and lodges. This people, ever moving +and changing, though controlled by immutable customs, has its eyes +everywhere, executes, without judging it, a WILL,--for the oldest +Companion still belongs to an era when men had faith. Moreover, +the whole body professes doctrines that are sufficiently true and +sufficiently mysterious to electrify into a sort of tribal loyalty all +adepts whenever they obtain even a slight development. The attachment +of the Companions to their laws is so passionate that the diverse +tribes will fight sanguinary battles with each other in defence of some +question of principle. + +Happily for our present public safety, when a Devorant is ambitious, he +builds houses, lays by his money, and leaves the Order. There is many +a curious thing to tell about the “Compagnons du Devoir” [Companions of +the Duty], the rivals of the Devorants, and about the different sects +of working-men, their usages, their fraternity, and the bond existing +between them and the free-masons. But such details would be out of place +here. The author must, however, add that under the old monarchy it was +not an unknown thing to find a “Trempe-la-Soupe” enslaved to the king +sentenced for a hundred and one years to the galleys, but ruling his +tribe from there, religiously consulted by it, and when he escaped from +his galley, certain of help, succor, and respect, wherever he might be. +To see its grand master at the galleys is, to the faithful tribe, only +one of those misfortunes for which providence is responsible, and which +does not release the Devorants from obeying a power created by them to +be above them. It is but the passing exile of their legitimate king, +always a king for them. Thus we see the romantic prestige attaching to +the name of Ferragus and to that of the Devorants completely dissipated. + +As for the _Thirteen_, they were all men of the stamp of Trelawney, Lord +Byron’s friend, who was, they say, the original of his “Corsair.” They +were all fatalists, men of nerve and poesy, weary of leading flat and +empty lives, driven toward Asiatic enjoyments by forces all the more +excessive because, long dormant, they awoke furious. One of them, after +re-reading “Venice Preserved,” and admiring the sublime union of Pierre +and Jaffier, began to reflect on the virtues shown by men who are +outlawed by society, on the honesty of galley-slaves, the faithfulness +of thieves among each other, the privileges of exorbitant power which +such men know how to win by concentrating all ideas into a single will. +He saw that Man is greater than men. He concluded that society ought +to belong wholly to those distinguished beings who, to natural +intelligence, acquired wisdom, and fortune, add a fanaticism hot enough +to fuse into one casting these different forces. That done, their occult +power, vast in action and in intensity, against which the social order +would be helpless, would cast down all obstacles, blast all other wills, +and give to each the devilish power of all. This world apart within the +world, hostile to the world, admitting none of the world’s ideas, +not recognizing any law, not submitting to any conscience but that of +necessity, obedient to a devotion only, acting with every faculty for +a single associate when one of their number asked for the assistance of +all,--this life of filibusters in lemon kid gloves and cabriolets; +this intimate union of superior beings, cold and sarcastic, smiling and +cursing in the midst of a false and puerile society; this certainty of +forcing all things to serve an end, of plotting a vengeance that could +not fail of living in thirteen hearts; this happiness of nurturing a +secret hatred in the face of men, and of being always in arms against +this; this ability to withdraw to the sanctuary of self with one idea +more than even the most remarkable of men could have,--this religion of +pleasure and egotism cast so strong a spell over Thirteen men that they +revived the society of Jesuits to the profit of the devil. + +It was horrible and stupendous; but the compact was made, and it lasted +precisely because it appeared to be so impossible. + +There was, therefore, in Paris a brotherhood of _Thirteen_, who belonged +to each other absolutely, but ignored themselves as absolutely before +the world. At night they met, like conspirators, hiding no thought, +disposing each and all of a common fortune, like that of the Old Man +of the Mountain; having their feet in all salons, their hands in all +money-boxes, and making all things serve their purpose or their fancy +without scruple. No chief commanded them; no one member could arrogate +to himself that power. The most eager passion, the most exacting +circumstance, alone had the right to pass first. They were Thirteen +unknown kings,--but true kings, more than ordinary kings and judges and +executioners,--men who, having made themselves wings to roam through +society from depth to height, disdained to be anything in the social +sphere because they could be all. If the present writer ever learns the +reasons of their abdication of this power, he will take occasion to tell +them.[*] + + [*] See Theophile Gautier’s account of the society of the + “Cheval Rouge.” Memoir of Balzac. Roberts Brothers, Boston. + +Now, with this brief explanation, he may be allowed to begin the tale +of certain episodes in the history of the _Thirteen_, which have more +particularly attracted him by the Parisian flavor of their details and +the whimsicality of their contrasts. + + + + + +FERRAGUS, CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS + + + + +CHAPTER I. MADAME JULES + + +Certain streets in Paris are as degraded as a man covered with infamy; +also, there are noble streets, streets simply respectable, young streets +on the morality of which the public has not yet formed an opinion; also +cut-throat streets, streets older than the age of the oldest dowagers, +estimable streets, streets always clean, streets always dirty, working, +laboring, and mercantile streets. In short, the streets of Paris +have every human quality, and impress us, by what we must call their +physiognomy, with certain ideas against which we are defenceless. There +are, for instance, streets of a bad neighborhood in which you could not +be induced to live, and streets where you would willingly take up your +abode. Some streets, like the rue Montmartre, have a charming head, +and end in a fish’s tail. The rue de la Paix is a wide street, a fine +street, yet it wakens none of those gracefully noble thoughts which come +to an impressible mind in the middle of the rue Royale, and it certainly +lacks the majesty which reigns in the Place Vendome. + +If you walk the streets of the Ile Saint-Louis, do not seek the reason +of the nervous sadness that lays hold upon you save in the solitude +of the spot, the gloomy look of the houses, and the great deserted +mansions. This island, the ghost of _fermiers-generaux_, is the Venice +of Paris. The Place de la Bourse is voluble, busy, degraded; it is +never fine except by moonlight at two in the morning. By day it is +Paris epitomized; by night it is a dream of Greece. The rue +Traversiere-Saint-Honore--is not that a villainous street? Look at the +wretched little houses with two windows on a floor, where vice, crime, +and misery abound. The narrow streets exposed to the north, where the +sun never comes more than three or four times a year, are the cut-throat +streets which murder with impunity; the authorities of the present +day do not meddle with them; but in former times the Parliament might +perhaps have summoned the lieutenant of police and reprimanded him for +the state of things; and it would, at least, have issued some decree +against such streets, as it once did against the wigs of the Chapter of +Beauvais. And yet Monsieur Benoiston de Chateauneuf has proved that +the mortality of these streets is double that of others! To sum up such +theories by a single example: is not the rue Fromentin both murderous +and profligate! + +These observations, incomprehensible out of Paris, will doubtless be +understood by musing men of thought and poesy and pleasure, who +know, while rambling about Paris, how to harvest the mass of floating +interests which may be gathered at all hours within her walls; to them +Paris is the most delightful and varied of monsters: here, a pretty +woman; farther on, a haggard pauper; here, new as the coinage of a new +reign; there, in this corner, elegant as a fashionable woman. A monster, +moreover, complete! Its garrets, as it were, a head full of knowledge +and genius; its first storeys stomachs repleted; its shops, actual feet, +where the busy ambulating crowds are moving. Ah! what an ever-active +life the monster leads! Hardly has the last vibration of the last +carriage coming from a ball ceased at its heart before its arms are +moving at the barriers and it shakes itself slowly into motion. Doors +open; turning on their hinges like the membrane of some huge lobster, +invisibly manipulated by thirty thousand men or women, of whom each +individual occupies a space of six square feet, but has a kitchen, a +workshop, a bed, children, a garden, little light to see by, but +must see all. Imperceptibly, the articulations begin to crack; motion +communicates itself; the street speaks. By mid-day, all is alive; the +chimneys smoke, the monster eats; then he roars, and his thousand paws +begin to ramp. Splendid spectacle! But, O Paris! he who has not admired +your gloomy passages, your gleams and flashes of light, your deep and +silent _cul-de-sacs_, who has not listened to your murmurings between +midnight and two in the morning, knows nothing as yet of your true +poesy, nor of your broad and fantastic contrasts. + +There are a few amateurs who never go their way heedlessly; who savor +their Paris, so to speak; who know its physiognomy so well that they +see every wart, and pimple, and redness. To others, Paris is always that +monstrous marvel, that amazing assemblage of activities, of schemes, +of thoughts; the city of a hundred thousand tales, the head of the +universe. But to those few, Paris is sad or gay, ugly or beautiful, +living or dead; to them Paris is a creature; every man, every fraction +of a house is a lobe of the cellular tissue of that great courtesan +whose head and heart and fantastic customs they know so well. These men +are lovers of Paris; they lift their noses at such or such a corner of +a street, certain that they can see the face of a clock; they tell a +friend whose tobacco-pouch is empty, “Go down that passage and turn +to the left; there’s a tobacconist next door to a confectioner, where +there’s a pretty girl.” Rambling about Paris is, to these poets, a +costly luxury. How can they help spending precious minutes before +the dramas, disasters, faces, and picturesque events which meet us +everywhere amid this heaving queen of cities, clothed in posters,--who +has, nevertheless, not a single clean corner, so complying is she to the +vices of the French nation! Who has not chanced to leave his home early +in the morning, intending to go to some extremity of Paris, and found +himself unable to get away from the centre of it by the dinner-hour? +Such a man will know how to excuse this vagabondizing start upon our +tale; which, however, we here sum up in an observation both useful and +novel, as far as any observation can be novel in Paris, where there is +nothing new,--not even the statue erected yesterday, on which some young +gamin has already scribbled his name. + +Well, then! there are streets, or ends of streets, there are houses, +unknown for the most part to persons of social distinction, to which a +woman of that class cannot go without causing cruel and very wounding +things to be thought of her. Whether the woman be rich and has a +carriage, whether she is on foot, or is disguised, if she enters one +of these Parisian defiles at any hour of the day, she compromises her +reputation as a virtuous woman. If, by chance, she is there at nine in +the evening the conjectures that an observer permits himself to make +upon her may prove fearful in their consequences. But if the woman is +young and pretty, if she enters a house in one of those streets, if the +house has a long, dark, damp, and evil-smelling passage-way, at the end +of which flickers the pallid gleam of an oil lamp, and if beneath that +gleam appears the horrid face of a withered old woman with fleshless +fingers, ah, then! and we say it in the interests of young and pretty +women, that woman is lost. She is at the mercy of the first man of her +acquaintance who sees her in that Parisian slough. There is more than +one street in Paris where such a meeting may lead to a frightful drama, +a bloody drama of death and love, a drama of the modern school. + +Unhappily, this scene, this modern drama itself, will be comprehended by +only a small number of persons; and it is a pity to tell the tale to +a public which cannot enter into its local merit. But who can flatter +himself that he will ever be understood? We all die unknown--‘tis the +saying of women and of authors. + +At half-past eight o’clock one evening, in the rue Pagevin, in the days +when that street had no wall which did not echo some infamous word, and +was, in the direction of the rue Soly, the narrowest and most impassable +street in Paris (not excepting the least frequented corner of the most +deserted street),--at the beginning of the month of February about +thirteen years ago, a young man, by one of those chances which come but +once in life, turned the corner of the rue Pagevin to enter the rue des +Vieux-Augustins, close to the rue Soly. There, this young man, who lived +himself in the rue de Bourbon, saw in a woman near whom he had been +unconsciously walking, a vague resemblance to the prettiest woman in +Paris; a chaste and delightful person, with whom he was secretly and +passionately in love,--a love without hope; she was married. In a moment +his heart leaped, an intolerable heat surged from his centre and flowed +through all his veins; his back turned cold, the skin of his head crept. +He loved, he was young, he knew Paris; and his knowledge did not permit +him to be ignorant of all there was of possible infamy in an elegant, +rich, young, and beautiful woman walking there, alone, with a furtively +criminal step. _She_ in that mud! at that hour! + +The love that this young man felt for that woman may seem romantic, and +all the more so because he was an officer in the Royal Guard. If he had +been in the infantry, the affair might have seemed more likely; but, as +an officer of rank in the cavalry, he belonged to that French arm which +demands rapidity in its conquests and derives as much vanity from its +amorous exploits as from its dashing uniform. But the passion of this +officer was a true love, and many young hearts will think it noble. +He loved this woman because she was virtuous; he loved her virtue, her +modest grace, her imposing saintliness, as the dearest treasures of his +hidden passion. This woman was indeed worthy to inspire one of those +platonic loves which are found, like flowers amid bloody ruins, in the +history of the middle-ages; worthy to be the hidden principle of all the +actions of a young man’s life; a love as high, as pure as the skies when +blue; a love without hope and to which men bind themselves because +it can never deceive; a love that is prodigal of unchecked enjoyment, +especially at an age when the heart is ardent, the imagination keen, and +the eyes of a man see very clearly. + +Strange, weird, inconceivable effects may be met with at night in Paris. +Only those who have amused themselves by watching those effects have +any idea how fantastic a woman may appear there at dusk. At times the +creature whom you are following, by accident or design, seems to you +light and slender; the stockings, if they are white, make you fancy that +the legs must be slim and elegant; the figure though wrapped in a shawl, +or concealed by a pelisse, defines itself gracefully and seductively +among the shadows; anon, the uncertain gleam thrown from a shop-window +or a street lamp bestows a fleeting lustre, nearly always deceptive, on +the unknown woman, and fires the imagination, carrying it far beyond +the truth. The senses then bestir themselves; everything takes color and +animation; the woman appears in an altogether novel aspect; her person +becomes beautiful. Behold! she is not a woman, she is a demon, a siren, +who is drawing you by magnetic attraction to some respectable house, +where the worthy _bourgeoise_, frightened by your threatening step and +the clack of your boots, shuts the door in your face without looking at +you. + +A vacillating gleam, thrown from the shop-window of a shoemaker, +suddenly illuminated from the waist down the figure of the woman who was +before the young man. Ah! surely, _she_ alone had that swaying figure; +she alone knew the secret of that chaste gait which innocently set into +relief the many beauties of that attractive form. Yes, that was the +shawl, and that the velvet bonnet which she wore in the mornings. On +her gray silk stockings not a spot, on her shoes not a splash. The shawl +held tightly round the bust disclosed, vaguely, its charming lines; and +the young man, who had often seen those shoulders at a ball, knew well +the treasures that the shawl concealed. By the way a Parisian woman +wraps a shawl around her, and the way she lifts her feet in the street, +a man of intelligence in such studies can divine the secret of her +mysterious errand. There is something, I know not what, of quivering +buoyancy in the person, in the gait; the woman seems to weigh less; she +steps, or rather, she glides like a star, and floats onward led by a +thought which exhales from the folds and motion of her dress. The young +man hastened his step, passed the woman, and then turned back to look +at her. Pst! she had disappeared into a passage-way, the grated door of +which and its bell still rattled and sounded. The young man walked back +to the alley and saw the woman reach the farther end, where she began +to mount--not without receiving the obsequious bow of an old portress--a +winding staircase, the lower steps of which were strongly lighted; she +went up buoyantly, eagerly, as though impatient. + +“Impatient for what?” said the young man to himself, drawing back to +lean against a wooden railing on the other side of the street. He +gazed, unhappy man, at the different storeys of the house, with the keen +attention of a detective searching for a conspirator. + +It was one of those houses of which there are thousands in Paris, +ignoble, vulgar, narrow, yellowish in tone, with four storeys and three +windows on each floor. The outer blinds of the first floor were closed. +Where was she going? The young man fancied he heard the tinkle of a bell +on the second floor. As if in answer to it, a light began to move in a +room with two windows strongly illuminated, which presently lit up the +third window, evidently that of a first room, either the salon or the +dining-room of the apartment. Instantly the outline of a woman’s bonnet +showed vaguely on the window, and a door between the two rooms must +have closed, for the first was dark again, while the two other windows +resumed their ruddy glow. At this moment a voice said, “Hi, there!” and +the young man was conscious of a blow on his shoulder. + +“Why don’t you pay attention?” said the rough voice of a workman, +carrying a plank on his shoulder. The man passed on. He was the voice of +Providence saying to the watcher: “What are you meddling with? Think of +your own duty; and leave these Parisians to their own affairs.” + +The young man crossed his arms; then, as no one beheld him, he suffered +tears of rage to flow down his cheeks unchecked. At last the sight of +the shadows moving behind the lighted windows gave him such pain that he +looked elsewhere and noticed a hackney-coach, standing against a wall +in the upper part of the rue des Vieux-Augustins, at a place where there +was neither the door of a house, nor the light of a shop-window. + +Was it she? Was it not she? Life or death to a lover! This lover waited. +He stood there during a century of twenty minutes. After that the woman +came down, and he then recognized her as the one whom he secretly loved. +Nevertheless, he wanted still to doubt. She went to the hackney-coach, +and got into it. + +“The house will always be there and I can search it later,” thought the +young man, following the carriage at a run, to solve his last doubts; +and soon he did so. + +The carriage stopped in the rue de Richelieu before a shop for +artificial flowers, close to the rue de Menars. The lady got out, +entered the shop, sent out the money to pay the coachman, and presently +left the shop herself, on foot, after buying a bunch of marabouts. +Marabouts for her black hair! The officer beheld her, through the +window-panes, placing the feathers to her head to see the effect, and +he fancied he could hear the conversation between herself and the +shop-woman. + +“Oh! madame, nothing is more suitable for brunettes: brunettes have +something a little too strongly marked in their lines, and marabouts +give them just that _flow_ which they lack. Madame la Duchesse de +Langeais says they give a woman something vague, Ossianic, and very +high-bred.” + +“Very good; send them to me at once.” + +Then the lady turned quickly toward the rue de Menars, and entered her +own house. When the door closed on her, the young lover, having lost +his hopes, and worse, far worse, his dearest beliefs, walked through the +streets like a drunken man, and presently found himself in his own room +without knowing how he came there. He flung himself into an arm-chair, +put his head in his hands and his feet on the andirons, drying his boots +until he burned them. It was an awful moment,--one of those moments in +human life when the character is moulded, and the future conduct of the +best of men depends on the good or evil fortune of his first action. +Providence or fatality?--choose which you will. + +This young man belonged to a good family, whose nobility was not very +ancient; but there are so few really old families in these days, that +all men of rank are ancient without dispute. His grandfather had bought +the office of counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, where he afterwards +became president. His sons, each provided with a handsome fortune, +entered the army, and through their marriages became attached to the +court. The Revolution swept the family away; but one old dowager, too +obstinate to emigrate, was left; she was put in prison, threatened with +death, but was saved by the 9th Thermidor and recovered her property. +When the proper time came, about the year 1804, she recalled her +grandson to France. Auguste de Maulincour, the only scion of the +Carbonnon de Maulincour, was brought up by the good dowager with the +triple care of a mother, a woman of rank, and an obstinate dowager. When +the Restoration came, the young man, then eighteen years of age, entered +the Maison-Rouge, followed the princes to Ghent, was made an officer in +the body-guard, left it to serve in the line, but was recalled later to +the Royal Guard, where, at twenty-three years of age, he found +himself major of a cavalry regiment,--a splendid position, due to his +grandmother, who had played her cards well to obtain it, in spite of his +youth. This double biography is a compendium of the general and special +history, barring variations, of all the noble families who emigrated +having debts and property, dowagers and tact. + +Madame la Baronne de Maulincour had a friend in the old Vidame de +Pamiers, formerly a commander of the Knights of Malta. This was one of +those undying friendships founded on sexagenary ties which nothing +can weaken, because at the bottom of such intimacies there are certain +secrets of the human heart, delightful to guess at when we have the +time, insipid to explain in twenty words, and which might make the text +of a work in four volumes as amusing as the Doyen de Killerine,--a work +about which young men talk and judge without having read it. + +Auguste de Maulincour belonged therefore to the faubourg Saint-Germain +through his grandmother and the vidame, and it sufficed him to date back +two centuries to take the tone and opinions of those who assume to +go back to Clovis. This young man, pale, slender, and delicate in +appearance, a man of honor and true courage, who would fight a duel for +a yes or a no, had never yet fought upon a battle-field, though he wore +in his button-hole the cross of the Legion of honor. He was, as you +perceive, one of the blunders of the Restoration, perhaps the most +excusable of them. The youth of those days was the youth of no epoch. +It came between the memories of the Empire and those of the Emigration, +between the old traditions of the court and the conscientious education +of the _bourgeoisie_; between religion and fancy-balls; between two +political faiths, between Louis XVIII., who saw only the present, and +Charles X., who looked too far into the future; it was moreover bound to +accept the will of the king, though the king was deceiving and tricking +it. This unfortunate youth, blind and yet clear-sighted, was counted +as nothing by old men jealously keeping the reins of the State in +their feeble hands, while the monarchy could have been saved by their +retirement and the accession of this Young France, which the old +doctrinaires, the _emigres_ of the Restoration, still speak of +slightingly. Auguste de Maulincour was a victim to the ideas which +weighed in those days upon French youth, and we must here explain why. + +The Vidame de Pamiers was still, at sixty-seven years of age, a very +brilliant man, having seen much and lived much; a good talker, a man of +honor and a gallant man, but who held as to women the most detestable +opinions; he loved them, and he despised them. _Their_ honor! _their_ +feelings! Ta-ra-ra, rubbish and shams! When he was with them, he +believed in them, the ci-devant “monstre”; he never contradicted them, +and he made them shine. But among his male friends, when the topic of +the sex came up, he laid down the principle that to deceive women, and +to carry on several intrigues at once, should be the occupation of those +young men who were so misguided as to wish to meddle in the affairs of +the State. It is sad to have to sketch so hackneyed a portrait, for has +it not figured everywhere and become, literally, as threadbare as +that of a grenadier of the Empire? But the vidame had an influence +on Monsieur de Maulincour’s destiny which obliges us to preserve his +portrait; he lectured the young man after his fashion, and did his best +to convert him to the doctrines of the great age of gallantry. + +The dowager, a tender-hearted, pious woman, sitting between God and her +vidame, a model of grace and sweetness, but gifted with that well-bred +persistency which triumphs in the long run, had longed to preserve for +her grandson the beautiful illusions of life, and had therefore brought +him up in the highest principles; she instilled into him her own +delicacy of feeling and made him, to outward appearance, a timid man, if +not a fool. The sensibilities of the young fellow, preserved pure, were +not worn by contact without; he remained so chaste, so scrupulous, that +he was keenly offended by actions and maxims to which the world attached +no consequence. Ashamed of this susceptibility, he forced himself to +conceal it under a false hardihood; but he suffered in secret, all the +while scoffing with others at the things he reverenced. + +It came to pass that he was deceived; because, in accordance with a not +uncommon whim of destiny, he, a man of gentle melancholy, and spiritual +in love, encountered in the object of his first passion a woman who +held in horror all German sentimentalism. The young man, in consequence, +distrusted himself, became dreamy, absorbed in his griefs, complaining +of not being understood. Then, as we desire all the more violently the +things we find difficult to obtain, he continued to adore women with +that ingenuous tenderness and feline delicacy the secret of which +belongs to women themselves, who may, perhaps, prefer to keep the +monopoly of it. In point of fact, though women of the world complain +of the way men love them, they have little liking themselves for those +whose soul is half feminine. Their own superiority consists in making +men believe they are their inferiors in love; therefore they will +readily leave a lover if he is inexperienced enough to rob them of those +fears with which they seek to deck themselves, those delightful tortures +of feigned jealousy, those troubles of hope betrayed, those futile +expectations,--in short, the whole procession of their feminine +miseries. They hold Sir Charles Grandison in horror. What can be more +contrary to their nature than a tranquil, perfect love? They want +emotions; happiness without storms is not happiness to them. Women with +souls that are strong enough to bring infinitude into love are angelic +exceptions; they are among women what noble geniuses are among men. +Their great passions are rare as masterpieces. Below the level of +such love come compromises, conventions, passing and contemptible +irritations, as in all things petty and perishable. + +Amid the hidden disasters of his heart, and while he was still seeking +the woman who could comprehend him (a search which, let us remark in +passing, is one of the amorous follies of our epoch), Auguste met, in +the rank of society that was farthest from his own, in the secondary +sphere of money, where banking holds the first place, a perfect being, +one of those women who have I know not what about them that is saintly +and sacred,--women who inspire such reverence that love has need of the +help of a long familiarity to declare itself. + +Auguste then gave himself up wholly to the delights of the deepest and +most moving of passions, to a love that was purely adoring. Innumerable +repressed desires there were, shadows of passion so vague yet so +profound, so fugitive and yet so actual, that one scarcely knows to what +we may compare them. They are like perfumes, or clouds, or rays of the +sun, or shadows, or whatever there is in nature that shines for a moment +and disappears, that springs to life and dies, leaving in the heart long +echoes of emotion. When the soul is young enough to nurture melancholy +and far-off hope, to find in woman more than a woman, is it not the +greatest happiness that can befall a man when he loves enough to feel +more joy in touching a gloved hand, or a lock of hair, in listening to +a word, in casting a single look, than in all the ardor of possession +given by happy love? Thus it is that rejected persons, those rebuffed by +fate, the ugly and unfortunate, lovers unrevealed, women and timid men, +alone know the treasures contained in the voice of the beloved. Taking +their source and their element from the soul itself, the vibrations +of the air, charged with passion, put our hearts so powerfully into +communion, carrying thought between them so lucidly, and being, above +all, so incapable of falsehood, that a single inflection of a voice is +often a revelation. What enchantments the intonations of a tender +voice can bestow upon the heart of a poet! What ideas they awaken! What +freshness they shed there! Love is in the voice before the glance avows +it. Auguste, poet after the manner of lovers (there are poets who feel, +and poets who express; the first are the happiest), Auguste had tasted +all these early joys, so vast, so fecund. SHE possessed the most winning +organ that the most artful woman of the world could have desired in +order to deceive at her ease; _she_ had that silvery voice which is soft +to the ear, and ringing only for the heart which it stirs and troubles, +caresses and subjugates. + +And this woman went by night to the rue Soly through the rue Pagevin! +and her furtive apparition in an infamous house had just destroyed the +grandest of passions! The vidame’s logic triumphed. + +“If she is betraying her husband we will avenge ourselves,” said +Auguste. + +There was still faith in that “if.” The philosophic doubt of Descartes +is a politeness with which we should always honor virtue. Ten o’clock +sounded. The Baron de Maulincour remembered that this woman was going to +a ball that evening at a house to which he had access. He dressed, went +there, and searched for her through all the salons. The mistress of the +house, Madame de Nucingen, seeing him thus occupied, said:-- + +“You are looking for Madame Jules; but she has not yet come.” + +“Good evening, dear,” said a voice. + +Auguste and Madame de Nucingen turned round. Madame Jules had arrived, +dressed in white, looking simple and noble, wearing in her hair the +marabouts the young baron had seen her choose in the flower-shop. That +voice of love now pierced his heart. Had he won the slightest right to +be jealous of her he would have petrified her then and there by saying +the words, “Rue Soly!” But if he, an alien to her life, had said those +words in her ear a thousand times, Madame Jules would have asked him in +astonishment what he meant. He looked at her stupidly. + +For those sarcastic persons who scoff at all things it may be a great +amusement to detect the secret of a woman, to know that her chastity is +a lie, that her calm face hides some anxious thought, that under that +pure brow is a dreadful drama. But there are other souls to whom +the sight is saddening; and many of those who laugh in public, when +withdrawn into themselves and alone with their conscience, curse the +world while they despise the woman. Such was the case with Auguste de +Maulincour, as he stood there in presence of Madame Jules. Singular +situation! There was no other relation between them than that which +social life establishes between persons who exchange a few words seven +or eight times in the course of a winter, and yet he was calling her +to account on behalf of a happiness unknown to her; he was judging her, +without letting her know of his accusation. + +Many young men find themselves thus in despair at having broken forever +with a woman adored in secret, condemned and despised in secret. There +are many hidden monologues told to the walls of some solitary lodging; +storms roused and calmed without ever leaving the depths of hearts; +amazing scenes of the moral world, for which a painter is wanted. Madame +Jules sat down, leaving her husband to make a turn around the salon. +After she was seated she seemed uneasy, and, while talking with her +neighbor, she kept a furtive eye on Monsieur Jules Desmarets, her +husband, a broker chiefly employed by the Baron de Nucingen. The +following is the history of their home life. + +Monsieur Desmarets was, five years before his marriage, in a broker’s +office, with no other means than the meagre salary of a clerk. But he +was a man to whom misfortune had early taught the truths of life, and he +followed the strait path with the tenacity of an insect making for its +nest; he was one of those dogged young men who feign death before an +obstacle and wear out everybody’s patience with their own beetle-like +perseverance. Thus, young as he was, he had all the republican virtue of +poor peoples; he was sober, saving of his time, an enemy to pleasure. +He waited. Nature had given him the immense advantage of an agreeable +exterior. His calm, pure brow, the shape of his placid, but expressive +face, his simple manners,--all revealed in him a laborious and resigned +existence, that lofty personal dignity which is imposing to others, +and the secret nobility of heart which can meet all events. His modesty +inspired a sort of respect in those who knew him. Solitary in the midst +of Paris, he knew the social world only by glimpses during the brief +moments which he spent in his patron’s salon on holidays. + +There were passions in this young man, as in most of the men who live +in that way, of amazing profundity,--passions too vast to be drawn into +petty incidents. His want of means compelled him to lead an ascetic +life, and he conquered his fancies by hard work. After paling all day +over figures, he found his recreation in striving obstinately to acquire +that wide general knowledge so necessary in these days to every man who +wants to make his mark, whether in society, or in commerce, at the bar, +or in politics or literature. The only peril these fine souls have to +fear comes from their own uprightness. They see some poor girl; they +love her; they marry her, and wear out their lives in a struggle between +poverty and love. The noblest ambition is quenched perforce by the +household account-book. Jules Desmarets went headlong into this peril. + +He met one evening at his patron’s house a girl of the rarest beauty. +Unfortunate men who are deprived of affection, and who consume the +finest hours of youth in work and study, alone know the rapid ravages +that passion makes in their lonely, misconceived hearts. They are so +certain of loving truly, all their forces are concentrated so quickly on +the object of their love, that they receive, while beside her, the most +delightful sensations, when, as often happens, they inspire none at +all. Nothing is more flattering to a woman’s egotism than to divine this +passion, apparently immovable, and these emotions so deep that they have +needed a great length of time to reach the human surface. These poor +men, anchorites in the midst of Paris, have all the enjoyments of +anchorites; and may sometimes succumb to temptations. But, more often +deceived, betrayed, and misunderstood, they are rarely able to gather +the sweet fruits of a love which, to them, is like a flower dropped from +heaven. + +One smile from his wife, a single inflection of her voice sufficed to +make Jules Desmarets conceive a passion which was boundless. Happily, +the concentrated fire of that secret passion revealed itself artlessly +to the woman who inspired it. These two beings then loved each other +religiously. To express all in a word, they clasped hands without shame +before the eyes of the world and went their way like two children, +brother and sister, passing serenely through a crowd where all made way +for them and admired them. + +The young girl was in one of those unfortunate positions which human +selfishness entails upon children. She had no civil status; her name of +“Clemence” and her age were recorded only by a notary public. As for +her fortune, that was small indeed. Jules Desmarets was a happy man +on hearing these particulars. If Clemence had belonged to an opulent +family, he might have despaired of obtaining her; but she was only the +poor child of love, the fruit of some terrible adulterous passion; and +they were married. Then began for Jules Desmarets a series of fortunate +events. Every one envied his happiness; and henceforth talked only of +his luck, without recalling either his virtues or his courage. + +Some days after their marriage, the mother of Clemence, who passed in +society for her godmother, told Jules Desmarets to buy the office and +good-will of a broker, promising to provide him with the necessary +capital. In those days, such offices could still be bought at a modest +price. That evening, in the salon as it happened of his patron, a +wealthy capitalist proposed, on the recommendation of the mother, a very +advantageous transaction for Jules Desmarets, and the next day the happy +clerk was able to buy out his patron. In four years Desmarets became one +of the most prosperous men in his business; new clients increased the +number his predecessor had left to him; he inspired confidence in all; +and it was impossible for him not to feel, by the way business came +to him, that some hidden influence, due to his mother-in-law, or to +Providence, was secretly protecting him. + +At the end of the third year Clemence lost her godmother. By that time +Monsieur Jules (so called to distinguish him from an elder brother, whom +he had set up as a notary in Paris) possessed an income from invested +property of two hundred thousand francs. There was not in all Paris +another instance of the domestic happiness enjoyed by this couple. +For five years their exceptional love had been troubled by only one +event,--a calumny for which Monsieur Jules exacted vengeance. One of his +former comrades attributed to Madame Jules the fortune of her husband, +explaining that it came from a high protection dearly paid for. The man +who uttered the calumny was killed in the duel that followed it. + +The profound passion of this couple, which survived marriage, obtained +a great success in society, though some women were annoyed by it. The +charming household was respected; everybody feted it. Monsieur and +Madame Jules were sincerely liked, perhaps because there is nothing more +delightful to see than happy people; but they never stayed long at any +festivity. They slipped away early, as impatient to regain their nest +as wandering pigeons. This nest was a large and beautiful mansion in the +rue de Menars, where a true feeling for art tempered the luxury which +the financial world continues, traditionally, to display. Here the happy +pair received their society magnificently, although the obligations of +social life suited them but little. + +Nevertheless, Jules submitted to the demands of the world, knowing +that, sooner or later, a family has need of it; but he and his wife felt +themselves, in its midst, like green-house plants in a tempest. With a +delicacy that was very natural, Jules had concealed from his wife the +calumny and the death of the calumniator. Madame Jules, herself, was +inclined, through her sensitive and artistic nature, to desire luxury. +In spite of the terrible lesson of the duel, some imprudent women +whispered to each other that Madame Jules must sometimes be pressed for +money. They often found her more elegantly dressed in her own home than +when she went into society. She loved to adorn herself to please her +husband, wishing to show him that to her he was more than any social +life. A true love, a pure love, above all, a happy love! Jules, always a +lover, and more in love as time went by, was happy in all things beside +his wife, even in her caprices; in fact, he would have been uneasy if +she had none, thinking it a symptom of some illness. + +Auguste de Maulincour had the personal misfortune of running against +this passion, and falling in love with the wife beyond recovery. +Nevertheless, though he carried in his heart so intense a love, he was +not ridiculous; he complied with all the demands of society, and of +military manners and customs. And yet his face wore constantly, even +though he might be drinking a glass of champagne, that dreamy look, that +air of silently despising life, that nebulous expression which belongs, +though for other reasons, to _blases_ men,--men dissatisfied with hollow +lives. To love without hope, to be disgusted with life, constitute, in +these days, a social position. The enterprise of winning the heart of +a sovereign might give, perhaps, more hope than a love rashly conceived +for a happy woman. Therefore Maulincour had sufficient reason to be +grave and gloomy. A queen has the vanity of her power; the height of her +elevation protects her. But a pious _bourgeoise_ is like a hedgehog, or +an oyster, in its rough wrappings. + +At this moment the young officer was beside his unconscious mistress, +who certainly was unaware that she was doubly faithless. Madame +Jules was seated, in a naive attitude, like the least artful woman in +existence, soft and gentle, full of a majestic serenity. What an abyss +is human nature! Before beginning a conversation, the baron looked +alternately at the wife and at the husband. How many were the +reflections he made! He recomposed the “Night Thoughts” of Young in a +second. And yet the music was sounding through the salons, the light was +pouring from a thousand candles. It was a banker’s ball,--one of those +insolent festivals by means of which the world of solid gold endeavored +to sneer at the gold-embossed salons where the faubourg Saint-Germain +met and laughed, not foreseeing the day when the bank would invade the +Luxembourg and take its seat upon the throne. The conspirators were now +dancing, indifferent to coming bankruptcies, whether of Power or of +the Bank. The gilded salons of the Baron de Nucingen were gay with that +peculiar animation that the world of Paris, apparently joyous at any +rate, gives to its fetes. There, men of talent communicate their wit to +fools, and fools communicate that air of enjoyment that characterizes +them. By means of this exchange all is liveliness. But a ball in Paris +always resembles fireworks to a certain extent; wit, coquetry, and +pleasure sparkle and go out like rockets. The next day all present have +forgotten their wit, their coquetry, their pleasure. + +“Ah!” thought Auguste, by way of conclusion, “women are what the vidame +says they are. Certainly all those dancing here are less irreproachable +actually than Madame Jules appears to be, and yet Madame Jules went to +the rue Soly!” + +The rue Soly was like an illness to him; the very word shrivelled his +heart. + +“Madame, do you ever dance?” he said to her. + +“This is the third time you have asked me that question this winter,” + she answered, smiling. + +“But perhaps you have never answered it.” + +“That is true.” + +“I knew very well that you were false, like other women.” + +Madame Jules continued to smile. + +“Listen, monsieur,” she said; “if I told you the real reason, you would +think it ridiculous. I do not think it false to abstain from telling +things that the world would laugh at.” + +“All secrets demand, in order to be told, a friendship of which I am no +doubt unworthy, madame. But you cannot have any but noble secrets; do +you think me capable of jesting on noble things?” + +“Yes,” she said, “you, like all the rest, laugh at our purest +sentiments; you calumniate them. Besides, I have no secrets. I have the +right to love my husband in the face of all the world, and I say so,--I +am proud of it; and if you laugh at me when I tell you that I dance only +with him, I shall have a bad opinion of your heart.” + +“Have you never danced since your marriage with any one but your +husband?” + +“Never. His arm is the only one on which I have leaned; I have never +felt the touch of another man.” + +“Has your physician never felt your pulse?” + +“Now you are laughing at me.” + +“No, madame, I admire you, because I comprehend you. But you let a man +hear your voice, you let yourself be seen, you--in short, you permit our +eyes to admire you--” + +“Ah!” she said, interrupting him, “that is one of my griefs. Yes, I wish +it were possible for a married woman to live secluded with her husband, +as a mistress lives with her lover, for then--” + +“Then why were you, two hours ago, on foot, disguised, in the rue Soly?” + +“The rue Soly, where is that?” + +And her pure voice gave no sign of any emotion; no feature of her face +quivered; she did not blush; she remained calm. + +“What! you did not go up to the second floor of a house in the rue +des Vieux-Augustins at the corner of the rue Soly? You did not have +a hackney-coach waiting near by? You did not return in it to the +flower-shop in the rue Richelieu, where you bought the feathers that are +now in your hair?” + +“I did not leave my house this evening.” + +As she uttered that lie she was smiling and imperturbable; she played +with her fan; but if any one had passed a hand down her back they would, +perhaps, have found it moist. At that instant Auguste remembered the +instructions of the vidame. + +“Then it was some one who strangely resembled you,” he said, with a +credulous air. + +“Monsieur,” she replied, “if you are capable of following a woman and +detecting her secrets, you will allow me to say that it is a wrong, a +very wrong thing, and I do you the honor to say that I disbelieve you.” + +The baron turned away, placed himself before the fireplace and seemed +thoughtful. He bent his head; but his eyes were covertly fixed on Madame +Jules, who, not remembering the reflections in the mirror, cast two or +three glances at him that were full of terror. Presently she made a sign +to her husband and rising took his arm to walk about the salon. As she +passed before Monsieur de Maulincour, who at that moment was speaking +to a friend, he said in a loud voice, as if in reply to a remark: +“That woman will certainly not sleep quietly this night.” Madame +Jules stopped, gave him an imposing look which expressed contempt, +and continued her way, unaware that another look, if surprised by her +husband, might endanger not only her happiness but the lives of two men. +Auguste, frantic with anger, which he tried to smother in the depths of +his soul, presently left the house, swearing to penetrate to the heart +of the mystery. Before leaving, he sought Madame Jules, to look at her +again; but she had disappeared. + +What a drama cast into that young head so eminently romantic, like all +who have not known love in the wide extent which they give to it. He +adored Madame Jules under a new aspect; he loved her now with the fury +of jealousy and the frenzied anguish of hope. Unfaithful to her husband, +the woman became common. Auguste could now give himself up to the +joys of successful love, and his imagination opened to him a career +of pleasures. Yes, he had lost the angel, but he had found the most +delightful of demons. He went to bed, building castles in the air, +excusing Madame Jules by some romantic fiction in which he did not +believe. He resolved to devote himself wholly, from that day forth, to +a search for the causes, motives, and keynote of this mystery. It was a +tale to read, or better still, a drama to be played, in which he had a +part. + + + + +CHAPTER II. FERRAGUS + + +A fine thing is the task of a spy, when performed for one’s own benefit +and in the interests of a passion. Is it not giving ourselves the +pleasure of a thief and a rascal while continuing honest men? But there +is another side to it; we must resign ourselves to boil with anger, to +roar with impatience, to freeze our feet in the mud, to be numbed, and +roasted, and torn by false hopes. We must go, on the faith of a mere +indication, to a vague object, miss our end, curse our luck, improvise +to ourselves elegies, dithyrambics, exclaim idiotically before +inoffensive pedestrians who observe us, knock over old apple-women and +their baskets, run hither and thither, stand on guard beneath a window, +make a thousand suppositions. But, after all, it is a chase, a hunt; a +hunt in Paris, a hunt with all its chances, minus dogs and guns and +the tally-ho! Nothing compares with it but the life of gamblers. But +it needs a heart big with love and vengeance to ambush itself in Paris, +like a tiger waiting to spring upon its prey, and to enjoy the chances +and contingencies of Paris, by adding one special interest to the many +that abound there. But for this we need a many-sided soul--for must we +not live in a thousand passions, a thousand sentiments? + +Auguste de Maulincour flung himself into this ardent existence +passionately, for he felt all its pleasures and all its misery. He went +disguised about Paris, watching at the corners of the rue Pagevin and +the rue des Vieux-Augustins. He hurried like a hunter from the rue de +Menars to the rue Soly, and back from the rue Soly to the rue de Menars, +without obtaining either the vengeance or the knowledge which would +punish or reward such cares, such efforts, such wiles. But he had not +yet reached that impatience which wrings our very entrails and makes us +sweat; he roamed in hope, believing that Madame Jules would only refrain +for a few days from revisiting the place where she knew she had been +detected. He devoted the first days therefore, to a careful study of +the secrets of the street. A novice at such work, he dared not question +either the porter or the shoemaker of the house to which Madame Jules +had gone; but he managed to obtain a post of observation in a house +directly opposite to the mysterious apartment. He studied the ground, +trying to reconcile the conflicting demands of prudence, impatience, +love, and secrecy. + +Early in the month of March, while busy with plans by which he expected +to strike a decisive blow, he left his post about four in the afternoon, +after one of those patient watches from which he had learned nothing. +He was on his way to his own house whither a matter relating to +his military service called him, when he was overtaken in the rue +Coquilliere by one of those heavy showers which instantly flood the +gutters, while each drop of rain rings loudly in the puddles of the +roadway. A pedestrian under these circumstances is forced to stop short +and take refuge in a shop or cafe if he is rich enough to pay for +the forced hospitality, or, if in poorer circumstances, under a +_porte-cochere_, that haven of paupers or shabbily dressed persons. Why +have none of our painters ever attempted to reproduce the physiognomies +of a swarm of Parisians, grouped, under stress of weather, in the damp +_porte-cochere_ of a building? First, there’s the musing philosophical +pedestrian, who observes with interest all he sees,--whether it be the +stripes made by the rain on the gray background of the atmosphere (a +species of chasing not unlike the capricious threads of spun glass), or +the whirl of white water which the wind is driving like a luminous +dust along the roofs, or the fitful disgorgements of the gutter-pipes, +sparkling and foaming; in short, the thousand nothings to be admired and +studied with delight by loungers, in spite of the porter’s broom which +pretends to be sweeping out the gateway. Then there’s the talkative +refugee, who complains and converses with the porter while he rests on +his broom like a grenadier on his musket; or the pauper wayfarer, curled +against the wall indifferent to the condition of his rags, long used, +alas, to contact with the streets; or the learned pedestrian who +studies, spells, and reads the posters on the walls without finishing +them; or the smiling pedestrian who makes fun of others to whom some +street fatality has happened, who laughs at the muddy women, and makes +grimaces at those of either sex who are looking from the windows; and +the silent being who gazes from floor to floor; and the working-man, +armed with a satchel or a paper bundle, who is estimating the rain as a +profit or loss; and the good-natured fugitive, who arrives like a shot +exclaiming, “Ah! what weather, messieurs, what weather!” and bows +to every one; and, finally, the true _bourgeois_ of Paris, with his +unfailing umbrella, an expert in showers, who foresaw this particular +one, but would come out in spite of his wife; this one takes a seat in +the porter’s chair. According to individual character, each member of +this fortuitous society contemplates the skies, and departs, skipping +to avoid the mud,--because he is in a hurry, or because he sees other +citizens walking along in spite of wind and slush, or because, the +archway being damp and mortally catarrhal, the bed’s edge, as the +proverb says, is better than the sheets. Each one has his motive. No one +is left but the prudent pedestrian, the man who, before he sets forth, +makes sure of a scrap of blue sky through the rifting clouds. + +Monsieur de Maulincour took refuge, as we have said, with a whole family +of fugitives, under the porch of an old house, the court-yard of +which looked like the flue of a chimney. The sides of its plastered, +nitrified, and mouldy walls were so covered with pipes and conduits from +all the many floors of its four elevations, that it might have been +said to resemble at that moment the _cascatelles_ of Saint-Cloud. Water +flowed everywhere; it boiled, it leaped, it murmured; it was black, +white, blue, and green; it shrieked, it bubbled under the broom of the +portress, a toothless old woman used to storms, who seemed to bless them +as she swept into the street a mass of scraps an intelligent inventory +of which would have revealed the lives and habits of every dweller +in the house,--bits of printed cottons, tea-leaves, artificial +flower-petals faded and worthless, vegetable parings, papers, scraps of +metal. At every sweep of her broom the old woman bared the soul of the +gutter, that black fissure on which a porter’s mind is ever bent. The +poor lover examined this scene, like a thousand others which our heaving +Paris presents daily; but he examined it mechanically, as a man absorbed +in thought, when, happening to look up, he found himself all but nose to +nose with a man who had just entered the gateway. + +In appearance this man was a beggar, but not the Parisian beggar,--that +creation without a name in human language; no, this man formed another +type, while presenting on the outside all the ideas suggested by +the word “beggar.” He was not marked by those original Parisian +characteristics which strike us so forcibly in the paupers whom Charlet +was fond of representing, with his rare luck in observation,--coarse +faces reeking of mud, hoarse voices, reddened and bulbous noses, mouths +devoid of teeth but menacing; humble yet terrible beings, in whom a +profound intelligence shining in their eyes seems like a contradiction. +Some of these bold vagabonds have blotched, cracked, veiny skins; their +foreheads are covered with wrinkles, their hair scanty and dirty, like +a wig thrown on a dust-heap. All are gay in their degradation, and +degraded in their joys; all are marked with the stamp of debauchery, +casting their silence as a reproach; their very attitude revealing +fearful thoughts. Placed between crime and beggary they have no +compunctions, and circle prudently around the scaffold without mounting +it, innocent in the midst of crime, and vicious in their innocence. They +often cause a laugh, but they always cause reflection. One represents +to you civilization stunted, repressed; he comprehends everything, the +honor of the galleys, patriotism, virtue, the malice of a vulgar crime, +or the fine astuteness of elegant wickedness. Another is resigned, a +perfect mimer, but stupid. All have slight yearnings after order and +work, but they are pushed back into their mire by society, which makes +no inquiry as to what there may be of great men, poets, intrepid souls, +and splendid organizations among these vagrants, these gypsies of Paris; +a people eminently good and eminently evil--like all the masses who +suffer--accustomed to endure unspeakable woes, and whom a fatal power +holds ever down to the level of the mire. They all have a dream, a hope, +a happiness,--cards, lottery, or wine. + +There was nothing of all this in the personage who now leaned carelessly +against the wall in front of Monsieur de Maulincour, like some fantastic +idea drawn by an artist on the back of a canvas the front of which is +turned to the wall. This tall, spare man, whose leaden visage expressed +some deep but chilling thought, dried up all pity in the hearts of those +who looked at him by the scowling look and the sarcastic attitude which +announced an intention of treating every man as an equal. His face was +of a dirty white, and his wrinkled skull, denuded of hair, bore a vague +resemblance to a block of granite. A few gray locks on either side +of his head fell straight to the collar of his greasy coat, which was +buttoned to the chin. He resembled both Voltaire and Don Quixote; +he was, apparently, scoffing but melancholy, full of disdain and +philosophy, but half-crazy. He seemed to have no shirt. His beard was +long. A rusty black cravat, much worn and ragged, exposed a protuberant +neck deeply furrowed, with veins as thick as cords. A large brown circle +like a bruise was strongly marked beneath his eyes, He seemed to be at +least sixty years old. His hands were white and clean. His boots were +trodden down at the heels, and full of holes. A pair of blue trousers, +mended in various places, were covered with a species of fluff which +made them offensive to the eye. Whether it was that his damp clothes +exhaled a fetid odor, or that he had in his normal condition the “poor +smell” which belongs to Parisian tenements, just as offices, sacristies, +and hospitals have their own peculiar and rancid fetidness, of which +no words can give the least idea, or whether some other reason affected +them, those in the vicinity of this man immediately moved away and +left him alone. He cast upon them and also upon the officer a calm, +expressionless look, the celebrated look of Monsieur de Talleyrand, +a dull, wan glance, without warmth, a species of impenetrable veil, +beneath which a strong soul hides profound emotions and close estimation +of men and things and events. Not a fold of his face quivered. His mouth +and forehead were impassible; but his eyes moved and lowered themselves +with a noble, almost tragic slowness. There was, in fact, a whole drama +in the motion of those withered eyelids. + +The aspect of this stoical figure gave rise in Monsieur de Maulincour +to one of those vagabond reveries which begin with a common question and +end by comprising a world of thought. The storm was past. Monsieur de +Maulincour presently saw no more of the man than the tail of his coat +as it brushed the gate-post, but as he turned to leave his own place +he noticed at his feet a letter which must have fallen from the unknown +beggar when he took, as the baron had seen him take, a handkerchief from +his pocket. The young man picked it up, and read, involuntarily, the +address: “To Monsieur Ferragusse, Rue des Grands-Augustains, corner of +rue Soly.” + +The letter bore no postmark, and the address prevented Monsieur de +Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few +passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron +had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He +determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter +the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that +he lived there. Suspicions, vague as the first faint gleams of daylight, +made him fancy relations between this man and Madame Jules. A jealous +lover supposes everything; and it is by supposing everything and +selecting the most probable of their conjectures that judges, spies, +lovers, and observers get at the truth they are looking for. + +“Is the letter for him? Is it from Madame Jules?” + +His restless imagination tossed a thousand such questions to him; +but when he read the first words of the letter he smiled. Here it +is, textually, in all the simplicity of its artless phrases and its +miserable orthography,--a letter to which it would be impossible to add +anything, or to take anything away, unless it were the letter itself. +But we have yielded to the necessity of punctuating it. In the original +there were neither commas nor stops of any kind, not even notes of +exclamation,--a fact which tends to undervalue the system of notes +and dashes by which modern authors have endeavored to depict the great +disasters of all the passions:-- + + + Henry,--Among the manny sacrifisis I imposed upon myself for your + sake was that of not giving you anny news of me; but an + iresistible voise now compells me to let you know the wrong you + have done me. I know beforehand that your soul hardened in vise + will not pitty me. Your heart is deaf to feeling. Is it deaf to + the cries of nature? But what matter? I must tell you to what a + dredful point you are gilty, and the horror of the position to + which you have brought me. Henry, you knew what I sufered from my + first wrong-doing, and yet you plunged me into the same misery, + and then abbandoned me to my dispair and sufering. Yes, I will say + it, the belif I had that you loved me and esteemed me gave me + corage to bare my fate. But now, what have I left? Have you not + made me loose all that was dear to me, all that held me to life; + parents, frends, onor, reputation,--all, I have sacrifised all to + you, and nothing is left me but shame, oprobrum, and--I say this + without blushing--poverty. Nothing was wanting to my misfortunes + but the sertainty of your contempt and hatred; and now I have them + I find the corage that my project requires. My decision is made; + the onor of my famly commands it. I must put an end to my + suferins. Make no remarks upon my conduct, Henry; it is orful, I + know, but my condition obliges me. Without help, without suport, + without one frend to comfort me, can I live? No. Fate has desided + for me. So in two days, Henry, two days, Ida will have seased to + be worthy of your regard. Oh, Henry! oh, my frend! for I can never + change to you, promise me to forgive me for what I am going to do. + Do not forget that you have driven me to it; it is your work, and + you must judge it. May heven not punish you for all your crimes. I + ask your pardon on my knees, for I feel nothing is wanting to my + misery but the sorow of knowing you unhappy. In spite of the + poverty I am in I shall refuse all help from you. If you had loved + me I would have taken all from your friendship; but a benfit given + by pitty _my soul refussis_. I would be baser to take it than he + who offered it. I have one favor to ask of you. I don’t know how + long I must stay at Madame Meynardie’s; be genrous enough not to + come there. Your last two vissits did me a harm I cannot get ofer. + I cannot enter into particlers about that conduct of yours. You + hate me,--you said so; that word is writen on my heart, and + freeses it with fear. Alas! it is now, when I need all my corage, + all my strength, that my faculties abandon me. Henry, my frend, + before I put a barrier forever between us, give me a last pruf of + your esteem. Write me, answer me, say you respect me still, though + you have seased to love me. My eyes are worthy still to look into + yours, but I do not ask an interfew; I fear my weakness and my + love. But for pitty’s sake write me a line at once; it will give + me the corage I need to meet my trubbles. Farewell, orther of all + my woes, but the only frend my heart has chosen and will never + forget. + +Ida. + + +This life of a young girl, with its love betrayed, its fatal joys, its +pangs, its miseries, and its horrible resignation, summed up in a few +words, this humble poem, essentially Parisian, written on dirty paper, +influenced for a passing moment Monsieur de Maulincour. He asked himself +whether this Ida might not be some poor relation of Madame Jules, and +that strange rendezvous, which he had witnessed by chance, the mere +necessity of a charitable effort. But could that old pauper have seduced +this Ida? There was something impossible in the very idea. Wandering in +this labyrinth of reflections, which crossed, recrossed, and obliterated +one another, the baron reached the rue Pagevin, and saw a hackney-coach +standing at the end of the rue des Vieux-Augustins where it enters the +rue Montmartre. All waiting hackney-coaches now had an interest for him. + +“Can she be there?” he thought to himself, and his heart beat fast with +a hot and feverish throbbing. + +He pushed the little door with the bell, but he lowered his head as he +did so, obeying a sense of shame, for a voice said to him secretly:-- + +“Why are you putting your foot into this mystery?” + +He went up a few steps, and found himself face to face with the old +portress. + +“Monsieur Ferragus?” he said. + +“Don’t know him.” + +“Doesn’t Monsieur Ferragus live here?” + +“Haven’t such a name in the house.” + +“But, my good woman--” + +“I’m not your good woman, monsieur, I’m the portress.” + +“But, madame,” persisted the baron, “I have a letter for Monsieur +Ferragus.” + +“Ah! if monsieur has a letter,” she said, changing her tone, “that’s +another matter. Will you let me see it--that letter?” + +Auguste showed the folded letter. The old woman shook her head with a +doubtful air, hesitated, seemed to wish to leave the lodge and inform +the mysterious Ferragus of his unexpected visitor, but finally said:-- + +“Very good; go up, monsieur. I suppose you know the way?” + +Without replying to this remark, which he thought might be a trap, the +young officer ran lightly up the stairway, and rang loudly at the door +of the second floor. His lover’s instinct told him, “She is there.” + +The beggar of the porch, Ferragus, the “orther” of Ida’s woes, opened +the door himself. He appeared in a flowered dressing-gown, white flannel +trousers, his feet in embroidered slippers, and his face washed clean of +stains. Madame Jules, whose head projected beyond the casing of the door +in the next room, turned pale and dropped into a chair. + +“What is the matter, madame?” cried the officer, springing toward her. + +But Ferragus stretched forth an arm and flung the intruder back with so +sharp a thrust that Auguste fancied he had received a blow with an iron +bar full on his chest. + +“Back! monsieur,” said the man. “What do you want there? For five or six +days you have been roaming about the neighborhood. Are you a spy?” + +“Are you Monsieur Ferragus?” said the baron. + +“No, monsieur.” + +“Nevertheless,” continued Auguste, “it is to you that I must return this +paper which you dropped in the gateway beneath which we both took refuge +from the rain.” + +While speaking and offering the letter to the man, Auguste did not +refrain from casting an eye around the room where Ferragus received him. +It was very well arranged, though simply. A fire burned on the hearth; +and near it was a table with food upon it, which was served more +sumptuously than agreed with the apparent conditions of the man and the +poorness of his lodging. On a sofa in the next room, which he could +see through the doorway, lay a heap of gold, and he heard a sound which +could be no other than that of a woman weeping. + +“The paper belongs to me; I am much obliged to you,” said the mysterious +man, turning away as if to make the baron understand that he must go. + +Too curious himself to take much note of the deep examination of which +he was himself the object, Auguste did not see the half-magnetic glance +with which this strange being seemed to pierce him; had he encountered +that basilisk eye he might have felt the danger that encompassed him. +Too passionately excited to think of himself, Auguste bowed, went +down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the +connection of these three persons,--Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; +an occupation equivalent to that of trying to arrange the many-cornered +bits of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But +Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jules went there, Madame Jules had +lied to him. Maulincour determined to go and see her the next day. She +could not refuse his visit, for he was now her accomplice; he was hands +and feet in the mysterious affair, and she knew it. Already he +felt himself a sultan, and thought of demanding from Madame Jules, +imperiously, all her secrets. + +In those days Paris was seized with a building-fever. If Paris is +a monster, it is certainly a most mania-ridden monster. It becomes +enamored of a thousand fancies: sometimes it has a mania for building, +like a great seigneur who loves a trowel; soon it abandons the trowel +and becomes all military; it arrays itself from head to foot as a +national guard, and drills and smokes; suddenly, it abandons military +manoeuvres and flings away cigars; it is commercial, care-worn, falls +into bankruptcy, sells its furniture on the place de Chatelet, files its +schedule; but a few days later, lo! it has arranged its affairs and is +giving fetes and dances. One day it eats barley-sugar by the mouthful, +by the handful; yesterday it bought “papier Weymen”; to-day the +monster’s teeth ache, and it applies to its walls an alexipharmatic +to mitigate their dampness; to-morrow it will lay in a provision of +pectoral paste. It has its manias for the month, for the season, for the +year, like its manias of a day. + +So, at the moment of which we speak, all the world was building or +pulling down something,--people hardly knew what as yet. There were very +few streets in which high scaffoldings on long poles could not be seen, +fastened from floor to floor with transverse blocks inserted into holes +in the walls on which the planks were laid,--a frail construction, +shaken by the brick-layers, but held together by ropes, white with +plaster, and insecurely protected from the wheels of carriages by the +breastwork of planks which the law requires round all such buildings. +There is something maritime in these masts, and ladders, and cordage, +even in the shouts of the masons. About a dozen yards from the hotel +Maulincour, one of these ephemeral barriers was erected before a house +which was then being built of blocks of free-stone. The day after the +event we have just related, at the moment when the Baron de Maulincour +was passing this scaffolding in his cabriolet on his way to see Madame +Jules, a stone, two feet square, which was being raised to the upper +storey of this building, got loose from the ropes and fell, crushing the +baron’s servant who was behind the cabriolet. A cry of horror shook both +the scaffold and the masons; one of them, apparently unable to keep his +grasp on a pole, was in danger of death, and seemed to have been touched +by the stone as it passed him. + +A crowd collected rapidly; the masons came down the ladders swearing +and insisting that Monsieur de Maulincour’s cabriolet had been driven +against the boarding and so had shaken their crane. Two inches more and +the stone would have fallen on the baron’s head. The groom was dead, +the carriage shattered. ‘Twas an event for the whole neighborhood, the +newspapers told of it. Monsieur de Maulincour, certain that he had not +touched the boarding, complained; the case went to court. Inquiry being +made, it was shown that a small boy, armed with a lath, had mounted +guard and called to all foot-passengers to keep away. The affair ended +there. Monsieur de Maulincour obtained no redress. He had lost his +servant, and was confined to his bed for some days, for the back of the +carriage when shattered had bruised him severely, and the nervous shock +of the sudden surprise gave him a fever. He did not, therefore, go to +see Madame Jules. + +Ten days after this event, he left the house for the first time, in his +repaired cabriolet, when, as he drove down the rue de Bourgogne and was +close to the sewer opposite to the Chamber of Deputies, the axle-tree +broke in two, and the baron was driving so rapidly that the breakage +would have caused the two wheels to come together with force enough to +break his head, had it not been for the resistance of the leather hood. +Nevertheless, he was badly wounded in the side. For the second time in +ten days he was carried home in a fainting condition to his terrified +grandmother. This second accident gave him a feeling of distrust; he +thought, though vaguely, of Ferragus and Madame Jules. To throw light on +these suspicions he had the broken axle brought to his room and sent +for his carriage-maker. The man examined the axle and the fracture, +and proved two things: First, the axle was not made in his workshop; he +furnished none that did not bear the initials of his name on the iron. +But he could not explain by what means this axle had been substituted +for the other. Secondly, the breakage of the suspicious axle was caused +by a hollow space having been blown in it and a straw very cleverly +inserted. + +“Eh! Monsieur le baron, whoever did that was malicious!” he said; “any +one would swear, to look at it, that the axle was sound.” + +Monsieur de Maulincour begged the carriage-maker to say nothing of the +affair; but he felt himself warned. These two attempts at murder were +planned with an ability which denoted the enmity of intelligent minds. + +“It is war to the death,” he said to himself, as he tossed in his +bed,--“a war of savages, skulking in ambush, of trickery and treachery, +declared in the name of Madame Jules. What sort of man is this to whom +she belongs? What species of power does this Ferragus wield?” + +Monsieur de Maulincour, though a soldier and brave man, could not +repress a shudder. In the midst of many thoughts that now assailed him, +there was one against which he felt he had neither defence nor courage: +might not poison be employed ere long by his secret enemies? Under the +influence of fears, which his momentary weakness and fever and low diet +increased, he sent for an old woman long attached to the service of his +grandmother, whose affection for himself was one of those semi-maternal +sentiments which are the sublime of the commonplace. Without confiding +in her wholly, he charged her to buy secretly and daily, in different +localities, the food he needed; telling her to keep it under lock and +key and bring it to him herself, not allowing any one, no matter who, to +approach her while preparing it. He took the most minute precautions to +protect himself against that form of death. He was ill in his bed +and alone, and he had therefore the leisure to think of his own +security,--the one necessity clear-sighted enough to enable human +egotism to forget nothing! + +But the unfortunate man had poisoned his own life by this dread, and, +in spite of himself, suspicion dyed all his hours with its gloomy tints. +These two lessons of attempted assassination did teach him, however, the +value of one of the virtues most necessary to a public man; he saw the +wise dissimulation that must be practised in dealing with the great +interests of life. To be silent about our own secret is nothing; but to +be silent from the start, to forget a fact as Ali Pacha did for thirty +years in order to be sure of a vengeance waited for for thirty years, +is a fine study in a land where there are few men who can keep their +own counsel for thirty days. Monsieur de Maulincour literally lived only +through Madame Jules. He was perpetually absorbed in a sober examination +into the means he ought to employ to triumph in this mysterious struggle +with these mysterious persons. His secret passion for that woman grew +by reason of all these obstacles. Madame Jules was ever there, erect, in +the midst of his thoughts, in the centre of his heart, more seductive by +her presumable vices than by the positive virtues for which he had made +her his idol. + +At last, anxious to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, he thought +he might without danger initiate the vidame into the secrets of his +situation. The old commander loved Auguste as a father loves his wife’s +children; he was shrewd, dexterous, and very diplomatic. He listened to +the baron, shook his head, and they both held counsel. The worthy vidame +did not share his young friend’s confidence when Auguste declared that +in the time in which they now lived, the police and the government were +able to lay bare all mysteries, and that if it were absolutely necessary +to have recourse to those powers, he should find them most powerful +auxiliaries. + +The old man replied, gravely: “The police, my dear boy, is the most +incompetent thing on this earth, and government the feeblest in all +matters concerning individuals. Neither the police nor the government +can read hearts. What we might reasonably ask of them is to search +for the causes of an act. But the police and the government are both +eminently unfitted for that; they lack, essentially, the personal +interest which reveals all to him who wants to know all. No human power +can prevent an assassin or a poisoner from reaching the heart of a +prince or the stomach of an honest man. Passions are the best police.” + +The vidame strongly advised the baron to go to Italy, and from Italy +to Greece, from Greece to Syria, from Syria to Asia, and not to return +until his secret enemies were convinced of his repentance, and would so +make tacit peace with him. But if he did not take that course, then the +vidame advised him to stay in the house, and even in his own room, where +he would be safe from the attempts of this man Ferragus, and not to +leave it until he could be certain of crushing him. + +“We should never touch an enemy until we can be sure of taking his head +off,” he said, gravely. + +The old man, however, promised his favorite to employ all the astuteness +with which Heaven had provided him (without compromising any one) +in reconnoitring the enemy’s ground, and laying his plans for future +victory. The Commander had in his service a retired Figaro, the wiliest +monkey that ever walked in human form; in earlier days as clever as a +devil, working his body like a galley-slave, alert as a thief, sly as a +woman, but now fallen into the decadence of genius for want of practice +since the new constitution of Parisian society, which has reformed even +the valets of comedy. This Scapin emeritus was attached to his master +as to a superior being; but the shrewd old vidame added a good round +sum yearly to the wages of his former provost of gallantry, +which strengthened the ties of natural affection by the bonds of +self-interest, and obtained for the old gentleman as much care as the +most loving mistress could bestow on a sick friend. It was this pearl +of the old-fashioned comedy-valets, relic of the last century, auxiliary +incorruptible from lack of passions to satisfy, on whom the old vidame +and Monsieur de Maulincour now relied. + +“Monsieur le baron will spoil all,” said the great man in livery, when +called into counsel. “Monsieur should eat, drink, and sleep in peace. I +take the whole matter upon myself.” + +Accordingly, eight days after the conference, when Monsieur de +Maulincour, perfectly restored to health, was breakfasting with his +grandmother and the vidame, Justin entered to make his report. As soon +as the dowager had returned to her own apartments he said, with that +mock modesty which men of talent are so apt to affect:-- + +“Ferragus is not the name of the enemy who is pursuing Monsieur le +baron. This man--this devil, rather--is called Gratien, Henri, Victor, +Jean-Joseph Bourignard. The Sieur Gratien Bourignard is a former +ship-builder, once very rich, and, above all, one of the handsomest +men of his day in Paris,--a Lovelace, capable of seducing Grandison. +My information stops short there. He has been a simple workman; and the +Companions of the Order of the Devorants did, at one time, elect him as +their chief, under the title of Ferragus XXIII. The police ought to know +that, if the police were instituted to know anything. The man has moved +from the rue des Vieux-Augustins, and now roosts rue Joquelet, where +Madame Jules Desmarets goes frequently to see him; sometimes her +husband, on his way to the Bourse, drives her as far as the rue +Vivienne, or she drives her husband to the Bourse. Monsieur le vidame +knows about these things too well to want me to tell him if it is the +husband who takes the wife, or the wife who takes the husband; but +Madame Jules is so pretty, I’d bet on her. All that I have told you is +positive. Bourignard often plays at number 129. Saving your presence, +monsieur, he’s a rogue who loves women, and he has his little ways +like a man of condition. As for the rest, he wins sometimes, disguises +himself like an actor, paints his face to look like anything he chooses, +and lives, I may say, the most original life in the world. I don’t doubt +he has a good many lodgings, for most of the time he manages to evade +what Monsieur le vidame calls ‘parliamentary investigations.’ If +monsieur wishes, he could be disposed of honorably, seeing what his +habits are. It is always easy to get rid of a man who loves women. +However, this capitalist talks about moving again. Have Monsieur le +vidame and Monsieur le baron any other commands to give me?” + +“Justin, I am satisfied with you; don’t go any farther in the matter +without my orders, but keep a close watch here, so that Monsieur le +baron may have nothing to fear.” + +“My dear boy,” continued the vidame, when they were alone, “go back to +your old life, and forget Madame Jules.” + +“No, no,” said Auguste; “I will never yield to Gratien Bourignard. I +will have him bound hand and foot, and Madame Jules also.” + +That evening the Baron Auguste de Maulincour, recently promoted to +higher rank in the company of the Body-Guard of the king, went to a +ball given by Madame la Duchesse de Berry at the Elysee-Bourbon. There, +certainly, no danger could lurk for him; and yet, before he left the +palace, he had an affair of honor on his hands,--an affair it was +impossible to settle except by a duel. + +His adversary, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, considered that he had +strong reasons to complain of Monsieur de Maulincour, who had given some +ground for it during his former intimacy with Monsieur de Ronquerolles’ +sister, the Comtesse de Serizy. That lady, the one who detested German +sentimentality, was all the more exacting in the matter of prudery. By +one of those inexplicable fatalities, Auguste now uttered a harmless +jest which Madame de Serizy took amiss, and her brother resented it. The +discussion took place in the corner of a room, in a low voice. In good +society, adversaries never raise their voices. The next day the faubourg +Saint-Germain and the Chateau talked over the affair. Madame de Serizy +was warmly defended, and all the blame was laid on Maulincour. August +personages interfered. Seconds of the highest distinction were imposed +on Messieurs de Maulincour and de Ronquerolles and every precaution was +taken on the ground that no one should be killed. + +When Auguste found himself face to face with his antagonist, a man of +pleasure, to whom no one could possibly deny sentiments of the highest +honor, he felt it was impossible to believe him the instrument of +Ferragus, chief of the Devorants; and yet he was compelled, as it were, +by an inexplicable presentiment, to question the marquis. + +“Messieurs,” he said to the seconds, “I certainly do not refuse to +meet the fire of Monsieur de Ronquerolles; but before doing so, I here +declare that I was to blame, and I offer him whatever excuses he may +desire, and publicly if he wishes it; because when the matter concerns a +woman, nothing, I think, can degrade a man of honor. I therefore appeal +to his generosity and good sense; is there not something rather silly in +fighting without a cause?” + +Monsieur de Ronquerolles would not allow of this way of ending the +affair, and then the baron, his suspicions revived, walked up to him. + +“Well, then! Monsieur le marquis,” he said, “pledge me, in presence of +these gentlemen, your word as a gentleman that you have no other reason +for vengeance than that you have chosen to put forward.” + +“Monsieur, that is a question you have no right to ask.” + +So saying, Monsieur de Ronquerolles took his place. It was agreed, in +advance, that the adversaries were to be satisfied with one exchange +of shots. Monsieur de Ronquerolles, in spite of the great distance +determined by the seconds, which seemed to make the death of either +party problematical, if not impossible, brought down the baron. The ball +went through the latter’s body just below the heart, but fortunately +without doing vital injury. + +“You aimed too well, monsieur,” said the baron, “to be avenging only a +paltry quarrel.” + +And he fainted. Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who believed him to be a dead +man, smiled sardonically as he heard those words. + +After a fortnight, during which time the dowager and the vidame gave +him those cares of old age the secret of which is in the hands of long +experience only, the baron began to return to life. But one morning his +grandmother dealt him a crushing blow, by revealing anxieties to which, +in her last days, she was now subjected. She showed him a letter signed +F, in which the history of her grandson’s secret espionage was recounted +step by step. The letter accused Monsieur de Maulincour of actions that +were unworthy of a man of honor. He had, it said, placed an old woman +at the stand of hackney-coaches in the rue de Menars; an old spy, who +pretended to sell water from her cask to the coachmen, but who was +really there to watch the actions of Madame Jules Desmarets. He had +spied upon the daily life of a most inoffensive man, in order to detect +his secrets,--secrets on which depended the lives of three persons. He +had brought upon himself a relentless struggle, in which, although he +had escaped with life three times, he must inevitably succumb, because +his death had been sworn and would be compassed if all human means were +employed upon it. Monsieur de Maulincour could no longer escape his fate +by even promising to respect the mysterious life of these three persons, +because it was impossible to believe the word of a gentleman who had +fallen to the level of a police-spy; and for what reason? Merely to +trouble the respectable life of an innocent woman and a harmless old +man. + +The letter itself was nothing to Auguste in comparison to the tender +reproaches of his grandmother. To lack respect to a woman! to spy upon +her actions without a right to do so! Ought a man ever to spy upon +a woman whom he loved?--in short, she poured out a torrent of those +excellent reasons which prove nothing; and they put the young baron, +for the first time in his life, into one of those great human furies in +which are born, and from which issue the most vital actions of a man’s +life. + +“Since it is war to the knife,” he said in conclusion, “I shall kill my +enemy by any means that I can lay hold of.” + +The vidame went immediately, at Auguste’s request, to the chief of the +private police of Paris, and without bringing Madame Jules’ name or +person into the narrative, although they were really the gist of it, he +made the official aware of the fears of the family of Maulincour about +this mysterious person who was bold enough to swear the death of an +officer of the Guards, in defiance of the law and the police. The chief +pushed up his green spectacles in amazement, blew his nose several +times, and offered snuff to the vidame, who, to save his dignity, +pretended not to use tobacco, although his own nose was discolored with +it. Then the chief took notes and promised, Vidocq and his spies aiding, +to send in a report within a few days to the Maulincour family, assuring +them meantime that there were no secrets for the police of Paris. + +A few days after this the police official called to see the vidame at +the Hotel de Maulincour, where he found the young baron quite recovered +from his last wound. He gave them in bureaucratic style his thanks for +the indications they had afforded him, and told them that Bourignard was +a convict, condemned to twenty years’ hard labor, who had miraculously +escaped from a gang which was being transported from Bicetre to Toulon. +For thirteen years the police had been endeavoring to recapture him, +knowing that he had boldly returned to Paris; but so far this convict +had escaped the most active search, although he was known to be mixed up +in many nefarious deeds. However, the man, whose life was full of very +curious incidents, would certainly be captured now in one or other of +his several domiciles and delivered up to justice. The bureaucrat ended +his report by saying to Monsieur de Maulincour that if he attached +enough importance to the matter to wish to witness the capture of +Bourignard, he might come the next day at eight in the morning to a +house in the rue Sainte-Foi, of which he gave him the number. Monsieur +de Maulincour excused himself from going personally in search of +certainty,--trusting, with the sacred respect inspired by the police of +Paris, in the capability of the authorities. + +Three days later, hearing nothing, and seeing nothing in the newspapers +about the projected arrest, which was certainly of enough importance to +have furnished an article, Monsieur de Maulincour was beginning to feel +anxieties which were presently allayed by the following letter:-- + + + Monsieur le Baron,--I have the honor to announce to you that you + need have no further uneasiness touching the affair in question. + The man named Gratien Bourignard, otherwise called Ferragus, died + yesterday, at his lodgings, rue Joquelet No. 7. The suspicions we + naturally conceived as to the identity of the dead body have been + completely set at rest by the facts. The physician of the + Prefecture of police was despatched by us to assist the physician + of the arrondissement, and the chief of the detective police made + all the necessary verifications to obtain absolute certainty. + Moreover, the character of the persons who signed the certificate + of death, and the affidavits of those who took care of the said + Bourignard in his last illness, among others that of the worthy + vicar of the church of the Bonne-Nouvelle (to whom he made his + last confession, for he died a Christian), do not permit us to + entertain any sort of doubt. + +Accept, Monsieur le baron, etc., etc. + + +Monsieur de Maulincour, the dowager, and the vidame breathed again with +joy unspeakable. The good old woman kissed her grandson leaving a tear +upon his cheek, and went away to thank God in prayer. The dear soul, +who was making a novena for Auguste’s safety, believed her prayers were +answered. + +“Well,” said the vidame, “now you had better show yourself at the ball +you were speaking of. I oppose no further objections.” + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE WIFE ACCUSED + + +Monsieur de Maulincour was all the more anxious to go to this ball +because he knew that Madame Jules would be present. The fete was given +by the Prefect of the Seine, in whose salons the two social worlds of +Paris met as on neutral ground. Auguste passed through the rooms without +finding the woman who now exercised so mighty an influence on his fate. +He entered an empty boudoir where card-tables were placed awaiting +players; and sitting down on a divan he gave himself up to the most +contradictory thoughts about her. A man presently took the young officer +by the arm, and looking up the baron was stupefied to behold the pauper +of the rue Coquilliere, the Ferragus of Ida, the lodger in the rue Soly, +the Bourignard of Justin, the convict of the police, and the dead man of +the day before. + +“Monsieur, not a sound, not a word,” said Bourignard, whose voice he +recognized. The man was elegantly dressed; he wore the order of the +Golden-Fleece, and a medal on his coat. “Monsieur,” he continued, and +his voice was sibilant like that of a hyena, “you increase my efforts +against you by having recourse to the police. You will perish, monsieur; +it has now become necessary. Do you love Madame Jules? Are you beloved +by her? By what right do you trouble her peaceful life, and blacken her +virtue?” + +Some one entered the card-room. Ferragus rose to go. + +“Do you know this man?” asked Monsieur de Maulincour of the new-comer, +seizing Ferragus by the collar. But Ferragus quickly disengaged himself, +took Monsieur de Maulincour by the hair, and shook his head rapidly. + +“Must you have lead in it to make it steady?” he said. + +“I do not know him personally,” replied Henri de Marsay, the spectator +of this scene, “but I know that he is Monsieur de Funcal, a rich +Portuguese.” + +Monsieur de Funcal had disappeared. The baron followed but without +being able to overtake him until he reached the peristyle, where he +saw Ferragus, who looked at him with a jeering laugh from a brilliant +equipage which was driven away at high speed. + +“Monsieur,” said Auguste, re-entering the salon and addressing de +Marsay, whom he knew, “I entreat you to tell me where Monsieur de Funcal +lives.” + +“I do not know; but some one here can no doubt tell you.” + +The baron, having questioned the prefect, ascertained that the Comte de +Funcal lived at the Portuguese embassy. At this moment, while he still +felt the icy fingers of that strange man in his hair, he saw Madame +Jules in all her dazzling beauty, fresh, gracious, artless, resplendent +with the sanctity of womanhood which had won his love. This creature, +now infernal to him, excited no emotion in his soul but that of hatred; +and this hatred shone in a savage, terrible look from his eyes. He +watched for a moment when he could speak to her unheard, and then he +said:-- + +“Madame, your _bravi_ have missed me three times.” + +“What do you mean, monsieur?” she said, flushing. “I know that you +have had several unfortunate accidents lately, which I have greatly +regretted; but how could I have had anything to do with them?” + +“You knew that _bravi_ were employed against me by that man of the rue +Soly?” + +“Monsieur!” + +“Madame, I now call you to account, not for my happiness only, but for +my blood--” + +At this instant Jules Desmarets approached them. + +“What are you saying to my wife, monsieur?” + +“Make that inquiry at my own house, monsieur, if you are curious,” said +Maulincour, moving away, and leaving Madame Jules in an almost fainting +condition. + +There are few women who have not found themselves, once at least in +their lives, _a propos_ of some undeniable fact, confronted with +a direct, sharp, uncompromising question,--one of those questions +pitilessly asked by husbands, the mere apprehension of which gives +a chill, while the actual words enter the heart like the blade of a +dagger. It is from such crises that the maxim has come, “All women +lie.” Falsehood, kindly falsehood, venial falsehood, sublime falsehood, +horrible falsehood,--but always the necessity to lie. This necessity +admitted, ought they not to know how to lie well? French women do it +admirably. Our manners and customs teach them deception! Besides, +women are so naively saucy, so pretty, graceful, and withal so true +in lying,--they recognize so fully the utility of doing so in order +to avoid in social life the violent shocks which happiness might not +resist,--that lying is seen to be as necessary to their lives as the +cotton-wool in which they put away their jewels. Falsehood becomes to +them the foundation of speech; truth is exceptional; they tell it, if +they are virtuous, by caprice or by calculation. According to individual +character, some women laugh when they lie; others weep; others are +grave; some grow angry. After beginning life by feigning indifference +to the homage that deeply flatters them, they often end by lying to +themselves. Who has not admired their apparent superiority to everything +at the very moment when they are trembling for the secret treasures of +their love? Who has never studied their ease, their readiness, their +freedom of mind in the greatest embarrassments of life? In them, nothing +is put on. Deception comes as the snow from heaven. And then, with what +art they discover the truth in others! With what shrewdness they employ +a direct logic in answer to some passionate question which has revealed +to them the secret of the heart of a man who was guileless enough to +proceed by questioning! To question a woman! why, that is delivering +one’s self up to her; does she not learn in that way all that we seek to +hide from her? Does she not know also how to be dumb, through speaking? +What men are daring enough to struggle with the Parisian woman?--a woman +who knows how to hold herself above all dagger thrusts, saying: “You are +very inquisitive; what is it to you? Why do you wish to know? Ah! you +are jealous! And suppose I do not choose to answer you?”--in short, a +woman who possesses the hundred and thirty-seven methods of saying _No_, +and incommensurable variations of the word _Yes_. Is not a treatise on +the words _yes_ and _no_, a fine diplomatic, philosophic, logographic, +and moral work, still waiting to be written? But to accomplish this +work, which we may also call diabolic, isn’t an androgynous genius +necessary? For that reason, probably, it will never be attempted. And +besides, of all unpublished works isn’t it the best known and the best +practised among women? Have you studied the behavior, the pose, the +_disinvoltura_ of a falsehood? Examine it. + +Madame Desmarets was seated in the right-hand corner of her carriage, +her husband in the left. Having forced herself to recover from her +emotion in the ballroom, she now affected a calm demeanor. Her husband +had then said nothing to her, and he still said nothing. Jules looked +out of the carriage window at the black walls of the silent houses +before which they passed; but suddenly, as if driven by a determining +thought, when turning the corner of a street he examined his wife, who +appeared to be cold in spite of the fur-lined pelisse in which she was +wrapped. He thought she seemed pensive, and perhaps she really was +so. Of all communicable things, reflection and gravity are the most +contagious. + +“What could Monsieur de Maulincour have said to affect you so keenly?” + said Jules; “and why does he wish me to go to his house and find out?” + +“He can tell you nothing in his house that I cannot tell you here,” she +replied. + +Then, with that feminine craft which always slightly degrades virtue, +Madame Jules waited for another question. Her husband turned his face +back to the houses, and continued his study of their walls. Another +question would imply suspicion, distrust. To suspect a woman is a crime +in love. Jules had already killed a man for doubting his wife. Clemence +did not know all there was of true passion, of loyal reflection, in her +husband’s silence; just as Jules was ignorant of the generous drama that +was wringing the heart of his Clemence. + +The carriage rolled on through a silent Paris, bearing the couple,--two +lovers who adored each other, and who, gently leaning on the same +silken cushion, were being parted by an abyss. In these elegant coupes +returning from a ball between midnight and two in the morning, how +many curious and singular scenes must pass,--meaning those coupes with +lanterns, which light both the street and the carriage, those with their +windows unshaded; in short, legitimate coupes, in which couples can +quarrel without caring for the eyes of pedestrians, because the civil +code gives a right to provoke, or beat, or kiss, a wife in a carriage +or elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere! How many secrets must be revealed in +this way to nocturnal pedestrians,--to those young fellows who have gone +to a ball in a carriage, but are obliged, for whatever cause it may be, +to return on foot. It was the first time that Jules and Clemence had +been together thus,--each in a corner; usually the husband pressed close +to his wife. + +“It is very cold,” remarked Madame Jules. + +But her husband did not hear her; he was studying the signs above the +shop windows. + +“Clemence,” he said at last, “forgive me the question I am about to ask +you.” + +He came closer, took her by the waist, and drew her to him. + +“My God, it is coming!” thought the poor woman. “Well,” she said aloud, +anticipating the question, “you want to know what Monsieur de Maulincour +said to me. I will tell you, Jules; but not without fear. Good God! how +is it possible that you and I should have secrets from one another? For +the last few moments I have seen you struggling between a conviction of +our love and vague fears. But that conviction is clear within us, is +it not? And these doubts and fears, do they not seem to you dark and +unnatural? Why not stay in that clear light of love you cannot doubt? +When I have told you all, you will still desire to know more; and yet I +myself do not know what the extraordinary words of that man meant. What +I fear is that this may lead to some fatal affair between you. I would +rather that we both forget this unpleasant moment. But, in any case, +swear to me that you will let this singular adventure explain itself +naturally. Here are the facts. Monsieur de Maulincour declared to me +that the three accidents you have heard mentioned--the falling of a +stone on his servant, the breaking down of his cabriolet, and his duel +about Madame de Serizy--were the result of some plot I had laid against +him. He also threatened to reveal to you the cause of my desire to +destroy him. Can you imagine what all this means? My emotion came from +the sight of his face convulsed with madness, his haggard eyes, and also +his words, broken by some violent inward emotion. I thought him mad. +That is all that took place. Now, I should be less than a woman if I had +not perceived that for over a year I have become, as they call it, the +passion of Monsieur de Maulincour. He has never seen me except at a +ball; and our intercourse has been most insignificant,--merely that +which every one shares at a ball. Perhaps he wants to disunite us, so +that he may find me at some future time alone and unprotected. There, +see! already you are frowning! Oh, how cordially I hate society! We were +so happy without him; why take any notice of him? Jules, I entreat you, +forget all this! To-morrow we shall, no doubt, hear that Monsieur de +Maulincour has gone mad.” + +“What a singular affair!” thought Jules, as the carriage stopped under +the peristyle of their house. He gave his arm to his wife and together +they went up to their apartments. + +To develop this history in all its truth of detail, and to follow its +course through many windings, it is necessary here to divulge some of +love’s secrets, to glide beneath the ceilings of a marriage chamber, not +shamelessly, but like Trilby, frightening neither Dougal nor Jeannie, +alarming no one,--being as chaste as our noble French language requires, +and as bold as the pencil of Gerard in his picture of Daphnis and Chloe. + +The bedroom of Madame Jules was a sacred plot. Herself, her husband, +and her maid alone entered it. Opulence has glorious privileges, and the +most enviable are those which enable the development of sentiments to +their fullest extent,--fertilizing them by the accomplishment of even +their caprices, and surrounding them with a brilliancy that enlarges +them, with refinements that purify them, with a thousand delicacies that +make them still more alluring. If you hate dinners on the grass, and +meals ill-served, if you feel a pleasure in seeing a damask cloth that +is dazzlingly white, a silver-gilt dinner service, and porcelain of +exquisite purity, lighted by transparent candles, where miracles of +cookery are served under silver covers bearing coats of arms, you must, +to be consistent, leave the garrets at the tops of the houses, and the +grisettes in the streets, abandon garrets, grisettes, umbrellas, and +overshoes to men who pay for their dinners with tickets; and you must +also comprehend Love to be a principle which develops in all its grace +only on Savonnerie carpets, beneath the opal gleams of an alabaster +lamp, between guarded walls silk-hung, before gilded hearths in chambers +deadened to all outward sounds by shutters and billowy curtains. Mirrors +must be there to show the play of form and repeat the woman we would +multiply as love itself multiplies and magnifies her; next low +divans, and a bed which, like a secret, is divined, not shown. In this +coquettish chamber are fur-lined slippers for pretty feet, wax-candles +under glass with muslin draperies, by which to read at all hours of the +night, and flowers, not those oppressive to the head, and linen, the +fineness of which might have satisfied Anne of Austria. + +Madame Jules had realized this charming programme, but that was nothing. +All women of taste can do as much, though there is always in the +arrangement of these details a stamp of personality which gives to this +decoration or that detail a character that cannot be imitated. To-day, +more than ever, reigns the fanaticism of individuality. The more our +laws tend to an impossible equality, the more we shall get away from it +in our manners and customs. Thus, rich people are beginning, in France, +to become more exclusive in their tastes and their belongings, than they +have been for the last thirty years. Madame Jules knew very well how +to carry out this programme; and everything about her was arranged in +harmony with a luxury that suits so well with love. Love in a cottage, +or “Fifteen hundred francs and my Sophy,” is the dream of starvelings to +whom black bread suffices in their present state; but when love +really comes, they grow fastidious and end by craving the luxuries of +gastronomy. Love holds toil and poverty in horror. It would rather die +than merely live on from hand to mouth. + +Many women, returning from a ball, impatient for their beds, throw off +their gowns, their faded flowers, their bouquets, the fragrance of which +has now departed. They leave their little shoes beneath a chair, the +white strings trailing; they take out their combs and let their hair +roll down as it will. Little they care if their husbands see the puffs, +the hairpins, the artful props which supported the elegant edifices +of the hair, and the garlands or the jewels that adorned it. No more +mysteries! all is over for the husband; no more painting or decoration +for him. The corset--half the time it is a corset of a reparative +kind--lies where it is thrown, if the maid is too sleepy to take it away +with her. The whalebone bustle, the oiled-silk protections round the +sleeves, the pads, the hair bought from a coiffeur, all the false woman +is there, scattered about in open sight. _Disjecta membra poetae_, the +artificial poesy, so much admired by those for whom it is conceived and +elaborated, the fragments of a pretty woman, litter every corner of the +room. To the love of a yawning husband, the actual presents herself, +also yawning, in a dishabille without elegance, and a tumbled night-cap, +that of last night and that of to-morrow night also,--“For really, +monsieur, if you want a pretty cap to rumple every night, increase my +pin-money.” + +There’s life as it is! A woman makes herself old and unpleasing to her +husband; but dainty and elegant and adorned for others, for the rival of +all husbands,--for that world which calumniates and tears to shreds her +sex. + +Inspired by true love, for Love has, like other creations, its instinct +of preservation, Madame Jules did very differently; she found in the +constant blessing of her love the necessary impulse to fulfil all those +minute personal cares which ought never to be relaxed, because they +perpetuate love. Besides, such personal cares and duties proceed from a +personal dignity which becomes all women, and are among the sweetest of +flatteries, for is it not respecting in themselves the man they love? + +So Madame Jules denied to her husband all access to her dressing-room, +where she left the accessories of her toilet, and whence she issued +mysteriously adorned for the mysterious fetes of her heart. Entering +their chamber, which was always graceful and elegant, Jules found a +woman coquettishly wrapped in a charming _peignoir_, her hair simply +wound in heavy coils around her head; a woman always more simple, more +beautiful there than she was before the world; a woman just refreshed in +water, whose only artifice consisted in being whiter than her muslins, +sweeter than all perfumes, more seductive than any siren, always loving +and therefore always loved. This admirable understanding of a wife’s +business was the secret of Josephine’s charm for Napoleon, as in former +times it was that of Caesonia for Caius Caligula, of Diane de Poitiers +for Henri II. If it was largely productive to women of seven or eight +lustres what a weapon is it in the hands of young women! A husband +gathers with delight the rewards of his fidelity. + +Returning home after the conversation which had chilled her with fear, +and still gave her the keenest anxiety, Madame Jules took particular +pains with her toilet for the night. She wanted to make herself, and she +did make herself enchanting. She belted the cambric of her dressing-gown +round her waist, defining the lines of her bust; she allowed her hair to +fall upon her beautifully modelled shoulders. A perfumed bath had given +her a delightful fragrance, and her little bare feet were in velvet +slippers. Strong in a sense of her advantages she came in stepping +softly, and put her hands over her husband’s eyes. She thought him +pensive; he was standing in his dressing-gown before the fire, his elbow +on the mantel and one foot on the fender. She said in his ear, warming +it with her breath, and nibbling the tip of it with her teeth:-- + +“What are you thinking about, monsieur?” + +Then she pressed him in her arms as if to tear him away from all evil +thoughts. The woman who loves has a full knowledge of her power; the +more virtuous she is, the more effectual her coquetry. + +“About you,” he answered. + +“Only about me?” + +“Yes.” + +“Ah! that’s a very doubtful ‘yes.’” + +They went to bed. As she fell asleep, Madame Jules said to herself:-- + +“Monsieur de Maulincour will certainly cause some evil. Jules’ mind is +preoccupied, disturbed; he is nursing thoughts he does not tell me.” + +It was three in the morning when Madame Jules was awakened by a +presentiment which struck her heart as she slept. She had a sense both +physical and moral of her husband’s absence. She did not feel the +arm Jules passed beneath her head,--that arm in which she had slept, +peacefully and happy, for five years; an arm she had never wearied. A +voice said to her, “Jules suffers, Jules is weeping.” She raised her +head, and then sat up; felt that her husband’s place was cold, and saw +him sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, his head resting +against the back of an arm-chair. Tears were on his cheeks. The poor +woman threw herself hastily from her bed and sprang at a bound to her +husband’s knees. + +“Jules! what is it? Are you ill? Speak, tell me! Speak to me, if you +love me!” and she poured out a hundred words expressing the deepest +tenderness. + +Jules knelt at her feet, kissed her hands and knees, and answered with +fresh tears:-- + +“Dear Clemence, I am most unhappy! It is not loving to distrust the +one we love. I adore you and suspect you. The words that man said to me +to-night have struck to my heart; they stay there in spite of myself, +and confound me. There is some mystery here. In short, and I blush to +say it, your explanations do not satisfy me. My reason casts gleams +into my soul which my love rejects. It is an awful combat. Could I +stay there, holding your head, and suspecting thoughts within it to me +unknown? Oh! I believe in you, I believe in you!” he cried, seeing her +smile sadly and open her mouth as if to speak. “Say nothing; do not +reproach me. Besides, could you say anything I have not said myself for +the last three hours? Yes, for three hours, I have been here, watching +you as you slept, so beautiful! admiring that pure, peaceful brow. Yes, +yes! you have always told me your thoughts, have you not? I alone am in +that soul. While I look at you, while my eyes can plunge into yours I +see all plainly. Your life is as pure as your glance is clear. No, there +is no secret behind those transparent eyes.” He rose and kissed their +lids. “Let me avow to you, dearest soul,” he said, “that for the last +five years each day has increased my happiness, through the knowledge +that you are all mine, and that no natural affection even can take any +of your love. Having no sister, no father, no mother, no companion, I +am neither above nor below any living being in your heart; I am alone +there. Clemence, repeat to me those sweet things of the spirit you have +so often said to me; do not blame me; comfort me, I am so unhappy. I +have an odious suspicion on my conscience, and you have nothing in your +heart to sear it. My beloved, tell me, could I stay there beside you? +Could two heads united as ours have been lie on the same pillow when +one was suffering and the other tranquil? What are you thinking of?” + he cried abruptly, observing that Clemence was anxious, confused, and +seemed unable to restrain her tears. + +“I am thinking of my mother,” she answered, in a grave voice. “You +will never know, Jules, what I suffer in remembering my mother’s dying +farewell, said in a voice sweeter than all music, and in feeling the +solemn touch of her icy hand at a moment when you overwhelm me with +those assurances of your precious love.” + +She raised her husband, strained him to her with a nervous force greater +than that of men, and kissed his hair, covering it with tears. + +“Ah! I would be hacked in pieces for you! Tell me that I make you happy; +that I am to you the most beautiful of women--a thousand women to you. +Oh! you are loved as no other man ever was or will be. I don’t know the +meaning of those words ‘duty,’ ‘virtue.’ Jules, I love you for yourself; +I am happy in loving you; I shall love you more and more to my dying +day. I have pride in my love; I feel it is my destiny to have one sole +emotion in my life. What I shall tell you now is dreadful, I know--but +I am glad to have no child; I do not wish for any. I feel I am more wife +than mother. Well, then, can you fear? Listen to me, my own beloved, +promise to forget, not this hour of mingled tenderness and doubt, but +the words of that madman. Jules, you _must_. Promise me not to see him, +not to go to him. I have a deep conviction that if you set one foot in +that maze we shall both roll down a precipice where I shall perish--but +with your name upon my lips, your heart in my heart. Why hold me so high +in that heart and yet so low in reality? What! you who give credit to so +many as to money, can you not give me the charity of faith? And on the +first occasion in our lives when you might prove to me your boundless +trust, do you cast me from my throne in your heart? Between a madman +and me, it is the madman whom you choose to believe? oh, Jules!” She +stopped, threw back the hair that fell about her brow and neck, and +then, in a heart-rending tone, she added: “I have said too much; one +word should suffice. If your soul and your forehead still keep this +cloud, however light it be, I tell you now that I shall die of it.” + +She could not repress a shudder, and turned pale. + +“Oh! I will kill that man,” thought Jules, as he lifted his wife in his +arms and carried her to her bed. + +“Let us sleep in peace, my angel,” he said. “I have forgotten all, I +swear it!” + +Clemence fell asleep to the music of those sweet words, softly repeated. +Jules, as he watched her sleeping, said in his heart:-- + +“She is right; when love is so pure, suspicion blights it. To that young +soul, that tender flower, a blight--yes, a blight means death.” + +When a cloud comes between two beings filled with affection for each +other and whose lives are in absolute unison, that cloud, though it +may disperse, leaves in those souls a trace of its passage. Either +love gains a stronger life, as the earth after rain, or the shock still +echoes like distant thunder through a cloudless sky. It is impossible +to recover absolutely the former life; love will either increase or +diminish. + +At breakfast, Monsieur and Madame Jules showed to each other those +particular attentions in which there is always something of affectation. +There were glances of forced gaiety, which seemed the efforts of persons +endeavoring to deceive themselves. Jules had involuntary doubts, his +wife had positive fears. Still, sure of each other, they had slept. Was +this strained condition the effect of a want of faith, or was it only a +memory of their nocturnal scene? They did not know themselves. But they +loved each other so purely that the impression of that scene, both cruel +and beneficent, could not fail to leave its traces in their souls; both +were eager to make those traces disappear, each striving to be the first +to return to the other, and thus they could not fail to think of the +cause of their first variance. To loving souls, this is not grief; pain +is still far-off; but it is a sort of mourning, which is difficult to +depict. If there are, indeed, relations between colors and the emotions +of the soul, if, as Locke’s blind man said, scarlet produces on the +sight the effect produced upon the hearing by a blast of trumpets, it is +permissible to compare this reaction of melancholy to mourning tones of +gray. + +But even so, love saddened, love in which remains a true sentiment +of its happiness, momentarily troubled though it be, gives enjoyments +derived from pain and pleasure both, which are all novel. Jules studied +his wife’s voice; he watched her glances with the freshness of feeling +that inspired him in the earliest days of his passion for her. The +memory of five absolutely happy years, her beauty, the candor of her +love, quickly effaced in her husband’s mind the last vestiges of an +intolerable pain. + +The day was Sunday,--a day on which there was no Bourse and no business +to be done. The reunited pair passed the whole day together, getting +farther into each other’s hearts than they ever yet had done, like two +children who in a moment of fear, hold each other closely and cling +together, united by an instinct. There are in this life of two-in-one +completely happy days, the gift of chance, ephemeral flowers, born +neither of yesterday nor belonging to the morrow. Jules and Clemence +now enjoyed this day as though they forboded it to be the last of their +loving life. What name shall we give to that mysterious power which +hastens the steps of travellers before the storm is visible; which makes +the life and beauty of the dying so resplendent, and fills the parting +soul with joyous projects for days before death comes; which tells the +midnight student to fill his lamp when it shines brightest; and makes +the mother fear the thoughtful look cast upon her infant by an observing +man? We all are affected by this influence in the great catastrophes of +life; but it has never yet been named or studied; it is something more +than presentiment, but not as yet clear vision. + +All went well till the following day. On Monday, Jules Desmarets, +obliged to go to the Bourse on his usual business, asked his wife, as +usual, if she would take advantage of his carriage and let him drive her +anywhere. + +“No,” she said, “the day is too unpleasant to go out.” + +It was raining in torrents. At half-past two o’clock Monsieur Desmarets +reached the Treasury. At four o’clock, as he left the Bourse, he came +face to face with Monsieur de Maulincour, who was waiting for him with +the nervous pertinacity of hatred and vengeance. + +“Monsieur,” he said, taking Monsieur Desmarets by the arm, “I have +important information to give you. Listen to me. I am too loyal a man to +have recourse to anonymous letters with which to trouble your peace of +mind; I prefer to speak to you in person. Believe me, if my very life +were not concerned, I should not meddle with the private affairs of any +household, even if I thought I had the right to do so.” + +“If what you have to say to me concerns Madame Desmarets,” replied +Jules, “I request you to be silent, monsieur.” + +“If I am silent, monsieur, you may before long see Madame Jules on the +prisoner’s bench at the court of assizes beside a convict. Now, do you +wish me to be silent?” + +Jules turned pale; but his noble face instantly resumed its calmness, +though it was now a false calmness. Drawing the baron under one of the +temporary sheds of the Bourse, near which they were standing, he said to +him in a voice which concealed his intense inward emotion:-- + +“Monsieur, I will listen to you; but there will be a duel to the death +between us if--” + +“Oh, to that I consent!” cried Monsieur de Maulincour. “I have the +greatest esteem for your character. You speak of death. You are unaware +that your wife may have assisted in poisoning me last Saturday night. +Yes, monsieur, since then some extraordinary evil has developed in me. +My hair appears to distil an inward fever and a deadly languor through +my skull; I know who clutched my hair at that ball.” + +Monsieur de Maulincour then related, without omitting a single fact, his +platonic love for Madame Jules, and the details of the affair in the rue +Soly which began this narrative. Any one would have listened to him with +attention; but Madame Jules’ husband had good reason to be more amazed +than any other human being. Here his character displayed itself; he +was more amazed than overcome. Made a judge, and the judge of an +adored woman, he found in his soul the equity of a judge as well as the +inflexibility. A lover still, he thought less of his own shattered life +than of his wife’s life; he listened, not to his own anguish, but to +some far-off voice that cried to him, “Clemence cannot lie! Why should +she betray you?” + +“Monsieur,” said the baron, as he ended, “being absolutely certain +of having recognized in Monsieur de Funcal the same Ferragus whom the +police declared dead, I have put upon his traces an intelligent man. As +I returned that night I remembered, by a fortunate chance, the name of +Madame Meynardie, mentioned in that letter of Ida, the presumed mistress +of my persecutor. Supplied with this clue, my emissary will soon get to +the bottom of this horrible affair; for he is far more able to discover +the truth than the police themselves.” + +“Monsieur,” replied Desmarets, “I know not how to thank you for this +confidence. You say that you can obtain proofs and witnesses; I shall +await them. I shall seek the truth of this strange affair courageously; +but you must permit me to doubt everything until the evidence of +the facts you state is proved to me. In any case you shall have +satisfaction, for, as you will certainly understand, we both require +it.” + +Jules returned home. + +“What is the matter, Jules?” asked his wife, when she saw him. “You look +so pale you frighten me!” + +“The day is cold,” he answered, walking with slow steps across the room +where all things spoke to him of love and happiness,--that room so calm +and peaceful where a deadly storm was gathering. + +“Did you go out to-day?” he asked, as though mechanically. + +He was impelled to ask the question by the last of a myriad of thoughts +which had gathered themselves together into a lucid meditation, though +jealousy was actively prompting them. + +“No,” she answered, in a tone that was falsely candid. + +At that instant Jules saw through the open door of the dressing-room the +velvet bonnet which his wife wore in the mornings; on it were drops of +rain. Jules was a passionate man, but he was also full of delicacy. It +was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. When +such a situation occurs, all has come to an end forever between certain +beings. And yet those drops of rain were like a flash tearing through +his brain. + +He left the room, went down to the porter’s lodge, and said to the +porter, after making sure that they were alone:-- + +“Fouguereau, a hundred crowns if you tell me the truth; dismissal if you +deceive me; and nothing at all if you ever speak of my question and your +answer.” + +He stopped to examine the man’s face, leading him under the window. Then +he continued:-- + +“Did madame go out this morning?” + +“Madame went out at a quarter to three, and I think I saw her come in +about half an hour ago.” + +“That is true, upon your honor?” + +“Yes, monsieur.” + +“You will have the money; but if you speak of this, remember, you will +lose all.” + +Jules returned to his wife. + +“Clemence,” he said, “I find I must put my accounts in order. Do not be +offended at the inquiry I am going to make. Have I not given you forty +thousand francs since the beginning of the year?” + +“More,” she said,--“forty-seven.” + +“Have you spent them?” + +“Nearly,” she replied. “In the first place, I had to pay several of our +last year’s bills--” + +“I shall never find out anything in this way,” thought Jules. “I am not +taking the best course.” + +At this moment Jules’ own valet entered the room with a letter for his +master, who opened it indifferently, but as soon as his eyes had lighted +on the signature he read it eagerly. The letter was as follows:-- + + + Monsieur,--For the sake of your peace of mind as well as ours, I + take the course of writing you this letter without possessing the + advantage of being known to you; but my position, my age, and the + fear of some misfortune compel me to entreat you to show + indulgence in the trying circumstances under which our afflicted + family is placed. Monsieur Auguste de Maulincour has for the last + few days shown signs of mental derangement, and we fear that he + may trouble your happiness by fancies which he confided to + Monsieur le Vidame de Pamiers and myself during his first attack + of frenzy. We think it right, therefore, to warn you of his + malady, which is, we hope, curable; but it will have such serious + and important effects on the honor of our family and the career of + my grandson that we must rely, monsieur, on your entire + discretion. + + If Monsieur le Vidame or I could have gone to see you we would not + have written. But I make no doubt that you will regard this prayer + of a mother, who begs you to destroy this letter. + + Accept the assurance of my perfect consideration. + +Baronne de Maulincour, _nee_ de Rieux. + + +“Oh! what torture!” cried Jules. + +“What is it? what is in your mind?” asked his wife, exhibiting the +deepest anxiety. + +“I have come,” he answered, slowly, as he threw her the letter, “to +ask myself whether it can be you who have sent me that to avert my +suspicions. Judge, therefore, what I suffer.” + +“Unhappy man!” said Madame Jules, letting fall the paper. “I pity him; +though he has done me great harm.” + +“Are you aware that he has spoken to me?” + +“Oh! have you been to see him, in spite of your promise?” she cried in +terror. + +“Clemence, our love is in danger of perishing; we stand outside of the +ordinary rules of life; let us lay aside all petty considerations +in presence of this great peril. Explain to me why you went out this +morning. Women think they have the right to tell us little falsehoods. +Sometimes they like to hide a pleasure they are preparing for us. Just +now you said a word to me, by mistake, no doubt, a no for a yes.” + +He went into the dressing-room and brought out the bonnet. + +“See,” he said, “your bonnet has betrayed you; these spots are +raindrops. You must, therefore, have gone out in a street cab, and these +drops fell upon it as you went to find one, or as you entered or left +the house where you went. But a woman can leave her own home for many +innocent purposes, even after she has told her husband that she did +not mean to go out. There are so many reasons for changing our plans! +Caprices, whims, are they not your right? Women are not required to be +consistent with themselves. You had forgotten something,--a service +to render, a visit, some kind action. But nothing hinders a woman from +telling her husband what she does. Can we ever blush on the breast of a +friend? It is not a jealous husband who speaks to you, my Clemence; it +is your lover, your friend, your brother.” He flung himself passionately +at her feet. “Speak, not to justify yourself, but to calm my horrible +sufferings. I know that you went out. Well--what did you do? where did +you go?” + +“Yes, I went out, Jules,” she answered in a strained voice, though her +face was calm. “But ask me nothing more. Wait; have confidence; without +which you will lay up for yourself terrible remorse. Jules, my Jules, +trust is the virtue of love. I owe to you that I am at this moment too +troubled to answer you: but I am not a false woman; I love you, and you +know it.” + +“In the midst of all that can shake the faith of man and rouse his +jealousy, for I see I am not first in your heart, I am no longer thine +own self--well, Clemence, even so, I prefer to believe you, to believe +that voice, to believe those eyes. If you deceive me, you deserve--” + +“Ten thousand deaths!” she cried, interrupting him. + +“I have never hidden a thought from you, but you--” + +“Hush!” she said, “our happiness depends upon our mutual silence.” + +“Ha! I _will_ know all!” he exclaimed, with sudden violence. + +At that moment the cries of a woman were heard,--the yelping of a shrill +little voice came from the antechamber. + +“I tell you I will go in!” it cried. “Yes, I shall go in; I will see +her! I shall see her!” + +Jules and Clemence both ran to the salon as the door from the +antechamber was violently burst open. A young woman entered hastily, +followed by two servants, who said to their master:-- + +“Monsieur, this person would come in in spite of us. We told her that +madame was not at home. She answered that she knew very well madame had +been out, but she saw her come in. She threatened to stay at the door of +the house till she could speak to madame.” + +“You can go,” said Monsieur Desmarets to the two men. “What do you want, +mademoiselle?” he added, turning to the strange woman. + +This “demoiselle” was the type of a woman who is never to be met with +except in Paris. She is made in Paris, like the mud, like the pavement, +like the water of the Seine, such as it becomes in Paris before human +industry filters it ten times ere it enters the cut-glass decanters and +sparkles pure and bright from the filth it has been. She is therefore a +being who is truly original. Depicted scores of times by the painter’s +brush, the pencil of the caricaturist, the charcoal of the etcher, she +still escapes analysis, because she cannot be caught and rendered in all +her moods, like Nature, like this fantastic Paris itself. She holds to +vice by one thread only, and she breaks away from it at a thousand other +points of the social circumference. Besides, she lets only one trait +of her character be known, and that the only one which renders her +blamable; her noble virtues are hidden; she prefers to glory in her +naive libertinism. Most incompletely rendered in dramas and tales where +she is put upon the scene with all her poesy, she is nowhere really +true but in her garret; elsewhere she is invariably calumniated or +over-praised. Rich, she deteriorates; poor, she is misunderstood. She +has too many vices, and too many good qualities; she is too near to +pathetic asphyxiation or to a dissolute laugh; too beautiful and too +hideous. She personifies Paris, to which, in the long run, she supplies +the toothless portresses, washerwomen, street-sweepers, beggars, +occasionally insolent countesses, admired actresses, applauded singers; +she has even given, in the olden time, two quasi-queens to the monarchy. +Who can grasp such a Proteus? She is all woman, less than woman, more +than woman. From this vast portrait the painter of manners and morals +can take but a feature here and there; the _ensemble_ is infinite. + +She was a grisette of Paris; a grisette in all her glory; a grisette +in a hackney-coach,--happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette; a +grisette with claws, scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling as +a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish as +a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a perfect +_lionne_ in her way; issuing from the little apartment of which she +had dreamed so often, with its red-calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet +furniture, its tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the +sofa, the little moquette carpet, the alabaster clock and candlesticks +(under glass cases), the yellow bedroom, the eider-down quilt,--in +short, all the domestic joys of a grisette’s life; and in addition, +the woman-of-all-work (a former grisette herself, now the owner of a +moustache), theatre-parties, unlimited bonbons, silk dresses, bonnets to +spoil,--in fact, all the felicities coveted by the grisette heart except +a carriage, which only enters her imagination as a marshal’s baton into +the dreams of a soldier. Yes, this grisette had all these things in +return for a true affection, or in spite of a true affection, as some +others obtain it for an hour a day,--a sort of tax carelessly paid under +the claws of an old man. + +The young woman who now entered the presence of Monsieur and Madame +Jules had a pair of feet so little covered by her shoes that only a slim +black line was visible between the carpet and her white stockings. This +peculiar foot-gear, which Parisian caricaturists have well-rendered, +is a special attribute of the grisette of Paris; but she is even more +distinctive to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her +garments are made to adhere to her form, which they clearly define. +On this occasion she was trigly dressed in a green gown, with a white +chemisette, which allowed the beauty of her bust to be seen; her shawl, +of Ternaux cashmere, had fallen from her shoulders, and was held by its +two corners, which were twisted round her wrists. She had a delicate +face, rosy cheeks, a white skin, sparkling gray eyes, a round, very +promising forehead, hair carefully smoothed beneath her little bonnet, +and heavy curls upon her neck. + +“My name is Ida,” she said, “and if that’s Madame Jules to whom I have +the advantage of speaking, I’ve come to tell her all I have in my +heart against her. It is very wrong, when a woman is set up and in her +furniture, as you are here, to come and take from a poor girl a man +with whom I’m as good as married, morally, and who did talk of making it +right by marrying me before the municipality. There’s plenty of handsome +young men in the world--ain’t there, monsieur?--to take your fancy, +without going after a man of middle age, who makes my happiness. Yah! I +haven’t got a fine hotel like this, but I’ve got my love, I have. I hate +handsome men and money; I’m all heart, and--” + +Madame Jules turned to her husband. + +“You will allow me, monsieur, to hear no more of all this,” she said, +retreating to her bedroom. + +“If the lady lives with you, I’ve made a mess of it; but I can’t help +that,” resumed Ida. “Why does she come after Monsieur Ferragus every +day?” + +“You are mistaken, mademoiselle,” said Jules, stupefied; “my wife is +incapable--” + +“Ha! so you’re married, you two,” said the grisette showing some +surprise. “Then it’s very wrong, monsieur,--isn’t it?--for a woman who +has the happiness of being married in legal marriage to have relations +with a man like Henri--” + +“Henri! who is Henri?” said Jules, taking Ida by the arm and pulling her +into an adjoining room that his wife might hear no more. + +“Why, Monsieur Ferragus.” + +“But he is dead,” said Jules. + +“Nonsense; I went to Franconi’s with him last night, and he brought me +home--as he ought. Besides, your wife can tell you about him; didn’t +she go there this very afternoon at three o’clock? I know she did, for +I waited in the street, and saw her,--all because that good-natured +fellow, Monsieur Justin, whom you know perhaps,--a little old man with +jewelry who wears corsets,--told me that Madame Jules was my rival. That +name, monsieur, sounds mighty like a feigned one; but if it is yours, +excuse me. But this I say, if Madame Jules was a court duchess, Henri is +rich enough to satisfy all her fancies, and it is my business to protect +my property; I’ve a right to, for I love him, that I do. He is my +_first_ inclination; my happiness and all my future fate depends on +it. I fear nothing, monsieur; I am honest; I never lied, or stole the +property of any living soul, no matter who. If an empress was my rival, +I’d go straight to her, empress as she was; because all pretty women are +equals, monsieur--” + +“Enough! enough!” said Jules. “Where do you live?” + +“Rue de la Corderie-du-Temple, number 14, monsieur,--Ida Gruget, +corset-maker, at your service,--for we make lots of corsets for men.” + +“Where does the man whom you call Ferragus live?” + +“Monsieur,” she said, pursing up her lips, “in the first place, he’s not +a man; he is a rich monsieur, much richer, perhaps, than you are. But +why do you ask me his address when your wife knows it? He told me not +to give it. Am I obliged to answer you? I’m not, thank God, in a +confessional or a police-court; I’m responsible only to myself.” + +“If I were to offer you ten thousand francs to tell me where Monsieur +Ferragus lives, how then?” + +“Ha! n, o, _no_, my little friend, and that ends the matter,” she said, +emphasizing this singular reply with a popular gesture. “There’s no +sum in the world could make me tell you. I have the honor to bid you +good-day. How do I get out of here?” + +Jules, horror-struck, allowed her to go without further notice. The +whole world seemed to crumble beneath his feet, and above him the +heavens were falling with a crash. + +“Monsieur is served,” said his valet. + +The valet and the footman waited in the dining-room a quarter of an hour +without seeing master or mistress. + +“Madame will not dine to-day,” said the waiting-maid, coming in. + +“What’s the matter, Josephine?” asked the valet. + +“I don’t know,” she answered. “Madame is crying, and is going to bed. +Monsieur has no doubt got some love-affair on hand, and it has been +discovered at a very bad time. I wouldn’t answer for madame’s life. Men +are so clumsy; they’ll make you scenes without any precaution.” + +“That’s not so,” said the valet, in a low voice. “On the contrary, +madame is the one who--you understand? What times does monsieur have to +go after pleasures, he, who hasn’t slept out of madame’s room for five +years, who goes to his study at ten and never leaves it till breakfast, +at twelve. His life is all known, it is regular; whereas madame goes out +nearly every day at three o’clock, Heaven knows where.” + +“And monsieur too,” said the maid, taking her mistress’s part. + +“Yes, but he goes straight to the Bourse. I told him three times that +dinner was ready,” continued the valet, after a pause. “You might as +well talk to a post.” + +Monsieur Jules entered the dining-room. + +“Where is madame?” he said. + +“Madame is going to bed; her head aches,” replied the maid, assuming an +air of importance. + +Monsieur Jules then said to the footmen composedly: “You can take away; +I shall go and sit with madame.” + +He went to his wife’s room and found her weeping, but endeavoring to +smother her sobs with her handkerchief. + +“Why do you weep?” said Jules; “you need expect no violence and no +reproaches from me. Why should I avenge myself? If you have not been +faithful to my love, it is that you were never worthy of it.” + +“Not worthy?” The words were repeated amid her sobs and the accent in +which they were said would have moved any other man than Jules. + +“To kill you, I must love more than perhaps I do love you,” he +continued. “But I should never have the courage; I would rather kill +myself, leaving you to your--happiness, and with--whom!--” + +He did not end his sentence. + +“Kill yourself!” she cried, flinging herself at his feet and clasping +them. + +But he, wishing to escape the embrace, tried to shake her off, dragging +her in so doing toward the bed. + +“Let me alone,” he said. + +“No, no, Jules!” she cried. “If you love me no longer I shall die. Do +you wish to know all?” + +“Yes.” + +He took her, grasped her violently, and sat down on the edge of the bed, +holding her between his legs. Then, looking at that beautiful face now +red as fire and furrowed with tears,-- + +“Speak,” he said. + +Her sobs began again. + +“No; it is a secret of life and death. If I tell it, I--No, I cannot. +Have mercy, Jules!” + +“You have betrayed me--” + +“Ah! Jules, you think so now, but soon you will know all.” + +“But this Ferragus, this convict whom you go to see, a man enriched by +crime, if he does not belong to you, if you do not belong to him--” + +“Oh, Jules!” + +“Speak! Is he your mysterious benefactor?--the man to whom we owe our +fortune, as persons have said already?” + +“Who said that?” + +“A man whom I killed in a duel.” + +“Oh, God! one death already!” + +“If he is not your protector, if he does not give you money, if it +is you, on the contrary, who carry money to him, tell me, is he your +brother?” + +“What if he were?” she said. + +Monsieur Desmarets crossed his arms. + +“Why should that have been concealed from me?” he said. “Then you and +your mother have both deceived me? Besides, does a woman go to see her +brother every day, or nearly every day?” + +His wife had fainted at his feet. + +“Dead,” he said. “And suppose I am mistaken?” + +He sprang to the bell-rope; called Josephine, and lifted Clemence to the +bed. + +“I shall die of this,” said Madame Jules, recovering consciousness. + +“Josephine,” cried Monsieur Desmarets. “Send for Monsieur Desplein; send +also to my brother and ask him to come here immediately.” + +“Why your brother?” asked Clemence. + +But Jules had already left the room. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. WHERE GO TO DIE? + + +For the first time in five years Madame Jules slept alone in her bed, +and was compelled to admit a physician into that sacred chamber. These +in themselves were two keen pangs. Desplein found Madame Jules very +ill. Never was a violent emotion more untimely. He would say nothing +definite, and postponed till the morrow giving any opinion, after +leaving a few directions, which were not executed, the emotions of the +heart causing all bodily cares to be forgotten. + +When morning dawned, Clemence had not yet slept. Her mind was absorbed +in the low murmur of a conversation which lasted several hours between +the brothers; but the thickness of the walls allowed no word which could +betray the object of this long conference to reach her ears. Monsieur +Desmarets, the notary, went away at last. The stillness of the night, +and the singular activity of the senses given by powerful emotion, +enabled Clemence to distinguish the scratching of a pen and the +involuntary movements of a person engaged in writing. Those who are +habitually up at night, and who observe the different acoustic effects +produced in absolute silence, know that a slight echo can be readily +perceived in the very places where louder but more equable and continued +murmurs are not distinct. At four o’clock the sound ceased. Clemence +rose, anxious and trembling. Then, with bare feet and without a wrapper, +forgetting her illness and her moist condition, the poor woman opened +the door softly without noise and looked into the next room. She saw her +husband sitting, with a pen in his hand, asleep in his arm-chair. The +candles had burned to the sockets. She slowly advanced and read on an +envelope, already sealed, the words, “This is my will.” + +She knelt down as if before an open grave and kissed her husband’s hand. +He woke instantly. + +“Jules, my friend, they grant some days to criminals condemned to +death,” she said, looking at him with eyes that blazed with fever and +with love. “Your innocent wife asks only two. Leave me free for two +days, and--wait! After that, I shall die happy--at least, you will +regret me.” + +“Clemence, I grant them.” + +Then, as she kissed her husband’s hands in the tender transport of her +heart, Jules, under the spell of that cry of innocence, took her in his +arms and kissed her forehead, though ashamed to feel himself still under +subjection to the power of that noble beauty. + +On the morrow, after taking a few hours’ rest, Jules entered his wife’s +room, obeying mechanically his invariable custom of not leaving the +house without a word to her. Clemence was sleeping. A ray of light +passing through a chink in the upper blind of a window fell across the +face of the dejected woman. Already suffering had impaired her forehead +and the freshness of her lips. A lover’s eye could not fail to notice +the appearance of dark blotches, and a sickly pallor in place of +the uniform tone of the cheeks and the pure ivory whiteness of the +skin,--two points at which the sentiments of her noble soul were +artlessly wont to show themselves. + +“She suffers,” thought Jules. “Poor Clemence! May God protect us!” + +He kissed her very softly on the forehead. She woke, saw her husband, +and remembered all. Unable to speak, she took his hand, her eyes filling +with tears. + +“I am innocent,” she said, ending her dream. + +“You will not go out to-day, will you?” asked Jules. + +“No, I feel too weak to leave my bed.” + +“If you should change your mind, wait till I return,” said Jules. + +Then he went down to the porter’s lodge. + +“Fouguereau, you will watch the door yourself to-day. I wish to know +exactly who comes to the house, and who leaves it.” + +Then he threw himself into a hackney-coach, and was driven to the hotel +de Maulincour, where he asked for the baron. + +“Monsieur is ill,” they told him. + +Jules insisted on entering, and gave his name. If he could not see the +baron, he wished to see the vidame or the dowager. He waited some time +in the salon, where Madame de Maulincour finally came to him and told +him that her grandson was much too ill to receive him. + +“I know, madame, the nature of his illness from the letter you did me +the honor to write, and I beg you to believe--” + +“A letter to you, monsieur, written by me!” cried the dowager, +interrupting him. “I have written you no letter. What was I made to say +in that letter, monsieur?” + +“Madame,” replied Jules, “intending to see Monsieur de Maulincour +to-day, I thought it best to preserve the letter in spite of its +injunction to destroy it. There it is.” + +Madame de Maulincour put on her spectacles, and the moment she cast her +eyes on the paper she showed the utmost surprise. + +“Monsieur,” she said, “my writing is so perfectly imitated that, if the +matter were not so recent, I might be deceived myself. My grandson is +ill, it is true; but his reason has never for a moment been affected. We +are the puppets of some evil-minded person or persons; and yet I cannot +imagine the object of a trick like this. You shall see my grandson, +monsieur, and you will at once perceive that he is perfectly sound in +mind.” + +She rang the bell, and sent to ask if the baron felt able to receive +Monsieur Desmarets. The servant returned with an affirmative answer. +Jules went to the baron’s room, where he found him in an arm-chair near +the fire. Too feeble to move, the unfortunate man merely bowed his head +with a melancholy gesture. The Vidame de Pamiers was sitting with him. + +“Monsieur le baron,” said Jules, “I have something to say which makes it +desirable that I should see you alone.” + +“Monsieur,” replied Auguste, “Monsieur le vidame knows about this +affair; you can speak fearlessly before him.” + +“Monsieur le baron,” said Jules, in a grave voice, “you have troubled +and well-nigh destroyed my happiness without having any right to do so. +Until the moment when we can see clearly which of us should demand, or +grant, reparation to the other, you are bound to help me in following +the dark and mysterious path into which you have flung me. I have now +come to ascertain from you the present residence of the extraordinary +being who exercises such a baneful effect on your life and mine. On my +return home yesterday, after listening to your avowals, I received that +letter.” + +Jules gave him the forged letter. + +“This Ferragus, this Bourignard, or this Monsieur de Funcal, is a +demon!” cried Maulincour, after having read it. “Oh, what a frightful +maze I put my foot into when I meddled in this matter! Where am I going? +I did wrong, monsieur,” he continued, looking at Jules; “but death is +the greatest of all expiations, and my death is now approaching. You can +ask me whatever you like; I am at your orders.” + +“Monsieur, you know, of course, where this man is living, and I must +know it if it costs me all my fortune to penetrate this mystery. In +presence of so cruel an enemy every moment is precious.” + +“Justin shall tell you all,” replied the baron. + +At these words the vidame fidgeted on his chair. Auguste rang the bell. + +“Justin is not in the house!” cried the vidame, in a hasty manner that +told much. + +“Well, then,” said Auguste, excitedly, “the other servants must know +where he is; send a man on horseback to fetch him. Your valet is in +Paris, isn’t he? He can be found.” + +The vidame was visibly distressed. + +“Justin can’t come, my dear boy,” said the old man; “he is dead. I +wanted to conceal the accident from you, but--” + +“Dead!” cried Monsieur de Maulincour,--“dead! When and how?” + +“Last night. He had been supping with some old friends, and, I dare say, +was drunk; his friends--no doubt they were drunk, too--left him lying in +the street, and a heavy vehicle ran over him.” + +“The convict did not miss _him_; at the first stroke he killed,” said +Auguste. “He has had less luck with me; it has taken four blows to put +me out of the way.” + +Jules was gloomy and thoughtful. + +“Am I to know nothing, then?” he cried, after a long pause. “Your valet +seems to have been justly punished. Did he not exceed your orders in +calumniating Madame Desmarets to a person named Ida, whose jealousy he +roused in order to turn her vindictiveness upon us?” + +“Ah, monsieur! in my anger I informed him about Madame Jules,” said +Auguste. + +“Monsieur!” cried the husband, keenly irritated. + +“Oh, monsieur!” replied the baron, claiming silence by a gesture, “I am +prepared for all. You cannot tell me anything my own conscience has +not already told me. I am now expecting the most celebrated of all +professors of toxicology, in order to learn my fate. If I am destined +to intolerable suffering, my resolution is taken. I shall blow my brains +out.” + +“You talk like a child!” cried the vidame, horrified by the coolness +with which the baron said these words. “Your grandmother would die of +grief.” + +“Then, monsieur,” said Jules, “am I to understand that there exist +no means of discovering in what part of Paris this extraordinary man +resides?” + +“I think, monsieur,” said the old vidame, “from what I have heard poor +Justin say, that Monsieur de Funcal lives at either the Portuguese or +the Brazilian embassy. Monsieur de Funcal is a nobleman belonging to +both those countries. As for the convict, he is dead and buried. Your +persecutor, whoever he is, seems to me so powerful that it would be +well to take no decisive measures until you are sure of some way of +confounding and crushing him. Act prudently and with caution, my dear +monsieur. Had Monsieur de Maulincour followed my advice, nothing of all +this would have happened.” + +Jules coldly but politely withdrew. He was now at a total loss to know +how to reach Ferragus. As he passed into his own house, the porter told +him that Madame had just been out to throw a letter into the post box +at the head of the rue de Menars. Jules felt humiliated by this proof of +the insight with which the porter espoused his cause, and the cleverness +by which he guessed the way to serve him. The eagerness of servants, and +their shrewdness in compromising masters who compromised themselves, +was known to him, and he fully appreciated the danger of having them as +accomplices, no matter for what purpose. But he could not think of his +personal dignity until the moment when he found himself thus suddenly +degraded. What a triumph for the slave who could not raise himself to +his master, to compel his master to come down to his level! Jules was +harsh and hard to him. Another fault. But he suffered so deeply! His +life till then so upright, so pure, was becoming crafty; he was to +scheme and lie. Clemence was scheming and lying. This to him was a +moment of horrible disgust. Lost in a flood of bitter feelings, Jules +stood motionless at the door of his house. Yielding to despair, he +thought of fleeing, of leaving France forever, carrying with him the +illusions of uncertainty. Then, again, not doubting that the letter +Clemence had just posted was addressed to Ferragus, his mind searched +for a means of obtaining the answer that mysterious being was certain +to send. Then his thoughts began to analyze the singular good fortune +of his life since his marriage, and he asked himself whether the calumny +for which he had taken such signal vengeance was not a truth. Finally, +reverting to the coming answer, he said to himself:-- + +“But this man, so profoundly capable, so logical in his every act, who +sees and foresees, who calculates, and even divines, our very thoughts, +is he likely to make an answer? Will he not employ some other means more +in keeping with his power? He may send his answer by some beggar; or in +a carton brought by an honest man, who does not suspect what he brings; +or in some parcel of shoes, which a shop-girl may innocently deliver to +my wife. If Clemence and he have agreed upon such means--” + +He distrusted all things; his mind ran over vast tracts and shoreless +oceans of conjecture. Then, after floating for a time among a thousand +contradictory ideas, he felt he was strongest in his own house, and he +resolved to watch it as the ant-lion watches his sandy labyrinth. + +“Fouguereau,” he said to the porter, “I am not at home to any one who +comes to see me. If any one calls to see madame, or brings her anything, +ring twice. Bring all letters addressed here to me, no matter for whom +they are intended.” + +“Thus,” thought he, as he entered his study, which was in the entresol, +“I forestall the schemes of this Ferragus. If he sends some one to ask +for me so as to find out if Clemence is alone, at least I shall not be +tricked like a fool.” + +He stood by the window of his study, which looked upon the street, +and then a final scheme, inspired by jealousy, came into his mind. He +resolved to send his head-clerk in his own carriage to the Bourse with +a letter to another broker, explaining his sales and purchases and +requesting him to do his business for that day. He postponed his more +delicate transactions till the morrow, indifferent to the fall or +rise of stocks or the debts of all Europe. High privilege of love!--it +crushes all things, all interests fall before it: altar, throne, +consols! + +At half-past three, just the hour at which the Bourse is in full blast +of reports, monthly settlements, premiums, etc., Fouguereau entered the +study, quite radiant with his news. + +“Monsieur, an old woman has come, but very cautiously; I think she’s a +sly one. She asked for monsieur, and seemed much annoyed when I told her +he was out; then she gave me a letter for madame, and here it is.” + +Fevered with anxiety, Jules opened the letter; then he dropped into a +chair, exhausted. The letter was mere nonsense throughout, and needed a +key. It was virtually in cipher. + +“Go away, Fouguereau.” The porter left him. “It is a mystery deeper than +the sea below the plummet line! Ah! it must be love; love only is so +sagacious, so inventive as this. Ah! I shall kill her.” + +At this moment an idea flashed through his brain with such force that +he felt almost physically illuminated by it. In the days of his toilsome +poverty before his marriage, Jules had made for himself a true friend. +The extreme delicacy with which he had managed the susceptibilities of a +man both poor and modest; the respect with which he had surrounded him; +the ingenious cleverness he had employed to nobly compel him to share +his opulence without permitting it to make him blush, increased their +friendship. Jacquet continued faithful to Desmarets in spite of his +wealth. + +Jacquet, a nobly upright man, a toiler, austere in his morals, had +slowly made his way in that particular ministry which develops both +honesty and knavery at the same time. A clerk in the ministry of Foreign +Affairs, he had charge of the most delicate division of its archives. +Jacquet in that office was like a glow-worm, casting his light upon +those secret correspondences, deciphering and classifying despatches. +Ranking higher than a mere _bourgeois_, his position at the ministry was +superior to that of the other subalterns. He lived obscurely, glad +to feel that such obscurity sheltered him from reverses and +disappointments, and was satisfied to humbly pay in the lowest coin +his debt to the country. Thanks to Jules, his position had been much +ameliorated by a worthy marriage. An unrecognized patriot, a minister in +actual fact, he contented himself with groaning in his chimney-corner at +the course of the government. In his own home, Jacquet was an easy-going +king,--an umbrella-man, as they say, who hired a carriage for his +wife which he never entered himself. In short, to end this sketch of a +philosopher unknown to himself, he had never suspected and never in +all his life would suspect the advantages he might have drawn from +his position,--that of having for his intimate friend a broker, and of +knowing every morning all the secrets of the State. This man, sublime +after the manner of that nameless soldier who died in saving Napoleon by +a “qui vive,” lived at the ministry. + +In ten minutes Jules was in his friend’s office. Jacquet gave him a +chair, laid aside methodically his green silk eye-shade, rubbed his +hands, picked up his snuff-box, rose, stretched himself till his +shoulder-blades cracked, swelled out his chest, and said:-- + +“What brings you here, Monsieur Desmarets? What do you want with me?” + +“Jacquet, I want you to decipher a secret,--a secret of life and death.” + +“It doesn’t concern politics?” + +“If it did, I shouldn’t come to you for information,” said Jules. +“No, it is a family matter, about which I require you to be absolutely +silent.” + +“Claude-Joseph Jacquet, dumb by profession. Don’t you know me by this +time?” he said, laughing. “Discretion is my lot.” + +Jules showed him the letter. + +“You must read me this letter, addressed to my wife.” + +“The deuce! the deuce! a bad business!” said Jacquet, examining the +letter as a usurer examines a note to be negotiated. “Ha! that’s a +gridiron letter! Wait a minute.” + +He left Jules alone for a moment, but returned immediately. + +“Easy enough to read, my friend! It is written on the gridiron plan, +used by the Portuguese minister under Monsieur de Choiseul, at the time +of the dismissal of the Jesuits. Here, see!” + +Jacquet placed upon the writing a piece of paper cut out in regular +squares, like the paper laces which confectioners wrap round their +sugarplums; and Jules then read with perfect ease the words that were +visible in the interstices. They were as follows:-- + + “Don’t be uneasy, my dear Clemence; our happiness cannot again be + troubled; and your husband will soon lay aside his suspicions. + However ill you may be, you must have the courage to come here + to-morrow; find strength in your love for me. Mine for you has + induced me to submit to a cruel operation, and I cannot leave my + bed. I have had the actual cautery applied to my back, and it was + necessary to burn it in a long time; you understand me? But I + thought of you, and I did not suffer. + + “To baffle Maulincour (who will not persecute us much longer), I + have left the protecting roof of the embassy, and am now safe from + all inquiry in the rue des Enfants-Rouges, number 12, with an old + woman, Madame Etienne Gruget, mother of that Ida, who shall pay + dear for her folly. Come to-morrow, at nine in the morning. I am + in a room which is reached only by an interior staircase. Ask for + Monsieur Camuset. Adieu; I kiss your forehead, my darling.” + +Jacquet looked at Jules with a sort of honest terror, the sign of a +true compassion, as he made his favorite exclamation in two separate and +distinct tones,-- + +“The deuce! the deuce!” + +“That seems clear to you, doesn’t it?” said Jules. “Well, in the depths +of my heart there is a voice that pleads for my wife, and makes itself +heard above the pangs of jealousy. I must endure the worst of all agony +until to-morrow; but to-morrow, between nine and ten I shall know all; I +shall be happy or wretched for all my life. Think of me then, Jacquet.” + +“I shall be at your house to-morrow at eight o’clock. We will go +together; I’ll wait for you, if you like, in the street. You may run +some danger, and you ought to have near you some devoted person who’ll +understand a mere sign, and whom you can safely trust. Count on me.” + +“Even to help me in killing some one?” + +“The deuce! the deuce!” said Jacquet, repeating, as it were, the same +musical note. “I have two children and a wife.” + +Jules pressed his friend’s hand and went away; but returned immediately. + +“I forgot the letter,” he said. “But that’s not all, I must reseal it.” + +“The deuce! the deuce! you opened it without saving the seal; however, +it is still possible to restore it. Leave it with me and I’ll bring it +to you _secundum scripturam_.” + +“At what time?” + +“Half-past five.” + +“If I am not yet in, give it to the porter and tell him to send it up to +madame.” + +“Do you want me to-morrow?” + +“No. Adieu.” + +Jules drove at once to the place de la Rotonde du Temple, where he left +his cabriolet and went on foot to the rue des Enfants-Rouges. He found +the house of Madame Etienne Gruget and examined it. There, the mystery +on which depended the fate of so many persons would be cleared up; +there, at this moment, was Ferragus, and to Ferragus all the threads of +this strange plot led. The Gordian knot of the drama, already so bloody, +was surely in a meeting between Madame Jules, her husband, and that man; +and a blade able to cut the closest of such knots would not be wanting. + +The house was one of those which belong to the class called +_cabajoutis_. This significant name is given by the populace of Paris +to houses which are built, as it were, piecemeal. They are nearly +always composed of buildings originally separate but afterwards united +according to the fancy of the various proprietors who successively +enlarge them; or else they are houses begun, left unfinished, again +built upon, and completed,--unfortunate structures which have passed, +like certain peoples, under many dynasties of capricious masters. +Neither the floors nor the windows have an _ensemble_,--to borrow one of +the most picturesque terms of the art of painting; all is discord, even +the external decoration. The _cabajoutis_ is to Parisian architecture +what the _capharnaum_ is to the apartment,--a poke-hole, where the most +heterogeneous articles are flung pell-mell. + +“Madame Etienne?” asked Jules of the portress. + +This portress had her lodge under the main entrance, in a sort of +chicken coop, or wooden house on rollers, not unlike those sentry-boxes +which the police have lately set up by the stands of hackney-coaches. + +“Hein?” said the portress, without laying down the stocking she was +knitting. + +In Paris the various component parts which make up the physiognomy of +any given portion of the monstrous city, are admirably in keeping with +its general character. Thus porter, concierge, or Suisse, whatever name +may be given to that essential muscle of the Parisian monster, is always +in conformity with the neighborhood of which he is a part; in fact, +he is often an epitome of it. The lazy porter of the faubourg +Saint-Germain, with lace on every seam of his coat, dabbles in stocks; +he of the Chaussee d’Antin takes his ease, reads the money-articles +in the newspapers, and has a business of his own in the faubourg +Montmartre. The portress in the quarter of prostitution was formerly a +prostitute; in the Marais, she has morals, is cross-grained, and full of +crotchets. + +On seeing Monsieur Jules this particular portress, holding her knitting +in one hand, took a knife and stirred the half-extinguished peat in her +foot-warmer; then she said:-- + +“You want Madame Etienne; do you mean Madame Etienne Gruget?” + +“Yes,” said Jules, assuming a vexed air. + +“Who makes trimmings?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, then, monsieur,” she said, issuing from her cage, and laying her +hand on Jules’ arm and leading him to the end of a long passage-way, +vaulted like a cellar, “go up the second staircase at the end of the +court-yard--where you will see the windows with the pots of pinks; +that’s where Madame Etienne lives.” + +“Thank you, madame. Do you think she is alone?” + +“Why shouldn’t she be alone? she’s a widow.” + +Jules hastened up a dark stairway, the steps of which were knobby with +hardened mud left by the feet of those who came and went. On the second +floor he saw three doors but no signs of pinks. Fortunately, on one of +the doors, the oiliest and darkest of the three, he read these words, +chalked on a panel: “Ida will come to-night at nine o’clock.” + +“This is the place,” thought Jules. + +He pulled an old bellrope, black with age, and heard the smothered sound +of a cracked bell and the barking of an asthmatic little dog. By the +way the sounds echoed from the interior he knew that the rooms were +encumbered with articles which left no space for reverberation,--a +characteristic feature of the homes of workmen and humble households, +where space and air are always lacking. + +Jules looked out mechanically for the pinks, and found them on the +outer sill of a sash window between two filthy drain-pipes. So here were +flowers; here, a garden, two yards long and six inches wide; here, +a wheat-ear; here, a whole life epitomized; but here, too, all the +miseries of that life. A ray of light falling from heaven as if by +special favor on those puny flowers and the vigorous wheat-ear brought +out in full relief the dust, the grease, and that nameless color, +peculiar to Parisian squalor, made of dirt, which crusted and spotted +the damp walls, the worm-eaten balusters, the disjointed window-casings, +and the door originally red. Presently the cough of an old woman, and a +heavy female step, shuffling painfully in list slippers, announced the +coming of the mother of Ida Gruget. The creature opened the door and +came out upon the landing, looked up, and said:-- + +“Ah! is this Monsieur Bocquillon? Why, no? But perhaps you’re his +brother. What can I do for you? Come in, monsieur.” + +Jules followed her into the first room, where he saw, huddled together, +cages, household utensils, ovens, furniture, little earthenware +dishes full of food or water for the dog and the cats, a wooden clock, +bed-quilts, engravings of Eisen, heaps of old iron, all these things +mingled and massed together in a way that produced a most grotesque +effect,--a true Parisian dusthole, in which were not lacking a few old +numbers of the “Constitutionel.” + +Jules, impelled by a sense of prudence, paid no attention to the widow’s +invitation when she said civilly, showing him an inner room:-- + +“Come in here, monsieur, and warm yourself.” + +Fearing to be overheard by Ferragus, Jules asked himself whether it were +not wisest to conclude the arrangement he had come to make with the old +woman in the crowded antechamber. A hen, which descended cackling from +a loft, roused him from this inward meditation. He came to a resolution, +and followed Ida’s mother into the inner room, whither they were +accompanied by the wheezy pug, a personage otherwise mute, who jumped +upon a stool. Madame Gruget showed the assumption of semi-pauperism +when she invited her visitor to warm himself. Her fire-pot contained, or +rather concealed two bits of sticks, which lay apart: the grating was +on the ground, its handle in the ashes. The mantel-shelf, adorned with +a little wax Jesus under a shade of squares of glass held together with +blue paper, was piled with wools, bobbins, and tools used in the making +of gimps and trimmings. Jules examined everything in the room with a +curiosity that was full of interest, and showed, in spite of himself, an +inward satisfaction. + +“Well, monsieur, tell me, do you want to buy any of my things?” said the +old woman, seating herself in a cane arm-chair, which appeared to be +her headquarters. In it she kept her handkerchief, snuffbox, knitting, +half-peeled vegetables, spectacles, calendar, a bit of livery gold lace +just begun, a greasy pack of cards, and two volumes of novels, all stuck +into the hollow of the back. This article of furniture, in which the +old creature was floating down the river of life, was not unlike the +encyclopedic bag which a woman carries with her when she travels; in +which may be found a compendium of her household belongings, from the +portrait of her husband to _eau de Melisse_ for faintness, sugarplums +for the children, and English court-plaster in case of cuts. + +Jules studied all. He looked attentively at Madame Gruget’s yellow +visage, at her gray eyes without either brows or lashes, her toothless +mouth, her wrinkles marked in black, her rusty cap, her still more rusty +ruffles, her cotton petticoat full of holes, her worn-out slippers, her +disabled fire-pot, her table heaped with dishes and silks and work begun +or finished, in wool or cotton, in the midst of which stood a bottle of +wine. Then he said to himself: “This old woman has some passion, some +strong liking or vice; I can make her do my will.” + +“Madame,” he said aloud, with a private sign of intelligence, “I have +come to order some livery trimmings.” Then he lowered his voice. “I +know,” he continued, “that you have a lodger who has taken the name of +Camuset.” The old woman looked at him suddenly, but without any sign of +astonishment. “Now, tell me, can we come to an understanding? This is a +question which means fortune for you.” + +“Monsieur,” she replied, “speak out, and don’t be afraid. There’s no one +here. But if I had any one above, it would be impossible for him to hear +you.” + +“Ha! the sly old creature, she answers like a Norman,” thought Jules, +“We shall agree. Do not give yourself the trouble to tell falsehoods, +madame,” he resumed, “In the first place, let me tell you that I mean no +harm either to you or to your lodger who is suffering from cautery, or +to your daughter Ida, a stay-maker, the friend of Ferragus. You see, I +know all your affairs. Do not be uneasy; I am not a detective policeman, +nor do I desire anything that can hurt your conscience. A young lady +will come here to-morrow-morning at half-past nine o’clock, to talk with +this lover of your daughter. I want to be where I can see all and hear +all, without being seen or heard by them. If you will furnish me with +the means of doing so, I will reward that service with the gift of two +thousand francs and a yearly stipend of six hundred. My notary shall +prepare a deed before you this evening, and I will give him the money to +hold; he will pay the two thousand to you to-morrow after the conference +at which I desire to be present, as you will then have given proofs of +your good faith.” + +“Will it injure my daughter, my good monsieur?” she asked, casting a +cat-like glance of doubt and uneasiness upon him. + +“In no way, madame. But, in any case, it seems to me that your daughter +does not treat you well. A girl who is loved by so rich a man as +Ferragus ought to make you more comfortable than you seem to be.” + +“Ah, my dear monsieur, just think, not so much as one poor ticket to +the Ambigu, or the Gaiete, where she can go as much as she likes. It’s +shameful! A girl for whom I sold my silver forks and spoons! and now +I eat, at my age, with German metal,--and all to pay for her +apprenticeship, and give her a trade, where she could coin money if she +chose. As for that, she’s like me, clever as a witch; I must do her that +justice. But, I will say, she might give me her old silk gowns,--I, +who am so fond of wearing silk. But no! Monsieur, she dines at the +Cadran-Bleu at fifty francs a head, and rolls in her carriage as if she +were a princess, and despises her mother for a Colin-Lampon. Heavens and +earth! what heedless young ones we’ve brought into the world; we have +nothing to boast of there. A mother, monsieur, can’t be anything else +but a good mother; and I’ve concealed that girl’s ways, and kept her in +my bosom, to take the bread out of my mouth and cram everything into her +own. Well, well! and now she comes and fondles one a little, and says, +‘How d’ye do, mother?’ And that’s all the duty she thinks of paying. But +she’ll have children one of these days, and then she’ll find out what it +is to have such baggage,--which one can’t help loving all the same.” + +“Do you mean that she does nothing for you?” + +“Ah, nothing? No, monsieur, I didn’t say that; if she did nothing, that +would be a little too much. She gives me my rent and thirty-six francs a +month. But, monsieur, at my age,--and I’m fifty-two years old, with +eyes that feel the strain at night,--ought I to be working in this way? +Besides, why won’t she have me to live with her? I should shame her, +should I? Then let her say so. Faith, one ought to be buried out of the +way of such dogs of children, who forget you before they’ve even shut +the door.” + +She pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, and with it a lottery +ticket that dropped on the floor; but she hastily picked it up, saying, +“Hi! that’s the receipt for my taxes.” + +Jules at once perceived the reason of the sagacious parsimony of which +the mother complained; and he was the more certain that the widow Gruget +would agree to the proposed bargain. + +“Well, then, madame,” he said, “accept what I offer you.” + +“Did you say two thousand francs in ready money, and six hundred +annuity, monsieur?” + +“Madame, I’ve changed my mind; I will promise you only three hundred +annuity. This way seems more to my own interests. But I will give you +five thousand francs in ready money. Wouldn’t you like that as well?” + +“Bless me, yes, monsieur!” + +“You’ll get more comfort out of it; and you can go to the Ambigu and +Franconi’s at your ease in a coach.” + +“As for Franconi, I don’t like that, for they don’t talk there. +Monsieur, if I accept, it is because it will be very advantageous for +my child. I sha’n’t be a drag on her any longer. Poor little thing! +I’m glad she has her pleasures, after all. Ah, monsieur, youth must be +amused! And so, if you assure me that no harm will come to anybody--” + +“Not to anybody,” replied Jules. “But now, how will you manage it?” + +“Well, monsieur, if I give Monsieur Ferragus a little tea made of +poppy-heads to-night, he’ll sleep sound, the dear man; and he needs it, +too, because of his sufferings, for he does suffer, I can tell you, and +more’s the pity. But I’d like to know what a healthy man like him wants +to burn his back for, just to get rid of a tic douleureux which troubles +him once in two years. However, to come back to our business. I have my +neighbor’s key; her lodging is just above mine, and in it there’s a +room adjoining the one where Monsieur Ferragus is, with only a +partition between them. My neighbor is away in the country for ten days. +Therefore, if I make a hole to-night while Monsieur Ferragus is sound +asleep, you can see and hear them to-morrow at your ease. I’m on good +terms with a locksmith,--a very friendly man, who talks like an angel, +and he’ll do the work for me and say nothing about it.” + +“Then here’s a hundred francs for him. Come to-night to Monsieur +Desmaret’s office; he’s a notary, and here’s his address. At nine +o’clock the deed will be ready, but--silence!” + +“Enough, monsieur; as you say--silence! Au revoir, monsieur.” + +Jules went home, almost calmed by the certainty that he should know the +truth on the morrow. As he entered the house, the porter gave him the +letter properly resealed. + +“How do you feel now?” he said to his wife, in spite of the coldness +that separated them. + +“Pretty well, Jules,” she answered in a coaxing voice, “do come and dine +beside me.” + +“Very good,” he said, giving her the letter. “Here is something +Fouguereau gave me for you.” + +Clemence, who was very pale, colored high when she saw the letter, and +that sudden redness was a fresh blow to her husband. + +“Is that joy,” he said, laughing, “or the effect of expectation?” + +“Oh, of many things!” she said, examining the seal. + +“I leave you now for a few moments.” + +He went down to his study, and wrote to his brother, giving him +directions about the payment to the widow Gruget. When he returned, he +found his dinner served on a little table by his wife’s bedside, and +Josephine ready to wait on him. + +“If I were up how I should like to serve you myself,” said Clemence, +when Josephine had left them. “Oh, yes, on my knees!” she added, passing +her white hands through her husband’s hair. “Dear, noble heart, you were +very kind and gracious to me just now. You did me more good by showing +me such confidence than all the doctors on earth could do me with their +prescriptions. That feminine delicacy of yours--for you do know how +to love like a woman--well, it has shed a balm into my heart which has +almost cured me. There’s truce between us, Jules; lower your head, that +I may kiss it.” + +Jules could not deny himself the pleasure of that embrace. But it was +not without a feeling of remorse in his heart; he felt himself small +before this woman whom he was still tempted to think innocent. A sort +of melancholy joy possessed him. A tender hope shone on her features +in spite of their grieved expression. They both were equally unhappy +in deceiving each other; another caress, and, unable to resist their +suffering, all would then have been avowed. + +“To-morrow evening, Clemence.” + +“No, no; to-morrow morning, by twelve o’clock, you will know all, and +you’ll kneel down before your wife--Oh, no! you shall not be humiliated; +you are all forgiven now; you have done no wrong. Listen, Jules; +yesterday you did crush me--harshly; but perhaps my life would not have +been complete without that agony; it may be a shadow that will make our +coming days celestial.” + +“You lay a spell upon me,” cried Jules; “you fill me with remorse.” + +“Poor love! destiny is stronger than we, and I am not the accomplice of +mine. I shall go out to-morrow.” + +“At what hour?” asked Jules. + +“At half-past nine.” + +“Clemence,” he said, “take every precaution; consult Doctor Desplein and +old Haudry.” + +“I shall consult nothing but my heart and my courage.” + +“I shall leave you free; you will not see me till twelve o’clock.” + +“Won’t you keep me company this evening? I feel so much better.” + +After attending to some business, Jules returned to his wife,--recalled +by her invincible attraction. His passion was stronger than his anguish. + +The next day, at nine o’clock Jules left home, hurried to the rue des +Enfants-Rouges, went upstairs, and rang the bell of the widow Gruget’s +lodgings. + +“Ah! you’ve kept your word, as true as the dawn. Come in, monsieur,” + said the old woman when she saw him. “I’ve made you a cup of coffee with +cream,” she added, when the door was closed. “Oh! real cream; I saw it +milked myself at the dairy we have in this very street.” + +“Thank you, no, madame, nothing. Take me at once--” + +“Very good, monsieur. Follow me, this way.” + +She led him up into the room above her own, where she showed him, +triumphantly, an opening about the size of a two-franc piece, made +during the night, in a place, which, in each room, was above a wardrobe. +In order to look through it, Jules was forced to maintain himself in +rather a fatiguing attitude, by standing on a step-ladder which the +widow had been careful to place there. + +“There’s a gentleman with him,” she whispered, as she retired. + +Jules then beheld a man employed in dressing a number of wounds on the +shoulders of Ferragus, whose head he recognized from the description +given to him by Monsieur de Maulincour. + +“When do you think those wounds will heal?” asked Ferragus. + +“I don’t know,” said the other man. “The doctors say those wounds will +require seven or eight more dressings.” + +“Well, then, good-bye until to-night,” said Ferragus, holding out his +hand to the man, who had just replaced the bandage. + +“Yes, to-night,” said the other, pressing his hand cordially. “I wish I +could see you past your sufferings.” + +“To-morrow Monsieur de Funcal’s papers will be delivered to us, and +Henri Bourignard will be dead forever,” said Ferragus. “Those fatal +marks which have cost us so dear no longer exist. I shall become once +more a social being, a man among men, and more of a man than the sailor +whom the fishes are eating. God knows it is not for my own sake I have +made myself a Portuguese count!” + +“Poor Gratien!--you, the wisest of us all, our beloved brother, the +Benjamin of the band; as you very well know.” + +“Adieu; keep an eye on Maulincour.” + +“You can rest easy on that score.” + +“Ho! stay, marquis,” cried the convict. + +“What is it?” + +“Ida is capable of everything after the scene of last night. If she +should throw herself into the river, I would not fish her out. She knows +the secret of my name, and she’ll keep it better there. But still, look +after her; for she is, in her way, a good girl.” + +“Very well.” + +The stranger departed. Ten minutes later Jules heard, with a feverish +shudder, the rustle of a silk gown, and almost recognized by their sound +the steps of his wife. + +“Well, father,” said Clemence, “my poor father, are you better? What +courage you have shown!” + +“Come here, my child,” replied Ferragus, holding out his hand to her. + +Clemence held her forehead to him and he kissed it. + +“Now tell me, what is the matter, my little girl? What are these new +troubles?” + +“Troubles, father! it concerns the life or death of the daughter you +have loved so much. Indeed you must, as I wrote you yesterday, you +_must_ find a way to see my poor Jules to-day. If you knew how good he +has been to me, in spite of all suspicions apparently so legitimate. +Father, my love is my very life. Would you see me die? Ah! I have +suffered so much that my life, I feel it! is in danger.” + +“And all because of the curiosity of that miserable Parisian?” cried +Ferragus. “I’d burn Paris down if I lost you, my daughter. Ha! you may +know what a lover is, but you don’t yet know what a father can do.” + +“Father, you frighten me when you look at me in that way. Don’t weigh +such different feelings in the same scales. I had a husband before I +knew that my father was living--” + +“If your husband was the first to lay kisses on your forehead, I was +the first to drop tears upon it,” replied Ferragus. “But don’t feel +frightened, Clemence, speak to me frankly. I love you enough to rejoice +in the knowledge that you are happy, though I, your father, may have +little place in your heart, while you fill the whole of mine.” + +“Ah! what good such words do me! You make me love you more and more, +though I seem to rob something from my Jules. But, my kind father, think +what his sufferings are. What may I tell him to-day?” + +“My child, do you think I waited for your letter to save you from this +threatened danger? Do you know what will become of those who venture to +touch your happiness, or come between us? Have you never been aware +that a second providence was guarding your life? Twelve men of power and +intellect form a phalanx round your love and your existence,--ready to +do all things to protect you. Think of your father, who has risked death +to meet you in the public promenades, or see you asleep in your little +bed in your mother’s home, during the night-time. Could such a father, +to whom your innocent caresses give strength to live when a man of honor +ought to have died to escape his infamy, could _I_, in short, I who +breathe through your lips, and see with your eyes, and feel with your +heart, could I fail to defend with the claws of a lion and the soul of a +father, my only blessing, my life, my daughter? Since the death of that +angel, your mother, I have dreamed but of one thing,--the happiness of +pressing you to my heart in the face of the whole earth, of burying +the convict,--” He paused a moment, and then added: “--of giving you a +father, a father who could press without shame your husband’s hand, who +could live without fear in both your hearts, who could say to all the +world, ‘This is my daughter,’--in short, to be a happy father.” + +“Oh, father! father!” + +“After infinite difficulty, after searching the whole globe,” continued +Ferragus, “my friends have found me the skin of a dead man in which to +take my place once more in social life. A few days hence, I shall be +Monsieur de Funcal, a Portuguese count. Ah! my dear child, there are few +men of my age who would have had the patience to learn Portuguese and +English, which were spoken fluently by that devil of a sailor, who was +drowned at sea.” + +“But, my dear father--” + +“All has been foreseen, and prepared. A few days hence, his Majesty John +VI., King of Portugal will be my accomplice. My child, you must have a +little patience where your father has had so much. But ah! what would +I not do to reward your devotion for the last three years,--coming +religiously to comfort your old father, at the risk of your own peace!” + +“Father!” cried Clemence, taking his hands and kissing them. + +“Come, my child, have courage still; keep my fatal secret a few days +longer, till the end is reached. Jules is not an ordinary man, I know; +but are we sure that his lofty character and his noble love may not +impel him to dislike the daughter of a--” + +“Oh!” cried Clemence, “you have read my heart; I have no other fear than +that. The very thought turns me to ice,” she added, in a heart-rending +tone. “But, father, think that I have promised him the truth in two +hours.” + +“If so, my daughter, tell him to go to the Portuguese embassy and see +the Comte de Funcal, your father. I will be there.” + +“But Monsieur de Maulincour has told him of Ferragus. Oh, father, what +torture, to deceive, deceive, deceive!” + +“Need you say that to me? But only a few days more, and no living man +will be able to expose me. Besides, Monsieur de Maulincour is beyond +the faculty of remembering. Come, dry your tears, my silly child, and +think--” + +At this instant a terrible cry rang from the room in which Jules +Desmarets was stationed. + +The clamor was heard by Madame Jules and Ferragus through the opening of +the wall, and struck them with terror. + +“Go and see what it means, Clemence,” said her father. + +Clemence ran rapidly down the little staircase, found the door into +Madame Gruget’s apartment wide open, heard the cries which echoed from +the upper floor, went up the stairs, guided by the noise of sobs, and +caught these words before she entered the fatal chamber:-- + +“You, monsieur, you, with your horrid inventions,--you are the cause of +her death!” + +“Hush, miserable woman!” replied Jules, putting his handkerchief on the +mouth of the old woman, who began at once to cry out, “Murder! help!” + +At this instant Clemence entered, saw her husband, uttered a cry, and +fled away. + +“Who will save my child?” cried the widow Gruget. “You have murdered +her.” + +“How?” asked Jules, mechanically, for he was horror-struck at being seen +by his wife. + +“Read that,” said the old woman, giving him a letter. “Can money or +annuities console me for that?” + + + Farewell, mother! I bequeeth you what I have. I beg your pardon + for my forlts, and the last greef to which I put you by ending my + life in the river. Henry, who I love more than myself, says I have + made his misfortune, and as he has drifen me away, and I have lost + all my hops of merrying him, I am going to droun myself. I shall + go abov Neuilly, so that they can’t put me in the Morg. If Henry + does not hate me anny more after I am ded, ask him to berry a pore + girl whose hart beet for him only, and to forgif me, for I did + rong to meddle in what didn’t consern me. Tak care of his wounds. + How much he sufered, pore fellow! I shall have as much corage to + kill myself as he had to burn his bak. Carry home the corsets I + have finished. And pray God for your daughter. + +Ida. + + +“Take this letter to Monsieur de Funcal, who is upstairs,” said Jules. +“He alone can save your daughter, if there is still time.” + +So saying he disappeared, running like a man who has committed a crime. +His legs trembled. The hot blood poured into his swelling heart in +torrents greater than at any other moment of his life, and left it again +with untold violence. Conflicting thoughts struggled in his mind, and +yet one thought predominated,--he had not been loyal to the being he +loved most. It was impossible for him to argue with his conscience, +whose voice, rising high with conviction, came like an echo of those +inward cries of his love during the cruel hours of doubt he had lately +lived through. + +He spent the greater part of the day wandering about Paris, for he dared +not go home. This man of integrity and honor feared to meet the spotless +brow of the woman he had misjudged. We estimate wrongdoing in proportion +to the purity of our conscience; the deed which is scarcely a fault +in some hearts, takes the proportions of a crime in certain unsullied +souls. The slightest stain on the white garment of a virgin makes it a +thing ignoble as the rags of a mendicant. Between the two the difference +lies in the misfortune of the one, the wrong-doing of the other. God +never measures repentance; he never apportions it. As much is needed +to efface a spot as to obliterate the crimes of a lifetime. These +reflections fell with all their weight on Jules; passions, like human +laws, will not pardon, and their reasoning is more just; for are they +not based upon a conscience of their own as infallible as an instinct? + +Jules finally came home pale, despondent, crushed beneath a sense of his +wrong-doing, and yet expressing in spite of himself the joy his wife’s +innocence had given him. He entered her room all throbbing with emotion; +she was in bed with a high fever. He took her hand, kissed it, and +covered it with tears. + +“Dear angel,” he said, when they were alone, “it is repentance.” + +“And for what?” she answered. + +As she made that reply, she laid her head back upon the pillow, closed +her eyes, and remained motionless, keeping the secret of her sufferings +that she might not frighten her husband,--the tenderness of a mother, +the delicacy of an angel! All the woman was in her answer. + +The silence lasted long. Jules, thinking her asleep, went to question +Josephine as to her mistress’s condition. + +“Madame came home half-dead, monsieur. We sent at once for Monsieur +Haudry.” + +“Did he come? What did he say?” + +“He said nothing, monsieur. He did not seem satisfied; gave orders that +no one should go near madame except the nurse, and said he should come +back this evening.” + +Jules returned softly to his wife’s room and sat down in a chair before +the bed. There he remained, motionless, with his eyes fixed on those +of Clemence. When she raised her eyelids she saw him, and through those +lids passed a tender glance, full of passionate love, free from reproach +and bitterness,--a look which fell like a flame of fire upon the heart +of that husband, nobly absolved and forever loved by the being whom he +had killed. The presentiment of death struck both their minds with equal +force. Their looks were blended in one anguish, as their hearts had long +been blended in one love, felt equally by both, and shared equally. No +questions were uttered; a horrible certainty was there,--in the wife +an absolute generosity; in the husband an awful remorse; then, in both +souls the same vision of the end, the same conviction of fatality. + +There came a moment when, thinking his wife asleep, Jules kissed her +softly on the forehead; then after long contemplation of that cherished +face, he said:-- + +“Oh God! leave me this angel still a little while that I may blot out my +wrong by love and adoration. As a daughter, she is sublime; as a wife, +what word can express her?” + +Clemence raised her eyes; they were full of tears. + +“You pain me,” she said, in a feeble voice. + +It was getting late; Doctor Haudry came, and requested the husband to +withdraw during his visit. When the doctor left the sick-room Jules +asked him no question; one gesture was enough. + +“Call in consultation any physician in whom you place confidence; I may +be wrong.” + +“Doctor, tell me the truth. I am a man, and I can bear it. Besides, +I have the deepest interest in knowing it; I have certain affairs to +settle.” + +“Madame Jules is dying,” said the physician. “There is some moral malady +which has made great progress, and it has complicated her physical +condition, which was already dangerous, and made still more so by her +great imprudence. To walk about barefooted at night! to go out when I +forbade it! on foot yesterday in the rain, to-day in a carriage! She +must have meant to kill herself. But still, my judgment is not final; +she has youth, and a most amazing nervous strength. It may be best to +risk all to win all by employing some violent reagent. But I will not +take upon myself to order it; nor will I advise it; in consultation I +shall oppose it.” + +Jules returned to his wife. For eleven days and eleven nights he +remained beside her bed, taking no sleep during the day when he laid his +head upon the foot of the bed. No man ever pushed the jealousy of care +and the craving for devotion to such an extreme as he. He could not +endure that the slightest service should be done by others for his wife. +There were days of uncertainty, false hopes, now a little better, then +a crisis,--in short, all the horrible mutations of death as it wavers, +hesitates, and finally strikes. Madame Jules always found strength to +smile at her husband. She pitied him, knowing that soon he would be +alone. It was a double death,--that of life, that of love; but life grew +feebler, and love grew mightier. One frightful night there was, when +Clemence passed through that delirium which precedes the death of youth. +She talked of her happy love, she talked of her father; she related her +mother’s revelations on her death-bed, and the obligations that mother +had laid upon her. She struggled, not for life, but for her love which +she could not leave. + +“Grant, O God!” she said, “that he may not know I want him to die with +me.” + +Jules, unable to bear the scene, was at that moment in the adjoining +room, and did not hear the prayer, which he would doubtless have +fulfilled. + +When this crisis was over, Madame Jules recovered some strength. The +next day she was beautiful and tranquil; hope seemed to come to her; she +adorned herself, as the dying often do. Then she asked to be alone all +day, and sent away her husband with one of those entreaties made so +earnestly that they are granted as we grant the prayer of a little +child. + +Jules, indeed, had need of this day. He went to Monsieur de Maulincour +to demand the satisfaction agreed upon between them. It was not without +great difficulty that he succeeded in reaching the presence of the +author of these misfortunes; but the vidame, when he learned that the +visit related to an affair of honor, obeyed the precepts of his whole +life, and himself took Jules into the baron’s chamber. + +Monsieur Desmarets looked about him in search of his antagonist. + +“Yes! that is really he,” said the vidame, motioning to a man who was +sitting in an arm-chair beside the fire. + +“Who is it? Jules?” said the dying man in a broken voice. + +Auguste had lost the only faculty that makes us live--memory. Jules +Desmarets recoiled with horror at this sight. He could not even +recognize the elegant young man in that thing without--as Bossuet +said--a name in any language. It was, in truth, a corpse with whitened +hair, its bones scarce covered with a wrinkled, blighted, withered +skin,--a corpse with white eyes motionless, mouth hideously gaping, +like those of idiots or vicious men killed by excesses. No trace of +intelligence remained upon that brow, nor in any feature; nor was +there in that flabby flesh either color or the faintest appearance of +circulating blood. Here was a shrunken, withered creature brought to +the state of those monsters we see preserved in museums, floating in +alchohol. Jules fancied that he saw above that face the terrible head +of Ferragus, and his own anger was silenced by such a vengeance. The +husband found pity in his heart for the vacant wreck of what was once a +man. + +“The duel has taken place,” said the vidame. + +“But he has killed many,” answered Jules, sorrowfully. + +“And many dear ones,” added the old man. “His grandmother is dying; and +I shall follow her soon into the grave.” + +On the morrow of this day, Madame Jules grew worse from hour to hour. +She used a moment’s strength to take a letter from beneath her pillow, +and gave it eagerly to her husband with a sign that was easy to +understand,--she wished to give him, in a kiss, her last breath. He +took it, and she died. Jules fell half-dead himself and was taken to his +brother’s house. There, as he deplored in tears his absence of the day +before, his brother told him that this separation was eagerly desired +by Clemence, who wished to spare him the sight of the religious +paraphernalia, so terrible to tender imaginations, which the Church +displays when conferring the last sacraments upon the dying. + +“You could not have borne it,” said his brother. “I could hardly bear +the sight myself, and all the servants wept. Clemence was like a saint. +She gathered strength to bid us all good-bye, and that voice, heard for +the last time, rent our hearts. When she asked pardon for the pain she +might unwillingly have caused her servants, there were cries and sobs +and--” + +“Enough! enough!” said Jules. + +He wanted to be alone, that he might read the last words of the woman +whom all had loved, and who had passed away like a flower. + + + “My beloved, this is my last will. Why should we not make wills + for the treasures of our hearts, as for our worldly property? Was + not my love my property, my all? I mean here to dispose of my + love: it was the only fortune of your Clemence, and it is all that + she can leave you in dying. Jules, you love me still, and I die + happy. The doctors may explain my death as they think best; I + alone know the true cause. I shall tell it to you, whatever pain + it may cause you. I cannot carry with me, in a heart all yours, a + secret which you do not share, although I die the victim of an + enforced silence. + + “Jules, I was nurtured and brought up in the deepest solitude, far + from the vices and the falsehoods of the world, by the loving + woman whom you knew. Society did justice to her conventional + charm, for that is what pleases society; but I knew secretly her + precious soul, I could cherish the mother who made my childhood a + joy without bitterness, and I knew why I cherished her. Was not + that to love doubly? Yes, I loved her, I feared her, I respected + her; yet nothing oppressed my heart, neither fear nor respect. I + was all in all to her; she was all in all to me. For nineteen + happy years, without a care, my soul, solitary amid the world + which muttered round me, reflected only her pure image; my heart + beat for her and through her. I was scrupulously pious; I found + pleasure in being innocent before God. My mother cultivated all + noble and self-respecting sentiments in me. Ah! it gives me + happiness to tell you, Jules, that I now know I was indeed a young + girl, and that I came to you virgin in heart. + + “When I left that absolute solitude, when, for the first time, I + braided my hair and crowned it with almond blossoms, when I added, + with delight, a few satin knots to my white dress, thinking of the + world I was to see, and which I was curious to see--Jules, that + innocent and modest coquetry was done for you! Yes, as I entered + the world, I saw _you_ first of all. Your face, I remarked it; it + stood out from the rest; your person pleased me; your voice, your + manners all inspired me with pleasant presentiments. When you came + up, when you spoke to me, the color on your forehead, the tremble + in your voice,--that moment gave me memories with which I throb as + I now write to you, as I now, for the last time, think of them. + Our love was at first the keenest of sympathies, but it was soon + discovered by each of us and then, as speedily, shared; just as, + in after times, we have both equally felt and shared innumerable + happinesses. From that moment my mother was only second in my + heart. Next, I was yours, all yours. There is my life, and all my + life, dear husband. + + “And here is what remains for me to tell you. One evening, a few + days before my mother’s death, she revealed to me the secret of + her life,--not without burning tears. I have loved you better + since the day I learned from the priest as he absolved my mother + that there are passions condemned by the world and by the Church. + But surely God will not be severe when they are the sins of souls + as tender as that of my mother; only, that dear woman could never + bring herself to repent. She loved much, Jules; she was all love. + So I have prayed daily for her, but never judged her. + + “That night I learned the cause of her deep maternal tenderness; + then I also learned that there was in Paris a man whose life and + whose love centred on me; that your fortune was his doing, and + that he loved you. I learned also that he was exiled from society + and bore a tarnished name; but that he was more unhappy for me, + for us, than for himself. My mother was all his comfort; she was + dying, and I promised to take her place. With all the ardor of a + soul whose feelings had never been perverted, I saw only the + happiness of softening the bitterness of my mother’s last moments, + and I pledged myself to continue her work of secret charity,--the + charity of the heart. The first time that I saw my father was + beside the bed where my mother had just expired. When he raised + his tearful eyes, it was to see in me a revival of his dead hopes. + I had sworn, not to tell a lie, but to keep silence; and that + silence what woman could have broken it? + + “There is my fault, Jules,--a fault which I expiate by death. I + doubted you. But fear is so natural to a woman; above all, a woman + who knows what it is that she may lose. I trembled for our love. + My father’s secret seemed to me the death of my happiness; and the + more I loved, the more I feared. I dared not avow this feeling to + my father; it would have wounded him, and in his situation a wound + was agony. But, without a word from me, he shared my fears. That + fatherly heart trembled for my happiness as much as I trembled for + myself; but it dared not speak, obeying the same delicacy that + kept me mute. Yes, Jules, I believed that you could not love the + daughter of Gratien Bourignard as you loved your Clemence. Without + that terror could I have kept back anything from you,--you who + live in every fold of my heart? + + “The day when that odious, unfortunate young officer spoke to you, + I was forced to lie. That day, for the second time in my life, I + knew what pain was; that pain has steadily increased until this + moment, when I speak with you for the last time. What matters now + my father’s position? You know all. I could, by the help of my + love, have conquered my illness and borne its sufferings; but I + cannot stifle the voice of doubt. Is it not probable that my + origin would affect the purity of your love and weaken it, + diminish it? That fear nothing has been able to quench in me. + There, Jules, is the cause of my death. I cannot live fearing a + word, a look,--a word you may never say, a look you may never + give; but, I cannot help it, I fear them. I die beloved; there is + my consolation. + + “I have known, for the last three years, that my father and his + friends have well-nigh moved the world to deceive the world. That + I might have a station in life, they have bought a dead man, a + reputation, a fortune, so that a living man might live again, + restored; and all this for you, for us. We were never to have + known of it. Well, my death will save my father from that + falsehood, for he will not survive me. + + “Farewell, Jules, my heart is all here. To show you my love in its + agony of fear, is not that bequeathing my whole soul to you? I + could never have the strength to speak to you; I have only enough + to write. I have just confessed to God the sins of my life. I have + promised to fill my mind with the King of Heaven only; but I must + confess to him who is, for me, the whole of earth. Alas! shall I + not be pardoned for this last sigh between the life that was and + the life that shall be? Farewell, my Jules, my loved one! I go to + God, with whom is Love without a cloud, to whom you will follow + me. There, before his throne, united forever, we may love each + other throughout the ages. This hope alone can comfort me. If I am + worthy of being there at once, I will follow you through life. My + soul shall bear your company; it will wrap you about, for _you_ + must stay here still,--ah! here below. Lead a holy life that you + may the more surely come to me. You can do such good upon this + earth! Is it not an angel’s mission for the suffering soul to shed + happiness about him,--to give to others that which he has not? I + bequeath you to the Unhappy. Their smiles, their tears, are the + only ones of which I cannot be jealous. We shall find a charm in + sweet beneficence. Can we not live together still if you would + join my name--your Clemence--in these good works? + + “After loving as we have loved, there is naught but God, Jules. + God does not lie; God never betrays. Adore him only, I charge you! + Lead those who suffer up to him; comfort the sorrowing members of + his Church. Farewell, dear soul that I have filled! I know you; + you will never love again. I may die happy in the thought that + makes all women happy. Yes, my grave will be your heart. After + this childhood I have just related, has not my life flowed on + within that heart? Dead, you will never drive me forth. I am proud + of that rare life! You will know me only in the flower of my + youth; I leave you regrets without disillusions. Jules, it is a + happy death. + + “You, who have so fully understood me, may I ask one thing more of + you,--superfluous request, perhaps, the fulfilment of a woman’s + fancy, the prayer of a jealousy we all must feel,--I pray you to + burn all that especially belonged to _us_, destroy our chamber, + annihilate all that is a memory of our happiness. + + “Once more, farewell,--the last farewell! It is all love, and so + will be my parting thought, my parting breath.” + + +When Jules had read that letter there came into his heart one of those +wild frenzies of which it is impossible to describe the awful anguish. +All sorrows are individual; their effects are not subjected to any fixed +rule. Certain men will stop their ears to hear nothing; some women close +their eyes hoping never to see again; great and splendid souls are met +with who fling themselves into sorrow as into an abyss. In the matter of +despair, all is true. + + + + +CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION + + +Jules escaped from his brother’s house and returned home, wishing +to pass the night beside his wife, and see till the last moment that +celestial creature. As he walked along with an indifference to life +known only to those who have reached the last degree of wretchedness, +he thought of how, in India, the law ordained that widows should die; he +longed to die. He was not yet crushed; the fever of his grief was still +upon him. He reached his home and went up into the sacred chamber; he +saw his Clemence on the bed of death, beautiful, like a saint, her hair +smoothly laid upon her forehead, her hands joined, her body wrapped +already in its shroud. Tapers were lighted, a priest was praying, +Josephine kneeling in a corner, wept, and, near the bed, were two men. +One was Ferragus. He stood erect, motionless, gazing at his daughter +with dry eyes; his head you might have taken for bronze: he did not see +Jules. + +The other man was Jacquet,--Jacquet, to whom Madame Jules had been ever +kind. Jacquet felt for her one of those respectful friendships which +rejoice the untroubled heart; a gentle passion; love without its desires +and its storms. He had come to pay his debt of tears, to bid a long +adieu to the wife of his friend, to kiss, for the first time, the icy +brow of the woman he had tacitly made his sister. + +All was silence. Here death was neither terrible as in the churches, nor +pompous as it makes its way along the streets; no, it was death in the +home, a tender death; here were pomps of the heart, tears drawn from the +eyes of all. Jules sat down beside Jacquet and pressed his hand; then, +without uttering a word, all these persons remained as they were till +morning. + +When daylight paled the tapers, Jacquet, foreseeing the painful scenes +which would then take place, drew Jules away into another room. At this +moment the husband looked at the father, and Ferragus looked at +Jules. The two sorrows arraigned each other, measured each other, and +comprehended each other in that look. A flash of fury shone for an +instant in the eyes of Ferragus. + +“You killed her,” thought he. + +“Why was I distrusted?” seemed the answer of the husband. + +The scene was one that might have passed between two tigers recognizing +the futility of a struggle and, after a moment’s hesitation, turning +away, without even a roar. + +“Jacquet,” said Jules, “have you attended to everything?” + +“Yes, to everything,” replied his friend, “but a man had forestalled me +who had ordered and paid for all.” + +“He tears his daughter from me!” cried the husband, with the violence of +despair. + +Jules rushed back to his wife’s room; but the father was there no +longer. Clemence had now been placed in a leaden coffin, and workmen +were employed in soldering the cover. Jules returned, horrified by the +sight; the sound of the hammers the men were using made him mechanically +burst into tears. + +“Jacquet,” he said, “out of this dreadful night one idea has come to +me, only one, but one I must make a reality at any price. I cannot let +Clemence stay in any cemetery in Paris. I wish to burn her,--to gather +her ashes and keep her with me. Say nothing of this, but manage on my +behalf to have it done. I am going to _her_ chamber, where I shall stay +until the time has come to go. You alone may come in there to tell me +what you have done. Go, and spare nothing.” + +During the morning, Madame Jules, after lying in a mortuary chapel at +the door of her house, was taken to Saint-Roch. The church was hung with +black throughout. The sort of luxury thus displayed had drawn a crowd; +for in Paris all things are sights, even true grief. There are people +who stand at their windows to see how a son deplores a mother as he +follows her body; there are others who hire commodious seats to see how +a head is made to fall. No people in the world have such insatiate eyes +as the Parisians. On this occasion, inquisitive minds were particularly +surprised to see the six lateral chapels at Saint-Roch also hung in +black. Two men in mourning were listening to a mortuary mass said in +each chapel. In the chancel no other persons but Monsieur Desmarets, +the notary, and Jacquet were present; the servants of the household were +outside the screen. To church loungers there was something inexplicable +in so much pomp and so few mourners. But Jules had been determined that +no indifferent persons should be present at the ceremony. + +High mass was celebrated with the sombre magnificence of funeral +services. Beside the ministers in ordinary of Saint-Roch, thirteen +priests from other parishes were present. Perhaps never did the _Dies +irae_ produce upon Christians, assembled by chance, by curiosity, and +thirsting for emotions, an effect so profound, so nervously glacial as +that now caused by this hymn when the eight voices of the precentors, +accompanied by the voices of the priests and the choir-boys, intoned it +alternately. From the six lateral chapels twelve other childish voices +rose shrilly in grief, mingling with the choir voices lamentably. From +all parts of the church this mourning issued; cries of anguish responded +to the cries of fear. That terrible music was the voice of sorrows +hidden from the world, of secret friendships weeping for the dead. +Never, in any human religion, have the terrors of the soul, violently +torn from the body and stormily shaken in presence of the fulminating +majesty of God, been rendered with such force. Before that clamor of +clamors all artists and their most passionate compositions must bow +humiliated. No, nothing can stand beside that hymn, which sums all human +passions, gives them a galvanic life beyond the coffin, and leaves them, +palpitating still, before the living and avenging God. These cries of +childhood, mingling with the tones of older voices, including thus in +the Song of Death all human life and its developments, recalling the +sufferings of the cradle, swelling to the griefs of other ages in +the stronger male voices and the quavering of the priests,--all this +strident harmony, big with lightning and thunderbolts, does it not speak +with equal force to the daring imagination, the coldest heart, nay, to +philosophers themselves? As we hear it, we think God speaks; the vaulted +arches of no church are mere material; they have a voice, they tremble, +they scatter fear by the might of their echoes. We think we see +unnumbered dead arising and holding out their hands. It is no more a +father, a wife, a child,--humanity itself is rising from its dust. + +It is impossible to judge of the catholic, apostolic, and Roman faith, +unless the soul has known that deepest grief of mourning for a loved one +lying beneath the pall; unless it has felt the emotions that fill the +heart, uttered by that Hymn of Despair, by those cries that crush the +mind, by that sacred fear augmenting strophe by strophe, ascending +heavenward, which terrifies, belittles, and elevates the soul, and +leaves within our minds, as the last sound ceases, a consciousness +of immortality. We have met and struggled with the vast idea of the +Infinite. After that, all is silent in the church. No word is said; +sceptics themselves _know not what they are feeling_. Spanish genius +alone was able to bring this untold majesty to untold griefs. + +When the solemn ceremony was over, twelve men came from the six chapels +and stood around the coffin to hear the song of hope which the Church +intones for the Christian soul before the human form is buried. Then, +each man entered alone a mourning-coach; Jacquet and Monsieur Desmarets +took the thirteenth; the servants followed on foot. An hour later, they +were at the summit of that cemetery popularly called Pere-Lachaise. The +unknown twelve men stood in a circle round the grave, where the coffin +had been laid in presence of a crowd of loiterers gathered from all +parts of this public garden. After a few short prayers the priest threw +a handful of earth on the remains of this woman, and the grave-diggers, +having asked for their fee, made haste to fill the grave in order to dig +another. + +Here this history seems to end; but perhaps it would be incomplete if, +after giving a rapid sketch of Parisian life, and following certain of +its capricious undulations, the effects of death were omitted. Death in +Paris is unlike death in any other capital; few persons know the trials +of true grief in its struggle with civilization, and the government of +Paris. Perhaps, also, Monsieur Jules and Ferragus XXIII. may have proved +sufficiently interesting to make a few words on their after life not +entirely out of place. Besides, some persons like to be told all, and +wish, as one of our cleverest critics has remarked, to know by what +chemical process oil was made to burn in Aladdin’s lamp. + +Jacquet, being a government employee, naturally applied to the +authorities for permission to exhume the body of Madame Jules and burn +it. He went to see the prefect of police, under whose protection the +dead sleep. That functionary demanded a petition. The blank was brought +that gives to sorrow its proper administrative form; it was necessary to +employ the bureaucratic jargon to express the wishes of a man so crushed +that words, perhaps, were lacking to him, and it was also necessary to +coldly and briefly repeat on the margin the nature of the request, +which was done in these words: “The petitioner respectfully asks for the +incineration of his wife.” + +When the official charged with making the report to the Councillor of +State and prefect of police read that marginal note, explaining the +object of the petition, and couched, as requested, in the plainest +terms, he said:-- + +“This is a serious matter! my report cannot be ready under eight days.” + +Jules, to whom Jacquet was obliged to speak of this delay, comprehended +the words that Ferragus had said in his hearing, “I’ll burn Paris!” + Nothing seemed to him now more natural than to annihilate that +receptacle of monstrous things. + +“But,” he said to Jacquet, “you must go to the minister of the Interior, +and get your minister to speak to him.” + +Jacquet went to the minister of the Interior, and asked an audience; it +was granted, but the time appointed was two weeks later. Jacquet was a +persistent man. He travelled from bureau to bureau, and finally reached +the private secretary of the minister of the Interior, to whom he had +made the private secretary of his own minister say a word. These high +protectors aiding, he obtained for the morrow a second interview, in +which, being armed with a line from the autocrat of Foreign affairs to +the pacha of the Interior, Jacquet hoped to carry the matter by assault. +He was ready with reasons, and answers to peremptory questions,--in +short, he was armed at all points; but he failed. + +“This matter does not concern me,” said the minister; “it belongs to the +prefect of police. Besides, there is no law giving a husband any legal +right to the body of his wife, nor to fathers those of their children. +The matter is serious. There are questions of public utility involved +which will have to be examined. The interests of the city of Paris might +suffer. Therefore if the matter depended on me, which it does not, I +could not decide _hic et nunc_; I should require a report.” + +A _report_ is to the present system of administration what limbo +or hades is to Christianity. Jacquet knew very well the mania for +“reports”; he had not waited until this occasion to groan at that +bureaucratic absurdity. He knew that since the invasion into public +business of the _Report_ (an administrative revolution consummated +in 1804) there was never known a single minister who would take upon +himself to have an opinion or to decide the slightest matter, unless +that opinion or matter had been winnowed, sifted, and plucked to bits +by the paper-spoilers, quill-drivers, and splendid intellects of his +particular bureau. Jacquet--he was one of those who are worthy of +Plutarch as biographer--saw that he had made a mistake in his management +of the affair, and had, in fact, rendered it impossible by trying to +proceed legally. The thing he should have done was to have taken Madame +Jules to one of Desmaret’s estates in the country; and there, under +the good-natured authority of some village mayor to have gratified the +sorrowful longing of his friend. Law, constitutional and administrative, +begets nothing; it is a barren monster for peoples, for kings, and for +private interests. But the peoples decipher no principles but those that +are writ in blood, and the evils of legality will always be pacific; it +flattens a nation down, that is all. Jacquet, a man of modern liberty, +returned home reflecting on the benefits of arbitrary power. + +When he went with his report to Jules, he found it necessary to deceive +him, for the unhappy man was in a high fever, unable to leave his bed. +The minister of the Interior mentioned, at a ministerial dinner that +same evening, the singular fancy of a Parisian in wishing to burn his +wife after the manner of the Romans. The clubs of Paris took up the +subject, and talked for a while of the burials of antiquity. Ancient +things were just then becoming a fashion, and some persons declared that +it would be a fine thing to re-establish, for distinguished persons, the +funeral pyre. This opinion had its defenders and its detractors. Some +said that there were too many such personages, and the price of wood +would be enormously increased by such a custom; moreover, it would +be absurd to see our ancestors in their urns in the procession at +Longchamps. And if the urns were valuable, they were likely some day +to be sold at auction, full of respectable ashes, or seized by +creditors,--a race of men who respected nothing. The other side made +answer that our ancestors were much safer in urns than at Pere-Lachaise, +for before very long the city of Paris would be compelled to order a +Saint-Bartholomew against its dead, who were invading the neighboring +country, and threatening to invade the territory of Brie. It was, in +short, one of those futile but witty discussions which sometimes cause +deep and painful wounds. Happily for Jules, he knew nothing of the +conversations, the witty speeches, and arguments which his sorrow had +furnished to the tongues of Paris. + +The prefect of police was indignant that Monsieur Jacquet had appealed +to a minister to avoid the wise delays of the commissioners of the +public highways; for the exhumation of Madame Jules was a question +belonging to that department. The police bureau was doing its best to +reply promptly to the petition; one appeal was quite sufficient to set +the office in motion, and once in motion matters would go far. But as +for the administration, that might take the case before the Council of +state,--a machine very difficult indeed to move. + +After the second day Jacquet was obliged to tell his friend that he must +renounce his desire, because, in a city where the number of tears shed +on black draperies is tariffed, where the laws recognize seven classes +of funerals, where the scrap of ground to hold the dead is sold at its +weight in silver, where grief is worked for what it is worth, where the +prayers of the Church are costly, and the vestry claim payment for extra +voices in the _Dies irae_,--all attempt to get out of the rut prescribed +by the authorities for sorrow is useless and impossible. + +“It would have been to me,” said Jules, “a comfort in my misery. I meant +to have died away from here, and I hoped to hold her in my arms in a +distant grave. I did not know that bureaucracy could send its claws into +our very coffins.” + +He now wished to see if room had been left for him beside his wife. The +two friends went to the cemetery. When they reached it they found (as +at the doors of museums, galleries, and coach-offices) _ciceroni_, who +proposed to guide them through the labyrinth of Pere-Lachaise. Neither +Jules nor Jacquet could have found the spot where Clemence lay. Ah, +frightful anguish! They went to the lodge to consult the porter of the +cemetery. The dead have a porter, and there are hours when the dead are +“not receiving.” It is necessary to upset all the rules and regulations +of the upper and lower police to obtain permission to weep at night, in +silence and solitude, over the grave where a loved one lies. There’s a +rule for summer and a rule for winter about this. + +Certainly, of all the porters in Paris, the porter of Pere-Lachaise is +the luckiest. In the first place, he has no gate-cord to pull; then, +instead of a lodge, he has a house,--an establishment which is not +quite ministerial, although a vast number of persons come under his +administration, and a good many employees. And this governor of the +dead has a salary, with emoluments, and acts under powers of which +none complain; he plays despot at his ease. His lodge is not a place of +business, though it has departments where the book-keeping of receipts, +expenses, and profits, is carried on. The man is not a _suisse_, nor a +concierge, nor actually a porter. The gate which admits the dead stands +wide open; and though there are monuments and buildings to be cared +for, he is not a care-taker. In short, he is an indefinable anomaly, an +authority which participates in all, and yet is nothing,--an authority +placed, like the dead on whom it is based, outside of all. Nevertheless, +this exceptional man grows out of the city of Paris,--that chimerical +creation like the ship which is its emblem, that creature of reason +moving on a thousand paws which are seldom unanimous in motion. + +This guardian of the cemetery may be called a concierge who has reached +the condition of a functionary, not soluble by dissolution! His place +is far from being a sinecure. He does not allow any one to be buried +without a permit; he must count his dead. He points out to you in this +vast field the six feet square of earth where you will one day put all +you love, or all you hate, a mistress, or a cousin. Yes, remember +this: all the feelings and emotions of Paris come to end here, at +this porter’s lodge, where they are administrationized. This man has +registers in which his dead are booked; they are in their graves, and +also on his records. He has under him keepers, gardeners, grave-diggers, +and their assistants. He is a personage. Mourning hearts do not speak to +him at first. He does not appear at all except in serious cases, such as +one corpse mistaken for another, a murdered body, an exhumation, a +dead man coming to life. The bust of the reigning king is in his hall; +possibly he keeps the late royal, imperial, and quasi-royal busts +in some cupboard,--a sort of little Pere-Lachaise all ready for +revolutions. In short, he is a public man, an excellent man, good +husband and good father,--epitaph apart. But so many diverse sentiments +have passed before him on biers; he has seen so many tears, true and +false; he has beheld sorrow under so many aspects and on so many faces; +he has heard such endless thousands of eternal woes,--that to him sorrow +has come to be nothing more than a stone an inch thick, four feet long, +and twenty-four inches wide. As for regrets, they are the annoyances of +his office; he neither breakfasts nor dines without first wiping off +the rain of an inconsolable affliction. He is kind and tender to other +feelings; he will weep over a stage-hero, over Monsieur Germeuil in the +“Auberge des Adrets,” the man with the butter-colored breeches, murdered +by Macaire; but his heart is ossified in the matter of real dead men. +Dead men are ciphers, numbers, to him; it is his business to organize +death. Yet he does meet, three times in a century, perhaps, with an +occasion when his part becomes sublime, and then he _is_ sublime through +every hour of his day,--in times of pestilence. + +When Jacquet approached him this absolute monarch was evidently out of +temper. + +“I told you,” he was saying, “to water the flowers from the rue Massena +to the place Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely. You paid no attention +to me! _Sac-a-papier_! suppose the relations should take it into their +heads to come here to-day because the weather is fine, what would they +say to me? They’d shriek as if they were burned; they’d say horrid +things of us, and calumniate us--” + +“Monsieur,” said Jacquet, “we want to know where Madame Jules is +buried.” + +“Madame Jules _who_?” he asked. “We’ve had three Madame Jules within the +last week. Ah,” he said, interrupting himself, “here comes the funeral +of Monsieur le Baron de Maulincour! A fine procession, that! He has soon +followed his grandmother. Some families, when they begin to go, rattle +down like a wager. Lots of bad blood in Parisians.” + +“Monsieur,” said Jacquet, touching him on the arm, “the person I spoke +of is Madame Jules Desmarets, the wife of the broker of that name.” + +“Ah, I know!” he replied, looking at Jacquet. “Wasn’t it a funeral with +thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve first? It +was so droll we all noticed it--” + +“Monsieur, take care, Monsieur Desmarets is with me; he might hear you, +and what you say is not seemly.” + +“I beg pardon, monsieur! you are quite right. Excuse me, I took you for +heirs. Monsieur,” he continued, after consulting a plan of the cemetery, +“Madame Jules is in the rue Marechal Lefebre, alley No. 4, between +Mademoiselle Raucourt, of the Comedie-Francaise, and Monsieur +Moreau-Malvin, a butcher, for whom a handsome tomb in white marble has +been ordered, which will be one of the finest in the cemetery--” + +“Monsieur,” said Jacquet, interrupting him, “that does not help us.” + +“True,” said the official, looking round him. “Jean,” he cried, to a man +whom he saw at a little distance, “conduct these gentlemen to the +grave of Madame Jules Desmarets, the broker’s wife. You know where it +is,--near to Mademoiselle Raucourt, the tomb where there’s a bust.” + +The two friends followed the guide; but they did not reach the steep +path which leads to the upper part of the cemetery without having +to pass through a score of proposals and requests, made, with honied +softness, by the touts of marble-workers, iron-founders, and monumental +sculptors. + +“If monsieur would like to order _something_, we would do it on the most +reasonable terms.” + +Jacquet was fortunate enough to be able to spare his friend the hearing +of these proposals so agonizing to bleeding hearts; and presently they +reached the resting-place. When Jules beheld the earth so recently dug, +into which the masons had stuck stakes to mark the place for the stone +posts required to support the iron railing, he turned, and leaned upon +Jacquet’s shoulder, raising himself now and again to cast long glances +at the clay mound where he was forced to leave the remains of the being +in and by whom he still lived. + +“How miserably she lies there!” he said. + +“But she is not there,” said Jacquet, “she is in your memory. Come, let +us go; let us leave this odious cemetery, where the dead are adorned +like women for a ball.” + +“Suppose we take her away?” + +“Can it be done?” + +“All things can be done!” cried Jules. “So, I shall lie there,” he +added, after a pause. “There is room enough.” + +Jacquet finally succeeded in getting him to leave the great enclosure, +divided like a chessboard by iron railings and elegant compartments, in +which were tombs decorated with palms, inscriptions, and tears as cold +as the stones on which sorrowing hearts had caused to be carved their +regrets and coats of arms. Many good words are there engraved in black +letters, epigrams reproving the curious, _concetti_, wittily turned +farewells, rendezvous given at which only one side appears, pretentious +biographies, glitter, rubbish and tinsel. Here the floriated thyrsus, +there a lance-head, farther on Egyptian urns, now and then a few +cannon; on all sides the emblems of professions, and every style of +art,--Moorish, Greek, Gothic,--friezes, ovules, paintings, vases, +guardian-angels, temples, together with innumerable _immortelles_, and +dead rose-bushes. It is a forlorn comedy! It is another Paris, with its +streets, its signs, its industries, and its lodgings; but a Paris seen +through the diminishing end of an opera-glass, a microscopic Paris +reduced to the littleness of shadows, spectres, dead men, a human race +which no longer has anything great about it, except its vanity. There +Jules saw at his feet, in the long valley of the Seine, between the +slopes of Vaugirard and Meudon and those of Belleville and Montmartre, +the real Paris, wrapped in a misty blue veil produced by smoke, which +the sunlight tendered at that moment diaphanous. He glanced with a +constrained eye at those forty thousand houses, and said, pointing to +the space comprised between the column of the Place Vendome and the +gilded cupola of the Invalides:-- + +“She was wrenched from me there by the fatal curiosity of that world +which excites itself and meddles solely for excitement and occupation.” + +Twelve miles from where they were, on the banks of the Seine, in a +modest village lying on the slope of a hill of that long hilly basin the +middle of which great Paris stirs like a child in its cradle, a death +scene was taking place, far indeed removed from Parisian pomps, with no +accompaniment of torches or tapers or mourning-coaches, without prayers +of the Church, in short, a death in all simplicity. Here are the facts: +The body of a young girl was found early in the morning, stranded on the +river-bank in the slime and reeds of the Seine. Men employed in dredging +sand saw it as they were getting into their frail boat on their way to +their work. + +“_Tiens_! fifty francs earned!” said one of them. + +“True,” said the other. + +They approached the body. + +“A handsome girl! We had better go and make our statement.” + +And the two dredgers, after covering the body with their jackets, went +to the house of the village mayor, who was much embarrassed at having to +make out the legal papers necessitated by this discovery. + +The news of this event spread with the telegraphic rapidity peculiar to +regions where social communications have no distractions, where gossip, +scandal, calumny, in short, the social tale which feasts the world +has no break of continuity from one boundary to another. Before +long, persons arriving at the mayor’s office released him from all +embarrassment. They were able to convert the _proces-verbal_ into a mere +certificate of death, by recognizing the body as that of the Demoiselle +Ida Gruget, corset-maker, living rue de la Corderie-du-Temple, number +14. The judiciary police of Paris arrived, and the mother, bearing her +daughter’s last letter. Amid the mother’s moans, a doctor certified +to death by asphyxia, through the injection of black blood into the +pulmonary system,--which settled the matter. The inquest over, and the +certificates signed, by six o’clock the same evening authority was given +to bury the grisette. The rector of the parish, however, refused to +receive her into the church or to pray for her. Ida Gruget was +therefore wrapped in a shroud by an old peasant-woman, put into a common +pine-coffin, and carried to the village cemetery by four men, followed +by a few inquisitive peasant-women, who talked about the death with +wonder mingled with some pity. + +The widow Gruget was charitably taken in by an old lady who prevented +her from following the sad procession of her daughter’s funeral. A man +of triple functions, the bell-ringer, beadle, and grave-digger of the +parish, had dug a grave in the half-acre cemetery behind the church,--a +church well known, a classic church, with a square tower and pointed +roof covered with slate, supported on the outside by strong corner +buttresses. Behind the apse of the chancel, lay the cemetery, enclosed +with a dilapidated wall,--a little field full of hillocks; no marble +monuments, no visitors, but surely in every furrow, tears and true +regrets, which were lacking to Ida Gruget. She was cast into a corner +full of tall grass and brambles. After the coffin had been laid in +this field, so poetic in its simplicity, the grave-digger found himself +alone, for night was coming on. While filling the grave, he stopped now +and then to gaze over the wall along the road. He was standing thus, +resting on his spade, and looking at the Seine, which had brought him +the body. + +“Poor girl!” cried the voice of a man who suddenly appeared. + +“How you made me jump, monsieur,” said the grave-digger. + +“Was any service held over the body you are burying?” + +“No, monsieur. Monsieur le cure wasn’t willing. This is the first person +buried here who didn’t belong to the parish. Everybody knows everybody +else in this place. Does monsieur--Why, he’s gone!” + +Some days had elapsed when a man dressed in black called at the house +of Monsieur Jules Desmarets, and without asking to see him carried up to +the chamber of his wife a large porphyry vase, on which were inscribed +the words:-- + + + INVITA LEGE + CONJUGI MOERENTI + FILIOLAE CINERES + RESTITUIT + AMICIS XII. JUVANTIBUS + MORIBUNDUS PATER. + + +“What a man!” cried Jules, bursting into tears. + +Eight days sufficed the husband to obey all the wishes of his wife, and +to arrange his own affairs. He sold his practice to a brother of Martin +Falleix, and left Paris while the authorities were still discussing +whether it was lawful for a citizen to dispose of the body of his wife. + + * * * * * + +Who has not encountered on the boulevards of Paris, at the turn of a +street, or beneath the arcades of the Palais-Royal, or in any part of +the world where chance may offer him the sight, a being, man or woman, +at whose aspect a thousand confused thoughts spring into his mind? +At that sight we are suddenly interested, either by features of some +fantastic conformation which reveal an agitated life, or by a singular +effect of the whole person, produced by gestures, air, gait, clothes; or +by some deep, intense look; or by other inexpressible signs which seize +our minds suddenly and forcibly without our being able to explain even +to ourselves the cause of our emotion. The next day other thoughts and +other images have carried out of sight that passing dream. But if we +meet the same personage again, either passing at some fixed hour, like +the clerk of a mayor’s office, or wandering about the public promenades, +like those individuals who seem to be a sort of furniture of the streets +of Paris, and who are always to be found in public places, at first +representations or noted restaurants,--then this being fastens himself +or herself on our memory, and remains there like the first volume of a +novel the end of which is lost. We are tempted to question this unknown +person, and say, “Who are you?” “Why are you lounging here?” “By what +right do you wear that pleated ruffle, that faded waistcoat, and carry +that cane with an ivory top; why those blue spectacles; for what reason +do you cling to that cravat of a dead and gone fashion?” Among these +wandering creations some belong to the species of the Greek Hermae; +they say nothing to the soul; _they are there_, and that is all. Why? is +known to none. Such figure are a type of those used by sculptors for +the four Seasons, for Commerce, for Plenty, etc. Some others--former +lawyers, old merchants, elderly generals--move and walk, and yet seem +stationary. Like old trees that are half uprooted by the current of a +river, they seem never to take part in the torrent of Paris, with its +youthful, active crowd. It is impossible to know if their friends +have forgotten to bury them, or whether they have escaped out of their +coffins. At any rate, they have reached the condition of semi-fossils. + +One of these Parisian Melmoths had come within a few days into a +neighborhood of sober, quiet people, who, when the weather is fine, +are invariably to be found in the space which lies between the +south entrance of the Luxembourg and the north entrance of the +Observatoire,--a space without a name, the neutral space of Paris. +There, Paris is no longer; and there, Paris still lingers. The spot is +a mingling of street, square, boulevard, fortification, garden, avenue, +high-road, province, and metropolis; certainly, all of that is to be +found there, and yet the place is nothing of all that,--it is a desert. +Around this spot without a name stand the Foundling hospital, +the Bourbe, the Cochin hospital, the Capucines, the hospital +La Rochefoucauld, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the hospital of the +Val-de-Grace; in short, all the vices and all the misfortunes of +Paris find their asylum there. And (that nothing may lack in this +philanthropic centre) Science there studies the tides and longitudes, +Monsieur de Chateaubriand has erected the Marie-Therese Infirmary, and +the Carmelites have founded a convent. The great events of life are +represented by bells which ring incessantly through this desert,--for +the mother giving birth, for the babe that is born, for the vice that +succumbs, for the toiler who dies, for the virgin who prays, for the old +man shaking with cold, for genius self-deluded. And a few steps off +is the cemetery of Mont-Parnasse, where, hour after hour, the sorry +funerals of the faubourg Saint-Marceau wend their way. This esplanade, +which commands a view of Paris, has been taken possession of by +bowl-players; it is, in fact, a sort of bowling green frequented by old +gray faces, belonging to kindly, worthy men, who seem to continue the +race of our ancestors, whose countenances must only be compared with +those of their surroundings. + +The man who had become, during the last few days, an inhabitant of this +desert region, proved an assiduous attendant at these games of bowls; +and must, undoubtedly, be considered the most striking creature of these +various groups, who (if it is permissible to liken Parisians to +the different orders of zoology) belonged to the genus mollusk. The +new-comer kept sympathetic step with the _cochonnet_,--the little +bowl which serves as a goal and on which the interest of the game must +centre. He leaned against a tree when the _cochonnet_ stopped; then, +with the same attention that a dog gives to his master’s gestures, he +looked at the other bowls flying through the air, or rolling along the +ground. You might have taken him for the weird and watchful genii of the +_cochonnet_. He said nothing; and the bowl-players--the most fanatic +men that can be encountered among the sectarians of any faith--had never +asked the reason of his dogged silence; in fact, the most observing of +them thought him deaf and dumb. + +When it happened that the distances between the bowls and the +_cochonnet_ had to be measured, the cane of this silent being was used +as a measure, the players coming up and taking it from the icy hands +of the old man and returning it without a word or even a sign of +friendliness. The loan of his cane seemed a servitude to which he +had negatively consented. When a shower fell, he stayed near the +_cochonnet_, the slave of the bowls, and the guardian of the unfinished +game. Rain affected him no more than the fine weather did; he was, like +the players themselves, an intermediary species between a Parisian +who has the lowest intellect of his kind and an animal which has the +highest. + +In other respects, pallid and shrunken, indifferent to his own person, +vacant in mind, he often came bareheaded, showing his sparse white +hair, and his square, yellow, bald skull, like the knee of a beggar seen +through his tattered trousers. His mouth was half-open, no ideas were +in his glance, no precise object appeared in his movements; he never +smiled; he never raised his eyes to heaven, but kept them habitually on +the ground, where he seemed to be looking for something. At four o’clock +an old woman arrived, to take him Heaven knows where; which she did by +towing him along by the arm, as a young girl drags a wilful goat which +still wants to browse by the wayside. This old man was a horrible thing +to see. + +In the afternoon of the day when Jules Desmarets left Paris, his +travelling-carriage, in which he was alone, passed rapidly through the +rue de l’Est, and came out upon the esplanade of the Observatoire at the +moment when the old man, leaning against a tree, had allowed his cane +to be taken from his hand amid the noisy vociferations of the players, +pacifically irritated. Jules, thinking that he recognized that face, +felt an impulse to stop, and at the same instant the carriage came to a +standstill; for the postilion, hemmed in by some handcarts, had too much +respect for the game to call upon the players to make way for him. + +“It is he!” said Jules, beholding in that human wreck, Ferragus XXIII., +chief of the Devorants. Then, after a pause, he added, “How he loved +her!--Go on, postilion.” + + + + +ADDENDUM + + Note: Ferragus is the first part of a trilogy. Part two is + entitled The Duchesse de Langeais and part three is The Girl with + the Golden Eyes. In other addendum references all three stories + are usually combined under the title The Thirteen. + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + + Desmartes, Jules + Cesar Birotteau + + Desmartes, Madame Jules + Cesar Birotteau + + Desplein + The Atheist’s Mass + Cousin Pons + Lost Illusions + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Honorine + + Gruget, Madame Etienne + The Government Clerks + A Bachelor’s Establishment + + Haudry (doctor) + Cesar Birotteau + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + Cousin Pons + + Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de + Father Goriot + The Duchesse of Langeais + + Marsay, Henri de + The Duchesse of Langeais + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modeste Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + + Maulincour, Baronne de + A Marriage Settlement + + Meynardie, Madame + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + + Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de + Father Goriot + Eugenie Grandet + Cesar Birotteau + Melmoth Reconciled + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Commission in Lunacy + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Modeste Mignon + The Firm of Nucingen + Another Study of Woman + A Daughter of Eve + The Member for Arcis + + Pamiers, Vidame de + The Duchesse of Langeais + Jealousies of a Country Town + + Ronquerolles, Marquis de + The Imaginary Mistress + The Duchess of Langeais + The Girl with the Golden Eyes + The Peasantry + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Another Study of Woman + The Member for Arcis + + Serizy, Comtesse de + A Start in Life + The Duchesse of Langeais + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ferragus, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FERRAGUS *** + +***** This file should be named 1649-0.txt or 1649-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/4/1649/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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