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diff --git a/old/20040919-1649.txt b/old/20040919-1649.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1212ad --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20040919-1649.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5278 @@ +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.net + + +Title: Ferragus + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Release Date: September 19, 2004 [EBook #1649] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** 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.txt or 1649.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/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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